考研英语阅读题源之经济学人精选文章之十二

Berlin’s brave bikers柏林勇敢的骑行者The German capital wants drivers to stop killing cyclists德国首都希望司机不再杀害骑行者If the streets are safer,more people will pedal如果路上可以更安全，更多的人会选择骑车出行T eddybears,candles and flowers are piled up around a white-painted bike on the side of the road.This is a memorial to an eight-year-old boy who died after being hit by a truck while cycling with his mother to school.路边一辆白色自行车旁摆着一些泰迪熊、蜡烛和鲜花。

这是为了追悼一名8岁的小男孩，他是在和母亲骑车上学的途中被一辆卡车撞死的。

These white“ghost bikes”are dotted around Berlin at spots where cyclists have perished.In2018nearly one cyclist a month died on the roads of Germany’s capital.这些白色的“幽灵自行车”分布在柏林街头各个骑行者的身亡之处。

2018年，平均每个月约有一名骑行者死在德国首都的街头。

Berlin’s state government,a three-way Social-Democrat,Green and Left Party coalition,is promising a“transport revolution”to reduce the number of road deaths to zero.柏林州政府（一个由社会民主党、绿党和左翼党组成的三方联合政府）承诺要进行一场“交通革命”，将道路死亡人数降为零。

How to reveal a country’s sense,over the years,of its own well-being 如何揭开一个国家多年来的主观幸福感Read its books.By computer利用计算机扫描其书刊Do a country’s inhabitants get happier as it gets richer?Most governments seem to believe so,given their relentless focus on increasing GDP year by year.Reliable,long-term evidence linking wealth and happiness is,however,lacking.And measuring well-being is itself fraught with problems,since it often relies on surveys that ask participants to assess their own levels of happiness subjectively.一个国家越富有，其人民就越幸福吗？鉴于大多数政府都坚持不懈地致力于逐年提高GDP，它们似乎是认同这一点的。

然而，我们尚缺乏能够证明财富与幸福相关联的可靠而长期的证据。

衡量幸福感本身就存在很多问题，因为它往往依赖于要求参与者主观评估自己幸福水平的调查。

Daniel Sgroi of the University of Warwick and Eugenio Proto of the University of Glasgow,both in Britain,think,nevertheless,that they have an answer.尽管如此，英国华威大学的丹尼尔·斯格里和格拉斯哥大学的尤金尼奥·普罗托认为他们找到了答案。

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。

Why an“Uber for tailors”is gaining ground in Lagos“裁缝优步”为何能在拉各斯发展起来？“Rich and poor,everyone has a tailor here,”says Olajire Omikunle,a couturier for Nigeria’s powerful.So great is the appeal of a well-cut outfit in Lagos,Nigeria’s commercial centre,that roadside stitchers rove the streets armed with their sewing machines and clicking their large scissors to drum up customers.尼日利亚颇具影响力的服装设计师奥拉吉尔·奥米昆勒说：“无论贫富，这里的每个人都有自己的裁缝。

”在尼日利亚的商业中心拉各斯，一套剪裁考究的服装如此具有吸引力，以至于街头裁缝们会带着他们的缝纫机在街道上来回穿梭，并拿着大剪刀咔嚓咔嚓地招揽着顾客。

David Peterside,a local entrepreneur,hopes to capitalise on this sartorial obsession with a new app that is being dubbed an“Uber for tailors”.Fashion Map allows natty Nigerians to find a suitmaker at the press of a button.当地企业家戴维·彼得赛德希望借着人们对服装的痴迷，开发一款名为“裁缝优步”的新应用。

整洁时髦尼日利亚人只需按下一个按钮，便能在时尚地图上找到一位裁缝。

It may be a perfect fit for Africa’s most populous country.Nigeria has a fast-growing base of smartphone users and“over100,000registered tailors”,says Otunba Wasiu Taiwo of the Nigeria Union of Tailors.“We are still counting.”该应用或许非常适合这个非洲人口最多的国家。

Defending Switzerland’s coffee stockpile捍卫瑞士的咖啡储备If disaster strikes,the Swiss want to be caffeinated当灾难来袭时，瑞士人需要咖啡因To defend their independence the Swiss have mountains,conscription and a fierce sense of self-reliance.They also have a vast stockpile of food, medicine,animal feed and cooking oil,which they have maintained since the1920s.This makes sieges easier to withstand,but costs a fortune.瑞士人靠着山脉、兵役制度和强烈的自力更生精神捍卫着国家的主权独立。

自上世纪20年代以来，瑞士一直保持着大量的食品、药品、动物饲料和食用油储备。

这使得瑞士更容易抵御敌人的围攻，但这同时代价不菲。

So in April the Federal Office for National Economic Supply announced a plan to trim it a little.In future,it suggested,it would no longer pay for a huge emergency supply of coffee.This wonderful drink,it claimed,is not “vital for life”.因此，今年4月，瑞士联邦国家经济供应办公室宣布了一项略微削减开支的计划。

