考研英语经济学人文章阅读训练五十

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考研英语经济学人文章阅读训练2020082202

Cloth of gold一块价值堪比黄金的布Why the economic value of a face mask is$56.14为什么说一个口罩的经济价值是56.14美元After a brutal first six months of the year,governments across the world are hoping for an economic bounce-back.Rich-world GDP fell by about 10%in the first half of2020.在经历今年上半年的残酷考验后，世界各国政府都期待经济能够触底反弹。

2020年上半年，发达国家的GDP下降了约10%。

Yet much has changed since—including that more people are now wearing masks.Economists,obsessed with translating everything into GDP,wonder if more widespread face-covering could help the recovery.然而，自从越来越多的人戴上口罩后，情况发生了显著变化。

经济学家痴迷于用GDP来解释一切事物，如今他们想知道，随着更多的人戴上了口罩，经济能否走向复苏。

The thinking goes that masks can,in part,substitute for lockdowns. People wearing them need not be discouraged as much from using public transport.More shops and offices might be able to reopen,albeit while practising social distancing.这种想法基于这样一个逻辑，戴口罩在一定程度上可以代替封锁措施。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Diageo last week took a majority stake in Seedlip, a non-alcoholic spirit sold as an alternative to gin — a move seen by analysts as the drinks giant’s attempt to grab more of the growing teetotal market. The young are more abstemious than their elders, and manufacturers and marketers need to keep up.帝亚吉欧(Diageo)不久前收购了Seedlip的多数股权，这是一种被作为金酒替代品出售的无酒精型烈酒——市场分析师们将此举解读为酒业巨头试图在日益扩张的无酒精饮料市场中分一杯羹。

年轻一代相对于他们的长辈在饮酒方面更加节制，酒类生产商和营销机构必须跟上这种趋势。

For those of us who don’t drink or, in my case, only occasionally, a reduction in others’ drinking, along with a fall in the antisocial consequences, is a welcome development. At a wedding in Italy this summer, I marvelled as a group of Italian and French guests partied under a hot afternoon sun and late into the night, without anyone staggering or slurring in the way they would inevitably have done in the UK.对于我们当中那些不喝酒——或者以我自己为例——仅偶尔喝一杯的人来说，他人饮酒量的下降，以及与之相随的危害社会公共利益问题的减少，是一种令人愉快的新变化。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

The Guardian view on unaffordable homes: building injustice into the economy《卫报》关于难以负担的住房的观点：在经济中制造不公The average wage of the top 1% in Britain rose to £13,770 a month in December. Jeevun Sandher, an economist at King’s College London, points out the very richest saw their incomes rise the fastest during the pandemic. This group were also likely to have been able to save the most while Covid raged. Where do the very wealthiest spend their cash? One place is housing, for which there is a low level of stock being released on to the market. The result is rising house prices. Over the past 12 months, asking prices have gone up by 9.5%.12月，英国最富有的1%人群的平均工资上升至每月13770英镑。

伦敦国王学院的经济学家桑德尔指出，在疫情期间，最富有的人的收入增长最快。

在新冠病毒肆虐期间，这一群体也可能是能够存最多钱的人。

最富有的人把钱花在哪里？其中一个地方就是住房，因为住房市场上的存量很低。

结果就是房价上涨。

在过去12个月里，住房要价上涨了9.5%。

This has a knock-on effect for renters. UK rents rose by 8.3% in the last three months of 2021. For would-be first-time buyers, the situation is as bad if not worse, with the current average price of £277,000 nearly £25,000 higher than just a year ago. Those looking to have a roof to live under will find little solace in official figures. These record an 11% drop in the number of total homes added in 2021 compared with the year before. The number of new affordable houses that began being built dropped 16% year-on-year. Shortages of labour and materials, as well as planning delays, will make it harder for the 11th Tory housing minister since 2010 to meet government targets for new homes.这对租客产生了连锁反应。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

