甘肃专升本公共课英语阅读短文背单词 1-5

Passage 1

One day a bookseller (书商) let a big box of books fall on his foot. “Go to see the doctor,” said his wife. “No,” he said, “I’ll wait until the doctor comes into the shop next time. Then I’ll ask him about my foot. If I go to see him, I’ll have to pay him.”

On the next day the doctor came into the shop for some books. When the bookseller was getting them ready, he told the doctor about his bad foot. The doctor looked at it.

“You must put that foot in hot water every night. Then you must put something on it,” said the doctor.

He took out a piece of paper and wrote on it. “Buy this and put it on the foot before you go to bed every night,” he said.

“Thank you,” said the bookseller. “And now, sir, here are your books.”

“How much?” said the doctor.

“Two pounds.”

“Good,” said the doctor. “I shall not have to pay you anything.”

“Why?” asked the bookseller.

“I told you about your foot. I want two pounds for that. If people come to my house, I ask them to pay one pound for a small thing like that. But when I go to their houses, I want two pounds. And I came here, didn’t I?”

译文：

一天一位书商被一大箱书砸到了脚。他妻子说：“去看医生吧。”他说：“不，我要等医生下次到店里来，然后让他帮我看脚。如果到他那里看，我就得付给他诊金了。”

第二天医生到店里来买书。书商把书找齐，然后把脚伤告诉了医生。医生给他看脚。

医生说：“你每晚要用热水泡脚，然后上药。

他拿出一张纸写下药方，说：“买这种药，然后每晚睡前涂在脚上。”

书商说：“谢谢。那么，先生，这是您的书。”

医生问：“多少钱?”

“两英镑。”

“太好了，”医生说：“我就不用付你钱了。”

“为什么?”书商问道。

“我给你看了脚，收你两英镑。像那样的小伤，如果到我那里看，我只收一英镑。但是要我出诊，就收两英镑。而我到你这里来给你看病了，不是吗?”

Passage 2

Today Newton is a very clean place. Many years ago, however, there were millions of rats in it. They attacked the cats and dogs. Sometimes a great number of them knocked down a man or woman walking home at night. The rats were very large in size and they harmed many people.

The government ordered everybody to kill rats. Most people were lazy, so they didn’t kill many. The government promised to pay some money for each dead rat. That made the people very happy. They killed thousands of rats every day. A government officer put all the dead rats in a big pile. Sometimes a man brought hundreds in one day.

After two weeks there were not many rats in the city, but people still brought many rats to the government office. The government officer thought that people were stealing dead rats from the pile. He ordered his men to dig a deep hole and put the rats in it. Soon there were no more rats, and the government didn’t pay any more money.

译文：

如今牛顿市是一个非常干净的地方。然而，很多年前，那里有上百万只老鼠。它们袭击猫狗。走夜路回家的人中，无论男女，也经常有人被一大群老鼠撞倒。那些老鼠个头很大，使很多人受伤。

政府下令每个人都要灭鼠。大多数人都很懒，所以灭掉的不多。政府许诺会为每只死老鼠付赏金，这让人们很兴奋。每天人们灭掉成千上万只老鼠，一名政府工作人员将死老鼠堆成一大堆。有时一个人一天就带来几百只死老鼠。

两周后，城里就没有很多老鼠了。但人们仍然将大量死老鼠带到政府工作人员那里。他认为有人在从老鼠堆里偷死老鼠，于是命令属下挖一个深坑，将死老鼠丢进坑里。很快那里就没有老鼠了，政府也不用再付赏金了。

Passage 3

Mr. Tom Forester lived by himself a long way from town. He hardly ever left his home, but one day he went into town to buy some things in the market. After he had bought them, he went into a restaurant and sat down at a table by himself. When he looked around, he saw several old people put glasses on before reading their newspapers, so after lunch he decided to go to a shop to buy himself some glasses too. He walked along the road, and soon found a shop.

The man in the shop made him try on a lot of glasses, but Tom always said, “No, I can’t read with these.”

The man became more and more puzzled (迷惑不解), until finally he said, “Excuse me, but can you read at all?”

“No, of course I can’t!” Tom said angrily. “If I was already able to read, do you think I would have come here to buy glasses?”

