Enrichment English

Unit 1 An Education in Cynicism

Colleges’ early-admissions policies serve their interests --- but not those of students or society

Robert J. Samuelson

1. College admissions in America has become an overwrought and frenzied ritual,

driven by the anxieties of striving students and middle-class parents who worry that if

Stephen and Suzie don’t get into the “right” college their lives will be ruined. This is a

myth, but one hard to demolish and especially at this time of year, when most

applications are being completed. Worse, all the pressures and absurdities of the

process are now needlessly magnified by colleges that resort more and more to “early

admissions” --- a practice rightly characterized as a “racket” by writer James Fallows

in a recent Atlantic Monthly.

2. The most selective colleges and universities sin the most. In the fall of 2000, there

were about 1.2 million entering freshmen at four-year schools. Of these, only 163,004

applied for early admissions, according to the College Board. But Harvard routinely

admits 55 to 60 percent of its freshman class early; at the University of Pennsylvania

the proportion is 40 to 50 percent. The College Board found 41 schools where the

share exceeded 30 percent and 464 four-year schools --- a fourth of the total --- that

offered some sort of early admissions. (Early-admissions means that students submit

their applications before the standard January deadline and are typically admitted in

December or January, rather than in the spring.)

3. Let us now count early admissions’ drawbacks:

It’s unfair, because it discriminates against students who apply later. A study of

14 of the country’s most selective schools by researchers at Harvard found that

applying early gave students a significant advantage, equal to about a 100-point

jump in their SAT scores. (The researchers couldn’t reveal schools’ names, but

they presumably included many Ivies and schools like Amherst and Stanford.)

It forces students to make premature choices about where to apply. They haven’t

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visited enough schools, talked to enough friends, thought about it enough.

“There’s a tremendous growth that occurs in the 12th grade,” says Dean

Strassburger, a college counselor at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago. “Early

decision is rushing this along.”

It inflicts unnecessary cruelty. Getting rejected once is bad enough. Now students

can get rejected twice. The most selective schools still don’t accept most early-

admissions candidates. Harvard admits about one in six (the acceptance rate for

“regular” admissions is about one in 18.)

It worsens “senioritis” ---the academic letdown after college acceptances are

received.” “A lot of these kids, the second they get their decisions, are in your

office saying, ‘ I want to drop Modern European History’”, says Scott White, a

guidance counselor at Montclair High School in New Jersey.

4. Sure, students accepted under early admissions benefit. Their ordeal is over. But in

general, the practice has “adverse effects on high-school students”, says Yale

president Richard C. Levin. Although Yale now admits about 40 percent of its class

through early admission, Levin has become an open (and rare) critic among college

and university leaders. The problems and contradictions will multiply, because as

more students and parents become aware of the advantages of applying early, more

will do so. More early choices will be made with less conviction. Already, Yale’s early

applications have doubled since 1996. If colleges accept more early candidates,

discrimination and premature senioritis will increase. If the rejection rate rises, so will

gratuitous cruelty.

5. What motivates colleges and universities? Mainly self-interest that, at most, is only

partially defensible. The University of Pennsylvania is one of the few schools can do

enough to admit that it favors candidates who apply early. “The majority of students

on campus at Penn are here because it’s their first choice --- that changes the tone of

the campus,” says Lee Stetson, dean of admissions. When he first came to Penn in

1978, only 35 to 40 percent of freshmen picked it as their first choice. “It’s a whole

different attitude,” he says.

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6. But there are other, less commendable reasons for using early admissions, as

Fallows shows. It improves colleges’ “yield” (the percentage of students accepted

who actually attend). Because yield is one factor in U.S. News & World Report’s

annual college rankings, that can boost a schools position. Early admissions also

improves “enrollment management”; it minimizes the chances that too many or too

few students will show up in the fall. Finally, early admissions may allow colleges to

attract more upper-middle-class students who don’t need financial aid, though a recent

College Board study disputes this. (The study found that freshmen, regardless of when

admitted, got similar aid packages.)

7. All this expediency comes at a growing moral cost. Many colleges --- including

Harvard --- contend that students who apply later do not reduce their personal odds of

admission. This is almost certainly false, and colleges that maintain the fiction are

being misleading and even dishonest. Bad show.

8. It is true that, compared with most social problems, the sins of early admissions are

small potatoes. Most students will get over any disappointments, just as they will get

over not being admitted to Dartmouth or Duke. But it is also true that, unlike most

social problems, this one could actually be fixed. If a dozen or more top schools ---

Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Williams --- denounced and dropped the practice, it would

lose respectability and critical mass. If only one or two colleges do so, as Levin says,

little would change.

9. What we have, for the moment, is the spectacle of some of America’s most

prestigious education institutions engaged in behavior that can only be described as

antisocial. They have subordinated students’ interests to their own. This is hypocritical

and indifferent to any larger social good. The message they’re sending to students is,

“Get used to it; this is the way the world works.” Colleges might argue that they’re

providing something useful: an introductory course in cynicism. But no college has

yet offered this defense, which would at least have the virtue of honesty.

(From Newsweek, January 28, 2002)

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Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

The author: Robert J. Samuelson：A contributing editor of Newsweek, has written a column for the Washington Post since 1977. His column generally appears on Wednesdays.

SAT: In the U. S., the SAT is an examination which is often taken by students who wish to enter a college or university as undergraduates. SAT is an abbreviation for “Scholastic Aptitude Test”. In the U. K., SATs are a set of tasks given to seven-year-old school children in order to test their ability. SAT is an abbreviation for “Standard Assessment Task”.

Ivies: refers to Ivy League institutions. The Ivy League is committed to seeking individuals who are remarkable both as students  and as athletes. The Ivy Group include many prestigious universities including Princeton, Yale, etc.