The Guardian view on plastics: a treaty could stem the tide《卫报》关于塑料的观点：一项条约可以遏制这个趋势There is no data on global plastic pollution that is equivalent to the regular measurements of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. But as with greenhouse gases, the recent news has been nearly all bad. In 1950, worldwide production of plastics stood at 2m tons per year. In 2020, it was 367m tons (down from 368m the year before due to the coronavirus pandemic). An increase this enormous is hard to visualise. But the 8.8m tons of plastic waste that is estimated to enter the world’s marine environment each year is the equivalent of a rubbish truck filled with plastic being tipped into the sea every minute.关于全球塑料污染，目前还没有与地球大气中二氧化碳的常规测量值相当的数据。

但和温室气体一样，最近的消息几乎都是坏的。

1950年，全球塑料产量达到每年200万吨。

2020年，这一数字为3.67亿吨（由于新冠肺炎疫情，它比前一年的3.68亿吨有所下降）。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

We must pay the cost of carbon if we are to cut it让每一个人都有减排的动力Shouldn’t we be doing more to respond to the climate emergency? It’s a natural question to ask. But, perhaps, we should turn the question around, and ask: why haven’t we solved the climate change problem already?为了应对气候紧急状态，我们难道不应该多做一点事情？这是个很自然的问题。

然而，也许我们应该反过来问：为什么我们还没有解决气候变化问题？Economics suggests a ready answer: externalities. Unfortunately, the concept of externalities is a century old, and it shows. So why do economists persist in using this dusty old term, and is it still useful?经济学给出了一个现成的答案：外部性。

可是，外部性的概念存在了一个世纪之久，而且得到了印证。

那么，经济学家们为什么还要使用这个陈旧的术语呢？它是否仍然有用？An externality is a cost — or sometimes, a benefit — that is not borne by either the buyer or the seller of a product. And, if neither has to bear the cost, neither has much reason to care.外部性是一种成本（有时是一种好处），是产品的买方和卖方都无需承担的成本。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

A global house-price slump is coming全球房价即将暴跌It won’t blow up the financial system, but it will be scary虽然不会摧毁金融体系，但仍然令人恐慌Over the past decade owning a house has meant easy money. Prices rose reliably for years and then went bizarrely ballistic in the pandemic. Yet today if your wealth is tied up in bricks and mortar it is time to get nervous.过去十年里，拥有一套房就意味着轻松赚钱。

房价多年来一直稳步上涨，甚至在疫情期间还异乎寻常地飙升了。

然而现如今，如果你的财富被套牢在房产上，那你应该感到紧张了。

House prices are now falling in nine rich economies. The drops in America are small so far, but in the wildest markets they are already dramatic. In condo-crazed Canada homes cost 9% less than they did in February.九个发达经济体的房价都在下跌。

到目前为止，美国房价的跌幅还不大，但最疯狂的市场的房价跌幅已经非常大了。

在热衷于共管公寓的加拿大，房价较今年2月下跌了9%。

As inflation and recession stalk the world a deepening correction is likely—even estate agents are gloomy. Although this will not detonate global banks as in 2007-09, it will intensify the downturn, leave a cohort of people with wrecked finances and start a political storm.随着通货膨胀和经济衰退的风险在全球范围内蔓延，房价或将迎来一场深度调整——甚至房地产经纪人也对此感到悲观。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

“This Mortal Coil” is a surprisingly upbeat history of death《人世纷扰》出人意料地以乐观态度讲述人类死亡史Andrew Doig’s study of how people die is a story of human ingenuity安德鲁·多伊格对人类死因的探究也是一个关于人类智慧的故事For over 200 years, France has diligently recorded the life spans of its citizens. Since 1816 their average life expectancy has more than doubled: long skewed by high infant mortality, it jumped from 41.1 years to 85.3 for French women, and from 39.1 years to 79.3 for men.200多年来，法国一直在孜孜不倦地记录着公民的寿命。

