今天小编为大家分享的是新概念英语第三册重要短文，希望通过这篇文章的学习对你们有所帮助，大家要认真掌握哦!下面跟随小编一起学习吧！
Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to provide their readers with unimportant facts and statistics.
go to extremes 走极端。provide sb with sth=provide sth for sb 提供某物给某人。facts and statistics 数字。
Last year a journalist had been instructed by a well-known magazine to write an article on the president’spalace in a new African republic.
instruct 委托。well-known=famous 著名的。
When the article arrived, the editor read the first sentence and then refused to publish it.The article began: ‘Hundreds of steps lead to the high wall which surrounds the president’s palace.’
lead to 在这是通往，不是引起，引发。
The editor at once sent the journalist a fax instructing him to find out the exact number of steps and the height of the wall.
instruct 在这理解成命令比较合适。find out 找出，find是找到。
The journalist immediately set out to obtain these important facts, but he took a long time to send them.
immediately=at once，right away 立刻，马上，变换用词，避免重复。set out to 开始。以前take表示花时间时，主语都是it或表示物的名词，这里却是表示人的代词表示人的代词做主语，还是少见。
Meanwhile, the editor was getting impatient, for the magazine would soon go to press.

meanwhile =at the same time 同时。go to press 付印。
He sent the journalist two more faxes, but received no reply. He sent yet another fax the journalist informing that if he did not reply soon he would be fired.
reply 可名可动。informing that if... 理解成表目的或伴随都行。
When the journalist again failed to reply, the editor reluctantly published the article as it had originally been written.
fail to do 可以代替can't。reluctantly 不情愿地，勉强地
A week later, the editor at last received a fax from the journalist. Not only had the poor man been arrested, but he had been sent to prison as well.
not only 放句首时需要倒装。as well 也，不一定一直用also。send to prison=put into prison 关进
However, he had at last been allowed to send a fax in which he informed the edit that he had been arrested while counting the 1,084 steps leading to the fifteen-foot wall surrounded the president’s palace.
at last=finally, in the end后面。in which 在传真里，which 指fax。while (he) counting 省略了he，主句和从句主语一致时，可以省略从句的主语。