在琳琅满目的英语教材之中,《新概念英语》(New Concept English)可谓是经久不衰的教材之一。下面是小编带来的新概念英语文章下载，欢迎阅读!

新概念英语文章下载1

Plankton

浮游生物

Scattered through the seas of the world are billions of tons of small plants and animals called plankton. Most of these plants and animals are too small for the human eye to see. They drift about lazily with the currents, providing a basic food for many larger animals.

数十亿吨的被称为"浮游生物"的小动物、植物散布在世界的海洋中。这些小的动、植物大多太小而难以被人眼看到。它们随波逐流，为许多较大的动物提供了基本的食物。

Plankton has been described as the equivalent of the grasses that grow on the dry land continents, and the comparison is an appropriate one. In potential food value, however, plankton far outweighs that of the land grasses. One scientist has estimated that while grasses of the world produce about 49 billion tons of valuablecarbohydrates each year, the sea’s plankton generates more than twice as much.

浮游生物曾被描述为生长在大陆陆地上的各种草类的海洋对应物。这种比喻是恰当的。然而就潜在的食物价值而言，浮游生物远胜于草类。一位科学家曾经估计，世界上的草类每年生产大约490亿吨有用的碳水化合物，而海洋里的浮游生物每年生产的碳水化合物多于此数的两倍。

Despite its enormous food potential, little effect was made until recently to farm plankton as we farm grasses on land. Now marine scientists have at last begun to study this possibility, especially as the sea’s resources loom even more important as a means of feeding an expanding world population.

尽管浮游生物具备巨大的食物潜能，但直到最近人们还很少象种植草类那样付出努力养殖浮游生物。现在，海洋科学家们至少已开始研究这种可能性。全球人口不断扩张，海洋资源作为食品的重要性日益突出。

No one yet has seriously suggested that “ plankton-burgers” may soon become popular around the world. As a possible farmed supplementary food source, however, plankton is gaining considerable interest among marine scientists.

现在还没有人认真说过“浮游生物汉堡”会很快在世界上流行起来。然而，作为一种可能养殖的补充性食物资源，浮游生物正引起了海洋科学家们相当大的兴趣。

One type of plankton that seems to have great harvest possibilities is a tiny shrimp-like creature called krill. Growing to two or three inches long, krill provides the major food for the great blue whale, the largest animal to ever inhabit the Earth. Realizing that this whale may grow to 100 feet and weigh 150 tons at maturity, it is not surprising that each one devours more than one ton of krill daily.

然而，作为一种可能养殖的补充性食物资源，浮游生物正引起了海洋科学家们相当大的兴趣。一种似乎具有很大收获可能性的微小的虾状浮游生物被称为鳞虾。鳞虾长至2-3英寸长时即成为地球上曾居住过的最大动物——蓝鲸的主要食物。成熟的蓝鲸可以达到100英尺长，150吨重，所以每头鲸每天吞食1吨多的鳞虾一点也不让人吃惊。

新概念英语文章下载2

Icebergs

冰山

Icebergs are among nature’s most spectacular creations, and yet most people have never seen one. A vague air of mystery envelops them. They come into being -- somewhere -- in faraway, frigid waters, amid thunderous noise and splashing turbulence, which in most cases no one hears or sees. They exist only a short time and then slowly waste away just as unnoticed.Objects of sheerest beauty they have been called. Appearing in an endless variety of shapes, they may be dazzlingly white, or they may be glassy blue, green or purple, tintedfaintly or in darker hues. They are graceful, stately, inspiring -- in calm, sunlight seas. But they are also called frightening and dangerous, and that they are -- in the night, in the fog, and in storms. Even in clear weather one is wise to stay a safe distance away from them. Most of their bulk is hidden below the water, so their underwater parts may extend out far beyond the visible top. Also, they may roll over unexpectedly, churning the waters around them.

冰山是大自然最壮观的创造之一，但大多数人却从未看到过冰山，一种朦胧神秘的气氛笼罩着它们。冰山形成于久远的、寒冷的水体中，而且伴随着雷声轰鸣般的嘈杂和水花汹涌的风暴，但却无人耳闻目睹。冰山仅存在短短的一段时间就慢慢地悄无声息地融化掉。冰山具有最纯粹的美，人们如是说。冰山呈现出千姿百态，可能白得耀眼，或者是闪耀着蓝色、绿色或紫色的玻璃般的光芒，或浓或淡。它们在平静的阳光照耀的海水中显得优雅堂皇，令人浮想联翩。但是人们亦把冰山称为恐怖的和危险的。它们的确如此--在夜间，雾天和风暴肆虐时。即便是在晴朗的天气里，与它们保持一段安全距离也是明智的。冰山的大部分体积稳藏于水下，因此其水下部分的伸展远远超过可见的顶部。冰山也可能出人意料地翻滚，剧烈地搅动周围的水体。

Icebergs are parts of glaciers that break off, drift into the water, float about awhile, and finally melt. Icebergsafloat today are made of snowflakes that have fallen over long ages of time. They embody snows that drifted down hundreds, or maybe thousands, or in some cases maybe a million years ago. The snows fell in polar regions and on cold mountains, where they melted only a little or not at all, and so collected to great depths over the years and centuries.