译文：

汤姆·福瑞斯特先生独自一人住在离城镇很远的地方。他几乎足不出户，但有一天，他到城里的市场上买点东西。买完后，他走进一家餐馆，单独坐在桌边。环顾四周，他看到几位老人读报纸前都先戴上眼镜，所以午餐后，他决定到商店去给自己也买副眼镜。沿街走着，很快就找到一家店。

店员让他试戴了好几副眼镜，但汤姆总是说：“不，我戴这副眼镜无法阅读。”

店员越来越感到迷惑不解，直到最后他问道：“恕我失礼，但请问您究竟会阅读吗?”

“当然不会啦!”汤姆生气地说：“如果我已经能够阅读的话，你以为我还会来这儿买眼镜吗?”

Passage 4

Once James Thornhill, a famous English painter, was asked to paint some pictures on the walls of the king’s palace in England.

Then workers were sent for and a big platform (台子) was made.

With the help of a worker, Thornhill started painting on the platform. They worked for a whole year and at last the pictures were ready.

Thornhill was happy when he looked at the pictures, for they were really beautiful. He looked at them for a long time, and then took one step back and looked again. Now the pictures were even more beautiful. He took another step, then another. Finally he was at the very edge of the platform, but he didn’t know it because he was thinking of his picture.

The worker saw everything. “What should I do?” he thought. “Thornhill was at the very edge of the platform. If I cry out, he will take another step, fall off it and surely be killed.” So the worker quickly took some paint (漆) and threw it at the pictures.

“What are you doing?” cried the painter, running quickly forward to his pictures.

译文：

詹姆斯·桑希尔是一名英国画家。有一次,他奉命在皇宫的墙壁上作画。

之后派来了一些工匠，支起一个平台。

在一名工匠的帮助下，桑希尔开始在平台上作画。他们工作了一整年，油画终于完成。

桑希尔望著油画很开心,因为那些油画很是美丽。他看了很长时间，然后退一步再看，现在感觉更美了。他又退一步, 然后再一步，最后已经很靠近平台边缘了，但他并不知道，因为他只想著自己的画。

工匠看到了一切。“我该怎么做呢?”他想到，“桑希尔已经在平台的边缘了，如果大声喊叫，他会再退一步，从平台上摔下来，肯定会死。”于是工匠迅速拿油漆泼向油画。

“你在干嘛?”画家喊道，飞快向油画跑来。

Passage 5

Morgan Rees has always been a good businessman. He used to own three petrol stations and was busy most of the time. When he was 65, the normal retirement age, he decided that he didn’t want to stop, so he carried on working for another two years. Eventually, when he was nearly 68, his wife, Dolly, asked him to retire because she wanted to enjoy their old age together. Reluctantly, he handed over the business to his son.

But he was unhappy. He didn’t know what to do with himself. Although he read a lot of books and he went on holiday to interesting places with his wife, he was bored and began to get depressed because he hated being retired.

Then one day he saw an advertisement in the newspaper and, without telling his wife, he bought a small crockery (陶器) factory. The next week he told his family. They were horrified and worried. They thought he was too old at 71 to start work again.

He is now 76 and he has expanded the company considerably. He has increased the number of staff from 6 to 24 and he has found many new customers for the products. He has developed the export market and has improved profits by 200%. He has opened a new design office and employed three young designers. They have been all over the world to get new ideas, and one of them has gone to France this week to a major trade fair. Most importantly, he hasn’t been bored since he bought the factory.

译文：

摩根·里斯一直是一位不错的生意人。他曾有过3个加油站，而且一直都很忙。当他65岁时, 也就是正常的退休年龄时，他决定不想停止工作，所以他又接着干了两年。结果在他快68岁的时候，他妻子多丽让他退休，希望能和他一起共度晚年的时光。所以他非常不情愿地把业务交给了自己的儿子。

但是他并不高兴。他不知自己该怎么办。尽管他读了很多的书，而且也和妻子一起去一些好玩的地方去度假，但是他感到很无聊，并且由于讨厌退休而开始变得压抑沮丧。

在这之后的一天，他在报纸上看到了一则广告，也没有告诉他妻子，他就买下了一家小陶器厂。一周后他才告诉家里人。他们为此感到惊讶，而且有些担心。大家认为他不能以71岁高龄再重新开始工作了。

现在他76岁，已经显著地扩大了公司的规模。公司的员工人数从6人增加到24人，而且他还开发了很多新客户。他也开拓了出口市场，利润增长200%。他还开办了一家新的设计室，并且聘用了三名年轻人。他们一直世界各地四处发掘新的信息，其中的一位本周已经去了法国参加一次重大的商品交易会。最为重要的是，自从他收购了这家工厂后，他便不再感到没事可做。