如何利用《经济学人》（The Economist）学英语？

确实可以说，在准备雅思的过程中，阅读《经济学人》对我的帮助非常大，虽然还没有考试，不知道雅思听说读写到底能考到什么地步，但是至少在阅读《经济学人》的过程中学到了知识，提高了英语水平，顺便还提升了逼格。

那我就试着大家分享一下，长线备战雅思（三到五个月），或者有足够多的时间学习《经济学人》(毕竟真的很难懂！！！）或者只是想提高英语水平的人， 可以通过阅读《经济学人》学到什么。

如果排版大家看的不舒服的话，可以看这篇公众号文章，排版较为清晰。https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/8MkRdw8UZTWW6ZRHLCblww

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先看一下雅思考试。

• 雅思考试的评分标准：（直接上9分的评分标准）
• Task Achievement
• Coherence and Cohesion
• Lexical Resource
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy

个人觉得《经济学人》的文章完全满足这四点，满分！

ps:如果是为了应付考试，可以根据考试题型、考试评分标准来选择性的学习《经济学人》。毕竟有目的性的学习在短期内更有效果。如果单纯为了学习英语，建议长期坚持，每天抽出一两个小时阅读经济学人，养成习惯。

• 雅思写作task 2最常出现的十个话题：

而这些话题在《经济学人》里都可以找到相关的话题，只要找到一篇精读，就可以积累相当多的词汇、词伙、用法、句式等。

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看一个具体的题目:

这是雅思Speaking部分part2中的一个考题：

1. Describe a team project that you worked on. You should say ：

• what it was
• what you did
• and how you felt about it.

这是雅思writing 部分 task 2 有关team work 的作文：

1. Some teacher think it is effective for students to study in group while others think it is better to study alone. What are the benefits of each way and which one do you think is more effective?

当看到这个口语话题或者作文题目的时候，最先反映在头脑里的应该是观点。而关于team work 词汇、词组、表达，应该在生活中、备考过程中积累，平时看到就拿一个小本本记下来，或者用印象笔记，Instapaper存起来，放在手机里有空拿起来看一看。（具体用手机等工具学习英语的方法可以参考Eric 的公众号：英语学习笔记ericzenglish）

而我们通读《经济学人》的过程中，对于备考而言，可以学习：

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下面拿经济学人3.19日的文章来举个例子：

Team spirit

TEAMS have become the basic building-blocks of organisations. Recruitment ads routinely call for “team players”. Business schools grade their students in part on their performance in group projects. Office managers knock down walls to encourage team-building.Teams are as old as civilisation, of course: even Jesus had 12 co-workers. But a new report by Deloitte, “Global Human Capital Trends”, based on a survey of more than 7,000 executives in over 130 countries, suggests that the fashion for teamwork has reached anew high. Almost half of those surveyed said their companies were either in the middle of restructuring or about to embark on it; and for the most part, restructuring meant putting more emphasis on teams.

词汇：

• basic building-blocks 构成要素
• knock down walls: 把墙推倒（destroy），这里大概表示鼓励员工建设团队
• 在查字典的时候，只找到了knock sth down 的用法（reduce price)
• grade： 用作动词，给...评分
• the fashion for ...流行
• in the middle of 在…中
• embark on it 开始做...（to start something new or important:
• be about to do 打算做某事
• 表达团队的词伙： team players、Their performance in group project、 team building 、 teamwork、put more emphasis on teams

结构：

这一段九个句子，简简单单，但是又有很多值得学习的地方（对我而言）。

1. 描述team 的现状:组织的重要组成部分，
2. 举了三个例子（recruitment ads, business schools，office managers)，
3. team有很久的历史，
4. 德勤最新的报道：团队建设取得新高,
5. 大部分公司现在在重组或者即将重组。
6. 而重组意味着将重心放在团队建设。

备考技巧：

篇章中没有用连接词比如 for example 之类的，很顺畅的用每个句子的逻辑把每个句子链接在一起，只在最后用了一个for the most part =mostly / usually

当早晨起来晨读的时候，可以照着这个思路讲一段"what do you think about team work?"这样的对话；你也可以使用这些词组试着造句。

雅思作文的写作有一个很好的方法，就是将每个短语词组串联起来，然后扩写、改写（paraphrase），再将每个句子通过逻辑上的串联(make a complex sentence)，就构成一个段落。（在IELTS http://advantage.com 的网站上学到。）

