全新版大学英语快速阅读第二册课文.doc

攀登英语网 提供Unit 1How to Study There is a lot of misunderstanding about studying. Most students have not been taught the principles behind really effective working. Imagine a graph showing the amount a person learns against the number of hours he works in a day. If he doesnt do any work, he learns nothing (point 0). If he does an hour s work he learns a certain amount (point 1). If he does two hours work he learns about twice as much (point 2). If he does more work hell learn still more (point 3). However, if he tries to do twenty-three and a half hours work in one day, hell be so tired that hell hardly remember anything: what he learns will be very little (point 4). If he did less work he d learn more (point 5). Now whatever the exact shape of the graph s curve, made by joining these points, it must have a high point. Point X is the very maximum anyone can learn in the day. And this represents the optimum, the best, amount of work to do. It is the best possible compromise between adequate time at the books and fatigue. Fatigue is an absolutely real thing; one cant escape it or ignore it. If you try to ignore it and press yourself to work past the optimum, you will only get on this downward slope and achieve less than the bestand then become very tired and lose your power of concentration. The skill in being a student consists of getting one s daily study as near the optimum point as possible. I cannot tell you what the optimum is. It differs with the type of work, it differs from person to person, and even in the same person it varies from week to week. You must try to find your own. Every day you study, bear this principle of the optimum in mind. When you feel yourself getting fatigued, if you find yourself reading the same paragraph over and over again and not taking it in, thats a pretty good sign you ve reached your highest point for the day and should stop. Most ordinary students find their optimum at about five hours a day. Yours may be a little more or a little lessbut if you get in five hours good work a day, you will be doing well. Now, what are you doing with yourself when you arent working? Before examinations some students do nothing at all except sit in a chair and worry. Here is another misunderstanding. People often think that the mind works like the body; it does not. If one wanted to save one s physical energy in order to cut the maximum amount of firewood, one would lie flat on a bed and rest when one wasnt chopping. But the mind cannot rest. Even in sleep you dream, even if you forget your dreams. The mind is always turning. It gets its relaxation only by variety. That is what makes the mind rest. When you ve finished your optimum number of hours you must stop. You must not then sit around in the chair thinking about the workthat only tires without any learning. You must get out and do something. It doesnt matter whatanything so long as you are actively doing something else but work. Learning to Keep You Cool During Tests Have you ever felt so anxious during an examination that you couldnt even put down the answers you knew? If so, you were suffering from what is known as test anxiety. According to psychologist Ralph Trimble, test anxiety is a very real problem for many people. When you re worried over your performance on an exam, your heart beats faster and your pulse speeds up. These reactions start others: You may sweat more than normal or suffer from a stomachache or headache. Your field of vision narrows and becomes tunnel-like. Before you know it, you re having difficulty focusing. What I hear students say over and over again, says Dr. Trimble, who is working at the Psychological and Counseling Center at the University of Illinois, is, My mind went blank. For a number of years, Dr. Trimble helped many students learn how to perform better during exams and to bring up their grades. Some of these students were interested in sharing what they learned and, with Trimble s help, began holding workshops on overcoming test anxiety. For many students, just being in a workshop with other sufferers made them feel better. They realized that they were not the only ones who had done poorly on tests because of tension. The workshops were so successful that they are still given. In the workshops, students are taught that anxiety is normal. You just have to prevent it from getting the best of you. The first step is to learn to relax. If before or during an examination you start to panic, stretch as hard as you can, tensing the muscles in your arms and legs; then suddenly relax all of them. This will help relieve tension. But keep in mind that you dont want to be too relaxed. Being completely relaxed is no better than being too tense. If you are so calm you dont care how you do on an examination, you wont do well, Trimble says. There is an optimum level of concern when you perform at your best. Some stress helps. There are people who cant take even slight stress. They have to learn that in a challenging situation, being anxiously excited is good and will help them to do better. But if they call it anxiety and say, Its going to hit me again, that will make them nervous and worried. As a student you must also realize that if you leave too much studying until a day or two before the examination, you cant do the impossible and learn it all. Instead, concentrate on what you can do and try to think what questions are likely to be asked and what you can do in the time left for studying. When you sit down to study, set a moderate pace and vary it by reading, writing notes, and going over any papers you have already written for the course, as well as the textbooks and notes you took in class. Review what you know. Take breaks and go to sleep early enough to get a good night s rest before the exam. You should also eat a moderate breakfast or lunch, avoiding drinks