摘要：考研英语的学习是个日积月累的过程，从单词到词组，句型、语法、写作等，是一环扣一环。编编为大家搜罗了各类美文，希望能帮助大家在简单的日常中达到一个熟练记忆且灵活运用的程度。

　　►Innocent Fast Food Restaurant快餐无辜

　　A study by academics from the University ofCalifornia and Northwestern University claimed that "the causal link between the consumption ofrestaurant foods and obesity is minimal at best."

　　加利福尼亚大学和西北大学的一项研究发现"快餐食物和肥胖之间并没有必然联系"。

　　It argued that a tax on high-calorie food, asproposed by many health campaigners in the US andBritain, may therefore not be an effective way for governments to tackle the problem.

　　在英国和美国，众多的健康人士建议对高卡路里食物征税，但是这项研究却表明这样做也许并不是政府解决肥胖问题的有效途径。

　　The study analyzed data compiled by the US Department of Agriculture on calorie intakearound the country. It found that people living closer to restaurants were not significantly morelikely to be obese than people living further away, indicating that easy access to restaurants hadlittle effect.

　　该研究分析了由美国农业局统计的关于美国各个地区人们卡路里摄入量的数据。结果发现住在餐馆附近的人并不比远地方的人更加肥胖，这就意味着离快餐店近并不是造成肥胖的直接原因。

　　It also showed that while restaurant meals typically held more calories than home-producedfood, many customers often offset this by eating less throughout the rest of the day.

　　该研究同时还表明虽然快餐食物通常含有比家里自制的食物更高的卡路里，但是人们在吃完快餐食物之后往往会减少一天食物的摄入量，这样副作用就抵消了。

　　Obese people who ate at restaurants, the study indicated,"also eat more when they eat athome."

　　研究表明，在餐馆吃饭的肥胖人士在自己家里的时候往往也会吃得很多。

　　The US government estimates that about one in three Americans, or 100 million in total, areobese. Last month it was predicted that 75 percent of Americans would be overweight in 2020.

　　美国政府估计每一百个美国人中间就有一个肥胖者。上个月的一项调查预估到2020 年75%的美国人都会超重。

　　The problem is thought to cost Americans between $150 billion and $170 billion in annualmedical costs.

　　肥胖问题每年都会花费美国政府1500 亿到1700 亿美元的医疗费用。

　　The study's authors, Michael Anderson and David Matsa, wrote: "While taxing restaurant mealsmight cause bese consumers to change where they eat, our results suggest that a tax wouldbe unlikely to affect their underlying tendency to overeat."

　　该研究的作者，迈克尔·安德逊和大卫·麦莎写到，"尽管向高卡路里食物征税可能改变人们的就餐地点，但是却不能改变他们潜在的过度饮食的习惯。"

　　►Smart Phone Application Tracks Mental Health智能手机应用程序跟踪心理健康

　　Military service is notoriously rough on a service member's mental health. According to some estimates, 30 percent of service members develop some type of mental health issue within four months of returning home after deployment.

　　当兵对个人的心理健康会造成重大的负面影响。据估计，百分之三十的服兵役的人在退伍回家之后的四个月内会或多或少出现一些心理疾病。

　　The military is spending more money than ever to address mental health issues within the ranks, and their latest attempt is a smart phone application called the T2 MoodTracker application, which helps service members keep track of their mental health after deployments.

　　部队现在正花大代价来解决军人们的心理健康问题。他们最新推出了一个叫做T2 情绪追踪器的智能手机应用软件，这个软件可以帮助退伍士兵时刻关注自己的心理健康问题。

　　The app works like a high-tech diary, allowing users to express emotions and behaviors that result from therapy, medication, daily experiences or changes happening at work or in the home.

　　这个软件就好像是一本高科技日记，使用者可以把他们接受心理治疗使用药物之后的情感和行为记录下来，也可以记录他们在工作和生活中经历的一些事情。

　　The smart phone app isn 't supposed to be a pocket therapist, though. It serves more as an extremely accurate and timely record of a service member's mental health.

　　这款软件并不能被当做一个"随身携带的医生"。它只是用来及时而准确地记录退伍老兵的心理健康。

　　Perry Bosmajian is a psychologist with the National Center for TeleHealth and Technology, where this smart phone app was created. He says this smart phone app will yield much more accurate results on the psychological conditions of service members who have returned home.

　　皮埃尔·博斯马吉安是这款软件的设计者，他在国家远程卫生和技术中心工作。他说这款软件能够详细记录下退伍士兵的心理健康状况。

　　"Therapists and physicians often have to rely on patient recall when trying to gather information about symptoms over the previous weeks or months," Bosmajian said. "Research has shown that information collected after the fact, especially about mood, tends to be inaccurate. The best record of an experience is when it's recorded at the time and place it happens."

