考研英语时文阅读

考研时文阅读（1）

FEW ideas in education are more controversial than vouchers---letting parents choose to educate their children wherever they wish at the taxpayer’s expense. First suggested by Milton Friedman, an economist, in 1955, the principle is compelling simple. The state pays; parents choose; schools compete; standards rise; everybody gains.

Simple, perhaps, but it has aroused predictable----and often

fatal---opposition from the educational establishment. Letting parents choose where to educate their children is a silly idea; professionals know best. Cooperation, not competition, is the way to improve education for all. Vouchers would increase inequality because children who are hardest to teach would be left behind.

But these arguments are now succumbing to sheer weight of evidence. Voucher schemes are running in several different countries without ill-effects for social cohesion; those that use a lottery to hand out vouchers offer proof that recipients get a better education than those that do not.

Harry Patrinos, an education economist at the World Bank, cites a Colombian program to broaden access to secondary schooling, known as PACES, a 1990s initiative that provided over 125,000 poor children with vouchers worth around half the cost of private secondary school. Crucially, there were more applicants than vouchers. The programme, which selected children by lottery, provided researchers with an almost perfect experiment, akin to the “pill-placebo” studies used to judge the efficacy of new medicines. The subsequent results show that the children who received vouchers were 15—20% more likely to finish secondary education, five percentage points less likely to repeat a grade, scorced a bit better on scholastic tests and were much more likely to take college entrance exams.

Vouchers programmes in several American states have been run along similar lines. Greg Forster, a statistician at the Friedman Foundation, a charity advocating universal vouchers, says there have been eight similar studies in America: seven showed statistically significant positive results but was not designed well enough to count.

The voucher pupils did better even though the sate spent less than it would have done had the children been educated in normal state schools. American voucher schemes typically offer private schools around half of what the sate would spend if the pupils stayed in public schools. The

Colombian programme did not even set out to offer better schooling than was available in the state sector; the aim was simply to raise enrollment rates as quickly and cheaply as possible.

These results are important because they strip out other influences. Home, neighborhood and natural ability all affect results more than which school a child attends. If the pupils who received vouchers differ from those who don’t----perhaps simply by coming from the sort of go-getting family that elbows its way to the front of every queue---any effect might simply be the result of any number of other factors. But assigning the vouchers randomly guarded against this risk.

Opponents still argue that those who exercise choice will be the most able and committed, and by clustering themselves together in better schools they will abandon the weak and voiceless to languish in rotten ones. Some cite the example of Chile, where a universal voucher scheme that allows schools to charge top-up fees seems to have improved the education of the best-off most.

The strongest evidence against this criticism comes from Sweden, where parents are freer than those in almost any other country to spend as they wish the money the government allocates to educating their children. Sweeping education reforms in 1992 not only relaxed enrolment rules in state sector, allowing students to attend schools outside their own municipality, but also let them take their state funding to private schools, including religious ones and those operating for profit. The only real restrictions imposed on private schools were that they must run their admissions on a first-come-first-served basis and promise not to charge top-up fees(most American voucher schemes impose similar conditions). The result has been burgeoning variety and a breakneck expansion of the private sector. At the time of the reforms only around 1% of Swedish students were educated privately; now 10% are, and growth in private schooling continues unabated.

Anders Hultin of Kunskapsskolan, a chain of 26 Swedish schools founded by a venture capitalist in 1999 and now running at a profit, says its schools only rarely have to invoke the first-come-first-served

rule----the chain has responded to demand by expanding so fast that parents keen to send their children to its schools usually get a place. So the private sector, by increasing the total number of places available, can ease the mad scramble for the best schools in the state

sector(bureaucrats, by contrast, dislike paying for extra places in popular schools if there are vacancies in bad ones).

More evidence that choice can raise standards for all comes from Caroline Hoxby, an economist at Harvard University, who has shown that when American public schools must compete for their students with schools that accept vouchers, their performance improves. Swedish researchers say the same. It seems that those who work in state schools are just like everybody else: they do better when confronted by a bit of competition. 没有什么教育观念比学券更容易引发争议。所谓学券，就是让父母花纳税人的钱随意为孩子选择去哪里上学。经济学家Milton Friedman 1955年首次提出这一概念，其原则十分简单，但令人信服：即国家出钱；父母选择；学校竞争，标准提升；各方受益。

这一原则虽然简单，但引发了教育机构的反对。这是预料之中的，但常常是致命的。让父母为孩子选择在何处接受教育的想法很荒唐；专业人士才是最懂行的。合作而非竞争才是提高所有学生教育水平的方式。学券会增加不平等，因为最难教的孩子将会被甩在后面。

但是这些说法在强有力的证据面前正败下阵来。一些不同的国家正在实行学券计划，但并没有对社会疑聚力造成负面影响；用抽签方式发放学券的国家也证明：接受学券者比不接受学券者获得了更好的教育。

世界银行的教育经济学家Harry Patrinos列举了20世纪90年代启动、被称做“PACES”的哥伦比亚项目。该项目旨在增加学生上中学的机会。它为12。5 万名贫困孩子提供了学券，其价值约为私立中学教育收费的一半。但关键问题是，申请人比学券多。该项目以抽签方式挑选学生，为研究人员提供了几乎完美无缺的实验，类似于用来判定新药疗效的“安慰剂”研究。后来的研究结果表明，接受学券的孩子完成中学学业的可能性要高出15%至20%，留级的可能性低5个百分点，在学术能力测试中的得分高些，也更有可能参加大学入学考试。 美国也有几个州在类似方式实施学券计划。主张全面推广学券计划的慈善组织弗里德曼基金会的统计学家Greg Forster说，美国有8项类似的研究，其中7项研究的统计数据显示，学券对于那些幸运的获得者们具有明显的积极作用；第8项研究也显示了正面结果，但由于设计不佳不予考虑。