like coffee and stay away from fellow students who get tense. Panic spreads easily. Get to the exam room a few minutes early so that you will have a chance to familiarize yourself with the surroundings and get out your supplies. When the examination is handed out, read the directions twice and underline the significant instructions, making sure you understand them. Ask the teacher to explain if you dont. First answer the easiest questions, then go back to the more difficult. On essay questions, instead of starting right away, take a few minutes to organize your thoughts, make a brief outline, and then start off with a summary sentence. Keep working steadily, and even when time starts to run out, dont speed up. Paying Your Way There were red faces at one of Britain s biggest banks recently. They had accepted a telephone order to buy? 100,000 worth of shares from a fifteen-year-old schoolboy (they thought he was twenty-one). The shares fell in value and the schoolboy was unable to pay up. The bank lost 20,000 on the deal which it cannot get back because, for one thing, this young speculator does not have the money and, for another, being under eighteen, he is not legally liable for his debts. If the shares had risen in value by the same amount that they fell, he would have pocketed 20,000 profit. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old. It certainly is better than delivering the morning newspaper. In another recent case, a boy of fourteen found, in his grandmother s house, a suitcase full of foreign banknotes. The clean, crisp, banknotes looked very convincing but they were now not used in their country of origin or anywhere else. This young boy headed straight to the nearest bank with his pockets filled with notes. The cashiers did not realise that the country in question had reduced the value of its currency by 90 %. They exchanged the notes at their face value at the current exchange rate. In three days, before he was found out, he took 200,000 from nine different banks. Amazingly, he had already spent more than half of this on taxi-rides, restaurant meals, concert tickets and presents for his many new girlfriends (at least he was generous!) before the police caught up with him. Because he is also under eighteen the banks have kissed goodbye to a lot of money, and several cashiers have lost their jobs. Should we admire these youngsters for being enterprising and showing initiative or condemn them for their dishonesty? Maybe they had managed for years with tiny amounts of pocket money that they got from tight-fisted parents. Maybe they had done Saturday jobs for peanuts. It is hardly surprising, given the expensive things that young people want to buy, such as fashionable running shoes and computer games, if they sometimes think up more imaginative ways of making money than delivering newspapers and baby-sitting. These lads saw the chance to make a lot of money and took it. Another recent story which should give us food for thought is the case of the man who paid his six-year-old daughter 300 a week pocket money. He then charged her for the food she ate and for her share of the rent and household bills. After paying for all this, she was left with a few coins for her piggy bank. She will soon learn the value of money, he said. Theres no such thing as a free lunch. Everything has to be paid for and the sooner she learns that the better. At the other extreme there are fond parents who provide free bed and board for their grown-up children. While even the most hard-hearted parents might hesitate to throw their children out on the streets, we all know of people in their late twenties who still shamelessly live off their parents. Surely there comes a time when everyone has to leave the parental nest, look after themselves and pay their own way in life. But when is it? The Day I Went to Open a Bank Account I dont know why my father never liked banks. Every time we passed one he would frown and walk just a little faster to get past it just that little bit quicker. It seems to me there must have been a big collision between a bank and my father a long time ago before I knew anything about anything. That is, it may have been a big collision for my father but it was one that the bank almost certainly did not remember. Thats how I was brought up. Forever walking quickly past banks. Perhaps I took on my father s opinions as I took on his other unusual behavior. I quickly learnt to frown and walk just a little bit faster every time I passed a bank. I also learnt to fear the shiny steel and chrome counters and the trim, slim and smartly dressed young women who sat behind them. I never understood the necessity for banks until, at the end of my first month as a clerk in an office, I was handed a check for $ 1,500, I stared at it in great surprise. I had never seen such a thing before. I understood cash well enough but this long slip of paper was something I wasnt quite sure about. Everything all right? asked Mrs. Smith, our accounts manager. Yes . yes! I said and signed for it hurriedly. What on earth was I going to do? I knew too well what I had to do and my heart dropped at the thought. I had to open a bank account. For some reason I thought you had to talk to the manager of a bank before they would let you open an account. I went up to an empty counter and caught the eye of a bank clerk. Yes? Can I help you? he asked. Yes please, I said, I d like a word with the manager. If thats possible; He looked surprised but asked me to wait and went off. The manager was younger than I expected and was clearly very busy. Yes. Can I help you? he asked. Yes. I d like to talk to you. If you dont mind, I said. I was just as surprised as he was at the confident manner in which I spoke. I didnt know what to say next so I said nothing. For a moment neither of us said anything. He must have