英语阅读技巧

Do you want to know something about the history of weather?Don’t look at the sky.Don’t look for old weather reports.Looking at tree rings is more important.Corret weather reports date back only one century,but some trees can provide an exact record of the weather even further back.
It is natural that a tree would grow best in a climate with plenty of sunlight and rainfall.It is also expected that little sunlight and rainfall would limit the growth of a tree.The change from a favorable to an unfavorable climate can be determined by reading the pattern of rings in a tree trunk.To find the weather ten years ago,count the rings of a tree trunk from the outside to the inside. If the tenth ring is far from the other rings,then it is certain that plenty of sunny and rainy weather occurred.If the rings are closed together,then the climate was bad for the tree.
Studying tree rings is important not only for the history of weather,but also for the history of man.In a region of New Mexico you can find only sand---no trees and no people.However,many centuries ago a large population lived there.They left suddenly.Why?
A scientist studied patterns of dead tree rings which had grown there.He decide that the people had to leave because
they had cut down all the trees.Trees were necessary to make fires and buildings.So,after the people destroyed the trees,they had to move.In this instance studying tree rings uncovers an exciting fact about the history of man.
When John Milton,writer of”Paradise Loet”,entered Cambridge University,in 1625,he was already skilled in Latin after seven years of studying it as his second language at St.Paul’s School,London.Like all English boys who prepared for college in grammar schools,he had learned not only to read Latin was English,however,and seemed to have sounded strange to his friends when he later visited Italy. Schoolboys gained their skill in Latin in a bitter way.They kept in mind the rules to make learning by heart easier.They first made a word-for-word translation and then an idionmatic translated into English.As they increased their skill;they translated their English back into Latin without referring to the book and then compared their translation with the original.The schoolmaster was always at hand to encourage them.All schoolmasters believed Latin should be beaten in. After several years of study,the boys began to write
compositions in imitation of the Latin writers they read.And as they began to read Latin poems,They began to write poems in Latin.Because Milton was already a poet at ten,his poems were much better than those painfully put together by the other boys.During the seven years Milton spent at university,he made regular use of his command of Latin.He wrote some excellent Latin poems,which he published among his works in 1645.
The relations between man and wife are changing.A amjority of working women remains in full charge of their home;they come back at night to the cleaning,washing,and cooking that constitute their second career.But more and more husbands are sharing the burden and willingly taking on chores that their fathers would rejected as unmanly,and as too mysteriously difficult anyway.In such cases,man and wife become equal partners,both working outside,both pushing the vacuum cleaner.Actually,the number of husbands who do help that way is much smaller than the number of those who accept the idea in theory.And when equal partnership is a fact, it doesn’t always work well.The marriage can be destoryed when
the wife is more successful in her proferssion than her husband in his,particularly when she earns more than he does.Sociologists see in this situation one of the main reasons for the increase in the divorce rate—another reason being the husband’s refusal to help with the housework or the care of the children.A third reason could be the growing awareness of the professional woman that she doesn’t have to remain married if she is too unhappy.。