尽管在与普通公立学校接受教育的学生相比，政府的支出要少，但接受学券的学生成绩却更好。美国的学券计划通常提供给私立学校费用为政府在公立学校学生身上投入的一半。哥伦比亚项目甚至没有把提供比公立学校更好的教育作为目标；其目标仅仅是尽快提高入学率，并提供尽可能便宜的教育。

这些研究结果非常重要，因为他们完全排除了其它因素的影响。家庭背景、居住社区环境和天赋都比孩子在哪个学校就读更能影响结果。如果说拿到学券的学生与未能拿到学券的学生之间存在差异----或许仅仅由于前者来自那种事事争先，志在必得的家庭----任何差可能仅仅是其他多种因素作用的结果。但随机分配学券避免了这种风险。

反对学券制者认为，那些择校的人能力最强、最执着，如果让他们在好学校扎堆儿，会将那些处于弱势地位、没有代言人的学生留在烂校长期受煎熬。有人举智利为例，该国普及了允许学校收取附加学费的学券计划，但似乎只最大程度地提高了最富裕学生的教育水平。

反击这一批评的最有力的证据来自瑞典。瑞典的父母比几乎任何其它国家的人都自由，可随意支配政府分配的子女教育费用。1992年开始的全面改革不仅放宽了公立学校的入学要求，允许学生到他们所居住的城市以外的地方上学，而且也允许学生将国家的资助转到私立学校，包括宗教学校以及盈利性学校。对私立学校唯一真正的限制就是必须按“先来先得”的原则招收学生，并且要承诺不收取附加费（大多数美国学券计划也附加类似条件）。

这样做的结果是办学形式越来越多样化，私立学校飞速增加。启动改革时，瑞典只有大约1%的学生在私立学校接受教育，现在达到了10%，而且在私立学校就读学生比例增长的趋势依然不减。

一位风险资本家在1999年创办的Kunskapsskolan是一家拥有26所瑞典学校的连锁学校，现在正处于赢利状态。该校的Anders Hultin 说，各分校几乎没有用过“先来先得”的规则----为满足需求，连锁学校增加得非常快，愿意送孩子来该校读书的家长一般都能如愿。所以，通过增加学校数量，私立学校这一领域能够缓解公立学校领域疯狂争抢进入最好学校的压力（对比之下，如果劣等学校还有招生空间，政府官员就不愿意为增加名校招生拨款）。

哈佛大学的经济学家Caroline Hoxby为择校能够提高所有学生水平提供了更多的证据。他已经证明，当美国的公立学校必须同接受学券的学校竞争生源时，它们的业绩就有进步。瑞典的研究人员也坚持同样的观点。看来，在公立学校工作的人就像其他人一样：面对一点竞争时，他们会做得更好。

考研时文阅读（2）

Altruism（利他主义）, according to the text books, has two forms. One is known technically as kin selection, and familiarly as nepotism. This spreads an individual's genes collaterally, rather than directly, but is otherwise similar to his helping his own offspring. The second form is reciprocal altruism, or “you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours”. It relies on trust, and a good memory for favours given and received, but is otherwise not much different from simultaneous collaboration (such as a wolf pack hunting) in that the benefit exceeds the cost for all parties involved. Humans, however, show a third sort of altruism—one that has no obvious pay-off. This is altruism towards strangers, for example, charity. That may enhance reputation. But how does an enhanced reputation weigh in the Darwinian balance? To investigate this question, the

researchers made an interesting link. At first sight, helping charities looks to be at the opposite end of the selfishness spectrum from

conspicuous consumption. Yet they have something in common: both involve the profligate deployment of resources. That is characteristic of the consequences of sexual selection. An individual shows he (or she) has resources to burn—whether those are biochemical reserves, time or, in the human instance, money—by using them to make costly signals. That demonstrates underlying fitness of the sort favoured by evolution. Viewed this way, both conspicuous consumption and what the researchers call “blatant benevolence” are costly signals. And since they are behaviours rather than structures, and thus controlled by the brain, they may be part of the mating mind. Researchers divided a bunch of volunteers into two groups. Those in one were put into what the researchers hoped would be a “romantic mindset” by being shown pictures of attractive members of the opposite sex. They were each asked to write a description of a perfect date with one of these people. The unlucky members of the other group were shown pictures of buildings and told to write about the weather. The participants were then asked two things. The first was to imagine they had $5,000 in the bank. They could spend part or all of it on various luxury items such as a new car, a dinner party at a restaurant or a holiday in Europe. They were also asked what fraction of a hypothetical 60 hours of leisure time during the course of a month they would devote to volunteer work. The results were just what the researchers hoped for. In the romantically primed group, the men went wild with the Monopoly money. Conversely, the women volunteered their lives away. Those women continued, however, to be skinflints, and the men remained callously indifferent to those less fortunate than themselves. Meanwhile, in the other group there was little inclination either to profligate spending or to good works. Based on this result, it looks as though the sexes do, indeed, have different strategies for showing off. Moreover, they do not waste their resources by behaving like that all the time. Only when it counts sexually are men profligate and women helpful. （选自Economist, 08/02/2007） 参考译文根据教科书，利他主义有两种表现形式：一种就是所谓的血缘选择，即家庭亲戚关系。这种利他主义是通过一个人的基因间接传播的，而不是直接的，但是另一方面也就像一个人会无私地帮助自己的孩子一样。第二种形式是互惠的利他主义，或者说“你帮我搓背我也帮你搓背”。这种利他主义的基础在于信任，并对自己得到和付出过的帮助保持较好的记忆，但是除此以外，这种利他主义和物种天然的合作关系（比如狼群共同寻找猎物）没有什么大的区别，因为对于所有的参与者来说，他们合作的所得远远超过其付出。但是人类却表现出了第三种利他主义—一种不会有什么赢利的利他主义。这是一种对陌生人的利他主义，比如说慈善业，从而能够增进人们的名誉。但是名誉的增加如何在达尔文平衡中找到其位置呢？为了探讨这一问题，研究者们找到了一个有趣的关系。乍一看，从自私角度来说参与慈善事业好像是炫耀性消费的相反面。但是他们有一点是相同的，即二者都包含了对资源的大规模调度。这是性别选择结果的一个特点。一个人想要显示他（或者她）拥有的可以挥霍的资源—无论是生化储备、时间、还是对于人类来说的金钱—通过使用这些东西来发出一些昂贵的信号。这也是进化过

