140. Items made by hand or items made by machine, which do you prefer?

There are a wide variety of products, such as clothes or furniture, which can be made either by hand or by machine. Both of these methods of manufacturing products have their advantages, and both hold an important place in society. To decide which is best, one should compare the advantages of each method.

There are many advantages of making products with the aid of machines.

First, machine-made products tend to be cheaper than their handcrafted counterparts. As machines are very steady and do the exact same thing every time they recreate a product, these type of products tend to have consistent quality. Frequently, handmade products have extremes in their product quality; it can either be extremely good or extremely poor. Finally, machine-made products have the advantage of being able to use some finishes and materials that cannot be used when creating something by hand. These include some types of steel, laminates, and enamel finishes.

There are also many advantages of buying handcrafted products. When people purchase handcrafted products, they are supporting the arts and crafts communities. Buying these types of products keeps many people employed, as it takes much more time to create an object by hand. Handcrafted objects tend to have much more diversity, as it is almost impossible to create an exact duplicate of an object if you are making it by hand.

Overall, I think that there are advantages of using both machine-made products and hand-made products. I think that if one can afford to buy high quality handmade clothing and furniture, that would be the best situation. These types of products tend to last much longer than their machine-made counterparts, and one can be satisfied knowing that they are supporting an artist. However, if one cannot afford to buy high quality handmade products, it is probably better to buy things that are machine-made. Machine-made products tend to be of higher quality than poorly made handcrafted products.

译文

140. 你喜欢手工制品还是机器产品？

有很多种类的产品，比如衣服或家具，可以手工制作，也可以机器制作。这两种制造产品的方式都有其自身的优势，都在社会上占据着重要的地位。要确定哪个最好，人们必须比较这两种方式各自的优势。

在机器的帮助下制造产品有很多优势。首先，机器制造的产品往往比手工制作的同类产品要便宜。因为机器非常稳定，加工每个产品时都重复着完全相同的动作，所以这种产品往往拥有着始终如一的品质。而手工制作的产品经常会在他们的产品品质上出现两个极端：可能会非常好，也可能会非常糟。最后，机器制造的产品还有这样的优势，那就是能够利用一些手工制作时无法用到的涂漆和材料。这包括某些种类的包钢、层压和抛光。

购买手工产品也有许多好处。如果一个人购买手工制作的产品，他就是在支持手工艺术品的事业。购买这些种类的产品保证了许多人的就业，因为手工制作产品要花费更多的时间。手工物品通常更加多样化，因为要手工制作完全相同的物品几乎是不可能的。

总而言之，我认为，机器制造和手工制作的产品各有优势。我觉得，如果人们有足够多的钱购买优质的手工衣物和家具，那是最好的。这种产品往往会比机器制造的同类产品更加耐用，而且，人们了解到自己是在支持一位艺术家也会感到非常满足。然而，如果人们没有足够多的钱购买优质的手工制品，购买机器制造的物品可能更好一些。机器制品通常会比那些做工粗糙的手工产品的品质要好些。

Word List

• variety ［vəˈraiiti］ n. 种类
• furniture ［ˈfə:nitʃə］ n. 家具
• handcrafted ［ˈhændˌkræftid］ adj. 手工的
• counterpart ［ˈkauntəpa:t］ n. 对应物
• consistent ［kənˈsistənt］ adj. 始终如一的
• handmade ［hændˈmeid］ adj. 手工制作的
• laminate ［ˈlæməˌneit］ n. 层压板
• employ ［emˈplɔi］ v. 雇用
• duplicate ［ˈdu:plikit］ n. 完全相同的东西