大学英语(3)4—8单元课文电子稿.doc

Unit 4 I am master of Branford College at Yale .I live on the campus and know the students well.(We have 485of them.)I listen to their piercing cries in the dead of night (“Dose anybody care?”).They come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives. Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches .They dont want to hear such news. They want a map-right now-that they can follow directly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave. What I wish for all students is some release from the grim of the future. I wish them a chance to enjoy each segment of their education as an experience in itself and nor as a tiresome requirement in preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall ,to learn that defeat is as educational as victory and is not the end of the world. My wish, of course, is nave. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail。Achievement is the national god, worshipped in our media the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executiveand glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old. I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure. Its easy to look around for bad guys to blame the colleges for charging too much work, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no bad guys, only victims. Today it is not unusual for a student, even one who works part time at college and full time during the summer, to have accumulated $5,000 in loans after four years loans that the student must start to repay within one year after graduation (and incidentally, not all these loans are low-interest, as many non-students believe). Encouraged at the commencement ceremony to go forth into the world, students are already behind as they go forth. How can they not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? Women at Yale are under even more pressure than men to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasnt yet caught up with this fact. Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see students taking premedical courses with joyless determination. 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?” “My parents want me to be a doctor. Theyre paying all this money and” Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin from the very start of freshman year. “I had a freshman student Ill call Linda,” one instructor 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 couldnt tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda. The story is almost funny except that its not. Its a symptom of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the 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 rattling 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?” Probably they wont. They will get sick. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. Ive painted too grim a portrait of todays students, making them seem too solemn. Thats only half of their story; the other half is that these students are nice people, and easy to like. Theyre quick to laugh and to offer friendship. Theyre more considerate of one another than any student generation Ive ever known. If Ive described them primarily as driven creatures who largely ignore the joyful side of life, its because thats where the problem is not only at Yale but throughout American education. Its why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age. I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get aheadthat each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is healthy and that people dont have to fit into pre-arranged slots. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. I invite heads of companies, editors of magazines, politicians, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians a mixed bag of achievers. I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students always assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. But in fact most of them got where they are by a circuitous route, after many side trips. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not preplanned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to lead them down some unforeseen trail.Unit 5 American can be a strange experience for a foreigner. My wife and I arrived in the United States in January after seven years overseas four in France, three in Poland. From the jumble of first impressions, we compiled an A-to-Z explanation of why American can be such a foreign country to those who arrive here from Europe. I should explain at the outset that I am from Britain, but my Florida-born wife Lisa is as American as apple pie. In our list, however, A doesnt stand for apple pie. It stands for: Ambition. In the Old World, people are taught to hide it. Here its quite proper to announce that youre after the bosss job or want to make a million dollars by the age of 30. Breakfast. The American habit of conducting business at breakfast has reached Europe, but I doubt it will ever really catch on. In France and Britain, breakfast is a family affair. Here, its become part of the power game. Credit Cards. You really cant leave home without them. Its interesting, and somewhat frustrating, to discover that bad credit is better than no credit at all: I was refused a VISA card on the grounds that I didnt have a credit profile. Dreams. The American Dream is still very much alive. Dreaming great dream is what keeps American society going from the waitress who wants to become a car dealer to the street kid who wants to become a basketball star. Europeans dream dreams too, but dont seem to believe in them so much. Exercise. A couple of years ago I came to Washington with some French journalists. As our bus passed a health club on the way to the hotel, the French visitors cheered at the sight of body-conscious. Americas obsession with physical fitness really amuses and puzzles Europeans. First names. In Europe, people progress in a natural and orderly way from the use of last names to the use of first names. Here, its first names at first sight. This can cause confusion for Europeans. With everyone on a first-name basis, how can you tell your acquaintances from your friends? Gadgets. These can be addictive. Its difficult to imagine now how we survived for so long without automatic ice machines and microwave ovens. Hardware Stores. If I were in charge of arranging the programs of visiting delegation from less developed countries, Id include a compulsory visit to a hardware store. These temples of American capitalism reveal a whole range of American values, from the do-it-yourself pioneer spirit through a love of comfort that absolutely astonishes most foreigners. Insurance. Americans have policies to cover every possible risk, no matter how remote. So far, weve refused supplementary insurance for our cat. It gives us a feeling of living dangerously. Junk food. Anyone who wants to understand why Americans suffer from higher rates of cancer and heart disease only has to look at what they eat. Ketchup. I had to come to America to discover that it can be eaten with anything from French fries to French cheese. Lines. American lines beginning with the yellow line at immigration control are the most orderly in the world. The British queue, once internationally renowned, has begun to decay in recent years. The French queue was never very impressive, and the Italian line is simply a mob. Money. In Europe, everybody likes money, but no one shows it off. Unless its been in family for several generations, theres often an assumption that was acquired dishonestly. In America, no one cares how you got it. No smoking. No longer just a polite request in America, this phrase has become the law. Nobody would dare ask a Frenchman to put out his Gauloise in a restaurant. Oliver North. What other major Western democracy lets army officers take over foreign policy? A hero for some, A traitor for other, Ollie (see First Names) is an example of an