马上就要迎来2019年12月份的英语四级考试啦，相信屏幕前即将考试的同学们也和小编一样既兴奋又紧张。今天小编就带来英语四级的美文推荐，考试前背上两篇，可以说作文的分数那是手到擒来！下面我们就来看看吧。
一、The Origin of the Refrigerators
By the mid-nineteenth century,the term icebox had entered the American language,but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States.The ice trade grew with the growth of cities.Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals,and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat,fresh fish, and butter.
After the Civil War (1861-1865),as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars,it also came into household use.Even before 1880 half of the ice sold in New York,Philadelphia, and Baltimore,and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago,went to families for their own use.
This had become possible because a new household convenience,the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator,had been invented.Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose.In the early nineteenth century,the knowledge of the physics of heat,which was essential to a science of refrigeration,was rudimentary.The commonsense notion that the best icebox was onethat prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken,for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling.
Nevertheless,early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets,which kept the ice from doing its job.Not until near the end of the nineteenth centurydid inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer,Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market,his butter, still fresh and hard in neat,was worth one-pound a brick.One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained,was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.
二、The Shadowland of Dreams
Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer.I always encourage such people,but I also explain that there’ a big difference between “being a writer” and writing.In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame,not the long hours alone at the typewriter.“You’ve got to want to write,”I say to them, “not want to be a writer.”
The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair.For every writer kissed by fortune,there are thousands more whose longing is never requited.Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty.I did.When I left a 20-year career in the Coast Guard to become a freelance writer,I had no prospects at all.What I did have was a friend with whom I’d grown up in Henning, Tennessee.George found me my home a cleaned-out storage room in the Greenwich Village apartment building where he worked as superintendent.
It didn’t even matter that it was cold and had no bathroom.Immediately I bought a used manual typewriter and felt like a genuine writer.After a year or so, however,I still hadn’t received a break and began to doubt myself.It was so hard to sell a story that I barely made enough to eat.
But I knew I wanted to write.I had dreamed about it for years.I wasn’t going to be one of those people who die wondering,“What if?” I would keep putting my dream to the test even though it meant living with uncertainty and fear of failure.This is the Shadowland of hope,and anyone with a dream must learn to live there.

三、The Power of Beauty
One of the most successful,influential and beloved women in American history,Eleanor Roosevelt once said that she had one regret:she wished she had been prettier.Who hasn’t felt the same way?We are all too aware of our physical imperfections.
To overcome them,we spend billions upon billions of dollars every year on cosmetics,diet products, fashion, and plastic surgery.Why do we care so much about how we look?Because it matters.Because beauty is powerful.Because even when we learn to value people mostly for being kind and wise and funny,we are still moved by beauty.No matter how much we argue against it or pretend to be immune,beauty exerts its power over us.
There is simply no escape.Aristotle said,“Beauty is a greater recommendation than any letter of introduction.”It’s not fair, but it’s true.We simply treat beautiful people better than we do others.Attach a photograph of a beautiful author to an essay,and people will think that is more creative and more intelligently writtenthan exactly the same essay accompanied by the photo of a homely author.
Our sensitivity to physical beauty is not something we can control at will.We are born with it.Experiments conducted by psychologist Judith J. Langlois showed that even small infants prefer to look at attractive faces.Before they have met a single supermodel,before they have watched a single TV show,before they have opened up a single fashion magazine,they are drawn to the same faces which adults have judged to be attractive.There are more important things in life than beauty.But as Etcoff says,“We have to understand beauty, or we will always be enslaved by it.”If you aim to be wise and kind and funny,it doesn’t mean that you can’t also try your best to look beautiful.There’s no reason to feel guilty about being moved by beauty’s power.It moves us all.