英语听力精选进阶版 10401（在线收听）

I'm sometimes told you have to make your own luck. If you don't try something, how can you succeed? This is very true for competitions - if you want a chance of winning something you have to take part. In other words, you have to be in it to win it!

经常有人告诉我要自创运气，不尝试怎么能成功呢？这对竞争来说尤为如此，如果你想赢得某事，就必须参加进来。也就是说，要赢就必须参赛！

There are people who regularly take part in all sorts of competitions with great enthusiasm. These people are nicknamed 'compers'. They use every spare minute writing slogans and captions, answering questions and completing crosswords. You could almost say it's like an addiction.

有的人定期以极大的热情参加各种各样的竞赛，这些人被叫做“频繁参赛者的人”。他们利用每分每秒的空闲时间来写口号和注释，回答问题和做填字游戏，可以说是着了魔似的。

The motivation for being a 'comper' is obvious: it's about being a winner and being rewarded with a prize. These can be small or large: from a box of chocolates to a new car, a trip of a lifetime around the world, or even a new house. Isn't that worth competing for? Unfortunately, I haven't won any of those things. But, to be honest, I don't enter many competitions.

这些频繁参赛者的人的动机很明显，就是做赢家并得奖。奖品可大可小，或者是一盒巧克力，或者是一辆新汽车，或者毕生难忘的旅行，甚至一座新房子。这些难道不值得为之参加比赛吗？不幸的是，我从未赢过什么奖品。不过实话说，我也没参加过什么竞赛。

Of course competitions that offer money prizes attract entries from millions of people, making the odds of winning very unlikely. But one man who has been lucky is a retired lecturer from the UK called Martin Dove. He is a serial 'comper' and has managed to bag prizes such a yacht and a race horse.

当然了，能提供金钱奖品的竞赛能吸引无数人，这样获胜的几率就很小了。但英国一个名叫马丁·达夫的退休讲师就很幸运，他就经常参加比赛，并赢得了诸如游艇和赛马这样的大奖。

Martin says: "I've been a comper for 40 years. It's like admitting some addiction, isn't it really?" He gets respect from other compers and also admits:"Some people have called me the Master of Comping, the King of Comping, the Guru of Comping. But it's just a word, just a phrase. It's just I was fairly high-profile."

马丁说，“我已经参加了40年的比赛，对此有点上瘾吧，不是吗？”他得到其他频频参赛者的尊敬，他说，“有的人称我是‘参赛高手’、‘参赛帝’、‘参赛专家’。但这只是个称谓而已，只是因为我比较高调而已。”

If scanning the supermarket shelves for cereal boxes and crisp packets for your next big win sounds too much like hard work, you can always try the lottery. This is a game where people buy a lottery ticket hoping that the numbers on their ticket are chosen in a draw so that they win a big money prize. Some people dream about being a millionaire and hope this type of game will make that dream real.

如果扫描超市的货架，将麦片盒或零食袋作为你下次的奖品似乎听起来很难，你可以试试买彩票。在彩票这个游戏中，买彩票的人希望彩票上的数字能被抽中，这样就能获得大奖。有的人梦想成为百万富翁，希望这类游戏能让这个梦想实现。

For many, winning remains a dream, but they continue to try their luck as there's always a small chance they might succeed. But what if you do win? Then you have to ask: how am I going to spend all that money? Some people say that 'money can't buy you happiness'. What do you think?

对很多人来说，获胜仍然是个梦想，但他们仍会试试运气，因为总会有成功的小几率。但如果你确实赢了怎么办？那你就要问了：我要怎么花完这些钱呢？有的人说金钱不能买来幸福，你认为呢？