Exercises

I. Understanding the textA. ScanningFind the answers to the following questions. Remember, you don’t need to read the entire text word by word but just scan the parts that will help you answer the

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Word Glossary

overwrought a. 过度紧张的、过度兴奋的、神经质的racket n. 痛苦的经历cynicism n. 犬儒哲学hypocritical a. 虚伪的expediency n. 权宜之计denounce v. 谴责ritual n. 仪式、典礼absurdity n. 荒谬、谬论、荒唐的行为presumably adv.推测起来、大概、可能inflict vt. 予以打击、使承受senioritis n. 依惯例或集体同意所赋予的某种权利conviction n. 深信、确信prestigious a. 有威信的、有声望的、受尊敬的

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Enrichment English

questions.1. How many candidates applied for early admission in the year of

2000?2. What is the acceptance rate for early admission at Harvard?3. What are the names of universities that are mentioned by the

author as the top schools in the U. S.?4. When did Lee Stetson go to the University of Pennsylvania?5. According to the College Board, approximately how many four-

year schools are there in America?6. How many students are admitted through early decision at Yale University now?

B True or False Questions: Read the Article carefully and decided whether the following statements are True or False or Not given enough information. Put a T or F or N in the blank besides each statement.

______1. The lives of Stephen and Suzie will be ruined by getting into wrong colleges.______2. Nowadays universities and colleges in America resort more and more to

early admissions.______3. Researchers at Harvard found that applying early will help students improve

their SAT scores by 100 points.______4. Students applying early cannot make mature decisions.______5. Students applying early may be rejected at least once.______6. The author believes that colleges’ early admission policy is a kind of

discrimination upon candidates.______7. Improving colleges’ “yield” is one of the commendable reasons for

employing early admissions.______8. Colleges’ enrollment management can be improved by early admissions.

II. Vocabulary StudyA. Word recognition.1. In paragraph 1 find the word which means

wild, excited or uncontrolled : ________________2. In paragraph 3 find the word which means

an aspect of something or someone that makes them less acceptable than they would otherwise be: __________________________________

2. In paragraph 3 find the equivalent of the word disappointment: ________________________________

3. In paragraph 4 find the word which means a difficult and unpleasant experience or situation:

______________________4. In paragraph 4 find the word which means more or less the same as

unfavorable: ________________________________

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5. In paragraph 5 find the word which means not completely: ______________________________6. In paragraph 9 find a word that means

a grand and impressive event or performance: ___________________________7. In paragraph 9 find a word that means

respected and admired by people: _____________________________________

III.Understanding the DiscourseA. Questions and answers Read the article carefully and answer the following questions:1. This is a myth, but ...... (paragraph. 1) What is this? 2. Their ordeal is over. (para. 4) Whose ordeal?3. ……unlike most social problems, this one could actually be fixed. (para. 8) What could actually be fixed?4. If a dozen or more top schools denounced and dropped the practice …… (para. 8) What practice is it?5. All this expediency comes at a growing moral cost. (para. 7) What does this expediency refer to?6. This is hypocritical and indifferent to any larger social good. (para. 9) What does ‘this’ refer to ?7. They have subordinated students’ interests to their own. (para. 9) Who have?8. Get used to it; this is the way the world works. (para. 9) The world works in what kind of way?

B. Recognizing sources When an article combines information from many sources, it is necessary to determine the source of each individual piece of information. The Following is a list of statements made in the article. Indicate if each one has been made by the author or one of his sources.

Example: James Fallows The percentage of colleges resorting to early admission is increasing

like a “racket”.1. __________ Early admission has adverse effects on high school students.2. __________ Early admission improves colleges’ percentage of students accepted

who actually attend.3. __________ Early admission is a social problem which could be fixed.4. __________ Early admission could worsen the academic letdown.5. __________ Nowadays, the majority of students at Penn are admitted through

early decision.6. __________ Colleges’ early-admissions policies can be described as anti-social.

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C.. Diagram of text organizationComplete the following tree diagram with the information you learn from your reading.

As for College admissions, discussed in the text we have learned that there are two types of admissions:

Consequence of such practice

The author concludes that

Unit 2 A Culture of Plagiarism?

M.G. Piety 1. It's often said that plagiarism is subjective— that what is plagiarism to one person

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College admissions

Regular admission

Colleges have made this admission somewhat ________________________

It is regarded as ________

drawback1_______ drawback2_______ drawback3 _______ drawback 4_______

Admission rate:

Reasons for colleges using early admissions

Misleading:

Enrichment English

is not necessarily plagiarism to another. This seems confused. Philosophers

distinguish between what they identify as ontological and epistemological issues.

Ontology (本体论) is concerned with what is and epistemology (认识论) is concerned

with what we know. There is nearly always a fact about whether a particular passage

of text was plagiarized. Regardless of whether the plagiarism was conscious or

unconscious, there is a fact about whether it has been taken from another author. The

difficulty is that our judgments on that score are not always correct. Plagiarism can

thus appear subjective in that different people will identify it differently. That does not

mean, however, that it is subjective. It is context sensitive at best, which means it is

unnecessary, in certain contexts, to cite the source of an idea because the audience is

familiar with the source. The absence of a citation, in such an instance would not

therefore encourage a reader to take the author as the origin of the idea.

2. Plagiarism requires no nefarious motivation. To plagiarize is simply "to use

without due credit the ideas, expressions, or productions of (another)," and this is

remarkably easy to do unintentionally. Ignorance of the author, however is no excuse.

We've all done it, at some point or other, without meaning to; just as we've all lost our

tempers or exercised poor judgment. We will never be able to eliminate plagiarism

entirely, either our own or others. However, that does not mean we should be

unconcerned with authorial integrity.

