常常，我们工科学生都被看作是学英语的“弱势群体”，但是越来越多的事实告诉我们，工科生也可以把英语学得很好。

在众多英语外刊中，《经济学人》内容和质量一直为人所称道和支持，每个学英语的人都向往最后可以实现无压力阅读。其内容的丰富和权威值得每个学英语的人作为英语学习的进阶材料。

虽称为经济学人，可是整本杂志的涵盖内容不仅仅包含经济金融方面的内容，而是极其广泛。

如图：

《经济学人》各个板块条例清晰，侧重不同，观点鲜明，建议大家找来体悟一下。

《经济学人》为国内考试所认可，常常被改编为考研和考博的题目内容。同时，也可以作为攻克出国考试，如雅思，托福等考试的辅助材料。

因为，它既可以满足雅思的9分标准：

Task Achievement

Coherence and Cohesion

Lexical Resource

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

又可以满足托福考试选材广泛，学术要求较高等诸多特点。

那么，在读了数百篇《经济学人》以及其他为数不少的外刊后，渐渐有些有益的实践经验的我，选取前一段时间高考在外媒引起的相关话题来推介自己的阅读方法，希望为读者提供丝毫的启发。选文清晰明了，词汇难度中等，希望起到抛砖引玉的作用。

China’s education system is deeply unfair（Excerpts）

Jun 4th 2016

NO CAR may honk nor lorry rumble near secondary schools on the two days next week when students are taking their university entrance exams, known as gaokao. 【Teenagers have been cramming for years for these tests, which they believe (with justification) will determine their entire future. Yet it is at an earlier stage of education that an individual’s life chances in China are usually mapped out, often in ways that are deeply unfair.】

Notice：

Honk：

1. n. a loud noise made by a car horn or goose ，雁叫声；汽车的喇叭声。

2.  v If a car horn or a goose honks, it makes a loud noise: （使）发出雁叫似的声音，鸣（喇叭），按（喇叭）

Rumble：

1. v. to make a series of long low sounds, especially a long distance away from you: 隆隆作响；（车辆）辘辘行驶

2. n. a series of long low sounds. 隆隆声，辘辘声

University entrance exams, known as gaokao.：高考

括号内内容可以作为关于考试的相关话题的习作观点和论点支持。表达自己对于考试决定一生这种观点的的不认可和反对。值得背诵~

在这里，如果读者水平比较好，笔者建议使用英英释义，更为准确、地道。因为所有的汉语释义在读者阅读之前，已经被字典的译者“加工”一遍了，意思或许会发生微变~

To give more students access to higher education, the government has increased its investment in the sector five fold since 1997. The number of universities has nearly doubled. In 1998 46% of secondary-school graduates went on to university. Now 88% of them do. About 7m people—roughly one-third of those aged between 18 and 22—now gain entry to some form of higher institution each year.

Sector：one of the areas into which the economic activity of a country is divided

（一国经济活动的）部门，领域，行业

例句：In the financial sector, banks and insurance companies have both lost a lot of money.在金融领域，银行和保险公司都损失严重。

在这一段中，重点提到了国家对于中国学生上学的难题采取的措施，大量的数字罗列。Increase, double, roughly等是描述数据的时候十分常见的词汇。

重点在于学习如何进行数字有效表达信息，说明问题所在，在表述数字的时候注重连词的正确和流畅使用。

China’s universities offer more opportunity for social mobility than those in many other countries, says James Lee of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. But the social backgrounds of those admitted have been changing. Until 1993, more than 40% of students were the children of farmers or factory workers. Now universities are crammed with people from wealthy, urban backgrounds. That is partly because a far bigger share of young people are middle-class. But it is also because rural Chinese face bigger hurdles getting into them than they used to.

Social mobility ：the ability to move from one level of society to another (个人从一个社会阶层转向另一个社会阶层的)社会流动

在这一段中，主要介绍了全国高考学生的背景和不公平根源所在，解决困难之大。

The problem lies with inequality of access to senior high schools, which take students for the final three years of their secondary education. Students from rural backgrounds who go to such schools perform as well in the university entrance exams as those from urban areas. But most never get there. Less than 10% of young people in the countryside go to senior high schools compared with 70% of their urban counterparts. The result is that a third of urban youngsters complete tertiary education, compared with only 8% of young rural adults.

Tertiary education ：education at college or university level:高等教育，大学教育

例句：More than 60% of American high school graduates start some form of tertiary education.

这一段主要介绍出生在的乡村高中生的学习窘境，由于环境原因最后可能无法进入大学学习之门，相比之下，城市高中生的升学率则高的太多。

经济学人中常见一些长难句（但是没有英语专业论文那么冗长，那么艰涩难懂），

The problem lies with inequality of access to senior high schools, which take students for the final three years of their secondary education. Students from rural backgrounds who go to such schools perform as well in the university entrance exams as those from urban areas.定于从句与状语从句组成的复合句，虽然在理解上可能会产生一定难度，但两个句子本身难度不大。….which…引导非限定性定语从句, as…as句型用来比较城市和乡村的区别。语法结构明晰，易于分析。

【One reason is that junior high schools in the countryside are far weaker academically than urban ones. Local governments invest less in them per student than they do in cities. Urban parents tend to be better educated and thus better able to help children with their studies. Rural pupils often suffer from a “poverty of expectations”,】 says Jean Wei-Jun Yeung of the National University of Singapore: they are not encouraged to think they can succeed, so they do not try to.

Academically： 学术上; 理论上。

在这一段主要介绍的是新加坡国立大学的专家提出为什么农村的孩子更加难以上大学的原因，其特点不仅仅在于外部环境，还在于家庭的压力，双重的窘境和困难使求学之路艰巨难行。

本段落主要表现的是某一方的观点，多具说理性。可以进行相关话题的仿写和背诵。对于应对托福，雅思写作训练的多论点和两论点话题仿写和实战大有裨益，也可作为文章论据的存储。

这样，通过以上的分析和举例，我们可以总结出读外刊的一些方法：

解决选文词汇难题，挑出重点短语，缕清句子结构，分析大致含义，补充背景知识，学习地道写作。通过这样有目的和计划的训练，经济学人等外刊的阅读不再是难题，而更是提高眼界、更换视角的过程。

如果你的词汇量可以达到2万词，那么阅读《经济学人》的词汇障碍会大大减小，如果可以达到3万词，那么读起来就会畅快很多。阅读的过程，也是快速增长词汇量的过程。在此，由于每个人的术业专攻不同，建议取长补短，逐步建立专属词库，或者多分类词库，以实现词汇的丰富度和数量扩展。

网络资源共享是获得《经济学人》的一个有效途径，在线字典的出现使得查询词汇便利和更具可获得性。《牛津双解词典》 ，《柯林斯高阶词典》 ，《韦氏大字典》等字典可以较为全面的提供纸质词汇研读途径。书写好电子笔记，可以分门别类归纳，比如，段落，文化背景，誊写在纸质笔记上形成《经济学人常用语字典》进行记忆背诵。

正是由于《经济学人》的权威性、难度高、内容广泛等特点，常常也会被选为翻译练习的源文章，专注于《经济学人》翻译分析的公众号，微博比比皆是，为我们做翻译练习提供了参看。因此，若想提高双语理解，可以选择相关文章进行翻译，和网上较为优美的译文对比。这样，翻译的水平就会不断提高。

最后，《经济学人》可以作为英语学习进阶提高的优秀材料。工科学生具有努力学习的精神，只要认真做好记录，勤加练习，一定可以在英语学习的过程中收获良多，提高自己的水平！