• 在paraphrase 中应该注意：

1. using synonyms
2. change the word order
3. change the form of word
4. change from active to passive

• 在make a complex sentence时，可以运用四种从句：

1. relative clauses
2. subordinate clauses
3. conditional clauses
4. compound sentences

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第二段：

Companies are abandoning functional silos and organising employees into cross-disciplinary teams that focus on particular products, problems or customers. These teams are gaining more power to run their own affairs. They are also spending more time working with each other rather than reporting upwards. Deloitte argues that a new organisational form is on the rise: a network of teams is replacing the conventional hierarchy.

词汇：

• abandon functional silos： 放弃缺少合作的组织架构（functional silos ：an organisation whose functions tend to be less communicative and collaborative）
• organise...into
• cross-disciplinary teams 跨职能团队（disciplianary:纪律的；惩戒的)
• gaining more power 获得更多能力
• run their own affairs处理事务
• reporting upwards
• on the rise =increasing 上升
• conventional hierarchy 传统的等级制度
• 表达团队的词伙: a network of teams

a organisational form

结构：四句话

1. 公司取消个人工作，组织专门化团队；（用了一个定于从句修饰teams)
2. 这些团队有更大的能力运行事务；
3. 花更多的时间一起工作；(用 more比较级，用...rather than句式）
4. 新的组织形式增长，团队取代个人。

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The fashion for teams is driven by a sense that the old way of organising people is too rigid for both the modern marketplace and the expectations of employees. Technological innovation puts a premium on agility. John Chambers, chairman of Cisco, an electronics firm, says that “we compete against market transitions, not competitors. Product transitions used to take five or seven years; now they take one or two.” Digital technology also makes it easier for people to co-ordinate their activities without resorting to hierarchy. The “millennials” who will soon make up half the workforce in rich countries were reared from nursery school onwards to work in groups.

词汇:

• be driven by 驱使
• be rigid for 对...来说是僵化的
• morden marketplace 国际市场
• Technological innovation 技术创新
• puts a premium on：（ to consider something important or valuable）
• Technological innovation puts a premium on agility. 技术创新使灵活性更有价值
• market transitions/Product transitions 市场转变/产品转变
• Digital technology 电子技术
• resorting to hierarchy 不得不依靠等级制度（resort to sth:（别无办法的情况下）诉诸，依靠，采用）
• were reared from 有develop发展的意思
• onwards 在...之后
• 表达团队的词伙:
• co-ordinate their activities

work in groups

结构：五句话

1. 团队流行的原因：传统组织形式太死板（用be driven by表达了一个结果状语，用that引导）
2. 技术创新使灵活性更重要了。
3. 思科总裁说，我们是和市场竞争，产品变革太快了。
4. 电子技术也使得人们开始合作。（用了一个also表示递进，用了一个without）
5. 举了一个例子（用了一个who引导的定于从句,用onwards to 引导一个时间状语）

思路：总起1说原因，然后2，3，4继续论证技术发展需要合作，5举例再论证

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The fashion for teams is also spreading from the usual corporate suspects (such as GE and IBM) to some more unusual ones. The Cleveland Clinic, a hospital operator, has reorganised its medical staff into teams to focus on particular treatment areas; consultants, nurses and others collaborate closely instead of being separated by speciality and rank. The US Army has gone the same way. In his book, “Team of Teams”, General Stanley McChrystal describes how the army’s hierarchical structurehindered its operations during the early stages of the Iraq war. His solution was to learn something from the insurgents it was fighting: decentraliseauthority to self-organising teams.

词汇：

• the usual suspect 意料中会出现的人；经常做某事的人
• collaborate 合作
• being separated by speciality and rank 被专业领域和等级分开
• hierarchical structure 阶级结构
• hindered its operations阻碍组织 （hinder：阻碍，妨碍）
• insurgents 叛乱者
• decentralise authority to把权力下方
• 表达团队的词伙: self-organising teams

结构：六句话

1. 团队在大公司和小公司中都很流行( 用from... to)
2. 医院领导重组医生团队，专注于特殊治疗
3. 咨询护理等合作而不是分开了(用了一个instead of )
4. 美国军队也如此The US Army has gone the same way.
5. 在书中描述，阶级斗争怎么阻碍他的组织
6. 解决办法是将权利下放到小团队中

思路：总起1，举了两个例子: 医院23 军队456

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A good rule of thumb is that as soon as generals and hospital administrators jump on a management bandwagon, it is time to ask questions. Leigh Thompson of Kellogg School of Management in Illinois warns that, “Teams are not always the answer—teams may provide insight, creativity and knowledge in a way that a person working independently cannot; but teamwork may also lead to confusion, delay and poor decision-making.” The late Richard Hackman of Harvard University once argued, “I have no question that when you have a team, the possibility exists that it will generate magic, producing something extraordinary…But don’t count on it.”

