1、2022 考研英语时文精析（二）（刘哲）1Text 1：Mixed feelings to G.M.O.s对转基因生物的复杂情感对转基因生物的复杂情感G.M.O.s:Genetically Modified Organisms【重点词汇】【重点词汇】G.M.O.s:Genetically Modified Organisms 转基因生物genetically dnetkli adv.基因地、遗传地modify mdfa vt.修改、修正、修订、限定、缓和dubious dubis adj.可疑的、不可靠的、有疑虑的、靠不住的、不正当的entrench ntrent vt.确立、挖掘、牢固、用（
2、沟壑）巩固herbicide hrbsad n.除草剂sky-rocketing adj.价格飞涨的、快速涨价的prosecute prskjut vt.起诉、检举、控告infringement nfrndmnt n.侵犯、侵害、对规则的破坏devastating devstet adj.极具破坏的、极具毁灭的【文章正文】【文章正文】Since their introduction in the mid-1990s,G.M.O.s have remained wildly unpopular withconsumers,who see them as dubious tools of Big
3、Ag,with potentially sinister impacts on bothpeople and the environment.In the three decades since G.M.O.crops were introduced,only a tinynumber have been developed and approved for sale,almost all of them products made by largeagriculture-chemical companies like Monsanto.Within those categories,thou
4、gh,G.M.O.s havetaken over much of the market.Roughly 94 percent of soybeans grown in the United States aregenetically modified,as is more than 90 percent of all corn,canola and sugar beets,togethercovering roughly 170 million acres of cropland.转基因生物自 20 世纪 90 年代中期推出以来，一直都不受消费者的青睐，（因为）人们认为，转基因生物是农业巨头
5、不正当工具，对人类和环境构成潜在危害。自转基因生物问世以来的 30 年 里，只有少数生物得以研发并获准销售，几乎所有产品都由孟山都等大型农用化学品公司生产。然而在这些类别中，转基因生物占据了大部分市场。美国种植的大豆约94%是转基因品种，玉 米、油菜籽和甜菜也有 90%以上是转基因品种，总共覆盖约 1.7 亿英亩的农田。At the same time,resistance to G.M.O.foods has only become more entrenched.The market2022 考研英语时文精析（二）（刘哲）2for products certified to be non-
6、G.M.O.has increased more than 70-fold since 2010,from roughly$350 million that year to$26 billion by 2018.There are now more than 55,000 products carryingthe Non-G.M.O.Project Verified label on their packaging.Nearly half of all U.S.shoppers saythat they try not to buy G.M.O.foods,while a study by J
7、ennifer Kuzma,a biochemist who is adirector of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University,foundthat consumers will pay up to 20 percent more to avoid them.同时，（人们）对转基因食品的抵制与日俱增。2010 年以来，被认证为“非转基因产品”的市场增长 70 倍以上，从当年约 3.5 亿美元增加到 2018 年的 260 亿美元。目前，超过5.5 万种产品的包装上贴有“非转基
8、因认证”标签。将近一半的美国消费者表示，他们尽量不会购买转基因食品，同时生物化学家、北卡罗来纳州立大学基因工程与社会中心主任詹妮弗库兹马的一项研究发现：消费者会多支出 20%的费用来避免购买转基因食品。Our distrust might also stem from the way G.M.O.s were introduced.When the agribusinessgiant Monsanto released its first G.M.O.crop in 1996 an herbicide-resistant soybean thecompany was in need of ca
9、sh.By adding a gene from a bacterium,it hoped to create crops thatwere resistant to glyphosate,the active ingredient in its trademark herbicide,Round Up,enablingfarmers to spray weeds liberally without also killing the soy plant itself something that wasntpossible with traditional herbicides.Commerc
10、ially,the idea succeeded.By 2003,Round Up Readycorn and soy seeds dominated the market,and Monsanto had become the largest producer ofgenetically engineered seeds,responsible for more than 90 percent of G.M.O.crops plantedglobally.我们对（转基因生物）的不信任可能也源于引入转基因生物的方式。1996 年，农业综合企业巨头孟山都企业需要资金（周转），推出了第一款转基因生
