Letter to a B Student Read aloud Audiovisual supplements Section One: Pre-reading Activities Section...

Letter to a B Student

Read aloud Audiovisual supplements

Section One:Pre-reading Activities

Section Two: Global Reading

Section Four: Consolidation Activities

Section Five: Further Enhancement

I. Read aloud

Read the following passage aloud, making a pause between sense groups.

Section Three:Detailed Reading

Principles Are LighthousesBy Stephen R. Covey

It was a dark and stormy night./ The officer on the bridge/ came to the captain and said,/ “Captain,/ Captain,/ there is a light in our sea lane/ and they won’t move.”/

“What do you mean they won’t move?/ Tell them to move./ Tell them starboard right now.”/

The signal was sent out,/ “Starboard,/ starboard./” The signal came back,/ “Starboard yourself.”/

“I can’t believe this./ What’s going on here?/ Let them know who I am./” The signal was sent out,/ “This is the mighty Missouri, /starboard./” The signal came back,/ “This is the lighthouse.”/


Read aloud Audiovisual supplements






My friends,/ correct principles are lighthouses,/ they do not move./ They are natural laws./ We cannot break them./ We can only break ourselves against them./ We might as well learn them,/ accommodate them,/ utilize them and be grateful for them. /Then it enlarges us/ and emancipates us/ and empowers us./

T.S. Eliot once said something/ I think is appropriate/ as we come to the conclusion of our visit together./ He said,/ “We shall never cease from striving,/ and the end of all of our striving/ will be to arrive where we began/ and to know the place for the first time.”/

Read aloud

Audiovisual supplements


II. Audiovisual supplements

Questions:

1. What’s Ricky describing?2. Do you think it is a kind of beauty? Why？

Film episode: American Beauty

Answers for reference:

1. He is describing a kind of beauty — a plastic bag dancing in the wind.

2. Open answer.



Letter to a B Student Section Four: Consolidation Activities


Read aloud



Ricky: It was one of those days where it’s a minute away from snowing, and there was this electricity in the air. You can almost hear it. Right? And this bag was just dancing ... with me, like a little kid begging me to play with it, for 15 minutes. That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things and this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know that there was no reason to be afraid ... ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know, but it helps me remember. I need to remember. Sometimes there’s so much … beauty … in the world. I feel like I can’t take it … and my heart … is just going to … cave in.





Read aloud







■

Text analysis Structural analysis



Cultural background

The text is a letter to a B student. In the letter the author analyzes what the grade means and doesn’t mean, and tells the student the way we should regard grades. In the end the author illustrates the importance of learning and gives encouragement to the student.

I. Text analysis




Text analysis

Structural analysis


Cultural background

II. Structural analysis

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—





Paragraphs 2 – 5 purpose of writing: to put your disappointment in perspective by considering exactly what your grade means and doesn’t mean

Paragraph 1 introduction

— Paragraphs 6 – 8 distinction between the student as a performer in the classroom and the student as a human being

— Paragraphs 9 – 10 perspective: the way we should regard grades

Text analysis

Structural analysis



Cultural background

III. Cultural backgroundAmerican Education System versus Asian Education System

America is the land of opportunity, which is famous for its democratic society and unique culture. People in America like to be free, to do whatever they want to do without any restrictions. This belief is reflected in the American educational system. In American schools, teachers and students are at the same social level. Students are encouraged to exchange their own opinions with the teacher. From an early age, students in the American educational system have been taught that they have the ability to achieve whatever they want to be, but rarely been told how they can achieve their goal. Because of this belief in natural born ability in the land of opportunity, students receive very little pressure in school, so whatever they do in school is totally based on their personal beliefs. The advantage of this kind of educational system is that, it really develops student’s individual




Text analysis

Structural analysis



Cultural background




In Asian countries, the cultures and social standards are totally different from the U.S. In those countries most of their values are based on Confucius which heavily stresses education and group values. One’s social status is based on his/her education level. Starting from elementary school, students have been taught that if you want to be successful in life you must have a good education, and any other way is considered inappropriate. In the Asian school systems, educators rank students by their scores. So, if your rank is high you are a good student and you will have a good chance to get into a good school. If your rank is low then you are a bad student and it is a sign that you are going to be a loser. Nobody cares if you are talented or not. Under these pressures, students compete hard with other students. They study five hours a day just trying to gain more

thinking skills, and they are encouraged to try out different options to achieve their goal.

Text analysis

Structural analysis



Cultural background




points in a test so they can get a higher rank. Through these efforts of setting high standards it’s no surprise that Asian students rank top in the academic achievement. The advantage of this kind of system is that the school systems can provide the society year after year with high quality personnel of the same academic standard.







Your final grade for the course is B. A respectable grade. Far superior to the “Gentleman’s C” that served as the norm a couple of generations ago. But in those days A’s were rare: only two out of twenty-five, as I recall. Whatever our norm is, it has shifted upward, with the result that you are probably disappointed at not doing better. I’m certain that nothing I can say will remove that feeling of disappointment, particularly in a climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special programs.

Letter to a B StudentRobert Oliphant







Disappointment. It’s the stuff bad dreams are made of: dreams of failure, inadequacy, loss of position and good repute. The essence of success is that there’s never enough of it to go round in a zero-sum game where one person’s winning must be offset by another’s losing, one person’s joy offset by another’s disappointment. You’ve grown up in a society where winning is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing. To lose, to fail, to go under, to go broke — these are deadly sins in a world where prosperity in the present is seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future. In a different society, your disappointment might be something you could shrug away. But not in ours.

My purpose in writing you is to put your disappointment in perspective by considering exactly what your grade means and doesn’t mean. I do not propose to argue here that grades are unimportant. Rather, I hope to show you that your grade, taken at face value, is apt to be dangerously misleading, both to you and to others.







As a symbol on your college transcript, your grade simply means that you have successfully completed a specific course of study, doing so at a certain level of proficiency. The level of your proficiency has been determined by your performance of rather conventional tasks: taking tests, writing papers and reports, and so forth. Your performance is generally assumed to correspond to the knowledge you have acquired and will retain. But this assumption, as we both know, is questionable; it may well be that you’ve actually gotten much more out of the course than your grade indicates — or less. Lacking more precise measurement tools, we must interpret your B as a rather fuzzy symbol at best, representing a questionable judgment of your mastery of the subject.







Your grade does not represent a judgment of your basic ability or of your character. Courage, kindness, wisdom, good humor — these are the important characteristics of our species. Unfortunately they are not part of our curriculum. But they are important: crucially so, because they are always in short supply. If you value these characteristics in yourself, you will be valued — and far more so than those whose identities are measured only by little marks on a piece of paper. Your B is a price tag on a garment that is quite separate from the living, breathing human being underneath.

The student as performer; the student as human being. The distinction is one we should always keep in mind. I first learned it years ago when I got out of the service and went back to college. There were a lot of us then: older than the norm, in a hurry to get our degrees and move on, impatient with the tests and rituals of academic life. Not an easy group to handle.







One instructor handled us very wisely, it seems to me. On Sunday evenings in particular, he would make a point of stopping in at a local bar frequented by many of the GI-Bill students. There he would sit and drink, joke, and swap stories with men in his class, men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities: former platoon sergeants, bomber pilots, corporals, captains, lieutenants, commanders, majors — even a lieutenant colonel, as I recall. They enjoyed his company greatly, as he theirs. The next morning he would walk into class and give these same men a test. A hard test. A test on which he usually flunked about half of them.







Oddly enough, the men whom he flunked did not resent it. Nor did they resent him for shifting suddenly from a friendly gear to a coercive one. Rather, they loved him, worked harder and harder at his course as the semester moved along, and ended up with a good grasp of his subject — economics. The technique is still rather difficult for me to explain; but I believe it can be described as one in which a clear distinction was made between the student as classroom performer and the student as human being. A good distinction to make. A distinction that should put your B in perspective — and your disappointment.







Perspective. It is important to recognize that human beings, despite differences in class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit together by common bonds of fear and joy, suffering and achievement. Warfare, sickness, disasters, public and private — these are the larger coordinates of life. To recognize them is to recognize that social labels are basically irrelevant and misleading. It is true that these labels are necessary in the functioning of a complex society as a way of letting us know who should be trusted to do what, with the result that we need to make distinctions on the basis of grades, degrees, rank, and responsibility. But these distinctions should never be taken seriously in human terms, either in the way we look at others or in the way we look at ourselves.