　　"治疗师和医生都必须依靠病人的描述来获取信息，判断他们前几个星期或者前几个月里出现的一些症状"，博斯马吉安说，"这些依靠回忆获得的信息往往是不可靠的，特别是关于情绪的回忆。最好的办法就是在情绪发生的时候将它准确地记录下来。"

　　The app specifically tracks anxiety, depression, general well-being, life stress, post traumatic stress and brain injury. The daily expressions add up over time to produce a trend that can be observed by physicians and therapists.

　　这款软件能够详细记录下使用者的焦虑，抑郁，幸福感，生活的压力，创伤后的压力和脑部损伤。这些每天记录下来的信息日积月累就可以形成一条曲线，治疗师和医生可以参考这条曲线所反映的心理趋势。

　　The app has been downloaded more than 5,000 times since it became available on the Android Market a year ago. The app should be available for iPhone users some time next year.

　　这款软件一年前在Android 市场上发布以来，已经被下载了5000 次。明年也许就可以在iPhone 上使用了。

　　►Blood Type O May Be Barrier to Having A Baby研究发现："O型血"女性更不容易受孕

　　A study suggests that a woman's blood group could influence her chances of getting pregnant.

　　一项研究显示，女性的血型可能会影响她受孕的机会。

　　Researchers who tested a group of women seeking fertility treatment found those with the blood type O appeared to have a lower egg count and poorer egg quality than others. By contrast those with blood type A seemed to have more and better quality eggs.

　　研究人员对正在寻求生育治疗的一组妇女进行研究，发现"O型血"妇女的卵子数量要比其他血型的妇女要少，而且质量也不如其他血型妇女。相反，"A型血"妇女似乎有更多、质量更好的卵子。

　　The findings could lead to women with type O blood being advised to try for a baby earlier, but experts said more research was needed before such a step was taken.

　　这一发现可能会帮助"O型血"妇女接受建议，尝试更多办法，更早的怀上小孩。但是专家说在采取这样的方式之前，还需进行更多的研究。

　　The lead author, Dr Edward Nejat, of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, said his findings were based on women having fertility treatment at the Yale University and the Montefiore Institute in New York.

　　研究领导者、纽约阿尔波特?爱因斯坦医学院妇产科系爱德华?奈加特教授说，他的调查是对正在耶鲁大学和纽约蒙特菲奥里研究所接受生育治疗的妇女进行研究而来的。

　　The study of 560 women, whose average age was just under 35, found that those with blood type O were more likely to have higher levels of "follicle stimulating hormone" (FSH) than those with type A.

　　接受调查研究的560位女性平均年龄在35岁以下，研究发现"O型血"妇女的卵泡刺激素（FSH）的数值比"A型血"妇女要高。

　　Fertility experts regard a high FSH level as a key indicator of having a low egg count. FSH is produced by the body to stimulate the follicles in the ovaries that produce eggs.

　　生育专家将卵泡刺激素的数值作为重要指标来衡量女性体内卵子数量，数值高则卵子数量少。卵泡刺激素由体内产生，以刺激卵巢中的卵泡产生卵子。

　　As a woman's ovaries run out of eggs in her 30s and 40s, production therefore has to be stepped up to encourage more eggs. The presence of high levels of FSH indicates lower numbers of eggs.

　　处于30岁到40岁之间的女性，她们的卵巢可能就不再产生卵子，所以需要通过（其他方法刺激）让其产生更多卵子。高数值卵泡刺激素则意味着更少的卵子。

　　The study found that women with blood type O were twice as likely to have an FSH level above 10 as those in any other blood group.

　　研究发现，"O型血"妇女体内的卵泡刺激素数值很可能是其他血型妇女的两倍，数值在10以上。

　　People with blood group A carry the A antigen, a protein on the cell surface, that is absent in people with O type.

　　"A型血"人群体内携带A血型抗原、一种细胞表面的蛋白质，这种蛋白质在"O型血"人群中是没有的。

　　►Background Music? It's Bad!背景音乐很糟糕

　　Studying for an exam while listening to music is not smart, because background music can impair your ability to perform memory tasks, new research has found.

　　最新研究发现，边听音乐边复习功课并非明智之举：因为背景音乐会降低你完成与记忆力相关的任务的能力。

　　Study participants were asked to recall a list of eight consonants in the order they were presented. They did this while in five different sound environments: quiet surroundings; music they liked; music they disliked; changing state (a sequence of random digits); and steady state (a sequence of steady digits such as "3, 3, 3, 3").

