墨尔本PTE素材库——Olympics Success

墨尔本PTE素材库——Olympics Success

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奥运会结束了,可是对于金牌数量的讨论却没有停止。相较于四年前的伦敦奥运会，澳大利亚政府投入了更多的人力物力来进行对于运动员的培养，谁知，这次里约奥运会的成绩竟然还不如四年前的伦敦奥运会。到底是什么样的始末呢？我们还是来看看这篇podcast的内容吧~

这篇podcast的内容并不复杂，也十分得有趣。同时，transcript中的生词其实也不多。同学们可以把它作为一份补充材料，作为平时的知识补充。同时，这篇是非常好的可以用来做summarize的练习，同学们可以试试，看看自己能不能把每个点都涵盖下来~

澳大利亚语言学校会定期整理一些PTE的素材库，让各位PTE的考生，能够平时在练习的时候能够接触到一些和official questions criteria相近的话题素材，不但能够锻炼PTE考生的听力和复述能力，也能在消化没一品素材的过程中提高自己的阅读能力以及词汇量。大家在看这段视频的时候，可以试着回答这些问题：

• 运动员对于他们所取得的成绩分别有什么样的看法？
• 澳洲政府想要投钱给奥运准备的原因是什么？
• 大家对于这笔钱的花销都有什么样的看法？

如果不能回答这些问题的同学要注意咯~快来看看full transcript吧~

【Key vocabulary】

Farewell n. 告别，辞别

Bump 凸起

Draw from 从…中得到

Full Transcript

This weekend the world said farewell to the Rio Olympic Games. But while some Australian athletes are now returning home to celebrate their successes many others will be thinking about missed opportunities. Australia spent more on these Games than the last but the results were actually worse. Take a look.

How much do you reckon an Olympic medal is worth? Well, the medal itself; not that much, actually. Only a few hundred dollars. But if you’re a country like Australia, how much would you spend to make sure you took home one of these?

GIRL: I reckon fifteen thousand.

BOY: A couple hundred thousand dollars.

GIRL: I would probably spend around twenty thousand.

It’s actually somewhere around twelve million dollars. Yep, you could buy an awful lot of gummy bears with that.

GIRL: I don’t want that many gummy bears.

In the four years leading up to the Rio Olympics, three hundred and forty million dollars has been spent by the Australian government on coaching and training our teams and athletes for Rio.

But it did lead to some incredible moments. On the other hand, lots of our athletes didn’t perform as well as expected.

MICHAEL HEPBURN, SILVER MEDALLIST: It wasn’t quite the result we hoped for but we’re really proud of the effort we gave today.

JOHN COATES, AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: Very proud of the team. I say that. But we have been – the results are not what was expected.

Now, some have questioned whether spending what amounts to around 12 million dollars a medal was really worth it. A big reason for some of that disappointment is that we’re used to seeing Australia near the top of the Olympic medal tally. We finished 4th when we hosted the games in Sydney in 2000, fourth again in 2004, and 6th in 2008. But by London 2012, we dropped to 8th, and took home just 8 gold medals.

Lots of people, including the organisation in charge of leading Aussie sport, the Australian Sports Commission, were disappointed with the results. So they launched a new plan to get Australia Back on track in Rio. It set targets of finishing in the top five on the Olympic gold and overall medal tallies. And to achieve that, it bumped Olympic funding by eleven per cent. And focused most of its spending on sports it thought Australia could win gold in.

But, now four years later, the results have come in and Australia finished tenth. Some people say it’s a sign pumping more money into the Olympics doesn’t necessarily mean more medals. Others say that compared to other countries, maybe we’re spending too much on our athletes. For example, the most successful country in Olympic history, the US, doesn’t fund any of its athletes; instead they rely on sponsorship and donations. So critics say if we did something similar we could use that money helping people that really need it.

But on the other hand, officials say Australia is a much smaller country with a smaller pool of athletes to draw from. So the government needs to fund our best athletes to give them a chance to succeed. Some say they actually need more funding to catch up to the best in the world again. But what do you think?

VOX 1: I think spending the money is worth it because lots of people want to pursue a job as an Olympian and the funds really support that.

VOX 2: I reckon we spend enough money on the Olympics and we shouldn’t spend any more money on it.

VOX 3: I think we should spend money on giving it to people that need it more, like the poor.

VOX 4: I think they’ve spent too much because the money could be used in better ways.

VOX 5: I think we should spend more money on training athletes at the Olympics.

(source: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4522226.htm)