程中帮助物种生存下来的适切性。如果从这个角度来看问题的话，那么炫耀性消费和研究者们所称的“炫耀性善行”都是昂贵信号。而且它们都是行为而不是结构，因此是由大脑控制的，也许还是寻偶想法的一部分。研究者将一群志愿者分成了两组。他们向第一组的成员展示了一组相反性别的长得很漂亮或很帅的人们的照片，从而希望使志愿者们变得浮想联翩。接着研究者要求他们写一个关于自己和照片上的人的一次完美约会。而另一组的志愿者就没有这么幸运了，他们看到的是一组高楼大厦的图片，并要写一个关于天气的报告。然后研究人员要求参与者们做两件事情。第一件事情是要求他们想象自己在银行有5千美元。他们可以把其中一部分或者所有的钱花在各种奢侈品上，比如一辆新车、在餐馆的一次晚宴、或者去欧洲度假。第二件事情是，假设他们一周有60个小时的休闲时间，那么在一个月期间他们愿意花多少百分比的休闲时间在志愿者工作上。研究结果正如研究人员最初预料的那样。在充满浪漫气氛的第一组成员中，男人们疯狂地想完全占有金钱。相反，女人们则更愿意做志愿者工作。但是女人们却更加吝啬，而男人们却对财富的减少并不那么在意。同时，在另一组成员中，人们既不倾向于大肆挥霍、也没有认真工作的偏好。基于这一结果，看起来不同性别的人实际上对于炫耀有不同的策略。此外，他们不会总是把他们的资源浪费这些行为上。只有当吸引异性的时候，男人们才会花更多的钱、而女人们会更加乐于助人。

考研时文阅读（30）

Digital books start a new chapter

导读：第一代电子书并没有取得预期的成功，然而随着技术的进步，新一代电子书产品逐渐浮出水面。继苹果公司取得巨大成功，令便携电子产品风行一时后，索尼公司利用“数字墨水”技术推出新款图书阅览器，将目光瞄准电子书市场。其它电子阅读器生产商也不甘落后，纷纷推出带有各自特色的产品。本文向读者介绍了电子阅读器产品的最新动态，以及出版商、作家和消费者对这种新生事物的态度。可以想象，电子书时代已经离我们不远了。（选自 Business Week, 2006） Richard D. Warren, a 58-year-old lawyer in California, is halfway through Ken Follett’s novel Jackdaws. But he doesn't bother carrying around the book itself. Instead, he has a digital version of Follett he reads on his Palm Treo each morning as he communtes by train to San Francisco from his home in Berkeley. He’s a big fan of such digital books. Usually, there are around seven titles on his Treo, and he buys at least two new ones each month. “It is just so versatile , ” he says. “I’ve tried to convert some friends to this, but they think it’s kind of geeky.”

Geeky? For now, maybe, but not for much longer. Many experts are convinced that digital books, after plenty of false starts, are finally ready for takeoff. “Every other forms of media has gone digital---music, newspapers, movies, ”says Joni Evans, a top literary agent who just left

the Willian Morris Agency to start her won company that will focus on books and technology. “We’re the only industry that hasn’t lived up to the pace of technology. A revolution is around the corner.”

What developments have won over people like Evans? Portable devices are becoming lighter and more appealing. Books are being scanned into digital form by the thousands. The most important step forward may be in “digital ink,” the technology used for displaying letters on a screen. A small company called E Ink has created a method for arranging tiny black and white capsules into words and images with an electronic charge. Because no power is used unless the reader changes the page, devices with the technology could go as long as 20 books between battery charges. The text also looks just as sharp as ink on a printed page, since each capsule is the size and pigment of a grain of laser-jet toner.

Sony is the first major player to take advantage of the technology. This spring, it will debut the Sony Reader, which uses E Ink and closely mimics the size, weight, and feel of a book. The Reader will sell for about $ 400. Sony also will offer roughly 10,000 book titles for download from its online store, along with news stories and blog items.