自1816年以来，法国人的平均预期寿命增长了一倍多：在经历长期被高婴儿死亡率拉低的阶段后，法国女性的平均预期寿命从41.1岁跃升至85.3岁，男性从39.1岁跃升至79.3岁。

In other words, it “has increased on average by five hours per day”, writes Andrew Doig in “This Mortal Coil”, a study of how people die. “So, every day, the date of a French person’s death gets closer by 24 hours due to the passing of time, but recedes by five hours, thanks to medicine, nutrition, sanitation, good government, trade, peace and so on.”安德鲁·多伊格在其研究人类如何死亡的著作《人世纷扰》中写道，换句话说，法国人的预期寿命“平均每天延长5个小时”。

《经济学人》英语热点文章精选8篇(中英文对照

（考研英语阅读原文很多来自《经济学人》，希望大家好好看看)印度的救赎IN MAY America’s Federal Reserve hinted that it would soon start to reduce its vast purchases of Treasury bonds. As global investors adjusted to a world without ultra—cheap money, there has been a great sucking of funds from emerging markets。

Currencies and shares have tumbled, from Brazil to Indonesia, but one country has been particularly badly hit。

今年五月，美国联邦储备委员会(Federal Reserve）暗示，它将很快开始缩减大量购买国债的规模。

随着全球投资者开始调整策略，以适应没有超廉价资金的世界，大量资金开始逃离新兴市场.从巴西到印度尼西亚，货币及股票纷纷暴跌，但有一个国家受创尤其严重.Not so long ago India was celebrated as an economic miracle. In 2008 Manmohan Singh，the prime minister，said growth of 8—9% was India’s new cruising speed. He even predicted the end of the “chronic poverty，ignorance and disease, which has been the fate of millions of our countrymen for centuries”. Today he admits the outlook is difficult. The rupee has tumbled by 13% in three months。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

One afternoon in April 2020, I took an old bamboo rod out of my shed and cut it to a length of 115cm. Stood on the ground, it came about halfway up my chest. I laid it on a scrubby patch of our garden on the island of Aegina, in Greece: one end next to a tough-looking dandelion, the other pointed northwards. Then I dug up the dandelion with a trowel and replanted it at the other end of the stick. A small step for humans, but quite the leap for the dandelion.2020年4月的一个下午，我从棚子里拿出一根旧竹竿，把它切成了115厘米的长度。

立在地上，它的长度大概是到我胸部高度的一半。

我把它搁在花园中的一小片灌木丛生的土地上，花园位于希腊的埃吉纳岛（Aegina）上。

竹竿的一端挨着一株看上去很强韧的蒲公英，另一端朝着北方。

随后我用泥铲把蒲公英挖了出来，再把它重新种进竹竿另一端的土里。

对人类来说，这是一小步的距离，但对蒲公英而言却是一次不小的跃进。

This 115cm corresponds to a particular measurement. It is the present average velocity of climate change — how fast the effects of global heating are moving across the surface of the planet — and thus represents the speed we need to move in order for the conditions around us to stay the same. It also implies a direction: the bubble habitats where different forms of life can survive and thrive are moving uphill, and towards the poles.这115厘米所对应的是一个特定的尺寸。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Springtime lethargy – is something entirely natural春困——一种很自然的现象Spring fatigue, also known as spring lethargy, refers to a state of fatigue, lowered energy, or depression, associated with the onset of spring.春困是指一种与春天的到来有关的疲劳、精力下降或抑郁的状态。

Such a state may be caused by a normal reaction to warmer temperatures, or it may have a medical basis, such as allergies or "reverse" seasonal affective disorder. Although the causes of this springtime lethargy have not yet been fully resolved, hormone balance may play a role.这种状态可能是对对气温升高的正常反应，也可能是一种医学上的反应，如过敏或“逆向”季节性情感障碍等。

