英語短文閱讀下載篇一：英語短文閱讀

April 22, 2014 at 6:40 PM EDT

How much does it really cost to live in a city like Seattle?

In Seattle, there is a growing push to raise the minimum wage 62 percent to $15 an hour, which the University of Washington has calculated as the minimum cost of living for an adult with one child. But would the benefits of the wage hike actually outweigh the costs? Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.

TRANSCRIPT

GWEN IFILL: The battle over raising the minimum wage may be at a stalemate in Washington, D.C., right now, but, in Washington State, the fight is still under way.

Our economics reporter, Paul Solman, has the next in his series of stories on that subject, this one on just how much it really costs to live in a city like Seattle.

It’s part of his ongoing reporting Making Sense of financial news. PAUL SOLMAN: In Seattle this spring, rallies to raise the minimum wage, but not to the $10.10 being debated nationally. Here, they’re talking about $15 an hour citywide, 62 percent higher than this year’s inflation index state minimum wage of $9.32, already highest in the nation.

PHILIP LOCKER, Socialist Alternative Party: Wall Street and big business crashed the economy. They got bailed out. They’re making record profits. But working people are faced with what? Poverty wages, low wages, McJobs, student debt. What’s our future?

PAUL SOLMAN: Philip Locker helped run Kshama Sawant’s surprise election to the Seattle City Council last fall on a $15 minimum wage platform.

The mayor and seven of the other eight council members now support the proposal of their unapologetically socialist colleague, a 1

Mumbai-born economist who donates two-thirds of her $120,000-a-year salary to what she calls social justice causes.

KSHAMA SAWANT, Seattle City Council: A real class struggle like the fight that we’re seeing in Seattle will energize and empower workers, raise their confidence and morale.

Socialism, after the fall of the Soviet Union, China becoming a purely capitalist country, Hugo having not succeeded? Socialism, really? KSHAMA SAWANT: The only reason you’re talking to me is because an out-and-out socialist got elected in a major city in the United States with nearly 95,000 votes. There’s no stigma. Time for working people to lose the shackles off here and march ahead.

PAUL SOLMAN: But why exactly $15? Well, that’s what University of Washington researchers have found is the self-sufficiency wage in Seattle for an adult with one child, the bare minimum, that is, for survival without public or private help.

Union leader David Rolf co-chairs the mayor’s minimum wage committee.

DAVID ROLF, Co-Chair, Seattle Income Inequality Advisory Committee: There is a lot anger in our community about what’s happened to wages in — not just recently, but over 40 years in America, that we have seen essentially economic growth since the late 1970s that has been unaccompanied by any wage growth for the bottom 90 percent of income earners.

PAUL SOLMAN: That’s in stark contrast of wage growth all Americans saw from the 1940s through the 1970s. If paychecks had kept pace with economic growth, says researcher Lori Pfingst.

LORI PFINGST, Washington State Budget & Policy Center: The minimum wage today would be anywhere from $15 to $22 an hour, depending upon how you measure it.

2

PAUL SOLMAN: After college, I drove a cab — this was 1970 — at $3 an hour, including tips. That’s somewhere between $18 and $45 an hour today, according to the authoritative Web site Measuring Worth, more than many college grads make now.

KAILYN NICHOLSON, Minimum Wage Activist: Some of us work full-time, but get paid $10 an hour. Some of us get paid more than $10, but only get to work 25 hours a week. And either way, it’s really hard to make ends meet.

PAUL SOLMAN: Kailyn Nicholson, B.A. from the University of Washington, works in child care, serving the kids of low-wage workers.

KAILYN NICHOLSON: I have a third-grader who makes dinner for his two younger brothers every night because his mom is still at work. And these are people who are receiving all the federal benefits that they’re eligible for, and the parents are still working two jobs, and just never getting ahead, never getting ahead.

And what really break(來自:www.huhawan.com 蒲公英文摘:英語短文閱讀下載)s my heart is, you know, I’m trying to motivate the kids to work hard and do well in school and get good grades, promising them that there’s a better life waiting for them if they do that, but I don’t know that there is.

WOMAN: Business is outraged that workers are demanding $15.

PAUL SOLMAN: Well, this being progressive Seattle, we found little outrage among business owners, but at a city council hearing, plenty of concern.

WOMAN: We will have to reduce our hours.

WOMAN: There will be 20 to 30 percent fewer entry-level jobs.

