13.Name one branch or part of the government.
13.列举一个政府部门。
Answer: Congress/legislative; President/executive; The courts/judicial
答案：国会/立法部门；总统/行政部门；法院/司法部门
Explanation: The United States government is divided into three branches (or parts), and all three share equal (or the same) amounts of power.
解释：美国政府分为三个部门，它们享有同等的权力。
The easiest way to understand the divisions (or parts) of American government is to think of the government as a tree,
理解美国政府部门最简单的方法是把政府看成是一棵树，
with three branches of the same size growing from the trunk (or the base, which is the biggest part of the tree).
树的主干生长出三根同样大小的树叉。
The government was set up this way in the Constitution by the Founding Fathers,
开国元勋撰写的宪法规定以这种方式设立政府
so that no one branch of government would be able to have absolute power (or total control) over another.
因此没有哪个政府部门能够完全控制另外一个政府部门。
The first of the three branches of government is Congress, which is also known as the legislative branch.
三个政府部门中的第一个是国会，又称为立法机构。
Legislative is another word for lawmaking, so Congress is the branch that makes and passes (or approves) laws.
“Legislative”是另一个表示“立法”的词，因此国会是制定和通过法律的政府机构。
Congress also has the power to control how the government spends its money, known as appropriations.
国会还控制政府的预算，也就是拨款。
The legislative branch is located in the U.S. Capitol building, a famous building with a dome roof (or round top) in Washington, D.C.
立法机构坐落于美国国会大厦，它是首都华盛顿著名的圆屋顶建筑物。
译文为秀哈英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