11、物（产品）一种抗除草剂的大豆。通过添加从细菌中提取出的基因，该公司希望培育出抗草甘膦的作物，草甘膦是其除草剂品牌（Round Up)的活性成分，使农民能够在不杀死大豆植株本身的情况下自由喷洒杂草，这是传统除草剂无法做到的。从商业角度来看，这个想法成功了。到 2003 年，抗草甘膦玉米和大豆种子占据了市场主导地位，孟山都已成为最大的转基因种子生产商，占全球种植转基因作物的 90%以上。But the companys roll out also alarmed and antagonized farmers,who were required to signrestrictive contrac
12、ts to use the patented seeds,and whom Monsanto aggressively prosecuted.Atone point,the company had a 75-person team dedicated solely to investigating farmers suspectedof saving seed a traditional practice in which seeds from one years crop are saved for plantingthe following year and prosecuting the
13、m on charges of intellectual-property infringement.2022 考研英语时文精析（二）（刘哲）3Environmental groups were also concerned,because of the skyrocketing use of RoundUp and theabrupt decline in agricultural diversity.但该公司的做法也引起了农民的警觉和反对，（因为）他们被要求签署限制性合同才能使用（孟山都）专利种子，而且孟山都还不断地起诉农民。该公司一度组建了一个 75 人的团队，专门调查涉嫌私存种子的农民
14、，并以侵犯知识产权的罪名起诉他们，而存种是传统做法，即把本年度作物的种子保存到下一年种植。环境组织也感到担忧，因为抗草甘膦的使用量激增，导致农业多样性急剧下降。That resistance was compounded because early G.M.O.s which focused largely on pest and herbicide-resistance offered little direct benefit to the consumer.And once public sentimentwas set,it proved hard to shift,even when
15、 more beneficial products began to emerge.One of these,Golden Rice,was made in 1999 by a pair of university researchers hoping to combat vitamin Adeficiency,a simple but devastating ailment that causes blindness in millions of people in Africaand Asia annually,and that can also be fatal.But the proj
16、ect foundered after protests byanti-G.M.O.activists in the United States and Europe,which in turn alarmed governments andpopulations in developing countries.由于早期的转基因生物主要集中在害虫和除草剂抗性上对消费者几乎没有直接好处，所以这种抗性更加复杂。即使更多更有益的问世，但公众情绪一旦出现，局面也很难再改变。例如，1999 年两名大学研究人员创造出一种有益产品，即黄金大米，希望用以对抗维生素 A 缺乏症，这是一种简单但具破坏性的疾病，每
17、年导致非洲和亚洲数百万人失明，而且有一定致命性。但该项目因为遭到美国和欧洲“反转基因”游行抗议而失败，这反过来又给发展中国家的政府和民众敲响了警钟。Text 2：Small ice rocks with big business小小冰块儿背后的大生意小小冰块儿背后的大生意【重点词汇】【重点词汇】possession pzen n.拥有、财产、领地 take possession of sth.拥有/控制.innumerable numrbl adj.数不清的、多数的、无数的chaste test adj.纯洁的、贞洁的、朴素的fungible fndbl adj.代替的、可取代的inevita
18、ble nevtbl adj.必然发生的、不可避免的、总会发生的evitable evtbl adj.可以避免的2022 考研英语时文精析（二）（刘哲）4unattainable ntenbl adj.难以企及的、难以达到的attainable tenbl adj.可达到的、可实现的、可得到的proactive proktv adj.积极的、进取的flaunt flnt vt./vi.炫耀、夸赞、飘扬【文章正文】【文章正文】For homemade ice,the supply chain is reassuringly familiar:water goes into the freezer
19、,anda bit later,ice comes out.But what about the ice rocks that you bought from a supermarket,orextracted,by the handful,from a plastic bag at a drinks party?They were frozen when you tookpossession of them.Where did they start out,back when they were water?Follow their journey allthe way back from
20、the point of sale through warehouses and depots and cold storage facilitiesand innumerable temperature-controlled lorries,so theres a decent chance that most of them camefrom the same place:an industrial estate just outside South Kirkby in West Yorkshire.Thecompany that made them is called The Ice C