它表示，今后将废除紧急物资储备中的咖啡储备。

理由则是，这种美味的饮品并不是“攸关生死的”。

Neanderthals had a propensity for earache,nudging them to their doom易患耳疾将尼安德特人推向了灭亡A new analysis of their skulls points to an anatomical problem一项对头颅的新研究指出了一个生理构造缺陷The last neanderthals vanished from Earth about40,000years ago.Exactly what drove them to extinction,however,remains a mystery,with their disappearance variously attributed to anything from climate change to inferior cognitive abilities or even cannibalism.在大约4万年前，最后一批尼安德特人消失在地球上。

但究竟是什么导致了他们的灭亡，至今仍是一个谜，关于他们灭亡原因有着各种各样的猜想，从气候变化到认知能力低下，再到同类相食。

Anthony Pagano,a medical researcher at Seton Hall University in New Jersey,has a new explanation.He thinks Neanderthals might have been unusually prone to severe ear infections,which left them struggling to compete against their Homo sapiens cousins.新泽西州西顿霍尔大学的医学研究员安东尼·帕加诺给出了一个新的解释。

他认为尼安德特人或许非常容易患上严重的耳部感染，这使得他们很难与智人相互竞争。

Malaysia’s elephants stay more outside protected areas than in马来西亚大象呆在保护区外的时间比呆在保护区内的时间更久The grub is better there因为那里有更好的食物Way back in 1999, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, adoyen of research into African elephants, made an intriguing discovery. Using the Global Positioning System (GPS) to track them—a first—he found that they knew exactly where the boundaries of protected areas were.早在1999年，研究非洲象的老前辈伊恩·道格拉斯-汉密尔顿就有了一个有趣的发现。

他最早利用全球定位系统（GPS）追踪非洲象，发现它们非常清楚保护区的边界在哪里。

They ranged freely within these areas, but when crossing between them, through apparently similar but unprotected habitat, they did so at night and at what was (for an elephant) a gallop.它们会在保护区内自由活动，而一旦想穿过看似没什么区别但未受保护的栖息地时，它们会选择在夜间且疾驰而过（对于大象而言）。

At first sight, it looks as though Asian elephants did not get the memo. They seem to travel outside protected areaswith gay abandon. But a study by Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, in Yunnan province, China, and Benoit Goossens of Danau Girang Field Centre, in Sabah, Malaysia, suggests that this abandon is not quite as gay as it seems.乍一看，亚洲象似乎不懂这些。

考研英语阅读题源《经济学人》文章：读大学是否还值得Higher education高等教育Is college worth it?读大学还值得吗?Too many degrees are a waste of money. The returnon higher education would be much better if collegewere cheaper太多的学位只是浪费金钱。

如果读大学更便宜，高等教育的回报会更高WHEN LaTisha Styles graduated from Kennesaw State University in Georgia in 2006 she had$35,000 of student debt. This obligation would have been easy to discharge if her Spanishdegree had helped her land a well-paid job. But there is no shortage of Spanish-speakers in anation that borders Latin America. So Ms Styles found herself working in a clothes shop and afast-food restaurant for no more than $11 an hour.2006年当LaTisha Styles从佐治亚州的Kennesaw州立大学毕业的时候，她欠下35000美元的学生贷款。

如果她的西班牙语学位能够帮助她获得报酬优厚的工作的话，债务会很容易偿清。

但在这个与拉丁美洲接壤的国度，从来不缺能说西语的人。

所以Styles女士为了每小时不高于11美元的薪水，沦落服装零售和快餐店。

Frustrated, she took the gutsy decision to go back to the same college and study somethingmore pragmatic. She majored in finance, and now has a good job at an investment consultingfirm. Her debt has swollen to $65,000, but she will have little trouble paying it off.受挫碰壁的她勇敢地作出决定，重新回到大学学习更为实用的课程。

Why Do We Make Weird Faces When We Taste Something Sour?为什么我们吃到酸的东西时会做出奇怪的表情?When you eat something really sour, the sensation isn't limited to your tongue. An especially tart bite has a way of making your entire face contract into a scrunched-up look of discomfort. If you can't resist puckering your mouth when you lick a lemon or snack on Sour Patch Kids, you can thank evolution.当你吃到很酸的东西时，你的感觉并不仅仅局限于舌头。

尤其是吃到特别酸的东西会让你的整张脸皱成一团，看起来很不舒服的样子。

如果你在吃到柠檬或很酸的食物时不由自主地要撅起嘴，那你得感谢进化。

That unmistakeable sour flavor that prickles you tastebuds is a product of the hydrogen ions that acids release when they combine with saliva. When your mouth detects this sign of acid, it lets you know in a dramatic way. Your taste receptors light up and your face twists involuntarily in what's known as a rejection response, according to Live Science.那种给你的味蕾带来明显刺痛感的酸味是酸与唾液结合时释放的氢离子产物。

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。