American recklessness that awes and alarms Europeans. Patriots. They exist everywhere, of course, the American version is louder and more self-conscious than the European. In Britain, its taken for granted that politicians love their country. Here, they expected to prove it. Quiet. American cities are quieter than European cities thanks to noise controls on automobiles and to recent environmental legislation. This was a major surprise for someone brought up to assume that America was a noisy place. Religion. The idea of putting preachers on TV is alarming to Europeans. Its even more alarming to see them in action. Sales. Ever since arriving in Washington, weve been hurrying to take advantage of this weeks unrepeatable offer, only to discover that its usually repeated next week. Were just catching on that theres always an excuse for a sale. Television. That grown-ups can watch game shows and sitcoms at 11 AM amazes me but the national habit, day or night, is contagious. I recently found myself nodding in agreement with a professor who was saying that American kids watch too much television. Then I realized that I was watching him say this on television. Ulcers. See Work. Visas. Americans dont need visas to visit Britain (or most European countries, for that matter). To enter the United States, I had to sign a document promising that I would not overthrow the government by force and had no criminal record. One wonders if many terrorists and criminals answer “yes” on these questionnaires. Work. People in less developed countries often imagine that they can become rich simply by emigrating to American. But America became a wealthy society through work, work and more work. Its still true. X-rated movies. We have them in Europe too, but not on motel-room TVs. Yuppies. The European counterpart remains a pale shadow of the all-American original. The animal seems more ambitious, and pore common, on this side of the Atlantic. Zillion. What other nation would invent a number thats infinitely more than a billion? America may not always be the best, but it certainly thinks big.Unit 6 My husband and I went to a funeral a few weeks ago. The man we honored had not been ill and will never grow old. He was killed in his car on a Sunday night, driving home along a divided highway. It was an ordinary evening, no blacker than any other, when a car coming in the other direction went out of control, broke through the guard rail, and hit two other cars before smashing head on into his. According to the newspaper, the driver, who was returning from a wedding, seemed puzzled. “I only had two bottles of beer and a cocktail,” she is reported to have said. A wedding. Followed by a funeral. I wish she could haven been there to see all the lives her act has changed forever, the wife, and four children, the extended family, the hundreds and hundreds of friends who sat in painful silence, listening to words which barely touched the depths of their grief. Strange to think that, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, this happens in America every 23minutes. Somebody drink. Somebody drives. Somebody dies. And other lives are altered forever, though sometimes the changes may be invisible to a casual observer. By chance, the day before the funeral I ran into a longtime acquaintance while shopping. He commented on my crutches. I asked if he had ever broken his leg. “Uh, I have a long rod in this thigh,” he said, “from a car accident two weeks after I came back from Vietnam.” “thats ironic”. To leave a war zone and then get injured,” I teased him. “Youre lucky it wasnt worse.” “Well, my wife was killed in the crash and so was the wife of the driver,” he said uncomfortably. “We were hit by a drunk.” Ive known this man for years, yet suddenly realized there was a whole chapter of his life hed never mentioned. I asked and discovered hed remained in the hospital seven weeks, and that all that time hed known his wife was dead. It was hard to know where to go from there ,for there are questions you cant put to someone in a casual conversation questions like, “How could you bear it?” or “What did you do about wanting revenge?” I wish I knew the answers to those questions. I wish I could offer those answers to the woman who, overwhelmed by grief, could barely walk as she followed her husbands coffin from the church. Every 23 minutes, who dies? A mother who will never comfort the child who needs her . A woman who will never know how very much her friends depended on her. A man whose contributions to his community would have made a difference. A wife whose husband cannot picture the future without her. Every 23 minutes, who dies？ A son who involuntarily abandons his parents in their old age. A father who can never acknowledge his childrens accomplishments. A daughter who can never take back her angry words. A sister who will never be her sisters maid of honor. Every 23 minutes, who dies? A brother who will not be there to hold his newborn niece. A friend whose encouragement is gone forever. A bride to be who will never say her vows. Ann aunt whose family will fragment and fall apart. Every 23 minutes, who dies? A child who will never fulfill his early promise. An uncle who leaves his children without guidance and support. A grandmother whose husband must now grow old alone. A lover who never had a chance to say how much he cared. Every 23 minutes. A void opens. Someone looks across the table at a vacant chair; climbs into an empty bed, feels the pain of no voice, no touch, no love. Where there was once intimacy and contact, now there is only absence and despair. Every 23 minutes. A heart breaks. Someones pain shatters the confines of her body, leaking out in tears, exploding in cries, defying all efforts to soothe the despair. Sleep offers no escape from the nightmare of awakening. And morning bring only the irreversibility of loss. Every 23 minutes. A dream ends. Someones future blurs and goes blank as anticipation fades into nothingness. The phone will not ring, the car will not pull up to the house. The weight of tomorrow becomes unbearable in a world in which all promises have been broken by force. Every 23minutes. Somebody wants to run. Somebody wants to hide. Somebody is left with hate. Somebody wants to die. And we permit this to go on. Every 23 minutes.Unit 7 The other afternoon I was playing the piano when my seven-year-old walked in. He stopped and listened for a while, then said: “You dont play that thing very well, do you, Mom?” No, I dont. My performance would make any serious music student weep, but I dont care. Ive enjoyed playing the piano badly for years. I also enjoy singing badly and drawing badly. Im not ashamed of my incompetence in thee areas. I do one or two other things well and that should be enough for anybody. But it gets boring doing the same things over and over. Every now and then its fun to try something new. Unfortunately, doing things badly has gone out of style. It used to be a mark of class if a lady or a gentleman sang a little, painted a little, played the violin a little. You didnt to be good at it; the point was to be fortunate enough to have the leisure time for such pursuits. But in todays competitive world we have to be a “experts” even in our hobbies. You cant tone up your body by pulling on your gym shoes and jogging around the block a couple of times anymore. Why? Because youll be laughed off the street by the “serious runners” the ones who run twenty miles or more a week in their sixty-dollar running suits and fancy shoes. The shoes are really a big deal. If you say youre thinking about taking up almost any sport, the first thing the “serious” types will ask is what you plan to do about shoes. Leather or canvas? What type of soles? Which brand? This is not the time to mention that the gym shoes you wore in high school are still in pretty good shape. As far as sports enthusiasts are concerned, if you