　　参与调查者听到8 个辅音字母，他们必须按照播放顺序进行复述。他们听的时候，分别处在5 种不同的背景声音中：安静环境、喜欢的背景音乐、不喜欢的背景音乐、数字不断变化的响声，数字不变的响声（例如：3，3，3，3）。

　　The participants' recall ability was poorest when listening to music, regardless of whether they liked or disliked it, and in changing-state conditions. The most accurate recall occurred when participants performed the task in steady-state environments, according to the study published online in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology.

　　结果显示，无论他们喜欢还是不喜欢背景音乐，在播放音乐和数字不断变化的声音环境里，被调查者的记忆力都最差。该研究发现刊登在《应用认知心理学》上，研究指出人在安静环境下记忆力最好。

　　" The poorer performance of the music and changing-state sounds are due to the acoustical variation within those environments. This impairs the ability to recall the order of items, via rehearsal, within the presented list, " explained lead researcher Nick Perham, a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff, in a news release from the journal's publisher.

　　威尔士大学卡地夫学院的首席研究员尼克·珀罕在该期刊的新闻发布会上说："音乐与不断变化的声音影响了人们的表现，这是因为那些环境声音变化会影响人们复述测试内容的能力。"

　　"Mental arithmetic also requires the ability to retain order information in the short-term via rehearsal, and may be similarly affected by their performance in the presence of changing-state, background environments," he added.

　　"心算也需要通过练习在短时间内记住信息的顺序，因此也可能受到背景环境的影响，"珀罕补充道。

　　When performing a challenging mental task, do it in silence, Perham recommended.

　　珀罕建议人们应该找一个安静的环境来完成一项具有挑战性的脑力劳动。

　　►Real Books Quicker to Read than E-books传统书籍的阅读速度胜过电子书

　　People can read traditional printed books a good bit faster than e-books on tablet computers, a new study has found.

　　根据一项最新研究，看传统纸质书的速度比在平板电脑上看电子书的速度要快。

　　The study tested peoples' pace of reading on two populare-reader tablets-Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle 2-as well as a standard PC monitor and a regular book.

　　研究将人们在两种热门的电子阅读器--苹果的iPad 和亚马逊的Kindle2--上阅读的速度进行了对比，还和在普通电脑屏幕上看书的速度以及看传统纸质书的速度进行了对比。

　　The 24 study participants read short stories by the author Ernest Hemingway, chosen "because his work is pleasant and engaging to read, and yet not so complicated that it would be above the heads of users," said Jakob Nielsen, who led the study for the Nielsen Norman Group.

　　24 名参与者应邀参加实验，实验内容是看海明威的短篇小说。该研究是尼尔森·诺曼咨询集团发起的，研究的负责人雅各布·尼尔森说，选择海明威的小说是因为"他的作品引人入胜，而又不晦涩难懂"。

　　On average, it took people more than 17 minutes to read the selected tales, which Nielsen wrote is "enough to get them immersed in the story" and is also "representative for many other formats of interest, such as whitepapers and reports."

　　参与者平均用了超过17 分钟来看完选出的故事，17 分钟的时间在尼尔森看来足以让他们"沉浸到故事内容当中"。

　　To make sure people did not just skim the stories, the participants were given a reading comprehension tests afterward.

　　为确保参与者不会跳读，在测试结束后参与者还要完成一套阅读理解题。

　　Overall, the study revealed that people read text 6.2 percent slower on an iPad than on the printed page. With the Kindle, reading was 10.7 percent slower.

　　总的来看，在iPad 上看书比看纸质书速度要慢6.2%，而用Kindle2 的速度则要慢上10.7%。

　　Nielsen noted that this difference between the e-readers was not statistically significant, however, so in the end the only fair statement is that "tablets still haven't beaten the printed book," Nielsen wrote.

　　不过尼尔森说，在各种电子阅读器上阅览的速度差别并不大。最后唯一合理的结论就是"电子书尚未完全打败传统纸质书"。

　　Study participants also rated each reading implement from one to seven-with seven being the highest-and provided feedback as well.

　　参与者还被要求给每种阅读工具打分--范围为1 分到7 分--并给出反馈意见。

　　The default iBook app on the iPad used for the test took top prize, but just barely, scoring a 5.8. Amazon's Kindle, the close runner-up, ranked 5.7 and the regular book came in third by a hair at 5.6.

　　iPad 上使用的iBook 程序得分最高，不过也只得到了5.8 分。Kindle2 排在第二，得分为5.7 分，传统纸质书则为5.6 分。