Why Students Plagiarize

3. Citing sources would seem precisely the practice we need in this "Atomistic Age."

It would help people to feel more a part of the human community, help them

appreciate that we are all grappling with the same sorts of questions and that there is

even accumulated human wisdom which can help us navigate the rough waters of our

own existence. Citing sources can even begin to look like a panacea for the spiritual

isolation and alienation of postmodern man. So why does it appear it is becoming

increasingly rare? Here are some possible reasons I have come up with after

approximately eight years of teaching: ignorance, fear and moral bankruptcy.

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Ignorance

4. It is often difficult for students to distinguish the myriad of views they are

bombarded with in the environment of the university from ones they have come to on

their own. This, in any case, appears to have been the situation of the young Max

Weber. When an older cousin suggested that some of Weber's views were not his own,

Weber responded that, as far as he knew, he had not taken any of his views from

books, but added somewhat defensively that "probably everything stemmed from

books."

5. The young Helen Keller faced similar, graver charges when accused of plagiarizing

an entire story, "The Frost King." Keller did not remember having been exposed to the

latter story but admitted in her biography that much of her earliest writing included

material taken from other authors.

6. "Those early compositions," she explains, were mental gymnastics. I was

learning, as all young and inexperienced persons learn, by assimilation and imitation,

to put ideas into words. Everything I found in books that pleased me I retained in my

memory, consciously or unconsciously, and adapted it.

7. Students are often rewarded in grade school, and some even in high school, for

such "assimilation and imitation." Some understand that they can't appropriate text

verbatim but assume this problem is addressed if they simply rephrase the bits they

borrow.

8. Ignorance is not the most serious cause of plagiarism. It is perhaps the most

problematic in that when text is paraphrased out of ignorance, the original is often

impossible to find. What makes ignorance fairly innocuous is that no matter how

widespread, it is also fairly easily corrected. Instructors can briefly explain what

constitutes plagiarism in their syllabi, discuss the topic early in the semester and

distribute examples of plagiarism. If every instructor did this in every course,

ignorance would soon be eliminated.

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Fear

9. Knowledge will not eliminate plagiarism, however, because there is a more serious

cause — fear. This fear takes several forms:

Fear of doing poorly because of a poor command of English.

Fear of disappointing parents or teachers.

Fear of being exposed to peers as less smart.

Fear of simply not being smart enough.

Fear of reducing a GPA.

One can get the impression that foreign students are particularly prone to plagiarism

due to poor English skills. They may be tempted to "borrow" material from native

speakers. I have had a least one of my many foreign students plagiarize for this reason

and I cannot rule out that others have done it for the same reason. The good news is

that the gap between the command of English exhibited by foreign students and by

American students is narrowing. The bad news is that it is narrowing in the wrong

direction. Americans are increasingly tempted to plagiarize out of fear that their

language skills are inadequate to the assignment.

10. Academics sometimes suggest that we should be "understanding" of foreign

students, because they may come from cultures where plagiarism is viewed less

seriously than in ours. I am suspicious that there is any culture that views plagiarism

in general as morally acceptable. Different cultures do appear, however, to take a

more or less lenient view of it. Yet this problem is easily addressed. We can address it

in the same way we can address the domestic ignorance problem. An instructor can

make clear early in the term both what constitutes plagiarism and what the penalties

will be.

11. However, foreign students are sometimes prone to a type of fear to which

American students appear less prone: fear of disappointing parents, teachers or peers.

Social bonds in this country have never been so tight as they are in countries with

more unified or coherent cultural traditions. It is thus hard for many American

educators to appreciate that a student would cheat for any reason other than personal

advancement. Students may also cheat simply to save face socially, or to avoid

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ostracism from polite society.

12. But if American students are less prone than some of their foreign counterparts to

the desire for approval, they are subject to another, perhaps even more insidious social

influence — indifference. Americans are often indifferent to both the intellectual and

economic plight of the individual. Our culture, as a whole, routinely sends the

message that a person must prove he is worthy of our concern. We undermine the

intellectual confidence of young people. Our individualistic society indulges in the

cult of personality. Whatever lip service we pay to "human equality," we consistently

send the message that unless you are a genius, we are not really interested in your

views. Children often copy "research" papers almost verbatim from encyclopedias

and they are actually encouraged in this practice every time they receive good grades

for essays where the prose is obviously far too sophisticated to have been written by a

child. This causes young people to fear that they are not smart, that their views are

unimportant and that they must cull the thoughts of others for something worthwhile

to say.

13. Even if a student does not suffer from low self esteem, there is another kind of

fear, even more pressing, that accounts for many cases of plagiarism: fear of

socioeconomic failure. American capitalism is becoming increasingly hostile to the

individual. Real income has declined for the past twenty-five years while college

tuition has risen. Students are accumulating unprecedented debt at the same time they

are seeing their parents laid off or their pension funds evaporate as their employers

file for bankruptcy. They see the former heads of these companies emerge

economically unscathed and determine that, in order to survive, they must become

part of that class.

14. Students pack their schedules with too many classes to get their degrees as

quickly as possible and reduce the amount they will have to borrow. Too many classes

means too little time for any one class. Add to this the fear that if one's GPA sinks

below a certain level, there will be no job — or at least not the kind necessary for true

economic survival. Society as a whole has put them in this bind, so why should they

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feel any of the traditional commitments to society such as honesty and respect for

property?

15. Not only does society put students in what often seems to them an impossible

position, society also bombards them with conspicuous examples of people who not

only cheat and get away with it, but who cheat and get rewarded for it (Enron being

the most notable recent example). Students fear that others are cheating and that they

must cheat themselves just to avoid being left behind. Viewed from this angle, it's not

surprising that increasing numbers of students resort to plagiarism.