Even in achievement terms, your B label does not mean that you are permanently defined as a B achievement person. I’m well aware that B students tend to get B’s in the courses they take later on, just as A students tend to get A’s. But academic work is a narrow, neatly defined highway compared to the unmapped rolling country you will encounter after you leave school. What you have learned may help you find your way about at first; later on you will have to shift to yourself, locating goals and opportunities in the same fog that hampers us all as we move toward the future.

1,052 words

Your final grade for the course is B. A respectable grade. Far superior to the “Gentleman’s C” that served as the norm a couple of generations ago. But in those days A’s were rare: only two out of twenty-five, as I recall. Whatever our norm is, it has shifted upward, with the result that you are probably disappointed at not doing better. I’m certain that nothing I can say will remove that feeling of disappointment, particularly in a climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special programs.







Letter to a B StudentRobert Oliphant

Disappointment. It’s the stuff bad dreams are made of: dreams of failure, inadequacy, loss of position and good repute. The essence of success is that there’s never enough of it to go round in a zero-sum game where one person’s winning must be offset by another’s losing, one person’s joy offset by another’s disappointment. You’ve grown up in a society where winning is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing. To lose, to fail, to go under, to go broke — these are deadly sins in a world where prosperity in the present is seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future. In a different society, your disappointment might be something you could shrug away. But not in ours.

My purpose in writing you is to put your disappointment in perspective by considering exactly what your grade means and doesn’t mean. I do not propose to argue here that grades are unimportant. Rather, I hope to show you that your grade, taken at face value, is apt to be dangerously misleading, both to you and to others.







As a symbol on your college transcript, your grade simply means that you have successfully completed a specific course of study, doing so at a certain level of proficiency. The level of your proficiency has been determined by your performance of rather conventional tasks: taking tests, writing papers and reports, and so forth. Your performance is generally assumed to correspond to the knowledge you have acquired and will retain. But this assumption, as we both know, is questionable; it may well be that you’ve actually gotten much more out of the course than your grade indicates — or less. Lacking more precise measurement tools, we must interpret your B as a rather fuzzy symbol at best, representing a questionable judgment of your mastery of the subject.













Your grade does not represent a judgment of your basic ability or of your character. Courage, kindness, wisdom, good humor — these are the important characteristics of our species. Unfortunately they are not part of our curriculum. But they are important: crucially so, because they are always in short supply. If you value these characteristics in yourself, you will be valued — and far more so than those whose identities are measured only by little marks on a piece of paper. Your B is a price tag on a garment that is quite separate from the living, breathing human being underneath.

The student as performer; the student as human being. The distinction is one we should always keep in mind. I first learned it years ago when I got out of the service and went back to college. There were a lot of us then: older than the norm, in a hurry to get our degrees and move on, impatient with the tests and rituals of academic life. Not an easy group to handle.







One instructor handled us very wisely, it seems to me. On Sunday evenings in particular, he would make a point of stopping in at a local bar frequented by many of the GI-Bill students. There he would sit and drink, joke, and swap stories with men in his class, men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities: former platoon sergeants, bomber pilots, corporals, captains, lieutenants, commanders, majors — even a lieutenant colonel, as I recall. They enjoyed his company greatly, as he theirs. The next morning he would walk into class and give these same men a test. A hard test. A test on which he usually flunked about half of them.







Oddly enough, the men whom he flunked did not resent it. Nor did they resent him for shifting suddenly from a friendly gear to a coercive one. Rather, they loved him, worked harder and harder at his course as the semester moved along, and ended up with a good grasp of his subject — economics. The technique is still rather difficult for me to explain; but I believe it can be described as one in which a clear distinction was made between the student as classroom performer and the student as human being. A good distinction to make. A distinction that should put your B in perspective — and your disappointment.







Perspective. It is important to recognize that human beings, despite differences in class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit together by common bonds of fear and joy, suffering and achievement. Warfare, sickness, disasters, public and private — these are the larger coordinates of life. To recognize them is to recognize that social labels are basically irrelevant and misleading. It is true that these labels are necessary in the functioning of a complex society as a way of letting us know who should be trusted to do what, with the result that we need to make distinctions on the basis of grades, degrees, rank, and responsibility. But these distinctions should never be taken seriously in human terms, either in the way we look at others or in the way we look at ourselves.





... winning is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing



Paraphrase:

Winning is of primary importance; nothing could be more important than winning.

胜利不是最重要的，而是唯一重要的。

Explanation:This is a special type of negation. The author is not negating the importance of winning; rather, with the sentence that follows the negative one, the author gives the utmost emphasis to the importance of winning.







e.g. To improve your oral English, practicing is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

e.g. Ours is a time of information explosion; to keep up with the times, updating our knowledge is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.





To lose, to fail, to go under, to go broke — these are deadly sins in a world where prosperity in the present is seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future.



Paraphrase:

Being unsuccessful in one’s life and career and financially disadvantaged is regarded as shameful or even sinful because in this world people tend to think that only those who are successful now can be saved from evil in the future.

失利失败，倾家荡产是很可怕的过错，因为在当今世界，人们认为眼下的兴隆发达预示着将来必能从困境中脱身。





... when I got out of the service ...

Paraphrase:

... when I got out of the army ...



…… ……当我退伍时

Explanation:

Usually the plural form “services” is used to refer to the three armed forces, i.e. the army, the navy, and the air force.





... men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities: former platoon sergeants, bomber pilots, corporals, captains, lieutenants, commanders, majors — even a lieutenant colonel ...

Explanation:

Here “men who had ... and identities” refers to former GIs, who, like the author himself, had taken off their army uniforms and changed their identities from servicemen to civilians. Many of these men had been officers of various ranks.

那些学生只是在不久以前脱下军装，变成普通人。他们曾经是下士、中士、轰炸机驾驶员、中尉、上尉、指挥官、少校

……或者中校







... shifting suddenly from a friendly gear to a coercive one .



……他突然从友善的样子变成严酷的模样儿。

Explanation:

The word “gear” originally means a device in a vehicle which controls the rate at which the energy being used is converted into motion (排挡 ). While driving, a driver sometimes shifts or changes gear (换挡 ). In our sentence, the shifting of gear refers to the change in the instructor’s manner of dealing with his students. When drinking with the students in the pub, he was easy-going and friendly; but in the classroom, he became stern and severe.





It is important to recognize that human beings, … Warfare, sickness, disasters, public and private — these are the larger coordinates of life.



Paraphrase:It is important to see the fact that although they differ in their class status and educational background, human beings are essentially the same. First of all, they are, biologically speaking, constructed in the same way, and then they all share the feelings of fear and joy, and also the common experience of suffering and achieving. This commonality has bound them together. All of them will regard wars, diseases, and disasters, both private and public, as unfortunate big events in their lifetime.

尽管社会阶级和教育背景不同，但是人们都由相同的物质构成，被恐惧、快乐、痛苦、和成就这些人类共同的纽带联系在一起。承认这一点非常重要。





norm n.



1) level of achievement most students are expected to reach; what is considered as standard.

2) the usual or normal situation, way of doing something etc.

e.g. terrorists who violate the norms of civilized society

e.g. Joyce’s style of writing was a striking departure from the literary norm.

Explanation：

e.g. Short term contracts are now the norm with some big companies.





Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1)犯罪行为似乎是这一带的正常现象。

2)在社会中生活就要遵循社会行为准则。

Criminal behavior seems to be the norm in this neighborhood.

You must adapt to the norms of the society you live in.







shift v.



1) to move or change from one position or direction to another

2) transfer something

e.g. The teacher shifted the chairs around in the classroom.e.g. The tools shift around in the boot every time we turn a corner.

Explanation：

e.g. The wind shifted from east to north.

e.g. You’ll have to shift yourselves to another room. I want to clean in here.

e.g. He shifted the load from his left to his right shoulder.e.g. The president is shifting the focus of the debate to foreign

policy issues.e.g. This simply shifts the cost of medical insurance from

employer to employee.







3) change (gear) in a vehicle

4) move quickly

e.g. Shift up when you reach 30 mph.

e.g. Learn to shift gear at the right moment.

Explanation：

e.g. You’ll have to shift if you want to get there by nine o’clock.

shift sth. (from A to B)Collocation:

e.g. She shifted her gaze from me to Bobby with a look of suspicion.e.g. Under these new arrangements, the emphasis has shifted

from state provision to personal responsibility.







e.g. a shifty-looking person

e.g. a shiftless individual who never works and constantly borrows from others

shifty adj.

shiftless adj.

