【英语专四听力周计划】典型试题自测短文2

英语自学网

英国人或许是世界上最关注天气的了，众所周知，英国人见面就爱谈天气，出门总会带雨伞，而看天气预报也就成了他们生活中不可或缺的一部分。可是这样的话，天气预报员的压力就很大了。虽然他们都是专业的气象学家，可面对挑剔的观众，他们心中的酸楚又有多少人了解呢？又有多少人在吐槽他们的疏漏时考虑过他们的付出和工作的艰辛呢？
Hints:
programme(本篇短文以这种写法为准）
forecaster 预报员
Meteorological Office 气象厅（专有名词首字母请大写）
statellite 卫星
radar 雷达
meteorologist 气象学家In Britain, just after the main television news programme, audience figures rise. It's weather forecast time. The BBC broadcasts 44 live forecasts a day, 433 hours of weather a year, using forecasters from the Meteorological Office. The Met. Office makes predictions about the weather seven days in advance. These are based on observations from the ground, from statellites and from radar. The observations are stored in computers that can do up to 4,000 million calculations a second.
  In Britain the weather is news. A television weather forecast often begins with an interesting fact - the town with the top temperature of the day or the place with the most rain. "The public like that kind of information," says senior forecaster Bill Giles.
  The BBC forecasters are professional meteorologists, but they do not have an easy job. They are the only presenters on television who do not use a script, and they cannot see the map that they are describing. Viewers are often critical, especially of female presenters. One woman left her job after rude letters and press reports about her clothes.
  The British talk about the weather more than almost any other subject, so it is a surprise  to discover that 70% of television viewers cannot remember what they saw on the weather forecast. "What happens is that people like watching and hearing the forecasts, but they probably only take real notice when they need to," says one forecaster. "Or, of course, when we make mistakes!"