Other pklayers sniff opportunity, too. At least two more companies are introducing digital readers this year. And scorces of companies, from Google to Random House Inc., are angling for other ways to profit from digital books. Chalk it up to the influence of Apple Computer Inc.. With its Ipod, Apple has demonstrated that millions of people are willing to carry around digital devices with their favorite content. After music, why not novels and nonfiction? “The iPod led the way in getting people comfortable with [a similar device for books],” says Jack Romanos, CEO of Simon & Schuster Inc.. “These things are not only inevitable, but a good idea. ”

加利福尼亚州58岁的律师Richard D. Warren 已经把Ken Follett的小说《寒鸦》读了一半，但他不必将书天天带到身边。事实上，每天早晨在他乘火车从伯克利的家里赶往旧金山上班的途中，他可以用自己的Palm Treo阅读该小说的电子版。沃伦对电子书非常痴迷。他的Treo里通常存有大约7本书，每个月他至少会买两本新书。他说：“它的用途很多，我曾劝说一些朋友改看电子书，但他们觉得有点前卫。”

前卫？也许吧，但只是现在，用不了多久这种情况就会改变。许多专家确信，在经历了多次不成功的尝试后，电子书终于可以大展身手了。琼斯埃文斯是一位资深的作者对外事物代理人，她刚刚离开威廉莫里斯经纪公司。她说：“所有其它内型的媒体---音乐、报纸、电影----都走向了数字化。我们是唯一未能赶上科技步伐的产业。变革指日可待。”

电子书有什么新进展，能够吸引像埃文斯这样的人？便携设备变得更轻便、更时尚。成千上万册图书正在被扫描成数字格式。“数字墨水”或许是最重大的技术突破，它能将文字显示于屏幕上。一家名叫E Ink的小公司发明了一种方法，用电荷排列黑白粒子形成文字图案。由于只有当用户翻页时才会耗电，所以采用该技术的装置能让读者连续看20本书而不需要充电。显示文本酷似白纸黑字，因为这种微粒的大小和色质与激光打印机的墨粉颗粒一模一样。

第一个采用这种技术的大厂家是索尼。今年春天，索尼将首次推出采用E Ink技术的“索尼阅读器”，在大小、重量和手感方面都酷似真书。阅读器的售价约为400美元。除了新闻报道和博客文章外，索尼还将在网上书店提供大约1万本电子书供用户下载。

其它厂家也闻风而动。今年至少还有两家公司将推出自己的电子阅读器。包括Google和蓝登书屋在内的几十家公司都在争取通过其它途径从电子书中获利。苹果电脑公司的影响也是促成电子书兴起的一大原因。苹果公司用iPod 证明，随身携带存有个人喜爱内容的电子产品正被千百万人所接受。除了听音乐，为什么不可以用它来阅读小说和写实类文学作品呢？西蒙古—舒斯特出版公司首席执行官杰克罗曼诺斯说“iPod开时尚之先河，使人们（对供阅读图书用的类似电子产品）乐在其中。这不仅仅是大势所趋，而且别具创意。”

考研时文阅读（4）

续上篇《电子阅读》

No book company has come close to Apple’s magic touch. But the technology, availability of content, and consumer behavior may be aligned for a breakthrough this year. “The puzzle pieces are on the table, ” says aTimothy O’Reilly, founder of the tech publisher O’Reilly Media. “You’ve got the ctitical mass of content, and you’ve got attractive hardware. What we don’t have yet is an attractive business model that connects them all together.”

Sony is clearly attempting to pulloff this feat. Its combinations of devices and online store is reminiscent of Apple’s approach. The Reader is impressive: a slim, sturdy package that weighs nine ounces and comes bound in heavy faux leather. But it’s unlikely just yet to become the kind of cult hit Apple has on its hands. The Reader’s controls can be clumsy to use. Plus, new books for the device will cost about the same as books from megastores like Borders, and readers will have to search the Web on their own to get classics that have gone off copyright for free. The other makers of digital readers are treading cautiously. Jinke, a Chinese company, plans to sell into the education field in China and other markets. But it declined to comment in detail on its plans. Irex

Technologies, a spin-off from Royal Philips Electronics, says it will make a device available for sale by April. CEO Willem Endhoven says the company will begin by selling to companies, such as newspapers or textbook publishers, rather than directly to consumers.

There are sure to be other companies that introduce readers in the months and years ahead. Plastics Logic Inc., a British startup, is working on a flexible display the size of an 8 1/2-in.-by-11-in. piece of paper that can receive books, news, or e-mail wirelessly. It’s partnering with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and plans to have a product on the market by early 2008.

There’s even speculation that Apple could come out with its own device, an iPod designed for books. The secretive company hasn’t said anything publicly and declined to comment for this article.

Just as digital readers are hitting the market, the number of books on the Net is swelling to Library of Congress proportions. Google, through an initiative it began a year ago, is scanning millions of books from five of the world’s largest libraries and plans to make the contents searchable online. The effort has drawn the ire of publishers and authors, since it’s digitizing some books still under copyright. Publishers sued last fall for copyright infringement and the case is pending. (One of the plaintiffs in the case is The McGraw-Hill Companies, the parent of Business Week. )

New Literary Models

Yet Google is helping ignite the digital market. In November, following the lawsuit, Random House announced plans to digitize 25,000 titles. It will sell access to them to consumers, charging a per page rate for everything from novels to recipes out of a cookbook. In December,

HarperCollins Publishers Inc. said it would build a digital warehouse of its entire holdings---another 25,000 titles or so---which it may later sell over the Net.

Amazon.com is moving aggressive into digital books, too. It sells digital versions of most of its titles, available for download instantly. In August, it launched Amazon Shorts, a collection of stories, novellas, and essays that can be downloaded for 49 cents a piece. Later this year it plans to offer shoppers who purchase traditional books the chance to buy a version they can read on the Web, too. That way they could keep Stephen King’s Cell: A Novel on their nightstand and read a chapter from any computer with Net access. “We think consumers increasingly are ready for it, ” says Steve Kessel, vice-president for worldwide digital media.

