254.
Organisations of all stripes—from Facebook to the UK government to that coffee shop on the corner you once gave your email address to—have been filling inboxes with variations on the same question, in anticipation of a European Union regulation that comes into force on 25 May.
参考译文：
各类机构——从脸书到英国政府到街角那家你有一次留了邮箱的咖啡馆—-预计到5月25日欧盟的一项规定会生效，于是正在用同一问题的不同变体填满你的收件箱。
词汇突破：
- of all stripes 各领域的，各类
- fill 填满
- variation 各种，各类
- in anticipation of ：（绝对重点考点！）
英文解释：the fact of seeing that sth might happen in the future and perhaps doing sth about it now （预见到将来会发生什么，所以现在做一些事情来应对。）
预料；预期；预见；预计:
例句：He bought extra food in anticipation of more people coming than he’d invited.
他预料来的客人会比邀请的多,就多买了些食物。 - a European Union regulation 一个欧盟的决定
- comes into force 生效
253.
Liberals make good movies and television shows. Their idealism has been an inspiration for me and many others. Many liberals are very smart. But they are not as smart, or as persuasive, as they think. And a backlash against liberals — a backlash that most liberals don’t seem to realize they’re causing — is going to get President Trump re-elected.
参考译文：
自由派人士拍很棒的电影、制作很好的电视节目。他们的理想主义激励着我和许多其他人，许多自由派人士都非常聪明。但他们不像他们自认的那样聪明、或那么有说服力。针对自由派人士的强烈抵制将让特朗普再次当选。而且大多数自由派人士似乎并没有意识到正是他们（自己）引起了这种抵制。
词汇突破：
- liberals: 自由派人士
- idealism:理想主义
- persuasive: 具有说服力
- backlash 强烈抵制，集体反对
252.
Social media brings us together and helps us to restore links with long-lost friends, but it also traps us in a bubble , in which only what you want to see and believe is shared.
参考译文：
社交媒体让我们聚在一起，帮助我们与长久失联的朋友再次取得联系。但同时它也将我们置于一个泡沫中：这里头只有你想看到和相信的东西。
While we are proud of being the fashionable netizens, it is also of vital importance that we keep a clear head and don’t give up full control to algorithms.
参考译文：
虽然我们自豪于网民这个潮流的新身份，但保持清醒的判断对于我们来说仍至关重要，切忌把所有控制权都交给算法。
251.
Equipped with the skills acquired during the study, even those graduates who initially accept relatively junior positions are more likely to be promoted and climb up the corporate or even the social ladder faster than their peers.
参考译文：
具备了在学习期间所获技能，一些毕业生即使一开始获得是相对初级的职位，后来也会更有可能得到提拔，在攀爬公司或社会阶梯的时候也会比其他人更快。
Youngsters, who place an emphasis on their own interests and skills, job stability, advancement opportunities, and the needs of society, will set themselves on a path towards a satisfying and successful career.
参考译文：
重视自己的兴趣和技能，工作稳定性，进步机会和社会需要的年轻人将使自己踏上令人满意的，成功的事业之路。
250.
As well as strong environmental protections and moves to create greener transport, the party proposes ending private companies working in the NHS, taking railways into public ownership, scrapping university tuition fees and writing off existing student debt.
参考译文：
除了强有力的环境保护和创建更绿色交通的举措，该党还提议终止私营企业为国民医疗服务体系服务，铁路公有化，取消大学学费和勾销现存学生贷款。
词汇突破：
- Transport交通；运输
- Propose提议
- Private companies 私营企业
- Public owner ship 公有（制）
- Scrap取消
- Tuition fee 学费
- Write off 勾销
- Student loan 学生贷款
- as well as 也，置于句首时，这个短语可以翻译为：除了
249.
1.When strange or different elements come together, we will have fresh perspectives and divergent ways of thinking.
当陌生的、不同的元素凑到一起，我们会拥有崭新的观点和不同的思维方式。
2.They inevitably give birth to inventiveness.
它们最终会带来创新。
3.Cultural diversity has always been one of the most charming qualities of great cities, making it possible for people with different backgrounds to live side by side and to absorb the best of others.
文化多元性一直是大城市最吸引人的特征之一，它使得不同背景的人有可能并肩生活学习彼此的长处。
4.It is striking that many of the social, economic and cultural breakthroughs that shape our life have emerged not from the mainstream elites but from the restless marginal groups.
有一个事实非常惊人，即许多塑造我们生活的社会、经济和文化突破都并非出自主流的精英，而是出自那些从不停歇的边缘团体。
5.They expose themselves frequently to diversified groups and thus benefit the most from intercultural innovation.
因为他们频繁地接触多样人群，从而成为跨文化创新的最大受益者。
词汇突破：
Perspective 观点
Divergent 相异的，分歧的
Inevitably 不可避免的
Striking 惊人的
Marginal groups 边缘团体
Expose 接触；置身于
248.
Given our new understanding of the role of REM, if modern lifestyles really are reducing our dream time, we could be sleepwalking into a load of trouble. Yet despite the mounting evidence, there remains disagreement over what exactly REM sleep does.
参考译文：
基于我们对快速眼动睡眠的新认识，如果现代生活方式真的在减少我们做梦的时间，我们可能正梦呓着走向一堆麻烦。但虽然证据越来越多，关于快速眼动睡眠的确切作用仍存在分歧。
247.
The event was the inaugural stop in Community Boost, a kind of roving technical college that Facebook plans to bring to at least 30 mid-sized U.S. cities this year. Each installment offers a few days of lectures, smaller “breakout” sessions, and one-on-one consultations, free for anyone who shows up. The goal, according to Facebook, is to teach business owners and employees the “digital skills” to make it online.
