­　　2017年12月英語四級閱讀200篇匯總

­　　World"s Largest Cupcake

­　　A 4 feet cupcake weighing a hefty 1,224 pounds has been officially recognized as the world"s largest by the Guinness Book of Records.

­　　Unveiled on Monday, in Detroit, Michigan, US, the enormous cake -with a whopping circumference of 11 feet-was over eight times bigger than the previous record holder.

­　　Baked over the course of 12 hours, the gigantic cup cake was made from 200 pounds of flour, 200 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of butter and 800 eggs.

­　　When covered with frosting and custard, the one-of-a-kind dessert boasted 2,000,000 calories. The brainchild of American firm Gourmet Gift Baskets, the cupcake smashed the previous record of 151 pounds set on July 20.

­　　Appearing at the Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise Classic Car Show in Detroit, proceeds from the sale of the cupcake went to cancer charity Passionately Pink for the Cure.

­　　Ryan Abood, CEO of GourmetGiftBaskets.com, assembled a cupcake "dream team" including master-baker George Algarin to begin making the cake on August 12, five days before the scheduled unveiling.

­　　"We started off with a goal of a 7,000 pounds cupcake but fate intervened on Friday morning when the baking was supposed to be complete," said Mr Abood.

­　　"The huge 8x8 feet oven was opened and we found that the weight of the expanding batter crushed one of the main convection mbes blowing hot air into the heart of the cupcake causing cup-cake to collapse."

­　　Luckily, the team managed to avert disaster by rustling up a cake with only half a day to go, still managing to beat all other cupcake records in the process.

­　　An adjudicator from Guinness had flown in from London, especially to measure the cupcake and announced the record to a crowd of hundreds at the motor show.

­　　世界最大的杯蛋糕

­　　一個“身高”4英尺、“體重”達1224磅的杯蛋糕日前被《吉尼斯世界記錄》正式認證為世界上最大的杯形蛋糕。

­　　這塊巨型蛋糕于本周一在美國密歇根州的底特律市公布于眾，它的“腰圍”驚人，達到11英尺，比之前的記錄保持者大8倍之多。

­　　這一龐大的杯形蛋糕經過12小時烘制而成，共用掉200磅面粉、200磅糖、200磅黃油和800個雞蛋。

­　　再加上糖霜和蛋奶沙司，這塊獨一無二的大蛋糕所含的熱量高達200萬卡路里。這塊蛋糕的創意來自美國“美食禮品籃公司”，它打破了之前于7月20日創下的151磅的記錄。

­　　這塊蛋糕在底特律的伍德沃得大街夢想之航經典車展上亮相，它的銷售收益將捐獻給“粉色激情治療”癌癥慈善組織。

­　　“美食禮品籃”網站的首席執行官萊恩·阿布德組建了一支制作杯蛋糕的“夢之隊”，其中還包括特級面包師喬治·阿爾加林。這塊蛋糕于8月12日開始制作，當時據計劃展出還有5天的時間。

­　　阿布德說：“我們一開始的目標是一個7000磅的蛋糕，但就在周五早上快完工時，命運跟我們開了個玩笑。”

­　　“當我們打開8乘8英尺的巨型烤箱時，發現面糊膨脹的重量把其中一根主對流管壓壞了，結果熱空氣吹到杯形蛋糕的中心部位，導致蛋糕坍塌。”

­　　幸運的是，“夢之隊”在離最后期限還剩半天的時間里又重新趕制了一個，避免了一場大麻煩，而且還是打破了所有其他杯形蛋糕的記錄。

­　　來自吉尼斯世界紀錄的一名評審員特地從倫敦飛往底特律為這塊杯蛋糕進行測量，并向前來參加車展的數百民眾公布了這一記錄。

­　　句型講解:

­　　1. Ryan Abood, CEO of GourmetGiftBaskets.com, assembled a cupcake "dream team" including master-baker George Algarin to begin making the cake on August 12, five days before the scheduled unveiling.

­　　本句是一個簡單句，句子的主干是Ryan Abood assembled a cupcake "dream team"。CEO of GourmetGiftBaskets.com是Ryan Abood的同位語，起補充說明的作用。including master-baker George Algarin現在分詞短語作后置定語，to begin...on August 12不定式短語作目的狀語。five days before the scheduled unveiling是August 12的同位語，起補充說明的作用。

­　　語法重點：分詞短語作定語，不定式短語作狀語，同位語

­　　2. "The huge 8x8 feet oven was opened and we found that the weight of the expanding batter crushed one of the main convection tubes blowing hot air into the heart of the cupcake causing cup-cake to collapse."

­　　本句是一個復合句，主句是由and連接的兩個并列的句子。第二個句子中，that引導賓語從句，作found的賓語。其中blowing hot... cupcake 現在分詞短語作結果狀語，修飾tubes o causing...collapse現在分詞短語作結果狀語。

­　　語法重點：并列結構，分詞短語作狀語，分詞短語作狀語