Authors are intrigued by the opportunities to go digital. George Saunders, a short story author and professor of English at Syracuse University, says he’d like a way to get his work out to readers more quickly. After the scandal broke over James Frey’s falsehoods in his hit book A Million Little Pieces, Saunders penned a humorous essay stemming from the events. It was a confession to Oprah Winfrey that all of the fiction he’d written had, in fact, been true. But Saunders had a ahrd time getting the piece published quickly, and now it feels dated. “There might be a different model for a literary community that’s quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity, ” he says. If digital books finally do take-off, they could change not only how we read, but what we read, too.

没有一家图书公司能像苹果电脑公司那样点石成金。但是如果把技术、可供使用的内容和消费者行为等因素整合在一起，今天电子书或许能实现突破。技术出版商奥莱理媒体公司的创始人提姆奥莱理说：“拼图的各个部件都在桌上。你不但有制作电子书所必须的大量内容资源，还有极具吸引力的硬件。我们还缺乏的是一个将它们整合起来的成功商业模式。”

显然，索尼正试图完成这一业绩。把设备和网上结合起来颇似苹果公司的手法。“索尼阅读器”外观令人印象深刻：一个薄而坚固的盒子，重9盎司，外包厚实的人造革。但它可能不会像苹果公司的iPod那样成为风靡一时的时尚产品。“索尼阅读器”的控制键用起来可能不太灵活。此外，用于这种阅读器的新书售价几乎和鲍德斯之类的大型图书零售店里出售的图书一样。用户必须自行上网搜索并下载已经过了版权保护期的免费经典著作。

其它电子阅读器的制造商则在谨慎行事。中国公司津科打算向教育界和其它市场推出它的电子阅读器，但公司解决透露计划的详细内容。从皇家飞利浦电子有限公司分拆出来的公司Irex Technologies声称，今年4月其新款电子阅读器将上市销售。公司首席执行官威廉恩霍芬称，他们一开始时会向报纸或教科书出版商之类的企业进行销售，而不是直接面向消费者。

毋庸置疑，在今后几个月和几年内还会有其它公司推出电子阅读器。英国新兴的Plastic Logic 公司正在开发一种长11英寸、宽8.5 英寸的一张纸大小的柔性电子显示屏，可以无线接受电子书、新闻或电子邮件。它正在和日本NTT DoCoMo公司合作，计划在2008年初将产品推向市场。

有人甚至猜测，苹果公司会推出自己的电子阅读器----一种为电子书设计的iPod。但苹果公司守口如瓶，未在公开场合透露任何信息，也拒绝对此发表评论。 在电子阅读器蜂拥进入市场的同时，网上提供的电子书也迅速增加，甚至达到国会图书馆的藏书规模。Google于一年前发起一项计划，对五家世界最大的图书馆的数百万册藏书进行扫描，使其内容能在网上搜索到。这项计划激怒了图书出版商和作者，因为一些被数字化的图书仍然有版权保护。去年秋天，图书出版商

起诉Google 侵犯版权，这起官司仍然悬而未决（该案的起诉方之一是《商业周刊》的母公司麦格罗希尔国际出版公司）。 新的文学模式？

尽管如此，Google对推动电子书市场的发展功不可没。紧随着这起官司，蓝登书屋于去年11月宣布其计划推出2.5万本图书的数字版。公司将按页计费，向消费者出售这些电子书，种类从小说到菜谱无所不有。去年12月，哈珀柯林斯图书出版公司宣布，将把公司出版的所有书籍-----大约也有2.5万本左右-----建成电子书库，之后可能在网上加以出售。

亚马孙网站也在雄心勃勃地进军电子书市场。网站上的大多数图书都有电子版可供销售，并能够及时下载。去年8月，亚马孙还推出了汇集有短篇故事、小说和散文的“亚马孙短篇集锦”，读者可以以每本49美分的价格下载。今年晚些时候，它打算向购买传统图书的顾客同时提供购买可供网上阅读的版本的机会。这样，他们就能把斯蒂芬金的《手机》留在床头柜上，同时还能在任何联网的电脑上阅读其中的某一章节。负责世界数字媒体的副总裁史蒂夫凯赛尔说：“我们认为消费者越来越乐于接受电子书了。”

作家们对有机会出电子版图书也很感兴趣。短篇小说作家，希拉丘斯大学英语教授乔治桑德斯说，他愿意通过某种方式让读者更快地接触到他的作品。当詹姆斯费雷在其畅销书《岁月如沙》中造假的丑闻曝光后，桑德斯据此写了一篇幽默散文，在文中弗雷向奥普拉温弗利坦白道，事实上他写的所有小说都却有此事。但桑德斯当时很难迅速发表这篇文章，而现在它已经有点过时了。他说，“对文学界来说，或许有一种不同的模式能够使图书出版变得更快、更同步和拥有更多自发性。”假如电子书最终真能流行起来，它们改变的不仅是我们的阅读方式，还有我们的阅读内容。

考研时文阅读（5）

Protecting Earth’s Last Frontier 保护地球的最后边疆

In 1962, John Glenn relayed this message to mission control when his pioneering flight on the Friendship 7 spacecraft passed across Western Australia at night: “The lights show up very well. Thank everyone for turning them on, will you?”

If he looked down from space today he might no longer see just the lights of our cities but the many lights of fishing boats. These lights can be so dense that they visibly can be so dense that they visibly outline the outer part of the South American continental shelf and entire seas in Asia.