Derivation:

Practice:Translate the following sentences into English:1) 观众在座位上不安地动来动去。

2)别想把责任推给别人，你得自己干这件事。

The audience shifted uneasily in their seats.

Don’t try to shift the responsibility onto others: you must do the job yourself.





eligibility n.



the qualifications or abilities required for doing something

Explanation：

eligibility for sth.Collocation:

e.g. eligible to join a club

eligible adj. Derivation:

e.g. eligible for promotion





Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 她的资历和经验决定她适合做这项工作。

2) 任何年满十八岁的公民都有选举权。

Her qualifications and experience confirm her eligibility for the job.

Anyone over the age of 18 is eligible to vote.







inadequacy n.



1) being too low in quality or too small in amount

2) fault or failing; weaknesse.g. the inadequacy of local health care

e.g. the inadequacies of the present voting system

Explanation：

e.g. realize one’s personal inadequacy

e.g. An inadequate supply of vitamin A can lead to blindness.inadequate adj.

Derivation:

e.g. The parking facilities are inadequate for such a busy shopping center.

e.g. The teacher made us feel inadequate and stupid if we made mistakes.





Practice:

Translate the following sentences into Chinese:1) Unemployment can often cause feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem.

2) I always feel inadequate when faced with a difficult problem.失业常使人感到自信不足、自尊心受挫。

面对难题我总是觉得力不从心。







repute n.



reputatione.g. a man of good repute

e.g. a hotel of some repute

Explanation：

e.g. She is reputed to be extremely wealthy.

reputed adj.

reputedly adv.

Derivation:

e.g. The committee had reputedly spent over $3000 on “business entertainment”.







e.g. Since the scandal, the school has rather fallen into disrepute.

e.g. The use of drugs is bringing the sport into disrepute.

disrepute n.

Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 他是个名不见经传的大学教师。

2) 安迪在他的家乡臭名昭著。

He has little repute as an academic.

Andy is a man of bad repute in his hometown.





offset v.



to counterbalance or compensate for

Explanation：

e.g. In 1992 the cost of the layoffs was offset by the savings on the payroll.

e.g. He was able to offset his travel expenses against tax.

e.g. Streaks of blond in his hair offset his deep tan.

be offset byCollocation:







Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

2) 抵押贷款利率的提高，其中一部分可因免税额增加而相抵消。

He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.

Higher mortgage rates are partly offset by increased tax allowances.





go under



to fail; to be overwhelmed

Explanation：

e.g. The filling station went under because there were too many others on the street.

e.g. His business went under because of competition from the large corporations.

e.g. Poor Donaldson had no head for business, and it was not long before he went under.







Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 生意若无起色，公司非垮不可。

2) 很多餐厅在第一年就倒闭了。The firm will go under unless business improves.

Many restaurants go under in the first year.







go/be broke

to become penniless; to go bankrupte.g. I was flat broke in a strange town with nowhere to turn for help.

e.g. It is no use asking me for a loan of $5; I’m broke myself.

Explanation：

e.g. The business kept losing money and finally went broke.

Practice:Translate the following sentences into Chinese:1) A lot of small businesses went broke in the recession.

2) The inventor went broke because nobody would buy his machine.经济不景气，很多小公司都倒闭了。

由于没有人愿意买那个发明者的机器，他最终破产了。





shrug … away/off



to treat something as unimportant

Explanation：

e.g. She can shrug away her troubles and keep smiling.

e.g. He had a way of shrugging away criticism as though it were beneath his notice.

Practice:Translate the following sentences into Chinese:1) I asked her where Sam was, but she just shrugged her

shoulders, i.e. to show she didn’t know or didn’t care.

2) We can’t just shrug these objections off.

我问她萨姆在哪儿，她只是耸了耸肩（表示不知道或与自己无关）。

我们不能轻视这些反对意见。







perspective n.

1) a way of regarding situations, facts, etc.

2) a method of drawing a picture that makes objects look solid and shows distance and depth, or the effect this method produces in a picture

Explanation：

e.g. a distorted perspective of the man’s true intentionse.g. That battle is of great significance when viewed in the perspective

of the progress of the war. e.g. We must keep these minor details in perspective and not waste too

much time on them.e.g. From a white male perspective, it’s hard to understand

oppression.

e.g. Children’s drawings often have no perspective.e.g. The background is all out of perspective.







in/out of perspective showing the correct/incorrect relationship between visible objects

in a way that does not exaggerate any aspect/that exaggerates some aspects

Collocation:

e.g. draw the buildings in perspective

e.g. That tree on the left of the picture is out of perspective.

e.g. get things badly out of perspective

Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 他父亲的过世让他对生活有了全新的认识。

2) 作者是站在孩子的视角去写这部小说的。His father’s death gave him a whole new perspective on life.

The novel is written from the perspective of a child.





put/see/view … in perspective



to judge the real importance of something by considering it in relation to other things

e.g. You must put the story in its right perspective.

e.g. to see problems in their true perspective

Explanation：

Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 他观察事物很正确。

2) 你应该用历史的观点看待这些事件。He sees things in their right perspective.

You should see the events in their historical perspective.





take … at face value



to accept something for what it appears to be

e.g. If you take his remarks only at their face value you will not have understood his full meaning.

e.g. She took his stories at face value and did not know he was joking.

Explanation：

Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 她好像够亲切的，可是我不应该信以为真。

2) 你不应该总是对他的话信以为真。

She seems friendly enough but I shouldn’t take her at her face value.

You shouldn’t always take his remarks at their face value.





be apt to



to have the tendency to

e.g. apt to be forgetfule.g. apt to be quick-tempered

Explanation：

e.g. Some of the staff are apt to arrive late on Mondays.e.g. A Frenchman talked very rapidly, and was apt to become

excited.e.g. Days in summer are apt to linger.

Practice:

Translate the following sentences into English:1) 我的钢笔易漏墨水。

2) 粗心的人容易犯错误。My pen is rather apt to leak.

A careless person is apt to make mistakes.





transcript n.



1) an official record of a student’s school progress and achievements

2) written or recorded copy of what has been said or written

e.g. Jane was in tears, holding her college transcript in hand.

e.g. A transcript of the tapes was presented in court as evidence.

Explanation：

e.g. I was not present at the meeting — I’d like a transcript of her speech.

transcribe v.e.g. She jotted down a few notes, and later transcribed them into an

exercise book.e.g. A secretary transcribed the witnesses’ statements.

Derivation:







transcription n.

e.g. errors made in transcription

Practice:Translate the following phrases into Chinese:1) the transcript of court testimony

2) an academic transcript

3) transcript card

4) a transcript of the trial

法庭证词的纪录

学生成绩报告单

录制卡片

审讯记录的文字本







proficiency n.

skill; abilitye.g. a high level of proficiency in grammare.g. a test of proficiency in English

Explanation：

proficiency in

Collocation:

e.g. There are ten tests, each of which corresponds to the listening comprehension test of the proficiency examination.







proficient a.

e.g. proficient in the use of radar equipmente.g. proficient at operating a computer terminal

Derivation:

e.g. Martha’s proficient in Swedish.

Practice:

Translate the following sentences into Chinese:1) Jack shows his proficiency in operating a switchboard. 2) Proficiency viewed in the way I have been talking about is often called achievement.

杰克操作配电板十分熟练。

我一直提到的熟练，从这个角度来看就是常说的成就。





correspond to



to match; to be similar or equal to

e.g. This word in English version corresponds to that phrase in the French one.

e.g. The wing of a bird corresponds to the arm of a man.

Explanation：

e.g. In this engine the rotary section corresponds to the cylinders of a conventional level.

corresponding a.

e.g. The corresponding chromosome in the other parent was found to be defective.

e.g. All rights carry with them corresponding responsibilities.

Derivation:







Practice:Translate the following sentences into English:1) 美国的国会相当于英国的议会。

2) 第一季度的进口额与去年同期相比增长了百分之十。The American Congress corresponds to the British Parliament.

Imports in the first three months have increased by 10 per cent compared with the corresponding period last year.

correspondingly adv.

e.g. The yield per unit area has risen steadily with a corresponding increase in the income of members.

Derivation:





retain v.



1) to keep; to continue to havee.g. A copy of the invoice should be retained by the Accounts

Department.

e.g. It’s important that the elderly should retain a sense of dignity.

Explanation：

e.g. The police retained control of the situation.

e.g. He is 90 but still retains the use of all his faculties.

e.g. She retains a clear memory of the incident.e.g. She retained the tune but not the words of the song.

