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1、12月英语四六级考试阅读提高练习(33)Putting the Sun to WorkIts a hot summer day, and you, your family, and friends decide to drive to the beach for a cookout.When you get to the beach, the sand and the rocks are so hot that they hurt your bare feet. You put on sneakers in a hurry. The water is so bright and shining
2、 in the sun that you can hardly look at it. While the charcoal (木炭) fire is starting to burn in the cookout stove, every one goes for a swim. The water feels goodwarm at the top, but cooler down around your toes.A little wind is blowing when you come out. The fire isnt quite ready for cooking yet, s
3、o you play tag (儿童捉人游戏) or read.For lunch there are hot dog, corn, salad and rolls, sodas, fruit, and coffee for the adults. By the time the coffee water boils and the corn and hot dogs are cooked, all the bathing suits are dry. So are the towels spread out on the rocks, in the sun.Lunch is good. Ju
4、st as you are finishing, it starts to rain so you pack up and run. But nobody minds the rain. It will cool things off.At the same time you were having fun at the beach, work was being done. Energy from the sun was doing work. Energy, in one form or another, does all the work in the world.Heat energy
5、 from the sun dried the towels. It heated the sand and the rocks, the water and the air. It even made the rain and the wind. Heat from the sun does small work and big work, all over the earth.Light energy from the sun was working on the beach too. It supplied the daylight.It lit the earth and made t
6、he sand bright and the water sparkling.The sun also supplied the energy that grew the food you ate.Plants use light energy from the sun to make food for themselves. The food is a kind of sugar. It is also a kind of energy called chemical energy. Green plants change light energy from the sun into che
7、mical energy.Plants use some of that energy for everyday living and growing. They store the rest in their leaves and seeds, in fruit, roots, stems, and berries.The salad and the corn, the rolls, fruit, and coffee all came from plants. You and all animals depend on plants for food.The charcoal you us
8、ed for cooking began as a plant too. Once, that charcoal was a living tree that used sunlight to make food and then stored part of the food it made. The energy in this stored food remained, even after the tree died. You used that energy when you burned the charcoal.The gasoline you used for driving
9、to the beach began with energy from the sun, too. It was made from oil.Oil was formed from the remains of plants and animals that lived on earth millions of years ago. The remains of ancient living things are called fossils. This is why oil is called a fossil fuel. Coal and natural gas are fossil fu
10、els, too.Now fossil fuels are beginning to be used up.Thats why people worry about running out of energy.But as long as the sun shines, the earth will not run out of energy. The sun pours more energy on earth than we can ever use. Most of that energy comes to us as heat and light. Energy from the su
11、n is called solar energy.Solar energy is a safe kind of energy. It doesnt make pollution or have dangerous leftovers. That is why scientists and inventors are experimenting with ways of harnessing the sun to do some of the jobs fossil fuels have been doing.But to make the sun do work like that, they
12、 have to solve some problems.They have to collect the suns energy. Collecting sunshine isnt easy, unless you are a plant.Sunshine isnt easy to store, either. You cant fill a tank with it or put it in the wood box. You cant move it through a pipe or a wire. You cant turn it on.Still, people have been
13、 using solar energy to help do their work for a long time. There are old ways and new ways of catching sunshine and putting it to work.Suppose you were living in a cold place and going to spend the winter in a cave. Would you choose a cave that faced the winter sun or a cave that faced away from it?
14、You might make the same choice if you were building a house in a cold place. You would probably build the house, so the winter sun would pour in the windows to warm it. People have been building houses that way for a long time.Is it possible to catch still more of the suns heat in a house? Yes, Some
15、 houses also collect heat on the roof, move it indoors, store some, use some to make hot water and the rest for heating. A house like that is called a solar house.People who build solar houses have learned how to do those things by observing how the earth itself uses solar energy.Remember the beach?
16、Remember the hot sand and the hot rocks?Some materials take in heat energy from the sun and hold it. They absorb the heat. Sand and rocks do this. So do some other solid materials, such as metals. Water absorbs the suns heat too.Color can also be important. Dark, dull colors absorb heat. Light-colored, shiny surfaces reflect heat. They bounce it back. Thats why dark clothes are warmer in the winter and light colored
