每日听写8.14-18（选）初级汇总

每日听写8.14-18（选）初级经济学人汇总 每日听写8.14-17（选）初级智能卡片代替现金 The Americas 美洲 Chile: Going Nowhere 智利：无处可去 The Capital's public transport system is sputtering. 智利首都的交通系统饱受诟病。 Transantiago, the Chilean capital's public-transport system, had its tenth birthday in February, but no one celebrated. 智利首都的公共交通系统“圣地亚哥通”在二月份迎来了十岁的生日，但是没有人为之欢欣鼓舞。 Launched with much fanfare, the scheme was supposed to integrate bus and metro lines and speed up traffic. 在一片锣鼓喧天中，圣地亚哥通开始问世，该项计划原本预计能够整合公交和地铁线路从而让交通更为快捷。 Smog-spewing yellow buses disappeared. 喷着烟雾的黄色公交消失了。 Smart cards replaced cash. 智能卡片取代了现金。 But Transantiago is sputtering. 但是，圣地亚哥通饱受争议。 Fare evasion is rampant, journeys are getting slower and the state has spent billions of dollars to prop up private bus operators. 逃票现象很猖獗，出行速度越来越慢，同时政府已经花费数十亿美元来赞助民营公交运营商。 Passengers sometimes wait ages at stops scrawled with graffiti with no inkling of when the next bus will arrive. 有时，乘客得在画满涂鸦的站牌下，等候着不知什么时候到站的巴士。 The city has hired too few inspectors to catch fare-dodgers and motorists who stray into bus lanes (though cameras are catching some of the errant cars). 城市中的查票员和巡警不足，很难抓住逃票者以及那些违规占用公交车道的司机（即使摄像头能够抓住一些违法车辆）。 Sometimes buses are so crowded that even honest passengers have trouble reaching the card-swiper. 有时候，公交车非常拥挤以至于最诚实的乘客也难以接触扫卡器。 Increasingly, passengers are less inclined to pay. 渐渐地，乘客们不太愿意付钱了。 Despite the subsidies, fares have risen by 40% since 2010, far faster than most prices. 尽管有政府的补助，自2010年起公共交通的车费上涨了40%，这比其他开销上涨速度要快得多。 Bus journeys have slowed by 8% since 2012. 但是，旅程时间却比2012年慢了8%。 For some, fare-dodging is a form of protest. 对于一些人来说，逃票就是一种抗争行为。 Guillermo Munoz, the metropolitan area's director of public transport, admits that in some parts of the capital the service is “very bad”. 公共交通系统的地区领导人Guillermo Munoz承认在首都的一些地方，公共交通服务是极其糟糕的。 Last month Chile's transport minister resigned, in part to take responsibility for Transantiago's failings. 上个月，智利的交通部长辞职，部分原因就是为圣地亚哥通的失败承担责任。 Espacio Publico says one reason for the high subsidies is that too few companies operate the buses. Espacio Publico谈到政府为公共交通提供高额补贴是因为运营公交的公司太少了。 The system began with 16 operators but dropouts and mergers have shrunk the number to seven. 该系统原本有16家运营商，但是有些退出或者合并，现在只剩下七家。 The largest firms operate 1,200 buses apiece. 最大的公司独自运营1200辆公交。 This makes them “too big to fail”, says Clemente Perez of Espacio Publico. Espacio Publico智囊机构的Clemente Perez谈到，这使得这些运营商“规模太大以至于不会破产”。 Hence the subsidies to keep money-losing companies afloat. 于是，补贴使赔钱公司继续运转。 No company should have more than 10% of the market, Mr Perez thinks. Perez认为，任何一家公司都不应该有超过10%的市场占有率。 The city will have a chance to correct that next year, when contracts to operate bus lines are to expire. 圣地亚哥明年有机会去进行改进，因为到时候与公交运营商的合同就会到期。 It is likely to encourage smaller and newer companies to enter the market. 政府很有可能让小型的新公司进入市场。 That might release money for improvements. 这可能会让更多钱流入市场从而情况得到改善。 The new transport minister, Paola Tapia, has created a task-force to help reduce fare-dodging and promised more money for inspectors. 新的交通部长Paola Tapia已经成立工作小组来协助减少逃票现象，同时承诺给检票员提高工资。 With luck, Transantiago could become a service that commuters are happy to pay for. 如果一切顺利的话，Transantiago应该会变成一款令通勤者们愉快付钱的交通服务。 每日听写8.18（选）初级优生学保护动物要坚守立场 The Americas 美洲 Protecting Wild Lives: Stand your ground beef 保护野生动物：坚守立“场” Cows that are good at self-defense are also good for jaguars. 能自卫的牛也能抵御美洲豹。 Ranchers in Colombia's Meta department can be vengeful folk. 哥伦比亚梅塔省的农场主们有时候是群记仇的家伙。 From time to time jaguars emerge from a clump of forest, streak across the savannah and attack one of a panic-stricken herd of cows. 美洲豹时常从丛林深处冲出来，飞快地穿过大草原去袭击一群惊慌失措的牛。 When that happens, ranchers hunt the offender down and shoot it. 当这种情况发生的时候,农场主们会追捕这些入侵者并射杀它们。 That practice is endangering the cats' survival. 但是这种行为却使得美洲豹的生存受到威胁。 Panthera, a charity that manages “corridors” for jaguars that stretch from Argentina to Mexico, guesses that just 5,000 of the cats are left in los llanos, Colombia's scorching savannah. 潘瑟拉是一个专管美洲豹从阿根廷到墨西哥这个“廊道”的慈善机构，据他们猜测，大概仅有5000只美洲豹还存留在哥伦布亚灼热的大草原上。 It has come up with a less violent way of protecting both the jaguars and the cattle. 他们提出了一个不那么暴力的方法来同时保护美洲豹和牛群。 The idea is to teach cattle self-defense, or rather to breed the instinct into them. 这个点子就是教会牛去自卫，要不就给它们培养这样的本能。