Moral Bankruptcy

16. Most students plagiarize out of fear. They are not immoral. They simply fear they

cannot afford to indulge the voice of their conscience in such a hostile environment.

The most appalling product of such an environment, however, is not the person who

ignores his conscience, but the person who has no conscience to ignore. By rewarding

people who appear to be motivated by nothing other than personal enrichment, we

encourage people to view such motivation as moral. We encourage people to view

cheating, lying, stealing, or anything whatever that will advance them personally as

not only economically necessary, but morally acceptable.

17. Charles Murray pointed to what appears to be a moral decline in contemporary

American society. He argued in an essay in The Wall Street Journal, in February of

2001, that American culture was being "proletarianized." He charged that "the

collapse of our elite codes has left a vacuum...[that] has been filled with the 'thug

code' (暴徒的语言 ) of the underclass, which celebrates violence, cheating and

vulgarity." There are two problems, however, with Murray's argument. First, the

values he asserts are corrupting the elite are criminal rather than "proletarian," or

"working-class," values. Second, his account of the direction of the corruption is

diametrically opposed to what I would argue is the true direction. The moral rot that I

agree is infecting society appears to be coming not from the bottom up, but from the

top down, from an elite that often thinks itself above the quaint moral commitments it

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traditionally considers appropriate to the lower classes. Enron, again, provides a

handy example, but examples abound.

A Counter-Cultural Solution?

18. Our own culture may actually be the culture that most actively encourages

plagiarism. We put students in what is sometimes an intolerable economic position

and encourage them to view cheating as an acceptable method of ameliorating these

conditions. We assign beleaguered adjuncts to instruct them and thereby almost

guarantee that most instances of plagiarism will not be caught.

(abridged)

Mr. Notes:

Max Weber :(1824 –1920) an American sociologist

Helen Keller :(1880 –1968) an American blind and deaf writer known for her persistent struggle with her illness.

The Frost King : a short story Helen Keller wrote and sent to Michael Anagnos as a birthday gift in 1891 and Helen's story was remarkably similar to a story published in a book of fairy-tales by Margaret T. Canby.

GPA: (grade points average) a cumulative score counting system in schools or colleges in the U.S. In some schools the GPA scale is A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0.

Enron: a Huston-based energy giant bankrupted in 2001 for a business scandal. 美国安龙公司 2001年因做假帐等丑闻破产Charles Murray: Charles Murray is the Bradley Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Author of American Social Policy 1950-1980, the controversial analysis of the reforms of the 1960s. Later books: In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government. The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life etc.

The Wall Street Journal : 华尔街日报

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Exercises

I.Understanding the text A. comprehension Questions1. The philosophical terms used at the beginning of the essay are to indicate that

_____.a. plagiarism is a philosophical issue and arouse argumentsb. even if people have different opinion about it, plagiarism does existc. plagiarism is easy to identify as readers can find the source of the citationd. plagiarism is a peculiar phenomenon in academic circle in America

2. Which of the following statements will the author support?a. plagiarism is subjective and context sensitive.b. it is not necessary to cite the source of a familiar idea.c. the absence of citation will lead readers take the author as the origin of the idea.d. most of the readers would be able to recognize the source of citation.

3. From the end of the second paragraph we learn that the author believes that ____.a. those who plagiarize always have some excusesb. we should not be surprised at it since it is a very common phenomenon in lifec. even though it may be hard to get rid of plagiarism we should take it seriouslyd. the excuses provided by those who plagiarized doesn’t work at all

4. When the author say that one of the reasons for plagiarism is ignorance he means that _______.a. people know very little about the subject they are going to writeb. people often fail to realize that they are plagiarizing in their writingc. people are not told about the sever punishment upon plagiarismd. people have little education on the history of plagiarism in States

5. Which is NOT the reason that account for the increasing plagiarism among American students?a. American students fear that foreign students may do better than they do.b. They are afraid that they may be left behind if they do not cheat.c. Their language skills are not good enough to fulfill the assignments.d. They don’t want to be academically degraded by other students in class.

6. Comparing to foreign students, American students are less prone to a desire for ____but are more prone to _______. a. acknowledgement, indifferenceb. indifference, acknowledgementc. personal advancement, acknowledgementd. indifference, personal advancement

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7. The sentence “Our individualistic society indulges in the cult of personality” in paragraph 12 indicates that _____.a. our society lays great emphasis on individualism and personal interestb. our society consists of people who are members of a cultc. people are prone to cult and other beliefs as individualsd. people are very much concerning about others’ own opinion

8. What does the author refer to by using the term ‘moral bankruptcy’?a. tolerance of cheating for personal enrichment and the moral corruption from the top. b. ignorance of moral decline in contemporary, hostile American society.c. the indication that society is prone to proletarianism favoring violence and vulgarity.d. a belief that elite code have been replaced by thug code of the under class.