These lights are from fishers using light to lure squis. This intense activity symbolizes the broader plight of our oceans. The imposing footprint of humanity has advanced from our shores and into the high seas, the ocean waters beyond national jurisdiction. This footprint damages and depletes almost everything in its path.

With the depletion of the cod fishery and so many other coastal fish stocks worldwide, the fishing industry has turned to the high seas to exploit their resources. Fishing operations are targeting the seamounts, oceanic ridges and pateaus of the deep ocean beyond natioanl jurisdiction, where ownership and responsibility don’t lie with any nation. In the course of a decade or more, we have caused significant damage to largely unknown ecosystems, depleted species and probably doomed many others to extinction. Every day, commercial fishing fleets dispatched primarily from just 11 nations venture onto the high seas to fish the deep ocean with seabed trawls.

They deploy massive gear with names like “canyon” buster that indicate the sheer scales involved and the damage they inflict. Everything along their path, from ancient corals and sponges to 250-year-old fish, is stripped away and caught in their nets. In a single trawl, lumps of sponges, corals, and other species, together weighing as much as 10,000 pounds, can be removed. What is left is truly a stark, sterile, undersea desert. The high seas are very special. It is here where you can find dense groupings of animals that derive their energy from sources other than the sun around volcanic vents on the deep sea floor. It is only here where you can find areas still free from introduced species, as in the seas around Antarctica. And it is here where you can find living organisms that are more than 8,000 years old, like many of the massive deep-sea corals. But what really sets the high seas apart from all other areas we know is the overwhelming lack of protection for any of this natural heritage. A United Nations meeting this week finally put the high seas on the map and on the agenda. Governmental officials from around the world gathered together with scientists, representatives from the fishing sector, conservation groups and other stakeholders to discuss conversation and sustainable use of amrine biological diversity in the high seas, covering 64 percent of the earth’s surface.

They need to move quickly. Given the fragility of these environments, we simply do not have the luxury of time, but we can act before it is too late.

As we continue to build our understanding of the oceans and life within, we must establish marine protected areas that extend beyond just the areas we know today to be valuable or threatened.

We must place biodiversity conservation at the center of ocean

governance, build the precautionary approach into the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and ensure that every activity in these areas beyond national jurisdiction----be it fishing, mining, transportation, tourism or research----is conducted in a sustainable manner that is fair to present and future generations.

We must recognize that all of the geographical, geological and biological parts of the oceans are interrelated, interdependent and equal one tremendously significant ecosystem whole.

Right now, we have this opportunity to prevent the extinction of countless species and ecosystems that are only just being discovered, let alone understood. Now is the time to protect our last undiscovered wilderness, the world’s final frontier---the high seas.

保护地球的最后边疆

1962年，当约翰格伦首次驾驶“友谊7号”太空船于晚上穿越澳大利亚西部时，他向任务控制中心传达了这样一条信息：“灯光看得很清楚。请感谢每一位打开电灯的人，好吗？ ” 如果现在他从太空往下看，看到的也许不再只是我们城市的万家灯火。还会看到渔船的点点灯光。渔船的灯光非常密集，可以清清楚楚地勾勒出南美大陆架的外部轮廓以及整个亚洲海域的轮廓。

这些灯光是渔民用来引诱鱿鱼的。如此强度的捕鱼活动意味着我们的海洋所面临的困境日益加深。人类强行留下的痕迹已由海岸推进到不属于任何国家管辖的公海。这些足迹所到之处破坏并耗尽了几乎一切资源。

随着全世界鳕鱼和其它众多沿海鱼类资源逐渐枯竭，捕鱼业已转向公海开发鱼类资源。捕鱼作业现在瞄准的是不受任何国家管辖的深海的海山，海脊和高原，因为这些地方的所有权和责任不属于任何国家。

在十年多的时间里，我们已对大量未知的生态系统造成了重大的破坏，使许多物种枯竭，还可能使许多物种遭受灭绝的厄运。每天，主要由１１个国家派出的商业捕鱼船进入公海，用海底拖网进行深海捕捞。

他们所调用的庞大设备所取的名字都是诸如“峡谷战神”之类，由此可见其作业规模及造成的破坏之大。所经之处，从古珊瑚，海绵到２５０岁的鱼，被洗劫

一空，尽入其网。一张拖网就能网起成堆的海绵，珊瑚及其它物种，总重量可达１万磅。拖网过后留下的只是一片荒凉，贫瘠的海底沙漠。

公海是个特别之处。在这儿，你能发现密集的动物群，它们所摄取的能量不是来自深海底部的火山口周围的阳光。只有在这儿，你才能发现还有像南极洲周围的海域那样的尚没有引进物种的海域。也只有在这儿，你才能发现存活了８０００多年的生物，例如许多巨大的深海珊瑚。

但是公海与其它所有我们知道的海域真正不同之处在于，对这一自然遗产的保护非常缺乏。本周的一次联合国会议终于突出了公海问题的重要性并将其排上议事日程。全世界的政府官员和科学家，捕鱼业的代表，自然资源保护组织及其它利益相关者会聚一堂，讨论对覆盖地球表面６４％的公海海洋生物多样物种进行保护和可持续性开发利用的问题。

他们需要赶快行动。鉴于这些生物环境的脆弱性，我们真的耽搁不起，但我们还能亡羊补牢。

随着我们对海洋和海洋生物越来越了解，我们必须建立海洋保护区，起范围要超出我们今天所知的有价值的或会受到威胁的那些区域。

我们必须把保护生物多样性放在海洋管理的中心地位，把建立防范措施写进《联合国海洋法公约》，确保在这些不属于任何国家管辖的区域内的每项活动――无论是捕鱼，采矿，运输，旅游，还是科学研究――都本着公平对待我们这代人和子孙后代的原则，以可持续发展的方式展开。

我们必须意识到，海洋在地理，地质和生物方面都是相互关联，相互依存的，共同构成了一个极其重要的完整的生态系统。

现在，我们有这个机会防止刚被发现，更不用说了解的无数物种和生态系统。当前正是保护我们最后一块尚未发现的未开发之地，世界的边疆――公海――的时候了。

考研时文阅读(6)

注:这是一篇音乐与孩子智力关系研究方面的文章,希望大家认真阅读. 选自<时代>杂志.

