万花筒 2008-04-03&-4-04 烂醉的一代（在线收听）

177 pints of beer or 44 bottles of wine sounds like a lot for anyone. Yet that's how much some teenagers are drinking in a year.Today's new study into underage booze intake highlights the scale of the problem. Research was carried out on nearly ten thousand 15 to 16-year-olds in the northwest of England. Professor Mark Bellis is from the center of public health.

 I think the scale of it is something which people might find surprising, just how much alcohol is being consumed by young people, how many of them are binge drinking pressing that into one or two small sessions where they are drinking a lot of those times, and the violence and other problems associated with it.

 The report found just under half drink at least once a week, with 40% of girls and 42% of boys later involved in violence. And in poor areas, as many as 40% were found to binge drink, that is, having more than five drinks at one time. The findings are published just weeks after three teenagers were jailed for the murder of father-of-three Garry Newlove in Warrington in Cheshire. And yesterday, 15-year-old Brendan Harris was convicted of murdering Gothic woman Sophie Lancaster after a drinking bout.

 WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. booze : n-uncount

Booze is alcoholic drink. (INFORMAL)

2. binge drinking : n-uncount

Binge drinking is the consumption of large amounts of alcohol within a short period of time.Today the generally accepted definition of binge drinking in the United States is the consumption of five or more drinks in a row by men — or four or more drinks in a row by women — at least once in the previous 2 weeks. Heavy binge drinking includes three or more such episodes in 2 weeks.

3. drinking bout : noun

a long period of drinking