II. Vocabulary StudyA. Contextual meaning of wordsFind out the contextual meaning of the following italic words1. The difficulty is that our judgments on that score are not always correct.

score ___________________________________________________

2. The absence of a citation, in such an instance would not therefore encourage a reader to take the author as the origin of the idea.absence _________________________________________________

3. We've all done it, at some point or other, without meaning to; just as we've all lost our tempers or exercised poor judgment.exercise _________________________________________________

4. ……we are all grappling with the same sorts of questions and that there is even accumulated human wisdom which can help us navigate the rough waters of our own existence.rough water ______________________________________________

5. "Those early compositions," she explains, were mental gymnastics.gymnastics _______________________________________________

6. Some understand that they can't appropriate text verbatim but assume this problem is addressed if they simply rephrase the bits they borrow.addressed ________________________________________________

7. Knowledge will not eliminate plagiarism, however, because there is a more serious cause — fear.knowledge _______________________________________________

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8. ……they receive good grades for essays where the prose is obviously far too sophisticated to have been written by a child.sophisticated _________________________________________

9. ……they are seeing their parents laid off or their pension funds evaporate as their employers file for bankruptcy.evaporate ______________________________________________

10. We assign beleaguered adjuncts to instruct them and thereby almost guarantee that most instances of plagiarism will not be caught.adjuncts _______________________________________________

II. Understanding the Discourse A. Recognizing SourcesRead the text carefully and then fill in the blanks with what you think should be1. In the sentence “So why does it appear it is becoming increasingly rare?” the

second it refers to ______________

2. In paragraph 7 the quoted terms “assimilation and imitation” refers to _______________________________

3. When the author say that “American students are narrowing the gap between the foreign students and them in the wrong direction,” he means that Instead of narrowing ______________________________; they are actually narrowing the _________________________________

4. What are some other expressions opposite to the term indifference in paragraph 12?_____________ __________________ ___________________

5. The examples given to indicate that American capitalism is becoming increasingly hostile to the individual are

___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________

Unit 3

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My Father Leslie Stephen Virginia Woolf

1. By the time that his children were growing up, the great days of my father’s life

were over. ( a ). Relics of them were to be found lying about the house – the silver

cup on the study mantelpiece; the rusty alpenstocks that leaned against the bookcase

in the corner; and to the end of his days he would speak of great climbers and

explorers with a peculiar mixture of admiration and envy. But his own years of

activity were over, and my father had to content himself with pottering about the

Swiss valleys or taking a stroll across the Cornish moors.

2. That to potter and to stroll meant more on his lips than on other people’s is

becoming obvious now that some of his friends have given their own version of those

expeditions. He would start off after breakfast alone, or with one companion. Shortly

after dinner he would return. ( b ). And he was quite capable, it appears, of striding all

days across the moors without speaking more than a word or two to his companion.

By that time, too, he had written the History of English Thought in the Eighteenth

Century, which is said by some to be his masterpiece; and the Science of Ethics – the

book which interested him most; and The Playground of Europe, in which is to be

found “The Sunset on Mont Blanc” – in his opinion the best thing he ever wrote. He

still wrote daily and methodically, though never for long at a time.

3. In London he wrote in the large room with three long windows at the top of the

house. He wrote lying almost recumbent in a low rocking chair which he tipped to and

fro as he wrote, like a cradle, and as he wrote he smoked a short clay pipe, and he

scattered books round him in a circle. ( c ). And often as he mounted the stairs to his

study with his firm, regular tread he would burst, not into song, for he was entirely

unmusical, but into a strange rhythmical chant, for verse of all kinds, both “utter

trash”, as he called it, and the most sublime words of Milton and Wordsworth, stuck

in his memory, and the act of walking of climbing seemed to inspire him to recite

whichever it was that came uppermost or suited his mood.

4. But it was his dexterity with his fingers that delighted his children before they

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could potter along the lanes at his heels or read his books. He would twist a sheet of

paper beneath a pair of scissors and out would drop an elephant, a stag, or a monkey,

with trunks, horns, and tails delicately and exactly formed. Or taking a pencil, he

would draw beast after beast – an art that he practiced almost unconsciously as he

read, so that the fly-leaves of his books swarm with owls and donkeys as if to

illustrate the “Oh, you ass!” or “Conceited dunce” that he was wont to scribble

impatiently in the margin. Such brief comments, in which one may find the germ of

the more temperate statements of his essays, recall some of the characteristics of his

talk. ( d ). But his remarks, made suddenly in a low voice between the puffs of his

pipe, were extremely effective. Sometimes with one word – but his one word was

accompanied by a gesture of the hand – he would dispose of the tissue of

exaggerations which his own sobriety seemed to provoke.[…]

5. Too much, perhaps, has been said of his silence; too much stress has been laid

upon his reserve. He loved clear thinking; he hated sentimentality and gush; but this

by no means meant that he was cold and unemotional, perpetually critical and

condemnatory in daily life. ( e ). A lady, for instance, complained of the wet summer

that was spoiling her tour in Cornwall. But to my father, though he never called

himself a democrat, the rain meant that the corn was being laid; some poor man was

being ruined; and the energy with which he expressed his sympathy – not with the

lady – left her discomfited. He had something of the same respect for farmers and

fishermen that he had for climbers and explorers. So, too, he talked little of patriotism,

but during the South African War – and all wars were hateful to him – he lay awake

thinking that he heard the guns on the battlefield. Again, neither his reason nor his

cold common sense helped to convince him that a child could be late for dinner

without having been maimed or killed in an accident. And not all his mathematics

together with a bank balance which he insisted must be ample in the extreme could

persuade him, when it came to signing a check, that the whole family was not

“shooting Niagara to ruin”, as he put it. The pictures that he would draw of old age

and the bankruptcy court, of ruined men of letters who have to support large families

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in small houses at Wimbledon (he owned a very small house at Wimbledon), might

have convinced those who complain of his understatements that hyperbole was well

within his reach had he chosen.[…]

6. He himself was the most abstemious of men. He smoked a pipe perpetually, but

never a cigar. He wore his clothes until they were too shabby to be tolerable; and he

held old-fashioned and rather puritanical views as to the vice of luxury and the sin of

idleness. The relations between parents and children today have a freedom that would

have been impossible with my father. ( f ). Yet if freedom means the right to think

one’s own thoughts and to follow one’s own pursuits, than no one respected and

indeed insisted upon freedom more completely than he did. His sons, with the

exception of the Army and Navy, should follow whatever professions that chose; his

daughters, though he cared little enough for the higher education of women, should

have the same liberty. If at one moment he rebuked a daughter sharply for smoking a

cigarette – smoking was not in his opinion a nice habit in the other sex – she had only

to ask him is she might become a painter, and he assured her that so long as she took

her work seriously he would give her all the help he could. He had no special love for

painting; but he kept his word. Freedom of that sort was worth thousands of

cigarettes.[…]