人们至今尚未完全弄清楚春困发生的原因，但荷尔蒙平衡可能是原因之一。

According to this hypothesis, the body's reserves of the "happiness hormone" serotonin, whose production depends on daylight, become exhausted over the winter, making it especially easy for the "sleep hormone" melatonin to have its effect.根据这一假说，人体储存的“快乐荷尔蒙”血清素（其产生依赖于日光）在冬季会被消耗殆尽，这使得“睡眠荷尔蒙”褪黑激素特别容易发挥作用。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Why Do Trucks Use Diesel Fuel Instead of Gasoline?为什么卡车要烧柴油而不是汽油?Putting diesel in your regular gas-guzzling automobile isn’t just a waste of money—it can also cause some problems for your car. For semis and other trucks, however, diesel is just what the doctor (or mechanic, rather) ordered. And that’s because those types of vehicles typically have diesel engines, rather than gasoline engines.往你那烧汽油的车里加柴油不仅浪费钱，而且还会给你的汽车带来一些问题。

然而，对于半挂车和其他卡车来说，柴油就是医生（或者说机械师）开的处方。

这是因为这些类型的车辆通常使用柴油发动机，而非汽油发动机。

One big difference between the two engines is how they turn fuel into energy. According to Engineering Explained, gas engines usually use a spark plug to ignite the mixture of fuel and air in the cylinder.这两种发动机之间最大的区别就是将燃料转化为动能的方式。

根据《汽车机械小百科》的解释，汽油发动机通常使用火花塞来点燃气缸内燃料和空气的混合物。

But diesel engines compress the air until it reaches a high enough temperature that the fuel will ignite as soon as it gets injected into the cylinder. In order to heat the air to that point, a diesel engine needs an especially high compression ratio: the cylinder’s volume when the piston is at its highest point compared to the volume when the piston is at its lowest point.而柴油发动机会压缩空气，直到空气达到足够高的温度，燃料一进入气缸就会点燃。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Britain’s young face a poorer future英国年轻一代面临更加贫穷的未来Economic statistics will never fully capture the extent of the sacrifices of Britain’s youth during the pandemic. For a generation of students and pupils it was a lost chance to make friends, explore who they are and, gradually, become adults — as well as to learn, in person. In the face of the deaths in the broader population, it is easy to dismiss as frivolous the setbacks of those who missed partying, travelling and dating during the long months stuck inside but these are still years of carefree youth they will not get back. What is more, most of these privations were primarily to protect those from older generations, the most vulnerable to the coronavirus.经济统计数字将永远不能完全反映出英国青年在这场大流行病中牺牲了多少。

对于这一代学生来说，他们失去了结交朋友、探索自我并逐渐成长为人,以及亲身学习的机会。

在有人死于新冠疫情之际，我们很容易认为被困在室内长达数月而错过聚会、旅行和约会的人所经历的这些挫折无关痛痒，但这是他们再也无法重返的无忧无虑的青春时光。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

How to think about gamification如何看待游戏化The world of badges, streaks and leaderboards徽章、打卡和排行榜的世界The mopei phone-swing device is ingeniously depressing. It is a cradle for smartphones that rocks back and forth when it is plugged in, and it is designed to cheat fitness apps into believing that you are on the move.MoPei 手机摇步器是一个巧妙的小装置。

这是一个智能手机的摇篮，接上电源后便可以前后摇晃，它的设计目的是让健身应用误以为你在运动。

If you have a step counter, this phone shaker can gull it into thinking you have taken 8,700 paces in an hour. “Ideal for those people who don’t have the time or energy to get your recommended steps in,” boasts the product blurb.如果你有一个计步器，这个摇步器就可以骗过它，让它误以为你在一个小时内走了8700步。

该产品的宣传语吹嘘道：“这个产品是那些没有时间和精力完成推荐步数的人的最佳选择。

”Such cheating is pointless but not uncommon. Blog posts run through ways to trick a Fitbit into recording exercise, from strapping it to your children to swinging it on a piece of string. Strava is an app for runners and cyclists to record their times; becoming the fastest rider on a course segment is a lot easier if you use a motorbike.这种作弊行为毫无意义，但并不少见。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文阅读经济学人

