Answering Maching
This is a telephone with a tape recorder. When there is no one in the office, you can leave the answering machine on so that people who call you up can leave a message. When you return to the office the following morning or after the hoiday, you can listen to the messages and take any necessaary action.
Many offices use answering machines to give information. Imagine a railway station, a bus company or a cinema, which many people need to ring to find out the times of trains, buses or films. You can print the telephone number of your information service in the newspaper. Then, instead of having someone answering the phone ail day, people can ring up the railway station and listen to a tape recording of the information. What`s more this information line "operates 24 hours a day."
[点评]
这是一篇描述文。文章首先告诉我们什么是留言机以及它的作用。第一段叙述了它的具体用途及好处。只是篇幅有些短。
[参考译文]
留言机
这是一种带有磁带录音机的电话机。办公室没有人时，你可以让留言机开着，以便给你打电话的人可以留言。第一天早晨，或者节假日以后，当你回到办公室的时候，你就可以听到留言，然后采取必要的行动。
许多办公室还用留言电话机来提供信息。想一想火车站，汽车公司和电影院吧，许多人需要给这些单位打电话，查询火车，汽车和电影的时刻。你可以在报纸上把你的查询台的电话号码登出来，人们就可以打电话给火车站，收听有关信息的磁带录音，而无需有人整天回话了。再说，这条“问讯线路”是一天24小时工作的。