WOMAN: Many people that own their businesses are going to have to shut down.

MAN: Yes, I’m for paying people more.

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PAUL SOLMAN: Even some of the workers were skeptics.

MAN: But if it’s going to cost me my job, oh, hell no.

PAUL SOLMAN: Again, researcher Lori Pfingst:

LORI PFINGST: Overwhelmingly, of the hundreds of studies that have been done — and they have been done on real world examples from around the country — there’s no impact on employment when you modestly increase the minimum wage.

PAUL SOLMAN: But this is a significant increase.

LORI PFINGST: That’s right. What we don’t know from the literature, because this hasn’t been tried before, is what happens when you do that.

PAUL SOLMAN: But we do know, as econ 101 teaches, that if the cost of labor rises and, therefore, so do prices, some customers will bolt. JULIE HYATT, Global Fulfillment: I’m going to have a hard time competing and getting work here in here if I have to pay $15 an hour. PAUL SOLMAN: Especially when the competition is in low-wage climes like Mexico or China, says Julie Hyatt, who owns Global Fulfillment, a company that assembles printed material, much of it by hand.

JULIE HYATT: We would lose work now because we’re already not the cheapest. Being in Seattle makes us more expensive just to start. NICK HANAUER, Second Avenue Partners: I’m in the manufacturing business. I understand that, the sort of visceral fear that some of them feel about this change.

PAUL SOLMAN: Seattle multimillionaire investor and entrepreneur Nick Hanauer is a leader of the $15 wage movement, but he still helps run his family’s pillow company.

4

NICK HANAUER: And, indeed, we have factories where we do not pay workers $15. If my competitors pay $10 and we pay $15, we will surely go out of business. A great challenge we face in the city of raising the minimum wage to $15 is precisely that dynamic.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, look, says Hanauer, every economic decision involves tradeoffs. It boils down to weighing the costs against the benefits.

And in this case:

NICK HANAUER: The benefits overwhelm the costs. When worker compensation goes up, everyone benefits, right, because those workers both go buy more stuff and need less services from taxpayers.

PAUL SOLMAN: Or, as Seattle writer David Goldstein puts it:

DAVID GOLDSTEIN: Some people are winners, and some people are losers. What you want is a policy that raises as many people up as possible.

PAUL SOLMAN: But what about the losers, asks Julie Hyatt?

Julie Hyatt: There are people now that are making minimum wage who may have a criminal background. They may not have a GED. Where are they going to go?

PAUL SOLMAN: Worst-case, they wind up even more dependent on government services, or nonprofits like the Downtown Emergency Services Center, a third of whose 520 employees make near the current minimum wage.

A $15 minimum wage would cost the center well over $1 million, says director Bill Hobson.

BILL HOBSON, Downtown Emergency Services Center: Which in an organization such as this one would invariably be translated into reductions in service. There will be more disabled homeless people on 5

英語短文閱讀下載篇二：英語短文

A--Amy R--Rou M--Mary C--Cop

M:Is Rou there,please?

A:She’s gone to dinner.

M:When will she be back?

A:Half an hour or so.

M:May I leave a message for her them?

A:No problem.

M:My name is Mary,please remind her that we will go to the movie this Saturday. A:OK.What else?

M:No more,thank you,bye.

A:Bye.

Half an hour late,Rou back.

A:Hey,Rou,your friend Mary called you and left a message.Here you are.

R:Let me see.Oh,Amy,Mary and I will watch a movie together on Saturday.It’s a very good movie,would you like to come?

A:OK,I’d like to.

Saturday comes,Amy and Rou are ready to go to the cinema.But they are lost. R:Excuse me,sir. I’m lost,could you tell me how to go to the Ti Yu Xi Lu?

C:Sure,walk alone second Avenue and you can see it on the right.

R:Thank you so much!Bye.

C:Have a good day!Bye.

10 minutes later,Rou and Mary meet at the cinema entrance.

R:Hey Mary.

M:Why are you so late?

R:Oh,I’m sorry,because I’m got lost.

M:It’s doesn’t matter,the movie begin in 10 minutes.Let’s go.

英語短文閱讀下載篇三：英語簡單中英文章閱讀

Language

Many animals use some kind of language.

They use signals which have meanings.

For example, when a bee has found some food, it goes back to its home.

It is impossible for a bee to tell the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it can do a little dancing.

This tells the bees where the food is and how far away it is.