China’s “dreamchild” is stealthily winning the battery race中国“梦之子”悄然引领电池竞赛In America, if you want to dominate an industry, you channel your inner Elon Musk and shout about it. But CATL, the Chinese company that makes batteries for some of Mr Musk’s Tesla electric vehicles (EVs), is different. When your columnist first contacted it in 2017, the brush-off was swift.在美国，如果你想主宰一个行业，你就得调动自己内心的埃隆·马斯克并大声咆哮。

但为马斯克的部分特斯拉电动汽车供应电池的中国公司宁德时代则不同。

当笔者在2017年第一次与该公司取得联系时，对方直接拒绝了我们的采访。

“We want to concentrate on our products only and do not accept any interviews at present.” These days it is only marginally less blunt. “Unfortunately, we are sorry that it’s hard for us to arrange [interviews] at the moment.” The temptation is to give it a dose of its own medicine and ignore it.“我们只想专注于我们的产品，目前不接受任何采访。

”如今，该公司的态度没有过去那么生硬了，但也只是稍微缓和。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

A new study finds preschool can be detrimental to children一项新的研究发现，学前教育对孩子可能并没有好处But the picture may not be as gloomy as it seems但前景或许并不那么悲观Free, universal preschool for three- and four-year-olds is a key component of the Democrats’ agenda. Proponents say pre-kindergarten, or pre-K, education can be transformative for children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds. A new study seems to contradict this.为三、四岁儿童提供免费、普及的学前教育是民主党议程的一个关键组成部分。

支持者表示，学前教育对儿童（尤其是对那些来自弱势家庭的儿童来说）能够起到变革性作用。

一项新的研究似乎得出了与之相矛盾的结论。

It finds that children who attended a pre-K programme in Tennessee actually scored worse on a range of education and behavioural measures. Yet this might reflect general improvements in early education rather than the impact of one programme.该研究发现，在田纳西州参加学前教育项目的儿童实际上在一系列教育和行为指标上得分更低。

不过，这可能反映了早期教育的普遍改善，而不是一个项目的影响。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

What are the keys to a successful life?成功的关键是什么?No matter what your goals are in life, there is one great law that you need to obey in order to be successful: No one else is going to climb the ladder of success for you. No one else is responsible for your health, wealth, happiness, or success. From the day you leave your parents’ house and start to make your own choices, you are responsible for your life and the choices you make.无论你的人生目标是什么，要想成功，你必须遵守一条伟大的法则：没有人会替你登上成功的阶梯。

没有人会对你的健康、财富、幸福或成功负责。

从你离开父母家开始做出自己的选择的那一天起，你就要对自己的生活和选择负责。

You choose the job you work in, the person you live with, and how much you exercise every day. Only you can choose how you spend your time, and the decisions you make on a consistent basis will make or break your life.你可以选择你的工作、与你一起生活的另一伴以及每天的运动量。

只有你自己可以选择如何分配你的时间，而你所做的决定将会成就或毁掉你的生活。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

The 19th century French philosopher Auguste Comte got it wrong: demography is not destiny.19世纪法国哲学家奥古斯特•孔德错了：人口并不决定命运。

Population trends are some of the strongest forces in economics, affecting global prosperity, the growth of individual nations and the strength of public finances. But reducing the success of countries and regions to their trends in births, deaths and migration is a simplification too far.各种人口趋势是经济学中最强大的一些力量，影响着全球繁荣、单个国家的增长和公共财政的实力。