词汇：

• rule of thumb: a practical and approximate way of doing or measuringsomething经验之谈
• hospital administrators=hospital operators
• jump on bandwagon 跟上浪潮
• provide insight, creativity and knowledge提供洞察力，创造力和知识
• lead to confusion, delay and poor decision-making带来困惑，拖延，坏的决定
• generate magic汇聚魔力
• producing something extraordinary 产生非凡的东西
• count on it 期望
• 表达团队的词伙: (反）work independently

teamwork

结构：

1. 经验就是要现象产生后要问问题。（a good rule of thumb is that....;
2. as soon as....., it"s time to......)
3. 有人说，团队可以好处而个人不可以，但是团队也可以带来坏处。（sb warns that; that引导定于从句修饰way; ....but....)
4. 哈佛的人说，毫无疑问你有团队就存在好处，但不能依靠它。(sb once argued; i have no question that; that 引导同位语从句修饰possibility）

思路：提出观点，举两个例子

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Hackman (who died in 2013) noted that teams are hampered by problems of co-ordination and motivation that chip away at the benefits of collaboration.High-flyers forced to work in teams may be undervalued and free-riders empowered. Groupthink may be unavoidable. In a study of 120 teams of senior executives, he discovered that less than 10% of their supposed members agreed on who exactly was on the team. If it is hard enough to define a team’s membership, agreeing on its purpose is harder still.

词汇：

• hamper :阻碍，妨碍 上面出现过一个词hinder
• co-ordination 协调
• chip away at ：Gradually and relentlessly make something smaller or weaker:
• collaboration 合作，协作
• undervalue：轻视
• High-flyers：someone who has a lot of ability and a strong wish to be successful and is therefore expected to achieve a lot:
• free-riders：a person or company that gets an advantage without payingfor it or earning it:
• High-flyers 和 free-riders 这两个词对应
• Groupthink：团体思想

结构：五句话

1. 说，团队往往被一些，常被合作所带来的好处所掩盖协调、激励的问题，所阻碍。（sb noted that....; that 修饰？？？）
2. 能力高的人被轻视，能力差的人掌权。（用了一个，forced...修饰high-flyers)（用High-flyers 和 free-riders 这两个词对应）
3. 团队间的思维得不到体现
4. 根据研究，很少人认同参与到团队中
5. 团队关系很难定义，团队目标就更难定义。

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Profound changes in the workforce are making teams trickier to manage. Teams work best if their members have a strong common culture. This is hard to achieve when, as is now the case in many big firms, a large proportion of staff are temporary contractors. Teamwork improves with time: America’s National Transportation Safety Board found that 73% of the incidents in its civil-aviation database occurred on a crew’s first day of flying together. However, as Amy Edmondson of Harvard points out, organisations increasingly use “team” as a verb rather than a noun: they form teams for specific purposes and then quickly disband them.

词汇：

• Profound changes：深刻变化
• tricky：难办的，难对付的
• have a strong common culture：有很强的共同文化
• incidents：（不愉快的）事件
• civil-aviationm database ：民用航空数据库
• a crew’s first day of flying together 全体机组人员第一次见面
• disband a team :解散团队 form team 成立队伍

结构：

1. 劳动力深刻变化使团队更难管理
2. 队员有共同话题团队才工作好
3. 这很难实现，作为现在大公司遇到的问题，绝大部分员工是短暂交流者（用一个as引导的非限定性定于从句）
4. 团队工作随着时间改善。ANTSB 发现在民用航空数据库中记载中，73%的不愉快事件由于职员第一次见面。
5. 然而，AE指出，组织绝大多数把team作为动词而不是名字，组建了又解散。（用一个however表转折，