参考译文：
Boost一种流动的技术学院，Facebook计划在今年将其带给至少30个美国中等规模的城市。每一期都提供几天的讲座、较小分组讨论和一对一的咨询，而且这些对任何到场的人都是免费的。根据Facebook的说法，我们的目标是教会企业主和员工“数字技能”，使其能够经营在线业务。
246.
In the U.S., birthright citizenship begins here, in the struggles of the marginalized and the despised to make this nation their own even as so many claimed that when it came to rights, it was a white man’s country. Most notorious among such denials of black citizenship was the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1857 decision in Scott v. Sandford, often referred to as the Dred Scott case.
参考译文：
在美国，与生俱来的公民权从这里开始，从处于社会边缘地位的人和被歧视的人的斗争中开始，他们努力让这个国家变为自己的国家，即使许多人声称，当涉及到权利的时候，美国是一个白人的国家。在对黑人公民权的否认表达中，最臭名昭著的就是1857年美国最高法院在Scott诉Sandford一案中的决定。该案件常被称为Dred Scott案。
词汇突破：
- the marginalized 社会边缘人群
- the despised 被歧视的的人群
=the underprivileged = 弱势人群 - notorious 臭名昭著的
- denials 否认（名词）
- referred to as 被称之为
- claim 声称 认为
- even as 即使
245.
For us, this means that evolution is over;the biological Utopia has arrived. Strangely, it has involved little physical change. No other species fills so many places in nature. But in the pass100,000 years – even the pass 100 years – our lives have been transformed but our bodies have not. We did not evolve, because machines and society did it for us.
参考译文：
对我们而言，这意味着进化已经完成。生物乌托邦已经到达。奇怪的是，这几乎不涉及到生理上的改变。没有哪个物种能像人类一样占据着自然界中如此多的地方。但是在过去的一万年中，甚至在过去的一百年中，我们的生活被改变了，但我们的身体并没有被改变。我们没有进化，因为机器和社会为我们做了。
244.
Well, no gain without pain, they say. But what about pain without gain? Everywhere you go in America, you hear tales of corporate revival. What is harder to establish is whether the productivity revolution that businessmen assume they are presiding over is for real.
参考译文：
人们说没有不劳而获。但是“劳而不获”又是怎么的感受呢？在美国，所到之处，你都会听到公司复苏的传闻。商人们认为他们主持了这次生产力的革命，（但）更难确定的是：这场革命是不是真的。
243.
Historians have only recently begun to study the increase in demand for luxury goods and services that took place in eighteenth-century England. McKendrick has explored the Wedgwood firm’s remarkable success in marketing luxury pottery; Plumb has written about the rapid increase of provincial theaters, musical festivals, and children’s toys and books. While the fact of this consumer revolution is hardly in doubt, three key questions remain: Who were the consumers? What were their motives? And what were the effects of the new demand for luxuries?
参考译文：
历史学家最近才开始研究18世纪英格兰对奢侈品和服务的需求增长。 McKendrick探索了韦奇伍德公司在推广豪华陶器方面取得的巨大成功; Plumb写过关于省级剧院，音乐节和儿童玩具和书籍迅速增加的文章。 虽然这场消费革命的事实几乎不存在疑问，但仍存在三个关键问题：谁是消费者？ 他们的动机是什么？ 新奢侈品需求的影响是什么？
242.
Aluminum remained unknown until the nineteenth century, because nowhere in nature is it found free, owing to its always being combined with other elements, most commonly with oxygen, for which it has a strong affinity.
参考译文：
铝总是跟其他元素结合在一起，最普遍的是跟氧结合，因为铝跟氧有很强的亲和力，进而在自然界找不到游离状态的铝；所以，铝直到19世纪才被人发现。
词汇突破：
- Aluminum 铝
- Free 元素的游离状态
- Affinity 归属感
He has a close affinity with the landscape he knew when he was growing up.
他对这片从小就了解的土地有着一种归属感。
Affinity for 一种元素对于另一种元素的亲和力
241.
It’s possible that plutocrats(有钱有势的人) are expressing solidarity with the struggling middle class as part of an effort to insulate themselves from confiscatory (没收性的) tax policies. But the prospect that income inequality will lead to higher taxes on the wealthy doesn’t keep plutocrats up at night. They can live with that.
No, what they fear was that the political challenges of sustaining support for global economic integration will be more difficult in the United States because of what has happened to the distribution of income and economic insecurity.
参考译文：
有钱有势的人对于苦苦挣扎的中产阶级表达了支持，这可能是他们使自己免受没收性税务政策努力的一部分。收入不平等将导致对富人收更高的税，这样的可能性不会让那些有权有势的人在晚上睡不着。他们受得了这一切。
他们害怕的是：因为发生在收入分配和经济不安全上的那些事情,所以对于全球经济一体化的持续支持将会受到来自政治方面的更严峻的挑战。
词汇突破：
- confiscatory (没收性的) tax policies：指的就是非常高的税收
- insulate themselves from：使…免除，使…不受影响
- solidarity 支持
240.
There are two basic ways to see growth: one as a product, the other as a process. People have generally viewed personal growth as an external result or product that can easily be identified and measured. The worker who gets a promotion, the student whose grades improve, the foreigner who learns a new language — all these are examples of people who have measurable results to show for their efforts.
参考译文：
有两个基本的方式可以看到成长：一个是作为产品，另外一个是流程；人们通常会把个人的成长当成是外在的成长或者是容易被确定和测量的结果。得到晋升的工人、成绩提高的学生、学习一门新语言的外国人——所有这些都是有可衡量成绩的人的例子，可以证明他们的努力。