21、o,and if you havent heard of it,you have almostcertainly used its products.对于自制冰块来说，其供应链条让人熟悉又放心，即把水放进冰箱，过一会儿，水变成了冰。但如果你是从超市买回来的冰块，或者在酒会上从塑料袋里一把把倒出来的冰块儿，这些冰块儿又是来自哪里呢？当你拿到冰块儿时它们已经冻好了。水是在哪里被制成了冰？又是在哪里冰化成了水？我们从销售环节开始一路全程追踪：历经一个又一个的存贮仓库、冷藏设施和无数辆温控卡车，所以大部分的冰块儿极可能来自同一个地方：西约克郡南柯比郊外的一个工业区。生产这些冰块儿的公司叫 The Ic
22、e Co（英国冰块儿制造商），即使你没听过这家公司，但几乎可以肯定的是，你一定用过这家公司的产品。Ice,though,has no rough edges on which a consumers imagination can find purchase.Chaste as ice,Shakespeare wrote.The simplest solid thing you can buy in the supermarket,noted a modern historian of the subject.Ice is perhaps the most purely fungible pr
23、oduct any of uswill ever buy:if its clear,fits into a glass,and is solid at the freezing point of water,it has fulfilledthe only meaningful criteria that most end users will ever care about.尽管，冰块儿并没有什么特别之处足以激发消费者的购买欲。“纯洁如冰”，莎士比亚写道。“冰是我们能在超市里买到的最简单的固体物质”一位现代历史学家如是道。也许，冰是人人都想购买的最纯的替代品：如果它是透明的，可以放进玻璃杯里
24、，并且在冰点时是固态，如此便已经满足了大多终端用户所关心的唯一有意义的标准。For centuries,the history of ice was really just the history of attempting to postpone the2022 考研英语时文精析（二）（刘哲）5inevitable.The enterprise hacked the stuff from icebergs and lakes and mountaintops;theytransported it at no little risk to the houses of the rich,who
25、constructed ice houses and ice safes inwhich to hoard their treasure.The economics of transporting something very heavy and highlyperishable meant that ice long remained an unattainable luxury for all but the most wealthy.Ancient potentates flaunted ice as a status symbol even.几个世纪以来，冰的（发展）史实际上就是试图将
26、必定发生的事情不断延后的过程。公司从冰山、湖泊和山顶上提取冰（物质）后冒着极大的风险把它运送到有钱人家里，有钱人则建造冰屋和冰保险箱把财富保管起来。由于冰块儿又重又易融化，因此运输成本很高，所以长期以来除了最富有的人之外，冰块儿对于其他人来说都是难以企及的奢侈品。古代的统治者更是将冰作为身份的象征。Back to now.The Ice Co is not only dominant in its own marketplace.As a supplier of majorretailers,it is evaluated alongside and frequently outperform
27、s some of the UKs most dynamicfood and drink brands.As much as the Ice Cos success is a result of technological innovation,andof shrewdly moving in step with evolving tastes,it is also a story of near-constant struggle,asgenerations of icemen and ice-women have sought out ways to sell people somethi
28、ng that has onlyever been,and will only ever be,frozen water.If this is something that The Ice Co has takenproactive steps to address all its ice is now made using green energy,all packaging is 100%recyclable and plastic use has been reduced 40%in the past two years other events in theindustry remai
29、n beyond their control.The Ice Co is not just the company that makes ice;it is alsothe company that ice made.We would do well not to overlook the things too apparentlyuninteresting to merit our attention.The evidence of the cubes melting in your glass suggests thatit is the world that changes ice.Bu
30、t ice has changed the world,too.回到现实来说。The Ice Co 公司不仅在自己的市场上居主导地位，作为大型零售商的供应商，还和英国其他食品饮料巨头旗鼓相当，甚至大有超越的趋势。The Ice Co 公司的成功，可以说是技术创新的成果，是不断迎合消费者趋势变化的智慧结晶，同时也是不断奋斗的励志故事，是一代又一代的制冰人不断探索向消费者引荐并推销一些未曾有过（实际上指创新）的产品冰冻水。尽管 The Ice Co 公司已采取积极措施来解决问题，如所有的冰块都是用绿色能源制造出的，所有的包装都是 100%可回收利用，塑料的使用量在过去两年里减少了40%，但是行业内的其他事件仍然是他们无法控制的。The Ice Co 公司不仅制造冰块，同时也被冰块所塑造（影响）。枯燥乏味的微小点滴也不容被忽视，冰块在杯子里融化的证据表明，是世界改变了冰，但冰也改变着世界。
