0903高级口译听力NTGF文本与关键词

发布时间：2009-03-15

作者：

来源于：昂立外语网站

昂立教育全国独家首发交大昂立口译研究中心出品

主题为城市化的消极面，全长6分钟左右。把重要的词汇黑体标出。

How is urbanization negatively affecting our society? The answer to this question is not a simple one. When answering this question, one must understand that urbanization cannot be stopped but only contained in a manner that will help the United States to function better as a country.

The more densely-populated and more heterogeneous a community is, the more accentuated characteristics can be associated with urbanism. Urbanism promotes urban violence, political instability, crime and aggressive behavior. Rapid population growth in urban areas also perpetuates poverty. Another major issue being created by this social problem is the breaking of the traditional family structure. Our cities are not working well---sanitation, safety, transportation, housing, education, and even electricity are failing. These are all responsibilities of the government, or it is at least their job to regulate these services deemed to be monopolies. And it is a known fact that monopolies deem toward inefficiency.

Functionalists look at our cities as a means to profit. Cities are a place where everybody visits. And therefore vendors can raise their prices and profit more on their products. For example, from my own personal experience, I bought a pack of cigarettes for three dollars at my local gas station. And when I visited inner city Orlando, I bought the same brand of cigarettes for four dollars.

In the United States, the breaking of the traditional family structure is an issue that has become increasingly noticeable in recent years, particularly in urbanized areas. The traditional mom-and-dad-and-children are rarely seen in the inner cities any more. There is a weakened bond of kinship and declining social family significance as America has transferred industrial, educational and recreational activities to specialized institutions outside of the home. It is depriving families of their most characteristic, historical functions. With divorce rates rising, delinquency is also becoming more of a problem than before. In single-parent families, parents spend less time with children. These specialized institutions often help, but cannot replace the role of a child guardian. As long as the divorce rate continues to increase, delinquency will continue to increase in these areas as well.

The variations of people give rise to segregation of people by race, religious practices, ethnic heritage as well as economic and social status. Segregation often creates much tension and prejudice between social groups. This can cause physical or mental damage to individuals or society. As for racism and segregation, there is not much that can be done to fix these problems. Individuals will always have their own opinions, no matter how ignorant. And the only thing we can do is to hope that these problems die out as we desegregate our community. People will choose their destination or place of residence according to many different ideals and needs, for example, what fits their budget? The government assumes major responsibility for development attempting to meet rapid and increasing demands for education, housing, agriculture and industrial development, transportation and employment. The government budget is not distributed equally mainly due to differentiation in areas. Areas with higher income will obviously have a higher budget to work with.

Urban areas are usually lacking in financial resources, therefore they are not able to repair all the problems in these areas, such as sanitation, education and many other categories. America has hired 50% more teachers in the last few years than have been hired in the past, but the increase in population keeps the classrooms just as large. The effort does not meet the need, thus the problem remains as strong as ever. Due to the overpopulation in urban areas and the lack of employment opportunity, the crime rate is still a huge problem in which they are faced with. Also, the lack of the traditional family structure and weakened bonds of kinship weaken the moral of the children growing up in the urban areas. These children grow up in poverty, and usually look at crime as a quick and easy way out. Problems in urban areas are far more serious than can be handled in any short-term efforts. We can only hope to contain them and attempt to make sure that no more problems arise from the already existing ones.