China has replaced its “one-child policy” with a two-child one. It should stop dictating family size altogether.雅思口语考试在Part 2里有一道题，描述一个法律。这是一个比较难的题，对很多烤鸭来说，法律这个话题本身就已经特别生僻了，更别提说出什么能引起考官共鸣的答案来了。
Robert老师今天分享一篇来自著名的政经杂志《经济学人》（The Economist）的文章。这篇文章讨论的就是最近特别火的一个新闻，即中国大陆放宽计划生育政策。
The Economist这本杂志的句式比较严谨，比较适合作为雅思写作和口语的参考。从文章中，可以摘录出很多有用于雅思备考的词汇和句式。从这本杂志中，还经常可以看到雅思考试会涉及到的社会热点问题。通过阅读The Economist，收听其朗读录音，还可以锻炼自己的听力和阅读能力。接下来，就让我们看一看这篇文章说了些什么吧，并注意积累带有下划线的words and phrases.For more than 35 years, the Chinese Communist Party has governed管理 the world’s most-populous nation by means of 通过 a proverbial propaganda: the country could become rich only if most couples limited themselves to having no more than one child. If they disobeyed违抗, women were forced to undergo abortions; parents were subject to遭受 fines equivalent to等同于 several years’ income and sometimes dismissed from their jobs被解雇; in the countryside, the homes of poor peasants who could not afford the penalties处罚 were occasionally stripped of剥夺 anything of value. The “one-child policy”, as the well-known approach to the China’s development was named, became synonymous with成为…的代名词 some of the most controversial aspects of this country. The bitter irony is that讽刺的是 China’s problem today is too few babies, not too many.the country could become rich only if most couples limited themselves to having no more than one child. 这是一个带有虚拟语气的句子，注意could、limited的动词变换；having no more than one child中的having是动词的现在分词作动名词跟在limit…to…这一短语后面On October 29th the party belatedly过迟地 decided to switch to a two-child policy. It had already been allowing this for some couples—for example, if one of the parents was an only child. Easing up放松（管制） a bit more, it reasoned, would help slow the country’s rapid ageing人口老龄化. More children would eventually mean more people to look after the elderly—a looming problem将要发生的问题 in a country with only a rudimentary welfare system 基本的福利体系. it reasoned 插入语；将两个逗号前后内容连起来看，忽略插入语In 1979, when it introduced 采用 the one-child policy, it believed that strict enforcement 执行 was the only way to ensure that population growth would not become unsustainable. The party has since claimed that the policy has helped prevent 400 million births.
In fact, there is little evidence to back this claim. China’s birth rate 出生率 had been falling rapidly since the early 1970s with the help of little more than education campaigns 宣传教育活动. The birth rate continued to fall under the new policy, but other countries have seen similar declines without resorting to 求助于large-scale population control. Their experience suggests that the more important factors behind China’s lower birth rate were rising female participation in the workforce 劳动力, improvements in education, later marriages and the rapidly increasing cost of education and housing 住房. The main effect of the one-child policy was to foster 促进 improper measures against the minority who ignored忽视 it.By that measure, the new policy is also misguided 错误的. Some couples may feel encouraged to have two children, but it is unlikely that the overall birth rate—now well below the level needed to keep the population from falling—will climb by much. This is clear from the lukewarm不热情的 response to previous changes allowing couples to have two children in certain circumstances. A generation has grown up indoctrinated in the belief that China has “too many people”. Except for the very rich strata, most people prefer to use their family’s resources, increasingly stretched by 消耗 the demands of the elderly), to give their only child the best opportunities.Bizarrely, the authorities still believe that rigid enforcement 严格执行 remains necessary. Those who have had two children in violation of 违反 the previous policy will still have to pay off 付清 their fines 罚款. It is likely that those who have three children will be punished. There is no evidence that lifting these controls would result in a crippling population surge 人口激增. Therefore, the party’s insistence on 坚持 maintaining the controls 维持控制 appears mostly a way of demonstrating power and saving face—as well as keeping the jobs of the one million-strong army of family-planning officials, who thrive on 以…为生 issuing fines.This is clear from the lukewarm 不热情的 response to previous changes allowing* couples to have two children in certain circumstances.*名词后直接跟动词的现在分词，略去从句连接词that
The party would struggle to admit 承认 that the world’s biggest attempt at 尝试 demographic engineering has failed. But that is what it must do by lifting the remaining restrictions. Not for the sake of 为了 boosting the birth rate—it may well be too late for that. Rather it is because, after forcing so many Chinese to suffer to such little effect, a disastrous policy deserves to be abolished.
环球教育集团隶属于英国培生教育集团，培生是一家拥有170多年历史的世界领军教育集团，环球也拥有18年的丰富教学经验，业务涵盖语言培训、游学以及留学咨询等相关领域，以先进的课程设计，优秀的教师团队，为消费者带来了充满国际化、专业性的一站式留学产品和服务。
长按图片来关注我们