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Teeming with doubts

The least that can be concluded from this research is that companies need to think harder about managing teams. They need to rid their minds ofsentimental egalitarianism: the most successful teams have leaders who set an overall directionand clamp down on dithering and waffle. They need to keep teams small and focused: giving in to pressure to be more “inclusive” is a guarantee of dysfunction. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s boss, says that “If I see more than two pizzas for lunch, the team is too big.” They need to immunise teams against groupthink: Hackman argued that the best ones contain “deviants” who are willing to ruffle feathers. A new study of 12,000 workers in 17 countries by Steelcase, a furniture-maker which also does consulting, finds that the best way to ensure employees are “engaged” is to give them more control over where and how they do their work—which may mean liberating them from having to do everything in collaboration with others.

词汇：

• rid sth of 使…摆脱；从…清除；使…去除
• sentimental egalitarianism 感情用事的平等主意者
• set an overall direction:设立全面的目标
• clamp down on sth:取缔；严禁；强行限制；压制(to take strong action to stop or limit a harmful or unwantedactivity)
• clamp down on dithering and waffle:禁止犹豫和胡扯
• inclusive：可以包容各种人的
• a guarantee of dysfunction：机体失调的保证
• immunise teams against groupthink: 使小组避免小团体（上文中的groupthink 作小组思想聚焦的意思，这里应该是贬义词）
• ruffle sb"s feathers：使（某人）心烦意乱；使（某人）生气；使（某人）恼怒
• liberating:令人感到自由的，令人畅快的，令人自由自在的 liberate sb from
• deviants：行为不正常的人
• engaged已婚的

结构：

1. 最后从调查中可以得出公司需要下功夫管理。（the least that can be cinclued....)
2. 他们需要抛弃感情用事，最成功团队领导的特点，制定目标，不犹豫胡扯。（rid their minds of .....; who 引导定于从句）
3. 保持团队小而专注：把压力转化为包容，可以避免机体失调（giving to 作状语）
4. 亚马逊的老板说，如果我看到午餐有两块匹萨，说明人太多了。
5. 应该避免团队 小团体分裂，H说最好的团队是包含那些会使人心烦的行为不正常者。（who引导定从修饰deviants)
6. 新的研究发现，最好的办法是，给那些已经结婚的雇员决定哪里工作怎么工作的权利，这意味着是他们自由的去和他人合作。

However, organisations need to learn something bigger than how to manage teams better: they need to be in the habit of asking themselves whether teams are the best tools for the job. Team-building skills are in short supply: Deloitte reports that only 12% of the executives they contacted feel they understand the way people work together in networks and only 21% feel confident in their ability to build cross-functional teams. Slackly managed teams can become hotbeds of distraction—employees routinely complain that they can’t get their work done because they are forced to spend too much time in meetings or compelled to work in noisy offices. Even in the age of open-plan offices and social networks some work is best left to the inpidual.

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词汇：

• in the habit of:有...的习惯
• in short supply：短缺
• feel confident in their ability to do 有信心做...
• slackly:不紧的，松的
• Slackly managed teams 管理松的队伍
• hotbeds of distraction 注意力不集中的温床
• work in noisy offices 在嘈杂的办公室工作
• be forced to de =be compelled to do 被迫做某事
• in the age of open-plan offices and social networks敞开式的办公室和社会工作网的时代

结构：

1. 组织机构需要学比管理更多的知识，要学会问自己，团队是最好的工具？
2. 团队建设技能缺乏，德勤报告说，12和21
3. 管理松的团队是分散注意力的温床，职工被迫花时间开会或者在嘈杂的环境中工作，效率不高。
4. 甚至在现在敞开式办公和社交网络年代，一个人工作比较好

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最后给大家总结一下相关的阅读方法

平时学习过程中，大家可以在网站上（阅读原文）上阅读，看得时候可以导到印象笔记或者instapaper里做笔记，用客户端（app:Economist）的同学，可以直接在软件里查词，或者复制粘贴到上述软件做笔记，也可以导成pdf放在手机下载的kindle里做笔记）

• 标注出自己不认识的单词，或者觉得用的好的词组或者搭配，然后查阅字典（可以用，或者苹果自带的牛津英汉汉英词典等，或者kindle的词典）
• 标注出自己觉得写的好句式，下划线，方便阅读
• 整理完笔记后定期复习，相信你会有收获的！