2) to keep facts in one’s memory







Practice：

1)我们装修房间时保留了原有的壁炉。

2) 他虽然失去了工作，但仍然享有养老金。We retained the original fireplace when we decorated the room.

Despite losing his job he retains his pension.

Translate the following sentences into English:

3) to make sure that you will have someone’s help or services, by paying for them before you actually have them

e.g. They decided to retain their own expense.e.g. He retained the best lawyer in the state to defend his case.

retainer n.

Derivation:





assumption n.



1) what is thought to be true or will happen, without any real proofe.g. A lot of people make the assumption that poverty occurs only in

the Third World.

e.g. I’m working on the assumption that the money will come through.

Explanation：

e.g. the underlying assumption that scientific progress is always a good thing

e.g. Their assumption of an air of confidence fooled nobody.e.g. She bustled about with an assumption of authority.

2) act of displaying (insincere feelings, etc)







3) the act of starting to have control or powere.g. the assumption of responsibilities

e.g. The new governor’s assumption of office takes place next Tuesday.

assume v.

Derivation:

e.g. her assumption of supreme power

e.g. A witness in a murder trial is assumed to know the facts in thecase.

e.g. He himself is to assume the direction of the business.

e.g. He assumes a well-informed manner but in fact he knows very little.







Practice：

1) 我们假定明年通货膨胀率不再上升。

2) 这一理论是以一系列错误的设想为根据的。

We are working on the assumption that the rate of inflation will not increase next year.

The theory is based on a series of wrong assumptions.






fuzzy a.



1) not cleare.g. She gave a rather fuzzy account of what had happened.e.g. Some of the photos were so fuzzy that it was hard to tell who

was who.

Explanation：

e.g. I stroked the kitten’s fuzzy back.

e.g. fuzzy hair

2) having short hair, fur etc. that stands upright

e.g. a fuzzy teddy bear

fuzzily adv.fuzz v. & n.

Derivation:







Practice：

1) 这些照片照得都不清楚。

2) 桃上有一层细毛。These photographs have come out all fuzzy.

A peach skin is covered with fuzz.








1) disposition, temperament e.g. a boy of sullen humore.g. be in excellent humor

Explanation：

e.g. Danny reacted to these criticisms with his usual good humor.

e.g. Mr. Thorne failed to see the humor in the situation.e.g. a story full of humor

2) the quality in something that makes it funny

humor n.

e.g. She lacks humor.e.g. He has a good sense of humor.

3) ability to appreciate things, situations or people that are comic; ability to be amused







humorous a.

humorless adj.

Derivation:

e.g. good-humored

e.g. see the humorous side of a situation

e.g. ill-humored

e.g. a humorless style of writing

Practice：

1) 我心情好的时候就去做。

2) 其中的幽默不是一下子能领会的。I’ll do it when the humor takes me.

The humor of it is not to be absorbed in a hurry.








1) fixed ways of doing thingse.g. The children performed the bedtime ritual of washing and

brushing their teeth.

Explanation：

e.g. the ritual of communion in the Christian Churche.g. The shaman performed the ritual on the young boy.

2) a ceremony that is always performed in the same way, in order to mark an important religious or social occasion

ritual n.

e.g. the ritual of the Japanese tea ceremony







ritualism n.ritualize v.

Derivation:

e.g. The old man’s birthday celebrations were ritualized over the years by his many relatives.

Practice：

1) 他照例填满烟斗，然后点着了。

2) 有的宗教举行仪式时特别注重礼则。He went through the ritual of filling and lighting his pipe.

Some religions employ ritual more than others.








to visit frequentlye.g. Many foreign ships frequent the new port.

Explanation：

e.g. The bar was frequented by actors from the nearby theater.

frequent v.

frequency n.

frequent a.

Derivation:

e.g. Fatal accidents have decreased in frequency over recent years.

e.g. His visits became less frequent as time passed.







Practice：

1) 他从前常去镇上的酒吧和夜总会。

2) 游客们常去城郊的古庙游览。He used to frequent the town’s bars and night-clubs.

Tourists frequent the old temple at the suburbs of the city.








1) to fail an exam, a course or a studente.g. flunk biology

Explanation：

e.g. Tony flunked chemistry last semester.

flunk v.

flunk out

Collocation:

2) give a failing mark to sb.

e.g. be flunked in chemistry







to feel bitter or indignant ate.g. He resents having to get my permission first.

Explanation：

e.g. She greatly resented her brother’s refusal to help.

resent v.

resentful a.

resentfully a.

resentment n.

Derivation:

e.g. He was deeply resentful of her interference.

e.g. “You should have told me,” said Marion resentfully.

e.g. bear no resentment towards anyone

e.g. His daughters became increasingly resentful of his authority.







Practice：

1) 我对你的批评十分反感。

2) 她讨厌我呆在这里吗？I bitterly resent your criticism.

Does she resent my being here?






gear n.



1) the machinery in a vehicle that turns power from the engine into movement

e.g. The car started with a crashing of gears.e.g. Don’t turn off the engine while you’re still in gear.

Explanation：

e.g. The landing gear of a plane has jammed.

e.g. He’s crazy about photography — he’s got all the gear.

2) a piece of machinery that performs a particular job

3) a set of equipment or tools you need for a particular activity

e.g. We’ll need camping gear when we go away.e.g. We’re only going for two days; you don’t need to bring so much

gear.e.g. During this period, Japan’s export industries were in top gear.e.g. The Republican’s propaganda machine moved into high gear.

gear sth. down (to sth.)

gear sth. to/towards sth.

gear up (for /to sth.); gear sb./sth. up (for/to sth.)







gearbox （车辆的）变速箱，变速器gear-change 换档；变速gear-lever/gear-stick/gearshift 变速杆gearwheel 齿轮

Compound words:

e.g. The period of exercise was geared down to ten minutes a day for men over 60.

e.g. Industry must be geared to wartime needs.e.g. Our effort is geared to a higher level of production.

Collocation:

e.g. I was all geared up to go on holiday, and now it’s been cancelled.e.g. The company’s gearing up for the big export drive.







Practice：

1) 那汽车有四个前进挡和一个倒挡。

2) 离合器使用不慎可能损坏传动装置。The car has four forward gears and one reverse gear.

Careless use of the clutch may damage the gears.








using force to persuade people to do what they are unwilling to doe.g. coercive methods

Explanation：

e.g. coercive measures to reduce absenteeism

coercive a.

coerce v.

coercion n.

Derivation:

e.g. coerce sb. into submission e.g. The rebels coerced the villager into hiding them from the army.

e.g. Andy said he had been under coercion when he confessed.







Practice：

1) 他被迫付了钱。

2) 他们被迫签了合同。He paid the money under coercion.

They were coerced into signing the contract.








to shape or carve from some materiale.g. roughly hewn timber

Explanation：hew v.

hew sth. across/through

hew sth. away/off

hew sth. out

Collocation:

e.g. They hewed a path through the jungle.

e.g. hew off dead branches

e.g. hew out a career for oneself







1) to make things such as clothes by using two long needles to connect wool or other kinds of thread into joined rows

2) (in knitting instructions) make a plain (i.e. not a purl) stitch

3) to join people, things or ideas more closely, or to be closely connected

e.g. She’ s knitting me a sweater.

Explanation：knit v.

e.g. Do you know how to knit?

e.g. knit one, purl one

e.g. Wherever they live, the Jewish people are knit together by a common faith.

e.g. a closely knit communitye.g. a closely knit argument

e.g. The broken bones have knit together well.







knitting-machine 编织机knitting-needle 编结针

Compound words:

Practice：

1) 这两集团因有共同利益而联合在一起。

2) 她给儿子织了一件毛衣。The two groups are knit together by common interests.

She knitted her son a sweater.


knitter 编织者knitting 编织物

Derivations:







1) (usu. pl.) one of a pair of numbers and/or letters that show the exact position of a point on a map or graph

2) (pl.) matched items of women’s clothes

e.g. the x and y coordinates on a graph

Explanation：coordinate n.

e.g. coordinates of latitude and longitude


Vocabulary analysis Grammar exercises

Translation exercises






Vocabulary analysis

I. Word comparison

II . Prefix

III. Collocation practiceExercises for integrated skills

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Word comparisonGroup 1: A. look like B. play the role of C. regard sb./sth. as D. be wonderful for E. serve asExplanation:

Look like means to have the appearance of sb./sth.A.

B. Play the role of means to function.Exercises for integrated skills

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Writing practice

e.g. I regard that movie as one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

Regarded sb./sth. as means to consider or think about sb./sth. in the specified way.

