Day1:
1.Lay foundations for…
e.g. They are likely to discuss what needsto be done to assure a shared recovery and to reform the internationalfinancial institutions, and to lay the foundations for future growth
2.Empirical:derived from experiment and observation rather than theory
e.g. The debate has persisted, andtheoretical arguments thankfully gave way to sophisticated empirical studies.
3.Pick holes in the argument
e.g. The government had delayed publicationof the Medical Research Council's report, while the official statistics agencysought to pick holes in its findings.
4.Falsify:change it or add untrue details to it in order to deceivepeople
e.g. It is relatively easy to falsify theaddress from which a query was sent.
5.Alpha particle:positively charged particle that is the nucleus of thehelium atom; emitted from natural or radioactive isotopes
e.g. And there he was able to identify thealpha particle as the helium nucleus
6.Gold leaf:a very thin form of gold foil
e.g. It is the process of beating the countryout more thinly, like gold leaf
7.Deflection:making it change direction
e.g. Also, the all-season tires give up thecornering fight pretty early, with loads of sidewall deflection.
8.Bounce:moves upward from a surface or away from it immediately after hitting it.
e.g. My father would burst into the kitchenbouncing a tennis ball.
9.Artillery:Artilleryconsists oflarge, powerful guns that are transported on wheels and used by an army.
e.g. Using tanks and heavy artillery, theyseized the town.
10.Bring…crashing down
e.g. One experiment that fails may bring anentire theory crashing down.
11.Apparatus:Theapparatusof an
organization or system is its structure and method of operation.
e.g. For many years, the country had beenburied under the apparatus of the regime.
12.The monopoly of…over…
e.g. As aquid pro quo, the new lawwould havecementedthe Orthodox monopoly over conversion.
quid pro quo:a gift or advantage that is given to someone in return for something that they have done.
e.g. They share a great deal of information on a quid pro quo basis.
Cement:Something that cements a relationship or agreement makes itstronger.
e.g. Nothing cements a friendship between countries so much astrade.
13. Ground breaking:to describe things which you think are significant becausethey provide new and positive ideas, and influence the way people think aboutthings.
e.g. Whenever Apple releases one of itsground breaking ideas or designs, everyone rushes to copy it.
14.Quash:If a court or someone in authorityquashesa decision or judgment, they officially reject it.
e.g. The Appeal Court has quashed theconvictions of all eleven people.
15.Combustion:the act of burning something or the process of burning.
e.g. The energy is released by combustionon the application of a match.
16.Discredit:Todiscreditsomeone or something means to cause them to lose people'srespect or trust.
e.g. A secret unit within the company hadbeen set up to discredit its major rival.
17.Leap-frogging
e.g. In May this year 26.8 million peoplevisited the site, with Facebook leap-frogging MSN to become the UK's secondmost visited site.
18.Take root
e.g. At stake is whether new jobs andindustries take root in this country, or somewhere else.
19.Daunting: something that isdauntingmakes you feel slightly afraid or worried about dealingwith it.
e.g. He and his wife Jane were faced withthe daunting task of restoring the gardens to their former splendour.
20.Relentless: something bad that isrelentlessnever stops or never becomes less intense.
e.g. The pressure now was relentless.
Day2:
Day3:
在科学的发展过程中理论、观察、实验缺一不可，并且这篇节选让我想起政治课本那句话：真理是具体的、有条件的。文章里面也说了，These in turn are only theories, and may yet be disproved.我们应该培养自己的批判思维。积累了很多生词和搭配，看例句很重要。另外，阅读的时候我注意提醒自己小标题和主题句，于是对文章的结构和中心有了更好的把握。