The phrase “Mozart Effect” conjures an image of a pregnant woman who, putting headphones conspicuously over her belly, is convinced that playing classical music to her unborn child will improve the kids’ intelligence. But is there science to back up this idea, which has brought about a cottage industry of books, CDs and videos?

A short paper published in Nature in 1993 unwittingly introduced the supposed Mozart effect to the masses. Psychologist Frances Rauscher’s study involved 36 college kids who listened to either 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata, a relaxation track or silence before performing several spatial reasoning tasks. In one test----determining what a paper folded several times over and then cut might look like when unfolded---students who listened to Mozart seemed to show significant improvement in their performance (by about eight to nine spatial IQ points).

In addition to a flood of commercial products in the wake of the finding, in 1998 then---Georgia governor Zell Miller mandated that mothers of newborns in the state be given classical music CDs. And in Florida, day care centers were required to broadcast symphonies through their sound systems.

Earlier this year, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany published a second review study from a cross-disciplinary team of musically inclined scientists who declared the phenomenon nonexistent. “I would simply say that there is no compelling evidence that children who listen to classical music are going to have any improvement in cognitive abilities,” adds Rauscher, now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. “It’s really a myth, in my humble opinion.”

Rather than passively listening to music, Rauscher advocates putting an instrument into the hands of a youngster to raise intelligence. She cites a 1997 University of California, Los Angels, study that found that, among 25,000 students, those who had spent time involved in a musical pursuit tested higher on SATs and reading proficiency exams than those with no instruction in music.

Despite its rejection by the scientific community, companies like Baby Genius continue to peddle classical music to parents of children who can supposedly listen their way to greater smarts.

Chabris says the real danger isn’t in this questionable marketing, but in parents shirking roles they are evolutionarily meant to serve. “It takes away from other kinds of interaction that might be beneficial for children,” such as playing with them and keeping them engaged via social activity. That is the key to a truly intelligent child, not the symphonies of a long-dead Austrian composer.

“莫扎特效应”这个词让人想到这样的画面：一位孕妇把耳机显眼地放在肚子上，深信给未出世的孩子播放古典音乐会提高宝宝的智力。这个观点催生了一大批粗制滥造的书籍、CD和视频节目，但它是否有科学依据呢？

1993年发表于《自然》杂志的一篇简短的论文无意中把所谓的莫扎特效应介绍给了大众。心理学家费朗西丝劳舍尔的这项研究是让36名大学生在10分钟内，或听一段令人放松的莫扎特奏鸣曲，或呆在静默环境里，之后再去完成几道空间推理作业题。在一项测试中----判断一张折叠多次再剪过的纸张在展开时会变成什么样子------听过莫扎特音乐学生的成绩似乎有显著提高（空间IQ得分提高了8到9分）。

这一研究成果不仅带来了大量的相关产品，1998年，当时的佐治亚州州长Zell Miller还下令给本州的新生儿妈妈派发古音乐CD，而佛里里达州则要求托儿所利用它们的音响系统播放交响乐。

今年早些时候，德国联邦教育与研究部发表了一份由懂音乐的科学家组成的跨学科小组完成的复审报告，声明这样的观点并不存在。“我只想说，没有令人信服的证据证明听古典音乐的孩子在认知能力方面会有什么提高，”现任威斯康星大学奥什科什分校心理学副教授的劳舍尔补充说，“依拙见，这纯属虚构。” 劳舍尔主张让孩子亲手演奏乐器来提高智力，而不是被动地听音乐。她引用了1997年在洛杉矶的加州大学进行的一项研究来作为例证。该研究发现，在2万5千名学生中，与没有学习过演奏乐器的学生相比，那些付出时间学习演奏一种乐器的人在学业能力倾向测试和阅读能力测试中取得了更好的成绩。

尽管受到科学界的否定，像“神童”这样的公司仍继续向家长们兜售古典乐，宣称孩子听了古典音乐就能增长聪明才智。

查伯里斯说，真正的危险不在于这种令人置疑的营销活动，而在于父母亲逃避天职。“这贬低了对孩子可能有利的其它互动形式，”如陪孩子一起玩耍和让他们参与社交活动。对一个真正聪明的孩子来说，这才是关键，而不是一位早已作古的奥地利作曲家的交响乐。

考研时文阅读（7）

In future, as newspaper fade and change, will politicians therefore burgle their opponents’ offices with impunity, and corporate villains whoop as they trample over their victims ? Journalism schools and think-tanks, especially in America, are worried about the effect of a crumbling Fourth Estate. Are today’s news organizations “up to the task of sustaining the informed citizenry on which democracy depends? ” asked a recent report about newspapers from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a charitable research foundation.

Nobody should relish the demise of once-great titles. But the decline of newspapers will not be as harmful to society as some fear. Democracy, remember, has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned

papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come.