C.

e.g. That photograph doesn’t look like her at all.

e.g. Such strikes have played an important role in the development of the trade union movement.




Be wonderful for means causing wonder or very surprising D.

E. Serve as means to satisfy a need or purpose.Exercises for integrated skills

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Writing practice

e.g. The child’s skill is wonderful for his age.

e.g. This room can serve as a study.




Explanation:

A.e.g. Just close you eyes and let loose your imagination.

Level off means to become level after rising or falling.B.

e.g. House prices show no sign of leveling off.

Group 2: A. set loose B. level off C. cause to happen D. reduce in degree E. offset

Exercises for integrated skills

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Set loose means to release sb./sth.





Writing practice

Reduce in degree means to make something smaller in degree.D.

Cause to happen means to cause to occur or take place.C.

e.g. What caused this to happen?

e.g. If the pressure is not reduced, the cylinder is likely to fracture.





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Writing practice

Offset means to compensate for something or balance something.

E.

e.g. He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.




Explanation: A.e.g. A literal translation doesn’t mean a good translation.

Manuscript means a written or typewritten composition or document as distinguished from a printed copy.

B.

e.g. He showed me the manuscript of his new play.

Group 3: A. translation B. manuscript C. written text D. cassette tape E. transcript


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Translation means the product of rendering from one language to another.





Writing practice

Written text means written or printed part of a book or page.C.

e.g. This is the full written text of the Prime Minister’s speech.




D.

e.g. I have lent her three cassette tapes during five days.

Transcript means a written, printed, or typed copy especially a usually typed copy of dictated or recorded material.

E.

e.g. I was not present at the meeting — I’d like a transcript of her speech.


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Cassette tape means a plastic cartridge containing magnetic tape with the tape passing from one reel to another.





Writing practice

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Explanation:

A.e.g. The murderer tried to acquire a new identity.

Sink in the sea of business means to be engaged in business.B.

e.g. John sank in the sea of business and he spent little time with his families.

Group 4: A. acquire a new identity B. sink in the sea of business C. become bankrupt D. fail in the exam E. go under

Acquire a new identity means to get a new personality of an individual.

Become bankrupt means unable to pay one’s debts.C.e.g. The company became bankrupt because it couldn’t sell its

products.

Vocabulary analysis

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Fail in the exam means to be unsuccessful in the exam.D.e.g. I passed in math but failed in French.

Go under means to become bankrupt or fail. E.e.g. The firm will go under unless business improves.

Vocabulary analysis


Prefix

1. inter-

1) between, among, in the midst

2) reciprocal

3) located between

4) carried on between

5) occurring between

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Explanation:

e.g. intercrop, interpenetrate 渗透、相互贯通 , interstellar星际的

e.g. interrelation

e.g. interstation

e.g. international

e.g. Interborough区与区之间的

Vocabulary analysis


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6) shared by, involving, or derived from two or more

7) between the limits of, within

8) existing between

e.g. interfaith

e.g. intertropical

e.g. intercommunal, intercompany

Vocabulary analysis


2. trans-

Grammar exercises



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1) on or to the other side of, across, beyond

2) beyond (a specified chemical element) in the periodic table

3) through

4) so or such as to change or transfer

e.g. transatlantic

e.g. transuranium

e.g. transcutaneous

e.g. transliterate, translocation, transamination, transship

Explanation:

Vocabulary analysis


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3. circum-

around, about

e.g. circumpolar

Explanation:

Vocabulary analysis


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4. mis-

1) badly, wrongly

2) unfavorably

3) in a suspicious manner

4) bad, wrong

5) opposite or lack of

6) not

e.g. misjudge

e.g. misesteem

e.g. misdoubt

e.g. misdeed

Explanation:

e.g. mistrust

e.g. misknow

Vocabulary analysis


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5. con-

with, together, jointly 1) com- before b, p, or m

2) col- before l

3) con- before other sounds

e.g. commingle

e.g. collinear

e.g. concentrate

Explanation:

Vocabulary analysis


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6. anti-

1) of the same kind but situated oppositely, exerting energy in the opposite direction, or pursuing an opposite policy

2) one that is opposite in kind

3) opposing or hostile to in opinion, sympathy, or practice

4) opposing in effect or activity

5) serving to prevent, cure, or alleviate

6) combating or defending against

e.g. anticlinal

e.g. anticlimax

e.g. anti-Semite

e.g. anti-acid

Explanation:

e.g. antianxiety

e.g. antiaircraft, antimissile

Vocabulary analysis


Collocation practice

1. essence

Explanation:

1) The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.

2) She was the essence of kindness.

3) The essence of his religious teaching is love for all men.

他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。

inner nature; indispensable quality; the most important part

她本性善良。

Examples:

他宣扬的宗教教义要旨是爱天下人。

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Vocabulary analysis


2. deadly sins

Explanation: The phrase specifically refers to “the seven deadly sins”: pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth.

Grammar exercises



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1) Andy confessed his sins to a priest.

2) Being late is an unforgivable sin round here.

3) It’s a sin to stay indoors on such a fine day.

安迪向神父认罪忏悔。

迟到在这儿是一种不可原谅的过错。

这样的好天气呆在家里实在是罪过。

Examples:

1) Misleading advertisements are prohibited by law.

2) Some films are misleading.

3) The witness made a misleading description to the police.

Vocabulary analysis


3. misleading

Explanation: making you think or act wrongly Grammar exercises



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法律禁止有误导性的广告。

有些电影是具有欺骗性的。

证人的描述误导了警方。

Examples:

Vocabulary analysis


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4. conventional tasks

Explanation: tasks traditionally required of students

1) He made a few conventional remarks about the weather.

2) The conventional wisdom is that high wage rises increase inflation.

3) She’s so conventional in her views.

他说了几句关于天气的客套话。

人们普遍认同的看法是工资增长过快会加剧通货膨胀。

她的观点太保守。

Examples:

Vocabulary analysis

Oral activities


5. in short supply Explanation:

far from enough

Examples: Grammar exercises



Writing practice

Listening exercises






1) These goods are in short supply.

2) Water is in short supply during summer days in this area.

3) Teachers are in short supply in this town.

这些商品缺货。

这个地区夏季缺水。

这个城镇教师短缺。

Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises



Grammar exercises

I ． DefinitionII. Relative pronoun and relative clause

III. Compound relative pronounExercises for integrated skills

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IV. ... not the most ... it’s the only thing.

... enough ... Nor ... Rather

Nouns are naming words. They give titles to people, places, things, and ideas. In English there are different types of nouns. First, nouns can either be common or proper.i) Common nouns are general nouns. They do not begin with capital letters unless they start sentences.ii) Proper nouns are nouns that refer to specific people, places, or things. They always begin with capital letters. Nouns can also be concrete or abstract.i) Concrete nouns are used to refer to physical objects.ii) Abstract nouns are used to refer to a quality or idea.

Vocabulary analysis

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Definition


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Define the following nouns after examples.Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises



Practice:

Explanation: a glass A glass is a utensil that/which you can drink out of. a surgeon A surgeon is a doctor who/that performs operations.


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1) a vacuum cleaner

Definition:

A vacuum cleaner is a machine that cleans floors by sucking up the dirt from them.

2) a jockey

Definition:

A jockey is a person who rides horses in races.

Vocabulary analysis

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3) a chauffeur

Definition:

A chauffeur is someone whose job is to drive a car for someone else.

4) a thermometer

Definition:A thermometer is a piece of equipment that measures the temperature of the air or your body.

5) a teetotaller

Definition:

A teetotaller is someone who never drinks alcohol.

Relative pronouns perform two functions at the same time. They take the places of nouns as normal pronouns would, but they also connect those replaced nouns to subordinate clauses. Briefly, a subordinate clause is a group of words that has a subject and a predicate, but that does not make sense on its own. When a subordinate clause begins with a relative pronoun, we call it a relative clause or a nominal relative clause. The relative pronouns are: who, which, that, what, when, where, and why. They do not change form with gender, person, or number. Only who changes form with case:

Each relative pronoun refers to a certain type of noun — a person, a place, or a thing — or some combination of the three.

Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises



Relative pronoun and relative clause


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whoWhomwhose

NominativeObjectivePossessive

Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises




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Who and its accompanying forms only refer to people.

e.g. The people who climbed that mountain are crazy.The people whom we saw earlier looked concerned.I saw the woman whose book won the literary award.

Which refers to animals and things, never to people.

e.g. The dog which tipped over my garbage needs a shorter leash.The crowd cheered as the plane which had flown around the world landed.