7. In those last years, grown solitary and very deaf, he would sometimes call

himself a failure as a writer; he had been “jack of all trades, and master of none”. But

whether he failed or succeeded as a writer, it is permissible to believe that he left a

distinct impression of himself on the minds of his friends. Meredith saw him as

“Phoebus Apollo turned fasting friar” in his earlier days; Thomas Hardy, years later,

looked at the “spare and desolate figure” of the Schreckhorn and thought of him,

Who scaled its horn with ventured life and limb

Drawn on by vague imaginings, maybe

Of semblance to his personality

In its quaint glooms, keen lights, and rugged trim.

8. But the praise he would have valued most, for though he was an agnostic nobody

believed more profoundly in the worth of human relationships, was Meredith’s tribute

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after his death: “He was the one man to my knowledge worthy to have married your

mother.” And Lowell, when he called him “L. S, the most lovable of men,” has best

described the quality that makes him, after all these years, unforgettable.

Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

The author: Virginia Woolf (1882—1941) British author who made an original contribution to the form of the novel - also distinguished feminist essayist, critic in The Times Literary Supplement, and a central figure of Bloomsbury group. With To The Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931) Woolf established herself as one of the leading writers of modernism. Virginia Woolf's concerns with feminist thematic are dominant in A Room of One’s Own (1929). Other works: Three Guineas (1938) and Orlando (1928).

Leslie Stephen (1832-1904) Leslie Stephen was a 19th century British philosopher, man of letters, and first editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. He devoted much of his time to his History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century (1876) in which he explained the arguments of the old English deists and the skepticism of Hume. He places the philosophers and moralists in their due position in the whole literary activity of the period. He devoted the remainder of his life to other literary projects and died in 1903 of cancer. Other works are: Science of Ethics(1882), The English Utilitarians (1900)

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Word Glossary

potter v. spend time doing pleasant things without hurryalpenstocks n. （带铁头的长的）登山杖moor n. 旷野、荒野tread v. n. put your foot on, stepa clay pipe 陶制大烟斗thud n. 沉闷的声响stag n. 牡鹿conceited dunce 自鸣得意的笨蛋hyperbole n. 夸张（修辞手法）rebuke v. 指责或非难某人agnostic n. 不可知论者flyleaf n. 扉页recumbent adj. （文）躺着的、斜倚的maim v. 使某人致残abstemious adj. （文）有节制的、适度的tribute n. 表示敬意或称赞的行动、言语或礼物

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The Playground of Europe: 瑞士的别名。Shooting Niagara to ruin: 直译为“溅落尼加拉瓜”，这里形容一种绝境，这种绝境像乘坐小船漂流尼加拉瓜大瀑布一样危险。George Meredith (1828-1909): English Victorian poet and novelist.. He wrote mannered, satirical novels of the upper classes, with complex psychological studies. Words: Modern Love (1862), Dianna of the Crossways(1885)

Thomas Hardy (1840—1928) English novelist and poet. His major novels show with elaborate irony a universe ruled by a pitiless fate, and the indifference of man to the suffering and misery of his fellow creatures. Works include: How I Built Myself a House (1865); Far From the Madding Crowd (1874); The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886); Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891); Jude the Obscure (1895); The Dynasts (1903).

Phoebus Apollo turned fasting friar: 太阳神演化的修士。Schreckhorn: 斯雷克蜂，瑞士阿尔卑斯山的一座山峰。Lowell (1819—1891): American poet, essayist and playwright.

John Milton (1608—1674) British poet, writer of Paradise Lost (失乐园，1667);

Paradise Regain'd (复乐园，1671) and Samson Agonistes (力士参孙，1671), etc.

His exquisite minor poetry had an influence which grew throughout the 18th century and which was at its greatest in 19th century.

William Wordsworth (1770—1850) Wordsworth was a defining member of the English Romantic Movement. Like other Romantics, Wordsworth’s personality and poetry were deeply influenced by his love of nature, especially by the sights and scenes of the Lake Country, in which he spent most of his mature life. A profoundly earnest and sincere thinker, he displayed a high seriousness tempered with tenderness and a love of simplicity. Masterpieces: Lyrical Ballads (1798); Complete Poetical Works (1888).

Exercises

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Learn about the text

Enrichment English

I. Understanding the text

A．Paragraph SummarizingChoose a suitable heading for each paragraph from the list below and write down the paragraph number beside each heading..

____ a. Deft silent person____ b. His Distinct friend____ c. “Expedition” after retirement____ d. Conservative but reasonable____ e. Great days passed____ f. Educating children____ g. Writing environment

B. Evaluating the text1.After reading the essay, you would describe the author’s tone as ________.

a. respectful b. critical c. favorabled. ironical e. optimistic f. impersonal

2. What is the author’s purpose in writing the essay?

a. To give examples of how hard her father worked in his life.b. To show how her father spent his days of retirement.c. To illustrate what kind of person her father was.d. To demonstrate how reserved her father was

III.Vocabulary StudyA. Recognizing SourcesFind the words or expressions in the text that support the following statements.

a. Before he was too old, the author’s father was crazy about explorations.___________________________________________________________________b. The author’s father could be considered as an outstanding scholar.___________________________________________________________________c. When the author’s father went to his study, he was in a cheerful frame of

mind.___________________________________________________________________d. The author’s father was fond of using paper-cut to comment on the books he

read.___________________________________________________________________e. The democrats were concerned about the working people.___________________________________________________________________