That is partly because a few titles that invest in the kind of

investigative stories which often benefit society the most are in a good position to survive, as long as their owners do a competent job of adjusting to changing circumstances. Publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal should be able to put up the price of their journalism to compensate for advertising revenues lost to the

internet---especially as they cater to a more global readership. As with many industries, it is those in the middle---neither highbrow, nor entertainingly populist----that are likeliest to fall by the wayside. The usefulness of the press goes much wider than investigating abuses or even spreading general news; it lies in holding governments to

account----trying them in the court of public opinion. The internet has expanded this court. Anyone looking for information has never been better equipped. People no longer have to trust a handful of national papers or, worse, their local city paper. News-aggregation sites such as Google News draw together sources from around the world. The website of Britain’s Guardian now has nearly half as many readers in America as it does at home. In addition, a new force of “citizen” journalists and bloggers is itching to hold politicians to account. The web has opened the closed world of professional editors and reporters to anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection. Several companies have been chastened by amateur postings----of flames erupting from Dell’s laptops or of cable TV repairmen asleep on the sofa. Each blogger is capable of bias and slander, but, taken as a group, bloggers offer the searcher after truth boundless material to chew over. Of course, the internet panders to closed minds; but so has much of the press.

For hard-news reporting---as opposed to comment---the result of net journalism have admittedly been limited. Most bloggers operate from their armchairs, not the frontline, and citizen journalist tend to stick to local matters. But it is still early days. New online models will spring up as papers retreat. One non-profit group, New Assignment.Net, plans to combine the work of amateurs and professionals to produce investigative stories on the internet. Aptly, $10,000 of cash for the project has come from Craig Newmark, of Craigslist, a group of free

classified-advertisement websites that has probably done more than anything to destroy newspapers’ income.

In future, argues Carnegie, some high-quality journalism will also be backed by non-profit organizations. Already, a few respected news

organizations sustain themselves that way----including the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio. An elite group of serious newspapers available everywhere online, independent journalism backed by charities, thousands of fired-up bloggers and well-informed citizen journalists: there is every sign that Arthur Miller’s national conversation will be louder than ever.

将来，随着报纸的消失和变化，政客们会撬窃对手的办公室而不受惩罚吗？公司恶棍会欢呼着践踏受害者的权益吗？尤其是在美国，各个新闻学院和智囊机构对报业新闻消亡带来的后果忧心忡忡。慈善研究机构纽约Carnegie Corporation 最近一份关于报纸的报告质问：如今的新闻机构“是否能够完成向作为民主制度基石的公民提供全面信息的任务？”

谁也不应该对曾经伟大的报纸的消亡感到高兴。但是，报纸的衰落并不会像一些人所担心的那样对社会造成极大的危害。不要忘记，20世纪50年代以来民主制度已经经受了报纸销量因电视出现而大幅下滑的考验。当读者避开报纸，报纸避开了在保守时代被认为是严肃新闻的东西时，民主仍然存活下来。那么它也一定能经受住即将到来的报纸的衰落。

部分原因是，少数花本钱做那种通常给社会带来最大益处的调查性新闻报道的大报，只要其所有者能够很好地适应变化的环境，就不用担心生存问题。像《纽约时报》，《华尔街日报》这样的出版物，应该能够提高报纸的价格，以弥补广告业务流向网络造成的收入损失----尤其是当读者更具全球性时。像许多行业一样，那些处于中间地位的报纸-----既没有很高的文化品位，又没有娱乐性的大众口味----最容易被淘汰。

报纸的作用远远超出了调查舞弊，甚至传播消息，其作用在于监督政府承担责任----在公共舆论的法庭中审判他们。网络扩大了这个法庭。任何寻找信息的人从来没有像现在这样方便。人们不必再相信少数几个全国性大报纸，或者更糟糕的是，他们本地的城市报纸。像“谷歌新闻”这样的专门的新闻网站收集了世界各地的新闻来源。英国《卫报》网站在美国的读者几乎是在英国本土的一半。 另外，公民“记者”和博客组成的新力量正跃跃欲试地要监督政治家负起责任。网络为任何一个有键盘和网络连接的人打开了职业编辑和新闻记者的封闭世界。有些公司已受到业余爱好者的发帖指责，这些帖子指控戴尔手提电脑会着火，或者指控有线电视维修员在沙发上睡大觉。每个博客都有可能抱有偏见和说些诽谤性的话，但是作为整体，博客们为寻找真相的人们提供了大量值得仔细琢磨的材料。当然，网络会迎合闭塞僵死的思想，但是更多报纸也是如此。

就与评论相比的硬新闻而言，网络新闻的成效显然有限。多数博客是在自己的椅子上写作，而不是在新闻前线，而且公民记者倾向于只关注本地事件。但它仍然处于初期阶段。随着报纸的退却，新的在线模式将迅速涌现。一个非赢利网络团体“新闻工作网”计划把业余记者和专业记者联合起来，在网络上推出调查性新闻报道。克雷格新闻组（一个免费分类广告网站集团）的创办人克雷格纽马克

给“新闻工作网”及时地捐赠了一万美金。该网站集团作得最多的可能就是损害报纸的收入。

卡内基认为，将来一些高质量的新闻也会得到非赢利机构的支持。几家有影响的新闻机构已经靠此方式生存，包括《卫报》，《基督教科学箴言报》和美国国家公共电台。一些严肃的精英报纸都有网络版，世界各地都可以阅读，独立的新闻报道得到慈善机构、成千上万的热心博客和消息灵通的公民记者的支持。这一切完全表明，阿瑟米勒的全国性交谈会比以前声音更响。