英語故事:公路巡警和數學

【英文原文】

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Math and highway patrol——公路巡警和數學

Rushing to work, I was driving too fast and as a result was pulled over by the highway patrol. The state trooper noticed that my shirt had the name of a local high school on it. "I teach math there," I explained.

The trooper smiled, and said, "Okay, here's a problem. A teacher is speeding down the highway at 16 m.p.h. over the limit. At $12 for every mile, plus $40 court costs, plus the rise in her insurance, what's her total cost?"

I replied, "Taking that total, subtracting the low salary I receive, multiplying by the number of kids who hate math, then adding to that the fact that none of us would be anywhere without teachers, I'd say zero." He handed me back my license.

"Math was never my favorite subject," he admitted. "Please slow down."

【中文譯文】

急匆趕去上班，我開車開得太快了，結果被公路的巡警攔了下來。 這位州警官看到我的襯衣上有當地一所高中的名字在上面。 “我在那教數學”，我解釋說。

警官笑了一下， 說，“好的，有一道題。 一位老師在公路上超速16英里行駛。 每英里罰12美元， 外加40美元出庭費，再加上她保險費的增加，最後這個老師要交多少錢？”

我回答， “要算總數的話， 要減去我那少得可憐的工資， 再乘以那些痛恨數學的孩子的數量， 然後再加上一點事實，如果沒有教師，我們這些人都不會有什麼出息，因此，我會說最後的計算結果是零”。 警察把駕駛證還了給我。

“我從不喜歡學數學”，他承認，“請開慢點”。