事实
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The Facts
把人物、线索、转折和结果组织成连贯叙述，理解句子里的修饰层次。
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第1段
Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to provide their readers with unimportant facts and statistics. Last year a journalist had been instructed by a well-known magazine to write an article on the president's palace in a new African republic. When the article arrived, the editor read the first sentence and then refused to publish it. The article began: "Hundreds of steps lead to the high wall which surrounds the president's palace". The editor at once sent the journalist a fax instructing him to find out the exact number of steps and the height of the wall.
报刊杂志的编辑为了向读者提供一些无关紧要的事实和统计数字常常走向极端。去年，一位记者受一家有名的杂志的委托写一篇关于非洲某个新成立共和国总统府的文章。稿子发来后，编辑看了第一句话就拒绝发表。文章的开头这样写道：“几百级台阶通向环绕总统府的高墙。”编辑立即给那位记者发去传真，要求他计算一下台阶的确切级数和围墙的高度。
第2段
The journalist immediately set out to obtain these important facts, but he took a long time to send them. Meanwhile, the editor was getting impatient, for the magazine would soon go to press. He sent the journalist two more faxes, but received no reply. He sent yet another fax informing the journalist that if he did not reply soon he would be fired. When the journalist again failed to reply, the editor reluctantly published the article as it had originally been written. A week later, the editor at last received a fax from the journalist. Not only had the poor man been arrested, but he had been sent to prison as well. However, he had at last been allowed to send a fax in which he informed the editor that he had been arrested while counting the 1,084 steps leading to the fifteen-foot wall which surrounded the president's palace.
记者立即动身去获取这些重要的数据，但过了好长时间不见他把数据寄来。在此期间，编辑等得不耐烦了，因为杂志马上要付印。他给记者先后发去两份传真，但石沉大海。于是他又发了一份传真，警告那位记者，他要再不迅速回复，将被解雇。但记者还是没有回复，编辑无奈地按原样发稿了。一周之后，编辑终于接到了记者的传真。那个可怜的记者不仅被捕了，而且还被关进了监狱。不过，他终于获准发回了一份传真。在传真中他告诉编辑，就在他数通向15英尺高的总统府围墙的1,084级台阶时，被抓了起来。
学完这一课
保留原段的推进关系，换成自己的经历，写或说一段四五句的话。
译文与解析据吴应时、何景霖整理资料及本站首轮审校稿；词伙与练习提示为本站学习设计。原PDF第23—25页，2022年2月第3版。