但是，将国家和区域的成功归结于其出生、死亡和人口移徙趋势是一种过于简单化的做法。

As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, the confident predictions in 2020 of a lockdown baby boom followed by the 2021 fear of a Covid baby bust demonstrate that demographic trends are far less stable than often imagined. Small changes in fertility, mortality and migration can have immense effects.正如新冠疫情所显示的那样，2020年对疫情封锁会带来一波婴儿潮的自信预测，以及接下来的2021年对疫情会造成婴儿荒的担忧，表明人口趋势远没有通常想象的那么稳定。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Surging living costs force Britons to work past retirement age生活成本飙升迫使英国人退休后继续工作The share of older UK workers planning to carry on working in their retirement has nearly doubled in two years due to rising living costs and insufficient pension savings, according to a survey from Abrdn.根据Abrdn的一项调查，由于生活成本上升和养老金储蓄不足，计划退休后继续工作的英国老年员工比例在两年内增加了近一倍。

The investment manager’s stark findings underscore the impact of soaring energy and food prices on household budgets, which is pressuring people’s finances as inflation hits a 30-year high.这家投资管理公司的严峻调查结果凸显出能源和食品价格飙升对家庭预算的影响。

随着通胀触及30年高点，家庭预算正给人们的财务状况带来压力。

Surveying people planning to retire in 2022, Abrdn found that 66 per cent respondents proposed to continue with some form of employment beyond retiring, up from just over 50 per cent in a similar study last year and just 34 per cent in 2020.Abrdn对计划2022年退休的人进行了调查，发现66%的受访者打算在退休后继续从事某种形式的工作，而在去年的一项类似研究中，这一比例略高于50%，而在2020年，这一比例仅为34%。

考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Plastic surgeons make a bundle despite Lebanon’s economic crisis尽管黎巴嫩遭遇经济危机，但整形外科医生还是赚了一大笔钱Many people have no jobs. Others, nose jobs许多人失业了，除了隆鼻医生Rhinoplasty has long been a rite of passage in Lebanon. Teenage girls want a dainty new nose in time for their graduation parties, celebrated in selfies. Lebanon’s many woes have not hindered the habit.隆鼻手术一直以来都是黎巴嫩人的一种成人礼。

十几岁的女孩想要一个精致的新鼻子，以便在毕业派对上自拍庆祝。

黎巴嫩的许多苦难并没有妨碍这种习惯。

Plastic surgeons are apparently making as much as or more than they did before an economic crisis, starting in 2019, that the World Bank has ranked as the third-worst anywhere, ever.从2019年开始，整形外科医生的收入显然与经济危机（世界银行将其列为有史以来最严重的第三大经济危机）前持平，甚至更高。

The World Health Organisation reckons that Lebanon’s economic meltdown prompted nearly 40% of the country’s doctors to leave. But for those who have stayed, the pickings, especially for nose jobs, may have increased. The pool of patients has stayed the same. There are fewer dexterous doctors to paddle in it.世界卫生组织估计，黎巴嫩的经济崩溃促使该国近40%的医生离开。

考研英语经济学人文章阅读训练2020011801

Unpacking the rise of urban coyotes揭秘城市郊狼的崛起The attacker sprang from the tall grass in a lakefront park,leaving a five-year-old victim terrified,blood streaming from his head.After the boywas taken to hospital,a hunt ensued.Helicopters,police and specialist trackers fanned across the Chicago neighbourhood.从湖滨公园高出的草丛中扑出来的袭击者让一名5岁的受害者头破血流、惊恐万分。

在将这名男孩送往医院后，一场狩猎随之展开。

直升机、警察和专业追踪人员在芝加哥周边地区展开了行动。

A man brought himself to hospital saying he,too,had been bitten.Two nearby schools were locked down for a day.Eventually a suspect—a brindle coyote with puppy-dog eyes—was apprehended behind a theatre.随后又有一名男子自行来到医院，声称自己也被咬伤。

附近的两所学校也因此停课一天。

最终，人们在一家剧院的后面逮到了嫌疑犯（一只长着小狗般眼睛、身上布满斑点的郊狼）。

The incident excited much of Chicago.Although coyote attacks on humans are rare,the animals have become an increasingly common part of urban American life.Once mostly found west of the Mississippi,they have spread east.这一事件让许多芝加哥市民激愤不已。