新西兰英语 255 Golden Shears Competition

　　Sheep shearing² is a job but also a sport. The best shearers enter competitions to see who is the fastest and best. The Golden Shears⁴ is the final. The six best shearers compete in this final. They have 20 lambs each. Judges check that the shearer³ has done a good job of shearing the wool off the lamb without cutting the skin.
This year was the 50th anniversary of the start of the Golden Shears competition. A crowd of 2,000 watched the final in Masterton last weekend. All the tickets were sold a long time ago.
The winner of this year’s Golden Shears was Cam Ferguson. He took 16 minutes, 36.4 seconds to shear¹ 20 lambs. This was about 12 seconds faster than the next competitor.
This was a very exciting finish because he was competing against David Fagan who has won 15 times. The other competitors were also more experienced than Cam Ferguson.
Cam is 26 years old. This is young for a champion shearer. He is a full-time⁵ shearer who works in Hawkes Bay. He has won other shearing competitions before but this is the first time he has been in the Golden Shears. He is very fit and trains hard. During this season, he was in another competition. In nine hours he managed to shear 856 lambs.
Next he will compete in Australia and in June he will go to Wales to compete in the World Shearing competition.

1 shear   

n.修剪，剪下的东西，羊的一岁；vt.剪掉，割，剥夺；vi.修剪，切割，剥夺，穿越

参考例句：

• Every spring they shear off the sheep's wool and sell it.每年春天他们都要剪下羊毛去卖。
• In the Hebrides they shear their sheep later than anywhere else.在赫伯里兹，剪羊毛的时间比其他任何地方都要晚。

2 shearing   

n.剪羊毛，剪取的羊毛v.剪羊毛( shear的现在分词 )；切断；剪切

参考例句：

• The farmer is shearing his sheep. 那农夫正在给他的羊剪毛。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The result of this shearing force is to push the endoplasm forward. 这种剪切力作用的结果是推动内质向前。 来自辞典例句

3 shearer   

n.剪羊毛的人；剪切机

参考例句：

• A bad shearer never had a good sickle. 拙匠无利器。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Eventually, Shearer lost faith, dropping him to the bench. 最终，希勒不再信任他，把他换下场。 来自互联网

4 shears   

n.大剪刀

参考例句：

• These garden shears are lightweight and easy to use.这些园丁剪刀又轻又好用。
• With a few quick snips of the shears he pruned the bush.他用大剪刀几下子就把灌木给修剪好了。

5 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。