That refers to people, animals, or things.

e.g. The woman that witnessed the shooting will testify tomorrow.The camel that carried us through the desert has died.The explorers found the cave that hid the treasure for so many years.

Vocabulary analysis

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What refers only to inanimate objects, never to people or animals.

e.g. I saw what happened to your wallet.The expert mountaineer knew what he was talking about.

What is interchangeable with the pronoun phrase that which.

e.g. I saw that which happened to your wallet.The expert mountaineer knew that which he was talking about.

When refers to time.

e.g. Do you remember the time when we filled the pool with lime jello?The day when I will have my revenge is coming soon.

Where refers to places or locations.e.g. We returned to the place where we fell in love.

This is the spot where he was last seen.

Vocabulary analysis

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Why refers to reasons.

e.g. No one knows the reason why the boss blew his top.I cannot tell you the reason why they behaved as they did.

Relative Pronouns in Relative ClausesMany of the subordinate clauses that relative pronouns

introduce modify the antecedents of these same relative pronouns. Contemporary grammarians refer to subordinate clauses that modify nouns, pronouns, or other nominal as relative clauses. Relative pronouns used in relative clauses always have antecedents.

The guy who took our tickets gave me the creeps.We saw the plane that broke the air speed record.In the first example, the relative pronoun who introduces the

relative clause who took our tickets. The relative clause describes the subject of the sentence, the guy. That ticket-taker is creepy.

In the second example, the relative pronoun that introduces the relative clause that broke the air speed record. The relative clause modifies the direct object plane in the main clause. The plane is a record-breaker.

Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises




Oral activities

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Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises



Practice

Fill in each blank with a proper relative word. Use “preposition + relative word” if necessary.


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1. The element writers may spend a majority of their time is development.

on which________

Explanation:

Each relative pronoun refers to a certain type of noun — a person, a place, or a thing — or some combination of the three. Which refers to animals and things, never to people, while spend time on something is a phrase. The proposition on can be placed before the relative word which.

Each relative pronoun refers to a certain type of noun — a person, a place, or a thing — or some combination of the three. Who and its accompanying forms only refer to people. The relative pronoun who introduces the relative clause who will make all sorts or excuses for not wanting to work. The relative clause describes the subject of the sentence.

Vocabulary analysis

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2. Mr. Ford still talks like the man he was ten years ago. that_____Explanation:

Each relative pronoun refers to a certain type of noun — a person, a place, or a thing — or some combination of the three. That refers to people, animals, or things. The relative pronoun that introduces the relative clause that he was then years ago.

3. A “goldbrick” is a person will make all sorts of excuses for not wanting to work.

who_____

Explanation:

Each relative pronoun refers to a certain type of noun —a person, a place, or a thing — or some combination of the three. The relative pronoun whom introduces the relative clause whom I have the greatest respect for. The clause modifies the noun man, the antecedent of whom while have respect for somebody is a phrase. The proposition for can be placed before the relative word whom.

Vocabulary analysis

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4. If I write a scene somebody is hungry, I feel hungry. Or angry, I feel angry.

where______

Explanation:

Each relative pronoun refers to a certain type of noun —a person, a place, or a thing — or some combination of the three. Where refers to places or locations.

5. James Russell is a man I have the greatest respect.for whom_________

Explanation:

The expanded form of the relative pronouns — whoever, whomever, whatever — are known as indefinite relative pronouns.

whatever or what ever: You can use either whatever or what ever in sentences such as

Whatever (or What ever) made her say that? Critics have occasionally objected to the one-word form, but many respected writers have used it. The same is true of the forms whoever, whenever, wherever, and however. However, you must use the one-word form when whatever is used as an adjective: Take whatever (not what ever) books you need.

Vocabulary analysis

Grammar exercises



Compound relative pronoun


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Vocabulary analysis

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1. whatever and commas: When a clause beginning with whatever is the subject of a sentence, do not use a comma: Whatever you do is right. Otherwise, a comma is fine: Whatever you do, don’t burn the toast.

2. never with that: When the phrase preceding a restrictive clause is introduced by

whichever or whatever, that should not be used in formal writing. It is regarded as incorrect to write whatever book that you want to look at; instead you should write: Whatever book you want to look at will be sent to your office or Whichever book costs less (not that costs less) is fine with us.

Vocabulary analysis

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Who or whoever is the nominative form. Use it whenever he (or she, they, I, we) could be substituted in the who- clause. (If in no doubt, mentally rearrange the clause as is done in parentheses after each of the following examples.)

[1]

Whom or whomever is the objective form. Use it whenever him (or her, them, me, us) could be substituted as the object of the verb or as the object of a preposition in the whom- clause.

[2]

Vocabulary analysis

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e.g. Whoever wins the primary will win the election. (He wins the primary.)I will hire whoever meets our minimum qualifications. (He meets our minimum qualifications.)I will speak to whoever answers the phone. (He answers the phone.)Please write at once to whoever you think can supply the information desired. (You think he can supply the information desired.)

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e.g. Whomever you designate will get the promotion. (You designate him.)I’ll give the job whomever you think can safely recommend. (You think you can safely recommend him.)

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Practice

Complete the following sentences with the appropriate words in the box.


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1. problems you may have, we will help. Whatever________

Explanation:Whatever in this sentence refers to regardless of what.

whoever wherever whatever however whenever whichever

2. you go, I will follow you. Wherever________

Explanation:

Wherever in this sentence refers to in any place, regardless of where.

5. I may go I please. You may come you please.

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3. Take book you like best.whichever_________

Explanation:

Whichever in this sentence refers to regardless of which.

4. He offered a reward to should restore the lost ring.whoever________

Explanation:

Whoever in this sentence refers to regardless of who.

Explanation:

Whenever in this sentence refers to at any time, regardless of when.

whenever whenever_________________

This is a special type of negation. It is not negating the importance of something; rather, with the sentence that follows the negative one, it gives the utmost emphasis to the importance of that thing.

This special sentence pattern is to introduce a sharp transition. The emphasis is placed on the part which is preceded by “Rather…”.

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... not the most ... it’s the only thing.


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... enough ... Nor ... Rather

1. 为了提高你的英语口语，练习不是最重要的事情，而是唯一重要的事。

2. 我们的时代是信息爆炸的时代，为了跟上时代的步伐，不断更新我们的知识不是最重要的事，而是唯一重要的事。

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Practice

Translate the following sentences, keeping the sentence pattern above-mentioned.


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To improve your oral English, practicing is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

Ours is a time of information explosion; to keep up with the times, updating our knowledge is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

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For some teachers, sending their students to the best universities is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

Surprisingly enough, he has never been abroad. Nor has he ever had a teacher who is a native speaker. Rather, he has obtained the native-like accent by imitating.

3. 对一些教师来说，把他们的学生送进最好的大学不是最重

要的事情，而是唯一重要的事情。

4. 令人吃惊的是，他从未出过国，也没有当地人指导过他，但是他却通过模仿练就了一口当地口音。

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Translation exercisesTranslate each of the following sentences into English, using the word or phrase given in the bracket. Inflect the word or phrase where necessary.


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“With the result that” usually refers to an effect or outcome of something. And “acute” here often describes an illness coming quickly to the most severe or critical stage. The opposite word is “chronic” which is used to depict a disease lasting for a long time or continually recurring.

He was hospitalized with acute appendicitis, with the result that he missed the final examination.

1. 他因急性阑尾炎住院治疗，结果连期末考试都没考上。 (with the result that)

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1) 我在沐浴，没有听到电话声。

2) 我迟到了，没能赶上火车。

3) 我不舒服，没有参加昨天的会议。

I was in the bath, with the result that I didn’t hear the telephone.

I was late, with the result that I missed my train.

Chinese-English translation:

I was sick, with the result that I didn’t attend the meeting yesterday.

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“More … than …” means a greater or additional number or amount of sth./sb. Or it is used to emphasize that one thing is truer, more important etc. than something.

As many more people came to the lecture than expected, there were not enough handouts to go round.

2. 前来听讲座的人数远远超出原来的估计，分发给大家的讲义不够了。 (go round)

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1) 椅子不够坐。

2) 食物够每人一份吗？

3) 食物不够这么多人吃的，女主人不知如何是好。The hostess didn’t know what to do, as she hadn’t got enough food to go round so many people.

There aren’t enough chairs to go round.


Is there enough food to go round?

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“Make a point of doing sth.” means to do something because one considers it important or necessary. No matter how/where/what etc. means that something is always the same whatever happens, or in spite of someone’s efforts to change it.