Some animals show how they feel by making sounds.

It is not difficult to tell if a dog is angry because it barks.

Birds make several different sounds and each has its own meaning.

Sometimes we humans make sounds in the same way.

We make sounds like. "Oh!" or "Ouch!" to show how we feel about something or when we drop something on our toes!

But we have something that no animal has: a large number of words which have the meaning of things, action, feelings or ideas.

We are able to give each other information, to tell other people what is in our mind, or how we feel.

By writing down words we can remember what has happened or send messages to people far away.

It is impossible for animals to do this.

Some birds, like the parrot, can be taught to say words, but they do not know what they mean .

They cannot use the words.

No one knows how man learned to make words.

Perhaps he began by imitating animals.

Perhaps he imitated sounds he heard all around him: water splashing, bees humming, a stone falling to the ground.

In some way he learned to make words.

As the centuries went by , he made more and more words.

This is what we mean by language.

The words we know are called our vocabulary.

We should try to make our vocabulary bigger.

We should read as many books as we can .

There are plenty of books written in English for us to read.

Of course , there are new words in them.

When we find a new word, we can look it up in our dictionary.

Our dictionary is our most useful book.

許多動物使用某種語言。

它們使用具有意義的信號。

例如，當(dāng)一只蜜蜂找到食物時，它就回家去。

蜜蜂不可能跟其他的蜜蜂說話，來告訴它們食物在那里，但是它能做一點飛舞的動作。

這就告訴那些蜜蜂食物在那里以及食物有多遠(yuǎn)。

有些動物藉由發(fā)出聲音，來表示它們的感受如何。

要知道狗是否生氣并不難，因為它會叫。

鳥發(fā)出幾種不同的聲音，而且每一種都有它本身的意義。

有時我們?nèi)祟愐灿猛瑯拥姆绞桨l(fā)出聲音。

我們發(fā)出像“喔！＂或“哎�。。⒌穆曇魜肀硎疚覀兊母惺芑虮硎疚覀兊袅藮|西砸到腳趾頭。

但是我們擁有動物所沒有的東西：(那就是有)很多的文字具有表達(dá)事物、行為、感情或觀念的意義。

我們能夠互相提供消息，能夠告訴別人我們的想法，或我們的感受。 用文字記下，我們可以記住所發(fā)生的事情，或者傳送信息給遠(yuǎn)方的人。 這是動物所不可能做到的。

有些鳥，像鸚鵡，能夠教會說話，但它們不知道那些話的意思。

它們不會使用那些話。

沒有人知道人類如何學(xué)會造字。

也許人類藉由模仿動物而開始的。

也許他模仿他周圍所聽到的一切的聲音：水的飛濺聲、蜜蜂的嗡嗡聲、石頭的落地聲。

用某種方式人類學(xué)會了造字。

隨著幾世紀(jì)的過去，人類造了越來越多的字。

這就是我們所謂的語言。

我們所認(rèn)識的字稱為我們的字匯。

我們應(yīng)該設(shè)法使我們的字匯擴(kuò)大。

我們應(yīng)該盡可能多閱讀書籍。

有很多用英文寫的書可以供我們閱讀。

當(dāng)然，書里面有生字。

當(dāng)我們發(fā)現(xiàn)生字的時候，我們可以查字典。

字典是我們最有用的書。

What Is It?

It has two wheels, but no engine.

It is usually built for one person.

It is powered by human legs.

It does not go very fast, but it costs almost nothing to operate.

In some countries, it is used only for sport and recreation.

In other countries, it is used for basic transportation.

What is it?

It is found everywhere, in homes, offices, and stores.

In public places, it can be operated by a coin or token.

Years ago an operator had to make the connection.

Today, you simply dial the correct numbers.

The connection is made by machines.

In seconds , your voice is heard in Tokyo, New York, Manila, Taipei, or Rome. This is made possible by Mr. Bell's marvelous machine.

What is it?

They are bought by accountants and bookkeepers, storekeepers and students. Some are designed to do very complicated work.

They are sold at high prices.

Others are much simpler and cheaper.

Some have to be plugged into an electrical outlet.

Others are powered by batteries.

Difficult problems used to take hours of work with pencil and paper.

Now they are solved in seconds.

Although they are a great help , some people worry about them.

They are afraid that students will depend on them.

Then they will never learn how to solve mathematics problems without them.

What are they?

