Tips:To give or not to give?

江西 吴凡勇

咖啡师申克尔靠小费谋生，但小费本不应该是他的主要工资。近年来，小费__制度的弊端日益显现，让我们一起看看吧。

主题语境：社会热点 篇幅：331词 建议用时：7分钟

1 “Nothing beats a good coffee shot,”Schenker says.As a barista since 2010, he takes his craft seriously.He even brings some of his own tools to work,like a special portafilter, which lets him see the coffee while making coffee, so he can make sure it has the right color and consistency.

2 When Schenker started out in 2010, tipping was in cash, and it wasn't much: He took home roughly $10 a day.But tipping gradually became a bigger and bigger part of Schenker's pay,and today he depends on those tips to make a livable wage.“I've never made more than $25,000 a year,”says Schenker.“I cannot even wrap my head around the idea of making $30,000 or $40,000 a year.I could do so with just that much money.”

3 Sylvia Allegretto, a senior economist, feels Schenker's frustration.“I became an economist because I was a low-wage waitress for a long, long time,”she says.Allegretto points out that a lot of tipped workers across the US earn a subminimum wage with the idea that tips will get them up to the minimum wage, but that doesn't always happen.Poverty rates for tipped workers are more than double the rates for other workers.

4 Allegretto says part of the problem is that tipping is presented as a“Thank you!”for great service when in reality it's something else entirely.“Tips are a wage addition to the employer,”she says.“It's not a tip.It goes to your wage.It is just the amount that the employer doesn't have to pay you.And people don't understand that.”

5 Nowadays, there's a lot of pressure to keep prices low for increasingly price-conscious customers.Tipping is a way to get more money from customers without charging them more money that is meant to go to paying workers.And providing customers with a tipping option, when they didn't have one before, can be a way to attract hard-to-find workers without offering higher wages.

Reading Check

Inference1.Which of the following best describes Schenker?

A.Ambitious.B.Responsible.

C.Talkative.D.Skillful.

Detail2.What is a challenge facing Schenker?

A.Unemployment.B.Health issues.

C.Family problems.D.Finance.

Inference3.What does Allegretto intend to express in paragraph 3?

A.Most tipped workers get higher pay than other workers.

B.Her interest in economy led her to the present career.

C.Tipped workers deserve to earn more than they do.

D.Tipping is a way to show customers'thanks.

Detail4.How does the author find tipping?

A.Necessary.B.Troublesome.

C.Customer-centered.D.Money-oriented.

Language Study

Ⅰ.Difficult sentence in the text

Allegretto points out that a lot of tipped workers across the US earn a subminimum wage with the idea that tips will get them up to the minimum wage, but that doesn't always happen.阿莱格雷托指出，美国许多小费工作者的工资低于最低工资标准，这些工人认为赚取小费可以帮助他们达到最低工资标准，但实际情况并非总是这样。

【点石成金】本句是一个由but 连接的并列句。第一个分句中的points out 后面接了一个宾语从句，该宾语从句还包括一个由that引导的同位语从句。

Ⅱ.Text-centered chunks

take...seriously 认真对待……

make sure 确保

depend on 依靠

point out 指出

in reality 实际上