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3. 不管一天工作有多忙，他在睡觉前总要看一下电子信箱里有没有新邮件。 (make a point of)





Notes：

No matter what a long day he may have, he makes a point of checking his email box before going to bed.

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1) 我出门前总是要检查所有的窗户，看是否都关好了。

2) 我总是把新的成员介绍给董事长。

3) 珍妮总是要在睡觉前把所有的工作做完。Jane always makes a point of finishing all the work of the day before she goes to bed.

I always make a point of checking that all the windows are shut before I go out.


I always make a point of introducing new members to the chairman.

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4. 世界各国都有失业问题，但各国政府处理这个问题的方法不尽相同。 (handle)

“Vary” refers to be different in size, volume, strength, etc. The sentence “Opinions vary on this point.” means that people have different opinions about this issue.

Unemployment is found in all countries in the world, but the governments vary in their way to handle the problem.

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1) 演说者受到暴民的粗暴对待。

2) 这家商店不经营这类商品。

3) 我觉得她对此事的处理很了不起。I was impressed by her handling of the affair.

The speaker was roughly handled by the mob.


This shop doesn’t handle such goods.

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5. 医生的一番话消除了他对手术的恐惧感。 (remove)

“Remove” here means to cause something to disappear or eliminate something.

The doctor’s words removed his fears about the operation.

Notes：

1) 裁员的危险顿时消除了。

2) 母亲的话消除了她对约翰的疑虑。

3) 她用纸巾擦掉了脂粉。She removed her make-up with a tissue.

The threat of redundancy was suddenly removed.


Mother’s words removed her doubts about John.

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Fill in each blank in the passage below with ONE word you think appropriate.

Student life at American universities is chaotic during the first week of each quarter or semester. Registering (1) classes, becoming (2) with the buildings on campus, buying books, (3) and dropping classes, and paying fees are (4) for everyone. During this busy period there is (5) time for students to anticipate (6) they will later encounter in the classroom. International students, (7) to their education expectations, must adapt to new classroom norms in a (8) college or university. Whereas in one country prayer may be acceptable in a classroom, in another it may be (9) .

for_____

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familiar_______

adding_______ confusing________little_____

what______

accustomed__________ countries’

foreign_______forbidden________

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In some classrooms around the world students must humbly (10) their teacher’s commands and (11) absolutely silent during a class period. In (12) , students may talk, eat, and smoke during lectures as well as criticize a teacher’s methods or even (13) his or her statements. It is not always (14) to understand a new educational system.

remain______

contradict_________

obey____

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others______

easy_____

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Explanation:Register for something means formally record a name, an event, a sale, etc. in a list.

for

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Explanation:Familiar with something means having a good knowledge of something.

familiar

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Explanation:Add here means to come together or unite by addition.

adding

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Explanation:Confusing means difficult to understand or puzzling.

confusing

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Explanation:Little means not much, existing only in a small amount or to a slight degree.

little

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Explanation:What clause functions as the object of the verb “anticipate”.

what

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Explanation:Accustomed to means adapted to existing conditions.

accustomed

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Explanation:Foreign here means related to or dealing with other nations. In this sentence, foreign college and university refer to the college and university of other countries.

foreign

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Explanation:Forbidden means not permitted or allowed.

forbidden

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Explanation:Obey one’s commands means to conform to or comply with one’s orders.

obey

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Explanation:Remain means continue to be, stay in the same condition.

remain

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Explanation:Some ... others ... is a fixed pattern.

others

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Explanation:Contradict means to imply the opposite or a denial of. In this sentence, it indicates that students can challenge teachers’ statement in some countries.

contradict

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Explanation:According to the two totally different classroom norms, we can conclude that it is not easy to understand a new educational system.

easy

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You are a B student. This is disappointing to your parents because they always expect you to be an A student. In a recent English test you got another B. Now talk to your parent, exchanging ideas about grades with him/her. You will first play the role of the student and your partner as the parent. Then switch roles.Exercises for integrated

skills

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The discussion can be based on the following aspects.1) The student is satisfied with his grade B.2) The parent thinks grade B is not good enough.

Suggestions:

I. Converse with one of your classmates on the following topics.

The discussion can be based on the following aspects.1) Grades are important. They’re the true reflections of the

ability and the academic achievement.2) Grades should not be overemphasized.

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II. Organize yourselves into groups of five or six and discuss the following issues.

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Suggestions:

Regarding grades, opinions are divided. Some people think grades are important because they are true reflections of the ability and the academic achievement of the students and have to do with their future; others think that while grades are necessary, they do not mean everything and should not be overemphasized.

script A sample discussion on the first topic:A sample discussion on the second topic: script

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(Student=S; Parent=P)

S: I got another B in English.P: What! Why can’t you tell me another grade? It’s always been like that. Always B.S: Next time I will surely give you another grade. How about C?P: If you dare.S: I have tried my best. Who can imagine it is so tough.P: If you had prepared well, you would have been much better.S: No one got A this time. B is the best.P: Oh! Really? Do you think you are the best?S: Of course not.P: Ok. Go out and have your fun.

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Group A thinks grades are important because they are true reflections of the ability and the academic achievement of the students and would determine their future. Group B thinks that while grades are necessary, they do not mean everything and should not be overemphasized.

Group A: Grades are important. Higher grades mean better career, better opportunity and better future. What can the employer rely on if he knows nothing about you? What can he know about you except the ability reflected in your transcript? What can he entrust you to unless judging from your transcript? The employer is busy so that he has no time to make personal meeting with you and spend a lot of time discovering what you are and what you can do. If you were an employer, what could you do before thousands of or even millions of job applicants who are ready to tell you how qualified they are for the job? You could do nothing but survey their transcripts quickly and find out the person you need.

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Group B: We do not think grades unnecessary, but we should not overemphasize it. Those who study very well are not necessarily capable of doing what was reflected in the transcript. It is very common that a man with high grades cheats in the examinations. It is very common that a man with high grades can not adapt himself to the new post quickly. It is very common that a man with low grades can make remarkable and impressive achievements, too. Therefore, high grades are necessary, but should not be overemphasized.

It is reported that a schoolboy in China was criticized by his teacher for breaking away from the conventional way of looking at spring by saying a lot of negative things about this season. The negative side of spring mentioned in his composition includes the changeable weather, too much rainfall and quick spreading of diseases such as flu. You are required to write a letter of about 200 words to a newspaper editor and in your letter first describe what has happened and then express your opinion about it.

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Dear Editor, There was a report about a schoolboy in China who was criticized by his teacher for not saying the conventional thing about the spring. He said that the spring is a season when weather changes frequently and people are contracted by illnesses, and the rainfall is too much. I was stunned when reading the news. I think the teacher’s behavior is improper and he/she needs rethinking. Students are always creative, conceiving brilliant new ideas from time to time. Be it about the way of thinking or the attitude to life, they hate to follow the set pattern. Imagine what a student will think about when he knows that he has to write about a season which he is very familiar with. Choice No.1 is that he can follow suit by saying that the spring is wonderful, which is what he hates to do. Choice No.2

A sample essay:

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is that he can observe the spring from another perspective and write about the things which few one notice or dare to recognize in their writings. The student chose No.2 with the result that he was criticized by his teacher. His creativity was not appreciated or recognized. His true nature was demeaned. As a result, he will lose the courage to express his creative ideas in the future. If everyone in society dare not to speak out their original ideas, we will suffer a lot. I hope that teachers would not restrict students’ thinking again. After all, diversity is vitality.

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Listening exercises

Go to the Head of the Class






script■

A. Listen to the report “Go to the Head of the Class”. Write in the left-hand column of the table below the five ideas that can help you leap to the top of the class. Then listen to the report again, and write in the right-hand column of the table the key words and phrases that best illustrate each idea. The first one is already given as an example.

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1. Make reading automatic.

key to school success / takes practice / automatic reader / read with expression / with sense of meaning

Key

2. Win equal opportunity in the classroom.

same classroom / different educations / no equal-opportunity education / discuss with teacher / let teacher know what’s on your mind

Key

3. Learn to think.

lower mental process — rote learning / higher mental processes — problem-solving, analyzing, interpreting / improve thinking skills / gain in rote learning

Key

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4. Have classmates help.

teamwork / cooperative learning / reward / peer pressure / bonuses / self-esteem / value of cooperation / better attitudes toward classmates

Key

5. Educate at home.

home / better predictor of success / great impact / homework and reading / given priority / parents / encourage and praise / family members / talk and do things together

Key

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B. After listening, discuss the following two questions.