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f. The author’s father loved his wife very much.___________________________________________________________________

B. Contextual meaning of wordsEach word on the left is related in meaning to the group of three words/expressions on the right. Choose the word/expression on the right which is most similar in meaning to the one on the left, in the context of the text.1. peculiar (para. 1) particular strange unwell2. sublime (para. 3) greatest necessary extreme3. dexterity (para. 4) talent strength flair4. swarm (para. 4) crowd congregate collect5. the germ of (para. 4) embryo micro-organism beginning6. dispose of (para. 4) get rid of deal with have sth

available7. sobriety (para. 4) solemn-ness thoughtfulness dullness8. discomfit (para. 5) discomfort confuse embarrass9. solitary (para. 7) alone remote single

10. desolate (para. 7) lonely empty miserable11. spare (para. 7) free unoccupied thin12. (a) the tissue of (para. 4) mass of cells a series of soft paper III. Understanding the DiscourseA. Recognizing SourcesIn the text, the letters in brackets refer to some missing sentences. Read the context through and decide where the sentences below should go and then mark the sentences with the corresponding letters given in brackets.______ 1. On the contrary, it was his power of feeling strongly and of expressing his

feeling with vigor that made him sometimes so alarming as a companion.______ 2. The thud of a book dropped on the floor could be heard in the room

beneath.______ 3. His feats on the river and on the mountains had been won before they were

born.______ 4. If the walk had been successful, he would have out his great map and

commemorate a new short cut in red ink.______ 5. He expected a certain standard of behavior, even of ceremony, in family

life.______ 6. He could be very silent, as his friends have testified.

Unit 4 Aspirin: The Oldest New Wonder Drug

The drug invented 100 years ago could cure arthritis and headaches. New research suggests it may work on cancers and on Alzheimer’s. Should you be taking it?

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Jerry Adler And Anne Underwood

1. It was created to ease the pain of arthritis, by a German chemist whose father was

being done in by the treatments available at the end of 19 th century. Aspirin relieved

Enrico Caruso’s headaches, and was one of the only drugs that could ease Kafka’s

existential angst. Since the early 1980s, it has been approved for preventing second

heart attacks as well as strokes, and, since 1997, in treating heart attacks as they

happen. But millions of people, who didn’t care to wait for a first heart attack before

availing themselves of aspirin’s benefit, have begun taking daily doses on their own.

And in the last five years, tantalizing research has suggested a role for aspirin in

preventing diseases as feared as colon cancer, prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s.

“Aspirin was the wonder drug of the 20th century, and I think it will also be the

wonder drug of the 21st century,” says Dr. Charles Henekens, an authority on

preventive medicine at the University of Miami. Which has many people wondering:

should everyone be taking it? Should I?

2. In one sense, aspirin --- acetylsalicylic acid --- is as old as medicine itself;

Hippocrates used a chemical precursor, extracted from willow bark, to treat headaches

and fever. But it is also uniquely suited to the 21st century, and not just because it

makes hangovers more bearable. Aspirin does one basic thing in the body: it interferes

with the synthesis of prostaglandins, which help control the body’s response to

injuries and infections. Prostaglandins act on the nervous system to help transmit pain,

they signal blood platelets to form clots and they promote inflammation, an intense,

localized activation of the immune system. These are vital functions, but they were

more central to human survival at a time when the biggest threats came from wild

animals and acute bacterial infection. Today, when people routinely live into their 70s

and 80s, pain is more likely to be a chronic condition than necessarily a warning of an

injury that must be heeded. Blood clots are the proximate cause of heart attacks, and

researchers now view inflammation as a likely culprit in atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s

and even cancer. Aspirin, which prevents blood clots, and suppresses inflammation,

holds out obvious promise as a preventive.

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3. Millions of people seem to think so. About 26 million Americans take aspirin

regularly for their hearts --- up from 6.8 million in 1997. The aspirin manufacturers

are obliging them with a proliferation of “low dose” aspirin tablets (typically 81

milligrams, or a quarter of one standard 325mg tablet), which now represent nearly 23

% of the total market. In 2000, McNeil Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Johnson &

Johnson, acquired St. Joseph aspirin, a moribund brand of what was once called

“baby aspirin” --- a term that fell into disfavor after doctors found that aspirin could

cause a rare brain disorder in children. Repositioned as an adult low-dose brand, St.

Joseph is being aggressively advertised for cardiovascular health. Bayer, the leading

aspirin brand, now comes in strengths varying from 81 to 500 milligrams, in tablets,

caplets and gel caps, variously coated or buffered with antacids. In January it

introduced Bayer Women’s Aspirin Plus Calcium, meant to strengthen women’s bones

along with their hearts. And the message has gotten out. “When I speak at medical

meetings,” says Dr. Alfred O. Berg, chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force,

an independent committee that advises the federal government, “I ask the audience to

raise their hands if they’re on aspirin, and I’m surprised at how many do.”

4. If all you cared about was avoiding heart disease --- disregarding the possible risks

--- you could make a case for almost all men and women above a certain age to take a

low dose of aspirin daily. The seminal study, by Henekens in the 1980s, followed

22,000 male doctors, half of whom took a 325mg aspirin every other day, the other

half a placebo. The aspirin subjects showed such a huge reduction in heart attacks ---

44% --- that an experiment planned for 10 years was cut short after five. Three studies

since then have confirmed this finding in both men and women. But there are other

ways to die. Aspirin, although millions of people take it everyday, is not completely

safe. By interfering with clotting it also increases the risks of hemorrhage, especially

into the gastric tract, where it can be fatal, and the brain --- causing a relatively

uncommon, but frequently devastating, form of stroke.