understood that I wished to see him alone, for he invited me into his office and offered me a large comfortable seat. Now, then, sir. What can I do for you? he asked, clearly puzzled. I would like to open a bank account, I informed him. I see, he said, nodding his head slowly, And how much do you wish to deposit in this account? I wish to deposit this, I said and handed him the check. He examined the check carefully before handing it back to me. A savings account? he asked. I nodded. Please follow me. He led me out of his office back to the banking hall. There he took me to a large desk manned by a young lady by the name of Candice Leeas I saw from the name card on the desk. This lady will help you open a savings account in which you can deposit your check for $ 1500, he said in a voice that was, I felt, a bit louder than absolutely necessary. Good day, sir, he said and walked back to safety behind the barrier. I waited. Miss Lee filled out forms for me and I signed them. She stamped them. She made me sign a little strip of plastic and she fixed this inside a little red book. She put the check in and back came the book with the right amount printed in it. It was at that moment that I realised I needed to withdraw some money and I asked how this might be achieved. I m afraid you cant withdraw it for two days, sir. Not until the check has been cleared. I stared at her in great surprise. I was trusting her bank with my money. It seemed only fair that they should trust my check. What? I said in shock. What!? I burst out angrily. Silence fell over the entire bank as everyone turned to see what was happening. I decided to leave with my self-respect safe and sound. If you do not trust my check, would you be so kind as to return it immediately. Your passbook, I said as confidently as I could. Miss Lee seemed really surprised. The bank manager must have been listening to every word. He came out once again from behind the barriers of steel and chrome. He held my check by a corner and presented it to me as if it were a wet fish. I handed him his little red pass book in a similar fashion, turned around and left. As the doors closed behind me, I clearly heard the sound of laughter. The accounts department and I have managed to come to an arrangement about the way in which my salary is paid to me at the end of each month. I now keep my savings in a sock, as did my father before me, which I hide, as did my father before me, under my bed at home. Unit 2Remembering My Grandparents When memory began for me, my grandfather was past sixtya great tall man with thick hair becoming gray. He had black eyes and a straight nose which ended in a slightly flattened tip. Once he explained seriously to me that he got that flattened tip as a small child when he fell down and stepped on his nose. The little marks of laughter at the corners of his eyes were the product of a kindly and humorous nature. The years of work which had bent his shoulders had never dulled his humor nor his love of a joke. Everywhere he went, Gramp made friends easily. At the end of half an hour you felt you had known him all your life. I soon learned that he hated to give orders, but that when he had to, he tried to make his orders sound like suggestions. One July morning, as he was leaving to go to the cornfield, he said, Edwin, you can pick up the potatoes in the field today if you want to do that. Then he drove away with his horses. The day passed, and I did not have any desire to pick up potatoes. Evening came and the potatoes were still in the field. Gramp, dusty and tired, led the horses to get their drink. How many bags of potatoes were there? Gramp inquired. I dont know. How many potatoes did you pick up? I didnt pick any. Not any! Why not? You said I could pick them up if I wanted to. You didnt say I had to. In the next few minutes I learned a lesson I would not forget: when Gramp said I could if I wanted to, he meant that I should want to. My grandmother ( Gram) worked hard all day, washing clothes, cleaning the house, making butter, and even working in the field when help was scarce. In the evening, though, she was not too tired to read books from the community library. For more than forty years Gram read aloud to Gramp almost every evening. In this way she and Gramp learned about all the great battles of history and became familiar with the works of great authors and the lives of famous men. Gram hated cruelty and injustice. The injustices of history, even those of a thousand years before, angered her as much as the injustices of her own day. She also had a deep love of beauty. When she was almost seventy-five, and had gone to live with one of her daughters, she spent a delightful morning washing dishes because, as she said, the beautiful patterns on the dishes gave her pleasure. The birds, the flowers, the cloudsall that was beautiful around herpleased her. She was like the father of the French painter, Millet, who used to gather grass and show it to his son, saying, See how beautiful this is! In a pioneer society it is the harder qualities of mind and character that are of value. The softer virtues are considered unnecessary. Men and women struggling daily to earn a living are unable, even for a moment, to forget the business of preserving their lives. Only unusual people, like my grandparents, manage to keep the softer qualities in a world of daily struggle. Such were the two people with whom I spent the months from June to September in the wonderful days of summer and youth. Leaf and Loaf Leaf At last we went out and stood on the lawn and watched the sun go down, and my father said, If it werent for art, we d have vanished from the face of the earth long ago. What art really is, though, and what a human being really is, and what the world really is. I just dont know, thats all. Standing there, watching the sun go down into