1. Do you agree with the saying “Inside almost every poor to average student, there’s a smart kid yearning to get out”?2. What can you do to help bring your “smart kid” out?

script■

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How smart are you? How much can you learn? How high can you climb? Until now, schoolchildren seemed frozen in place. An average student in second or third grade paddled along, just fair to middling, until graduation from high school. A poor student languished at the bottom of each successive class. Studies showed that more than four out of five students began and ended schools at the same level of performance.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Benjamin Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, supervised two separate research projects. In each, students were selected at random and provided with private teachers. With this one-to-one instruction, below-average students climbed to better-than-average, while average students out-performed 98 percent of the boys and girls in conventional classrooms.






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Go to the Head of the Class

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■

Bloom identified and tested five remarkable simple ideas aimed at reproducing in the classroom the most effective components of one-to-one instruction: attention, feedback, support, encouragement, and self-esteem. Here are the five ideas that can help you leap to the top of the class: 1. Make reading automatic. Reading is the key to school success and, like any other skill, it takes practice. A child learns to walk by practicing until he no longer has to think about how to put one foot in front of the other. And you do the same thing when you learn to read. You are not an automatic reader until you can read with expression, with a sense of meaning of the sentences rather than read one word at a time, without expression or meaning.

2. Win equal opportunity in the classroom. Sitting in the same classroom, different students get very different educations. Teachers often tend to give most of their attention to a handful of students, usually the top third of the class. If you think that you are not getting an equal-opportunity education, discuss it with your teacher. Let your teacher know what’s on your mind. Just raising the question will make your teachers take a closer look at what they’re doing.

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■

3. Learn to think. Are you learning to remember information — or to use it? Do you memorize a math formula, or do you learn how it applies to all the circles of you life? According to Bloom, about 95 percent of today’s teaching focuses on the “lower mental process” — rote learning of grammar, multiplication tables, historical names and dates. Most teachers spend very little time on the “higher mental processes” — problem-solving, analyzing and interpreting. When you improve your thinking skills there is a gain in rote learning, too. Knowing what an idea or a principle means, and how it can be applied, helps you learn better and remember longer.

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4. Have classmates help. More and more schools are trying teamwork or, as educators call it, “cooperative learning”. There are a number of ways to organize these teams, but two things are essential. First, youngsters need a reward — praise, a certificate of recognition — for doing well as a team. Second, the teams’ success must depend on how well each member learns. It’s the good side of peer pressure. There are also important bonuses to team study. Self-esteem goes up. Students learn the value of cooperation and develop better attitudes toward classmates with different social backgrounds or physical handicaps.

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5. Educate at home. According to the experts, what happens in your home is a better predictor of success in school than in any I.Q. or achievement test. The home environment has a great impact on how a child learns. It is as important as the quality of teachers or curriculum. In the homes of top achievers, homework and reading are given priority over play or television; parents encourage their children’s intellectual interests and praise school achievement. Family members talk together and do things together. Inside almost every poor to average student, there’s a smart kid yearning to get out. With these ideas, we can help to unlock that potential.

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Lead-in questions Supplementary reading



Lead-in questions:

1. Do you have any pressure when you are in college? What are they?2. If you were a college student, would you like to choose a variety of courses or just limited courses which could benefit your future career?

Memorable quotes





I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains, only victims.

“In the late 1960s,” one dean told me, “the typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world?’ or ‘How can I make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” Many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They’re trying to find an edge — the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal. ”

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Supplementary reading



Memorable quotes

College Pressures(Abridged)





William Zinsser

Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good”. Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practice where they will make a lot of money.

The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “Gentleman’s C,” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses — music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion — that would send them out as liberally

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Memorable quotes






educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I don’t know if they are getting A’s or C’s, and I don’t care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They can’t. Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now comes to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers — colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debts.

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Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.

I see many students taking premedical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

“Do you want to go to medical school?” I ask them.“I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”“Then why are you going?”“Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They’re paying all this

money and ... ”Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest w

ebs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well; they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the sons and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy —

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Memorable quotes






subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics — an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective — are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward a specific profession. Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year. “I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn’t tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

The story is symptomatic of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they could sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?” Part of the problem is that they do more than they are expected to do. A professor will assign five-page papers. Several students will start writing ten-page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten-page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.

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Memorable quotes






“Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “it’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic works, psychologically.”

Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing in themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.

1,079 words

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About the author William Zinsser was born in 1922 in New York City, and studied at Princeton University. He was a feature writer, film critic, and drama editor for the New York Herald Tribune and later a columnist for Look and Life, and has also written numerous books. In 1971 he took a teaching position in the English department at Yale University. He is the author of the best-selling book On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1976).

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Lead-in questions



They’re trying to find an edge — the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal. (Paragraph 2) “edge” here means an advantage over others, as in the expression “have the edge on/over”, meaning “be slightly better than someone or something because you have an advantage they do not have.” What the dean means is that they try to find an advantage over others, i.e. they try to have higher marks on their transcript so that they will appear to be academically superior to others, especially when two students are more or less the same. But the dean seems to think that marks are not really very reliable and valid indications of the real quality of the students.

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... sampling a wide variety of courses (Paragraph 4) ... taking numerous courses without necessarily going deep into any of them.

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If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. (Paragraph 4) If I were an employer, I would employ those students who take all these courses and thus have a wide range of knowledge and are always curious about what is new and unknown; I would not employ those who only take those courses they can safely pass and score high marks.

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But they are equally battered by inflation. (Paragraph 5) But they (the colleges) are as badly affected by inflation as the parents and the students are.

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We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers — colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debts. (Paragraph 5) Here in America we find a union of colleges, parents, and students come into being; what they have in common is that they are all in debt.Memorable quotes






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tenacity (Paragraph 7) determination to continue what one is doing

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They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. (Paragraph 12) A web is a complicated pattern of connections or relationships. Both the students and their parents find themselves caught in a web: The parents, out of good intention, want their children to take courses which they think are more profitable; the children are not interested in these courses, but they feel they just have to take them; otherwise they would suffer from a sense of guilt because it is their parents who have paid for their education. Such a web has long been in existence in human history, thus “one of the oldest webs”.

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Where’s the payoff on the humanities? (Paragraph 12) What financial benefit can students get from courses in humanities? The humanities are subjects such as history, philosophy and literature, which are concerned with human ideas and behaviors. Such courses do not usually lead immediately to profitable occupations as courses related to law and medicine do.

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self-induced pressure (Paragraph 13) pressure brought on by the students themselves

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The story is symptomatic of all the pressures put together. (Paragraph 15) The story indicates all the pressures combined.

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Questions for discussion:1.

2.

3.

4.

How do you interpret the last sentence of the first paragraph “But there are no villains, only victims”?From Zinsser’s quotation of a certain dean in the 2nd paragraph, what idea do you get from the difference between the students in the late 1960s and students of the time when the article was written (presumably in the 1970s-1980s)?Why do students, both of those who want to enter graduate schools and those who just want to graduate and get a job, attach so much importance to grades?Zinsser obviously holds a different opinion from many of the parents with regard to the courses the students should take. Describe this difference and voice your own opinion.






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5.

6.

According to the text, what mentality underlies peer pressure and self-induced pressure?As a college student do you feel any of the four pressures Zinsser has described in the text? Is there any other pressure you feel? Discuss with your classmates the pressure(s) you feel and try to suggest a way “to break the circles in which you are trapped”.






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1.

2

3.

No one is really to blame for the pressures working on college students, not the colleges, or the professors, or the parents, or the students themselves. In fact, they (the colleges, the professors, the parents and the students) are all victims.The students in the late 1960s seemed to be more concerned with what was happening in the world as a whole, and what they could do to make our world a better place to live. The college students of the time when the article was written were more concerned about their own future and career, and they seemed to be more egoistic.To both of them, a good transcript will serve as a passport to security. They want to look better so that they can either be enrolled by a graduate school or find a good job.






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4.

5.

6.

Most parents want their sons and daughters to take courses that would lead them to occupations with good pay such as law and medicine. But Zinsser would rather that they took a wide range of courses in the humanities, such as philosophy, history, music and religion, so that they would become liberally well-educated men and women.The mentality that underlies peer pressure and self-induced pressure is the fear to be outshone by one’s fellow students, the fear to appear inferior to others.Open to discussion.






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Please paraphrase the following quotes:They are able because they think they are able.

—Vergil





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Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study.

— Francis Bacon





Letter to a B Student Read aloud Audiovisual supplements Section One: Pre-reading Activities Section...

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