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词数：377 words
难度：★★★★☆
小贴士：
这篇文章可能又会让很多读者感到“万字丛中过，片叶不沾身”，单看每个词都认识，但合起来仿佛啥也没搞懂...
对此，提供以下几个小小的建议供大家参考：
1、在读文章的时候速览一下，摸一遍文章的主题
2、每读完一段，尝试总结该段的主要观点。比如，第一段提到布莱尔的改革原则，第二段讲述公共服务的现状、第三段改革的具体方式、第四段讲成效、第五段讲问题。
3、阅读每段时把握重点词汇（如表达观点的词、总结性词汇、转折词、承上启下的词等等）
4、读的时候不要聚焦于每个词，而是尝试理解每个句子的意思，边读边思考：这一大句讲的是什么？
5、阅读后输出自己的观点，对这篇文章主旨的理解
6、多阅读多练习
——大橙子留
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上期划线句答案
In brain injury recovery, health care professionals encourage patients to accept both their injured state and standard medical care as the way to live with unhealed or partially healed brain injury.
在脑损伤康复过程中，专业医护人员鼓励患者接受自己受伤的事实，同时接受标准的医疗护理，以此作为与未治愈或部分治愈的脑损伤共处的方式。
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本期内容
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双语阅读
Para.1
“CHOICE IS CHOICE!” exclaimed Tony Blair. Shortly after the 2001 election, the prime minister had gathered his advisers at Chequers, his grace-and-favour residence, to discuss public-sector reform. Three principles—setting standards, devolving budgets and reducing barriers between professions—had already been established. But someone had objected to a fourth, the idea that parents and patients should be offered choice.
Para.2
Labour has entered office, as it did in 1997, with public services in a mostly dire state. Its prospects at the next election in five years’ time will depend, perhaps above all, on how much voters feel that has changed. The Blair government’s approach was to develop a rigid set of ideas about how to run schools and hospitals and apply them rigorously. To see why that could become a problem, it helps to recall New Labour’s approach. Among those in the room at Chequers was Sir Michael Barber, an education adviser whom Sir Tony would soon poach to run a new “prime minister’s delivery unit”. Having spent years trying to reform failing schools, Sir Michael was disdainful of the idea—popular among unions and the wider Labour movement—that teachers or doctors should simply be trusted to run things. Too often, that meant accepting mediocrity.
Para.3
At a minimum, Sir Michael argued, ministers needed three things: a clear strategy, a view of standards and capacity, and the data to monitor outcomes. This became the basis of the delivery unit. Ministers would be hauled into Number 10 and grilled on progress against tightly defind targets like reducing waiting times or improving exam results. They, in turn, published league tables and penalised underperformers. Underpinning all of this was a belief that the left had got two big things wrong: seeing public-sector workers as motivated purely by altruism and public-sector users as passive beneficiaries.
Para.4
The method produced some brilliant results. Waiting times for operations fell much faster in England than in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which all rejected the reforms. English schools pulled ahead of Welsh ones. One study found that the drive to reduce A&E waiting times saved thousands of lives, especially among those who had suffered strokes. New Labour proved to be adept at turning bad schools and hospitals into adequate ones.
Para.5
The approach was less good at freeing adequate or good performers to innovate, says Ben Glover of Demos, a think-tank. It could be “stultifying”. It also tilted spending towards short-term goals: in the case of health care, more money went into hospitals than into prevention of illness. It led to some gaming of the rules. And although results improved many doctors and teachers disliked the mix of “targets and terror”.
本文节选自：The Economist（经济学人）
发布时间：2024.9.19
作者：Britain
原文标题：How will Labour reform Britain’s public services?
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写作句总结
原句：The Blair government’s approach was to develop a rigid set of ideas about how to run schools and hospitals and apply them rigorously.
结构：X's approach was to develop a rigid set of ideas about how to run Y and Z and apply them rigorously（adv）.
例句：Parents and educators' approach is to develop a structured set of strategies about how to cultivate good study habits and apply them consistently.
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阅读理解题
What can be inferred from the the underlined sentences in the passage?
A) The author supports the traditional views of the left.
B) Public-sector users are considered active participants in the system.
C) The public-sector reforms were solely focused on altruism.
D) The Blair government aimed to challenge existing perceptions about public-sector motivation.
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打卡作业
翻译文章中的划线句，文末留言打卡，下期推送会在文章开头处公布参考翻译答案，大家一起来学习英语吧~
翻译 | 大橙子
校对 | 李柚子
词汇词组 | 西西弗
划线句讲解 | 流木
写作句总结 | 沅沅
免责声明：本文来自网络公开资料，仅供学习交流，其观点和倾向不代表本公众号立场。