冰山是冰川的一部分，从冰川断裂漂流进水中，一段时间后融化。今天的冰山由多年前降落的雪花形成。它们的体内是数百年，或数千年，有时甚至是数百万年前的降雪。这些雪花落在极地或寒冷的山上，仅有少量融化或根本不融化，这样经过许多年或许多世纪后积累了巨大的深度。

As each year’s snow accumulation lay on the surface, evaporation and melting caused the snowflakes slowly to lose their feathery points and become tiny grains of ice. When new snow fell on top of the old, it too turned to icy grains. So blankets of snow and ice grains mounted layer upon layer and were of such great thickness that the weight of the upper layers compressed the lower ones. With time and pressure from above, the many small ice grains joined and changed to larger crystals, and eventually the deeper crystals merged into a solid mass of ice.

由于每年的雪花积累在表面之上，蒸发和融化使得雪花慢慢失去其羽状尖端而变成微小的冰粒。当新的雪花降落到旧的表面上，也变成了冰粒。因而雪花覆盖层和冰粒层层堆积起来直到如此之大的厚度以致较上层的重量压缩较下层。在时间和压力的作用下，许多小冰粒结合到一起变成更大的晶体，最终较底层的晶体合并成庞大而坚固的冰块。

新概念英语文章下载3

Topaz

黄玉

Topaz is a hard, transparent mineral. It is a compound of aluminum, silica, and fluorine.

黄玉是一种坚硬、透明的矿物质。它是铝、硅和氟的化合物。

Gem topaz is valuable. Jewelers call this variety of the stone “precious topaz”. The best-known precious topaz gems range in color from rich yellow to light brown or pinkish red. Topaz is one of the hardest gem minerals. In the mineral table of hardness, it has a rating of 8, which means that a knife cannot cut it, and that topaz will scratch quartz.

宝石级黄玉价值不菲。珠宝商把这种石头称为“贵黄玉”。最出名的贵黄玉有各种颜色，如深黄色、淡棕色、浅红色等。黄玉是最坚硬的宝石矿中的一种。在矿石硬度表上，它的硬度为8，这表明刀子不能割开它而它可在石英上划痕。

The golden variety of precious topaz is quite uncommon. Most of the world’s topaz is white or blue. The white and blue crystals of topaz are large, often weighing thousands of carats. For this reason, the value of topaz does not depend so much on its size as it does with diamonds and many other precious stones, where the value increases about four times with each doubling of weight. The value of a topaz is largely determined by its quality. But color is also important: blue topaz, for instance, is often irradiated to deepen and improve its color.

金色的贵黄玉品种非常罕见。世界上大多数的黄玉是白色或蓝色的。这些白色或蓝色的黄玉晶体很大，常常有数千克拉重。由于这个原因，黄玉的价值不像钻石和许多其它宝石那样主要依赖于其大小，重量翻一番价值即上升约四倍。黄玉的价值很大程度上取决于其品质，但颜色也很重要。举例来说，蓝色的黄玉常需放射处理以加深和改善其颜色。

Blue topaz is often sold as aquamarine and a variety of brown quartz is widely sold as topaz. The quartz is much less brilliant and more plentiful than true topaz. Most of it is variety of amethyst: that heat has turned brown.

蓝色的黄玉常被作为海蓝宝出售，许多种棕色石英则被当作黄玉广为贩卖。石英光亮度远小于黄玉，矿藏储量也远较黄玉丰富。大多数石英是一种紫水晶，高温使其变为棕色。

注：黄玉，矿物学家也称之为黄晶，英文名Topaz，国内珠宝界常称之为托帕石，为英文的音译。这主要是因为无论是黄玉还是黄晶，都会和我国珠宝界原有的一些宝石的称呼相混淆。在我国，黄色的和田玉(软玉)长期被称为黄玉，尤其是在考古界;而黄晶又和水晶中的黄水晶容易相混。