英语演讲比赛文章
2020-03-02 04:22:53 来源：范文大全收藏下载本文
WORKING FROM HOME‘COULD SAVE BILLIONS’
Strategic Workstyles 2000, an Oxford forecasting unit, says that industry could make huge financial savings by allowing their staff to work from home.Noel Hodson, the report’s author, says that the effects of allowing 15 per cent of Britain’s 22 million workforce to work in their own homes using telephones, facsimile machines and computers would be enormous.London would feel the biggest benefits with 526,000 fewer drivers on the roads.More than 11,000 commuters would not need to enter central London daily.Commuters would benefit from seeing their families more, saving up to four hours a day travelling to work.Companies would have a fresher workforce which did not need to be transported into a central, expensive location daily.A study for a big financial institution planning to allow 20 people to ‘telecommute’ calculated that the company would save more than ￡430,000 per year.The study examines the reasons why telecommuting has not achieved the advantages of time saved and cost cutting.It says the managers are often nervous about leaving staff unattended and out of sight of the office.For the ‘teleworker’, working from
home might bring unforeseen hazards, such as a partner who does not want the house invaded by machinery and office paperwork.‘A number of car commuters
thoroughly enjoy the total isolation and privacy, available to them in their cars, ’the report says.(出自 Key Words in the Media 柯林氏新聞英語)
YOUTH Youth is not a time of life—it is a state of mind.It is not a matter of red cheeks, red lips and supple knees.It is a temper of the will; a quality of the imagination; a vigor of the emotions; it is a freshne of the deep springs of life.Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over a life of ease.This often exists in a man of fifty, more than in a boy of twenty.Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair— these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart a love of wonder; the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts; the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what comes next, and the joy in the game of life.You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair.In the central place of your heart there is a wirele station.So long as it receives meages of beauty, hope, cheer, grandeur, courage, and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite—so long are you young.When the wires are all down and the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of peimism and the ice of cynicism, then are you grown old, indeed! –Samuel Ullman Excerpt from Chapter 86 of Life of Pi The ship slid by for what seemed like a mile, a mile of high, black canyon wall, a mile of castle fortification with not a single sentinel to notice us languishing in the moat.I fired off a rocket flare, but I aimed it poorly.Instead of surging over the bulwarks and exploding in the captain\'s face, it ricocheted off the ship\'s side and went straight into the Pacific, where it died with a hi.I blew on my whistle with all my mighty.I shouted at the top of my lungs.All to no avail.Its engines rumbling loudly and its propellers chopping explosively underwater, the ship churned past us, and left us bouncing and bobbing in its frothy wake.After so many weeks of natural sounds, these mechanical noises were strange and awesome and stunned me into silence.In le than twenty minutes a ship of three hundred thousand tons became a speck on the horizon.When I turned away, Richard Parker was still looking in its direction.After a few seconds he turned away too and our gazes briefly met.My eyes expreed longing, hurt, anguish, loneline.All he was aware of was that something streful and momentous had happened, something beyond the outer limits of his understanding.He did not see that it was salvation barely mied.He only saw that the alpha here, this odd, unpredictable tiger, had been very excited.He settled down to another nap.His sole comment on the event was a cranky meow.\"I love you!\" The words burst out pure and unfettered, infinite.The feeling flooded my chest.\"Truly I do.I love you, Richard Parker.If I didn\'t have you now, I don\'t know what I would do.I don\'t think I would make it.No, I wouldn\'t.I would die of hopelene.Don\'t give up, Richard Parker, don\'t give up.I\'ll get you to land, I promise, I promise!\" – Yann Martel
Excerpt from The Old Man and the Sea It was dark now as it becomes dark quickly after the sun sets in September.He lay against the worn wood of the bow and rested all that he could.The first stars were out.He did not know the name of Rigel but he saw it and knew that soon they would all be out and he would have all his distant friends.\"The fish is my friend too,\" he said aloud.\"I have never seen or heard of such a fish.But I must kill him, I am glad we do not have to try to kill the stars.\" Imagine if each day a man must try to kill the moon, he thought.The moon runs away.But imagine if a man each day should have to try to kill the sun? We were born lucky, he thought.Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him.How many people will he feed, he thought.But are they worthy to eat him? No, of course not.There is no one worthy of eating him from the manner of his behavior and his great dignity.I do not understand these things, he thought.But it is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars.It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.– Ernest Hemingway Public Attitudes Toward Science Whether we like it or not, the world we live in has changed a great deal in the last hundred years, and it is likely to change even more in the next hundred.Some people would like to stop these changes and go back to what they see as a purer and simple age.But as history shows, the past was not that wonderful.It was not so bad for a privileged minority, though even they had to do without modern medicine, and childbirth was highly risky for women.But for the vast majority of the population, life was nasty and short.Anyway, even if one wanted to, one couldn’t put the clock back to an earlier age.Knowledge and techniques can’t just be forgotten.Nor can one prevent further advances in the future.Even if all government money for research were cut off, the force of competition would still bring about advances in technology.Moreover, one cannot stop inquiring minds from thinking about basic science, whether or not they were paid for it.If we accept that we cannot prevent science and technology from changing our world, we can at least try to ensure that the changes they make are in the right directions.In a democratic society, this means that the public needs to have a basic understanding of science.What can be done to harne this interest and give the public the scientific background it needs to make informed decisions on subjects like acid rain, the greenhouse effect, nuclear weapons, and genetic engineering? Clearly, the basis must lie in what is taught in schools.─Stephen Hawking ( 出自Select Readings )
The Rabbits Who Caused All the Trouble Within the memory of the youngest child there was a family of rabbits who lived near a pack of wolves.The wolves announced that they did not like the way the rabbits were living.(The wolves were crazy about the way they themselves were living, because it was the only way to live.) One night several wolves were killed in an earthquake and this was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that rabbits pound on the ground with their hind legs and cause earthquakes.On another night one of the wolves was killed by a bolt of lightning and this was also blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that lettuce-eaters cause lightning.The wolves threatened to civilize the rabbits if they didn’t behave, and the rabbits decided to run away to a desert island.But the other animals, who lived at a great distance, shamed them, saying, “You must stay where you are and be brave.This is no world for escapists.If the wolves attack you, we will come to your aid, in all probability.”So the rabbits continued to live near the wolves and one day there was a terrible flood which drowned a great many wolves.This was blamed on the rabbits, for it is well known that carrot-nibblers with long ears cause floods.The wolves descended on the rabbits, for their own good, and imprisoned them in a dark cave, for their own protection.When nothing was heard about the rabbits for some weeks, the other animals demanded to know what had happened to them.The wolves replied that the rabbits had been eaten and since they had been eaten the affair was a purely internal matter.But the other animals warned that they might poibly unite against the wolves unle some reason was given for the destruction of the rabbits.So the wolves gave them one.“They were trying to escape,”said the wolves, “and, as you know, this is no world for escapists.”
Moral: Run, don’t walk, to the nearest desert island.-James Thurber (出自The Sounds of American English)
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