Images are transmitted from one place.

They travel through the air for long distances.

Then they are received by this machine.

The images are projected on a small screen.

In the 1950's, these machines were owned by only a few people.

Today, it seems, everybody owns one.

What is it?

The basic design of this "machine" has not changed in thousands of years. It comes in various sizes and colors.

With reasonable care it will run for 70 or 80 years.

It walks, talks, thinks, and invents.

這是什么？

它有兩個輪子，但沒有引擎。

它通常為一個人使用而制造的。

它靠人的雙腿為動力。

它跑得并不快，但操作起來幾乎不花費什么錢。

在某些國家它只作運(yùn)動和消遣之用。

在另外的一些國家它作為基本的運(yùn)輸工具。

這是什么？

它到處可以找得到，在家里、辦公室、和商店。

在公共場所，它可用一枚硬幣或代用硬幣操作。

多年前必須有接線生來做接通的耕作，

今天你僅僅撥正確的號碼。

連接的耕作由機(jī)器來作。

幾秒鐘的工夫，你的聲音就在東京、紐約、馬尼拉、臺北或羅馬被聽到了。 這是由貝爾先生的奇妙機(jī)器所促成。

這是什么呢？

它們由會計員、簿記員、店主與學(xué)生所購買。

有些是被設(shè)計來做很復(fù)雜的耕作。

它們售價很高。

有些比較簡單而且比較便宜。

有些必須插入電插座。

有些以電池為動力。

以往困難的問題總是需要用筆與紙耕作數(shù)小時。

現(xiàn)在這些問題在幾秒鐘內(nèi)就解決了。

雖然它們是一大幫助，但是有些人卻為它們而擔(dān)心。

這些人恐怕學(xué)生會依賴它們。

沒有它們，學(xué)生將無法學(xué)會如何解決數(shù)學(xué)問題。

它們是什么？

影像從一個地方傳送出去。

它們經(jīng)由空中傳到遠(yuǎn)距離。

然后它們由這個機(jī)器接受。

影像投在一個小的螢光幕上。

在二十世紀(jì)五十年代，僅僅少數(shù)人才擁有這些機(jī)器。

今天似乎大家都擁有一部。

這是什么？

這部「機(jī)器」的基本設(shè)計在幾千年當(dāng)中都沒有改變。

它的存在有種種大小和顏色。

如果有適當(dāng)?shù)恼疹�，它會運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)七、八十年。

它會走路、講話、思考、和發(fā)明。

Names And Nicknames

Chris: Father, I want to ask you something.

Mr.White: Yes? What's that?

Chris: I want to know the origin of "nickname", because it seems a funny word. Mr. White: Well then, listen carefully.

Do you know the meaning of the old English word "eke" e-k-e?

Chris: No. Never heard of it in my life.

Mr. White: Well, it means "also".

And if you say "an eke name" quickly, it sounds like "a nickname".

Chris: So it does.

So a nickname is another name, or an additional name?

Mr. White: You're right.

Now, at first people had only one name, Thomas, John, Richard, etc. and these names were very numerous in England.

So to tell one John from another, for instance, an additional name was necessary. Sometimes the other name was a place name.

John who lived by the church was called John Church; and John who lived on the hill was called John Hill.

That is how we get the common English names of Church, Hill, Field, Wood, etc. They are quite common in England and America.

Some men were given their fathers' names.

Thomas the son of Richard was called Thomas Richardson.

Many English family names end in "son".

Chris: What about the name Smith, which is by far the commonest of English names? Mr. White: Of course, Smith means a blacksmith, and blacksmiths were very numerous in old times, far more numerous than they are now.

Very often the second name was given according to the work or occupation of the person.

That's how we get the family names, such as Taylor, Farmer, and Clerk.

Sometimes a man was called after some characteristic.

For instance, the first John Long was certainly a tall man; just as the first Mr. Small was undoubtedly a short man.

Chris: But such names are not nicknames, they are family names.

Mr. White: You're quite right; but they were nicknames once.

Now the word has changed its meaning: it means a special name, not a real name, that is used by a person's friends and familiar acquaintances.

Many nicknames are shortened forms of the real names.

General Montgomery's soldiers always called him Monty.

Chris: Then that's why you generally call me Chris?

Mr. White: That's right.

Christopher is too big a word for everyday use.

But there is one peculiar class of nicknames that are generally given to men who have certain family names.

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