by Author Unknown翻譯：未幾

這個世界并不完美。于是，有很多人雄心勃勃想“改變世界”。但其實，讓世界變美，不一定要改變世界，我們可以改變自己，從自己做起，通過一點一滴的努力將世界點綴成你我心中的樂土。

Once upon a time, there was a king who ruled a rich country.

One day, he went to a veryfar awayarea of his country. When he came back to his palace, he felt his feet were very painful. It was the first time for the king to go on such a long trip and the road was very1)roughand2)stony.

He then ordered his people to cover every road of the country with3)leather. Certainly, this would needthousands ofcows’ skin, and wouldcosta lot of money.

Then one of his clever servants dared to tell the king, “Why do you have tospendso much money?Why don’t you just cut a little piece of leather to cover your feet?”

The king was surprised, but he later agreed to make a “shoe” for himself.

There is in fact a good lesson of life in this story:to make this world a happy place to live, you’d better change yourself and your heart, not the world.

1) rough [r?f] adj. 粗糙的，粗暴的

2) stony ['st??n?] adj. 多石的，石頭的

3) leather ['lee?] n. 皮革，皮

詞組加油站

★once upon a time從前

★far away遙遠的，很遠的

★thousands of

數(shù)以千計的，許許多多的

參考譯文

從前，有一位國王統(tǒng)治著一個富庶的國家。

一天，他去了這個國家的一些非常偏遠的地區(qū)?；氐酵鯇m后，他覺得雙腳疼得厲害。這是國王第一次這樣長途旅行，而他途經(jīng)的道路坑坑洼洼，碎石滿地。

于是，他下令臣民在全國的每條道路都鋪上皮革。當然，這么做需要數(shù)千張牛皮，并且耗資巨大。

后來，國王的一個聰明的仆人壯著膽子對他說：“您為什么要耗費這么多錢財呢？您為什么就不能割下一小塊皮革來裹住您的雙腳呢？”

國王非常驚訝，但他后來同意為自己做一雙“鞋”。

這個故事其實蘊含了很有用的人生一課：要讓這個世界成為一片宜居的樂土，你最好改變你自己和你的心態(tài)，而不是去改變世界。

名師考點小結

1.cost在文中作動詞，意為“花費”，其主語通常是物，過去式和過去分詞均為cost。例如：

The dictionary cost me five dollars. 那本字典花了我5美元。

注意：cost表示花費時既可以指花費時間，也可以指花費金錢，句子的主語通常是物或事，只有主動式，沒有被動式。例如：

The pen cost me ten Yuan. 這支鋼筆花了我10元錢。

The job cost me a lot of time. 那項工作花了我很多的時間。

2.spend表示“花費”時，賓語通常是時間、金錢等，句子的主語必須是人，常用的句型有“spend...on”和“spend (in) doing”。例如：

She spent a lot of money on books. 她花了很多錢買書。

She spent the whole evening (in) reading. 她把整個晚上都用來讀書。