2016新版中石油职称水平考试《通用英语选读》培训笔记
（考过的大题已标出）
目录
温馨小语：
每篇“学习笔记”将可能涉及到的“考点”做了重点标记，它们基于“职称考试”的四个主要方面，即词汇、语法、阅读和翻译，所以在学习中要认真体会，找到自己要重点学习的内容。
跳过每一段英文原文，只通篇看下“带有英文”的中文部分。。。是不是感觉清楚了课文大致要说的内容？熟悉中文意思，在考试中也是很有帮助的，特别是在回答阅读类的选择题时，如果它恰好又是你在此读过的一篇课文，你一定会用最短的时间，找到正确的答案。考试的题量可不小，要在此处抢得先机。过段时间，再来温习下吧。
51. Those Fascinating Northern Lights 迷人的北极光（2016新增）
1. At 10:00 p.m. on March 23，1969, the Bowater Power Water Company in Deer Lake, Newfoundland experienced a disturbance on its system. The frequency converter at Comer Brook tripped off, shutting down half of the big paper mill. There was a radio blackout over most of the Atlantic Provinces. And accompanying these activities was a magnificient display of northern lights — boiling up out of the north and hanging in bundles of long rays like draperies across the sky. Ninety-three million miles away,
a rather ugly looking sunspot was making its way across the disc of the sun.
1. 1969年3月23曰晚上10点，保华特水电公司（the Bowater Power Water
Company)位于纽芬兰（Newfoundland)鹿湖的设备系统出现了异常；科纳布鲁克（ComerBrook)的变频器跳间，使得一半的大造纸厂停产；大西洋沿岸各省的无线电中断。伴随这些异常出现的还有辉煌的北极光——从北面喷涌而出，一束束巨大的光束像帷幔一般遮盖了整个天际。9300万英里之外，一个相形见绌的太阳黑子出现在太阳的圆盘上。
2. This little drama demonstrated once again the close relationship of the earth with the sun, and the importance of the intervening space.
2. 这个小小的插曲再次展现了地球和太阳的亲密关系以及介入空间的重要性。
3. During the past several years twelve similar disturbances have taken place in this area. A magnetic storm in November, 1960, was so severe its effects were felt all over Canada. The C.N.T. people alone suffered $3 million worth of equipment damage. At their height of excitement, sunspots can bring on violent magnetic storms.
3. 在过去的几年中，类似的异常在同一地区出现了 12次。1960年11月的电磁风暴甚至影响了整个加拿大。仅仅设备损失就达300万元。太阳黑子活跃的鼎盛时期就能带来剧烈的电磁风暴。
4. What are the northern lights or “aurora borealis”？ They have been called “dancing ghosts，”“searchlight of God,” and “the language of mystic signs and portents.”Old school books explain them as sunlight
reflected from ice and snow. But the great scientific achievements of the past twenty years have revealed new knowledge about the sun and our earth5s outer atmosphere. It is now certain that most auroras are associated with explosive disturbances in the sun’s atmosphere. These disturbances reach a peak every eleven years, and take the forms of flares, prominences and sunspots. They send out great jets of X-rays and charged particles travelling at terrific speeds. When these charged particles reach the earths magnetic field, some of them are deflected toward the magnetic poles. There they crash into atoms and molecules of the upper atmosphere (ionosphere) causing ionization, excitement, and the glow of the aurora. The level of excitement may vary anywhere from fifty to six hundred miles above the earths surface.
4. 那么，什么是北极光？它们被称为“舞蹈的幽灵”、“上帝的探照灯”或是“神秘迹象与前兆的语言”。过去的课本解释说它们是冰雪反射太阳光形成的，但过去20年里取得的伟大科学成就揭示了太阳和地球外大气层的新知识。现在我们知道，大部分的极光与太阳大气层的爆炸摄动有关，它们每11 年达到活动的顶峰，表现为耀斑、日珥和太阳黑子。它们释放出大量的X射线和带电粒子高速传播；当传播到地球的磁场时，一些带电粒子就会向磁极偏转，与上层大气（电离层）的原子和分子发生碰撞，产生电离作用，引起极光的突发。这种作用发生在距离地球表面50到600英里的空间，其强烈程度各不相同。
5. The beautiful colors of the northern lights depend on the altitude