考研背诵50篇——04 Electricity
时间：2018-12-04 作者：英语课 分类：考研背诵50篇
英语课
The modern age is an age of electricity. People are so used to electric lights, radio, televisions, and telephones that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them. When there is a power failure, people grope about in flickering 1 candlelight, cars hesitate in the streets because there are no traffic lights to guide them, and food spoils in silent refrigerators.
Yet, people began to understand how electricity works only a little more than two centuries ago. Nature has apparently 2 been experimenting in this field for million of years. Scientists are discovering more and more that the living world may hold many interesting secrets of electricity that could benefit humanity.
All living cell send out tiny pulses of electricity. As the heart beats, it sends out pulses of record; they form an electrocardiogram, which a doctor can study to determine how well the heart is working. The brain, too, sends out brain waves of electricity, which can be recorded in an electroencephalogram. The electric currents generated by most living cells are extremely small - often so small that sensitive instruments are needed to record them. But in some animals, certain muscle cells have become so specialized 3 as electrical generators 4 that they do not work as muscle cells at all. When large numbers of these cell are linked together, the effects can be astonishing.
The electric eel 5 is an amazing storage battery. It can seed a jolt 6 of as much as eight hundred volts 7 of electricity through the water in which it live. ( An electric house current is only one hundred twenty volts.) As many as four-fifths of all the cells in the electric eel's body are specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it can deliver corresponds roughly to length of its body.
1 flickering
adj.闪烁的，摇曳的，一闪一闪的
- The crisp autumn wind is flickering away. 清爽的秋风正在吹拂。
- The lights keep flickering. 灯光忽明忽暗。
2 apparently
adv.显然地；表面上，似乎
- An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
- He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。
3 specialized
adj.专门的，专业化的
- There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
- These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。
4 generators
n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司
- The factory's emergency generators were used during the power cut. 工厂应急发电机在停电期间用上了。
- Power can be fed from wind generators into the electricity grid system. 电力可以从风力发电机流入输电网。 来自《简明英汉词典》
5 eel
n.鳗鲡
- He used an eel spear to catch an eel.他用一只捕鳗叉捕鳗鱼。
- In Suzhou,there was a restaurant that specialized in eel noodles.苏州有一家饭馆，他们那里的招牌菜是鳗鱼面。