5. Earlier this year Berg’s task force, after surveying the existing studies, made a

significant recommendation on daily aspirin use. Weighing the dangers against the

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cardiovascular benefits, it calculated that aspirin should be considered for use by

anyone with at least a 3% risk of a heart attack over the next five years. Individual

patients can calculate their risk on the Web at one of several free sites, including

www.med-decisions.com, run by the University of North Carolina medical school. The

site factors in age, systolic blood pressure (the upper number), the ratio of total

cholesterol to high-density lipoproteins and risk factors such as smoking and diabetes

(but, interestingly, not weight or body mass). A 48-year-old man with normal blood

pressure (120/80), moderately elevated total cholesterol (202) and very good HDL

(54) has a 2 % risk of having a heart attack in the next five years --- just below the

threshold identified by Berg. By the task force’s standards, he’s not a candidate for

aspirin.

6. But the task force considered only the reduction in heart disease, and researchers

are piling up studies looking at aspirin in relation to every possible condition in which

inflammation may play a part. Take Alzheimer’s. A major risk factor is serious head

trauma. Such an injury “begins a process of inflammation,” says Tuffs University

neuroscientist James Joseph, leading to speculation that anti-inflammatory drugs

might exert a protective effect. Studies have found a reduction in risk for people who

take relatively large doses of anti-inflammatories for arthritis, but researchers are still

trying to figure out which ones work best

7. Other studies correlate aspirin use with lowered incidence of various cancers,

including colorectal and esophageal. That makes sense, too, says Dr. John Baron of

Dartmouth Medical School, who points out that “prostaglandins appear to play an

important role in carcinogenesis.” Almost all these studies, though, are

epidemiological, looking back at people who were taking aspirin for some other

purpose. Baron did one of the only controlled experiments to test aspirin against a

placebo, and found that patients on a daily low-dose aspirin regimen had a 19%

reduction in colorectal adenomas, a kind of polyp that can progress to cancer. Does

Baron think he should be taking aspirin?

8. Not, he says, without talking to his doctor about it first. And, he adds, that goes for

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Word Glossary

tantalizing a. making you fell a strong desire to have 奢望的，渴望的inflammation n.seminal a. influencing future development in a new way.threshold n. the lowest level at which something begins to operate,

happen, produce on effect, etc. 阈、入门，界限angst  n. strong feeling of anxiety or unhappiness（尤指对时世的）忧虑；

疑惧 prostate  n. also prostate gland 前列腺 acetylsalicylic acid n. 乙酰水杨酸 proliferation  n. rapid increase in the amount or number, fast grow of a cell, etc.增殖；扩散 moribund  a. 行将灭亡的， 渐将被废弃的 gastric  a. related to your stomach (gastric juices) 胃的 systolic  a. （心脏等的）收缩（期）的 devastating  a. destroying or badly damaging sth, shocking and upsetting lipoproteins  n. 脂蛋白 carcinogenesis  n. 癌发生；致癌作用 esophageal  a. 食管的 colorectal  a. 结肠直肠的 adenomas  n. 腺瘤 polyp  n. 息肉；（动）珊瑚虫 atherosclerosis n. med. 动脉粥样硬化weigh… against… ph. to consider or compare carefully in order to form a

judgment or make a decision.factor in/onto ph. if you factor a particular cost or element into a calculation

you are making, or if you factor it in, you include it, used mainly in Am. E.

oblige sb withmake (out) a case for provide good reason for

Enrichment English

everyone else as well.

Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

Enrico Caruso(1873-1921) the world most celebrated Italian tenor of his time. He suffered a great pain in his last time. During the last 48 hours he continually moaned, “Calore . . . dolore . . . calore . . . dolore!”

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(heat, pain). Caruso’s suffering finally ended on the morning of Aug 2, 1921, shortly after nine o’clock.”

Alzheimer Alzheimer’s disease, (pronounced AHLZ-hi-merz) is an illness caused by the decay of the brain, which affects some older people, making them forget things and lose the ability to care for themselves. The disease was first described in 1906 by German physician Dr. Alois Alzheimer. Although the disease was once considered rare, research has shown that it is the leading cause of dementia.

Henekens epidemiologist Charles Henekens, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Chief, Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA. As the director of the Physicians' Health Study, he conducted the large long-term study which demonstrated conclusively that aspirin did reduce the chance of a first heart attack in middle-age men.

Hippocrates (4460?-337 BC?) a Greek doctor who is considered to be the man who began the study of medicine.

Exercises

I. Understanding the text

A.. Sentence Paraphrasing Find out the statement that best explains the original sentence in context1. And in the last five years, tantalizing research has suggested a role for aspirin in

preventing diseases as feared as colon cancer, prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s

a. In the past five years, tantalizing research has showed that aspirin is preventive for scaring diseases other than colon cancer, prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s.

b. In the past five years, tantalizing research has revealed that aspirin can help with the devastating diseases such as colon cancer, prostate cancer and Alzhemier’s

c. In the past five years, tantalizing research has indicated that aspirin helps to reduce the risk of getting serious diseases like colon cancer, prostate cancer and Alzhemier’s.

2. Today, when people routinely live into their 70s and 80s, pain is more likely to be a

chronic condition than necessarily a warning of an injury that must be heeded.

a. In 70s and 80s, people constantly believed that pain was a warning of an injury but not a condition occurred at certain time.

b. Seniors are more likely to have painful experience in life, which must be routinely heeded in time.

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Learn about the text

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c. When one getting very old he tends to feel pain again and again without even being injured.

3. Repositioned as an adult low-dose brand, St. Joseph is being aggressively advertised for cardiovascular health.

a. Changed into a new brand for adult users, St. Joseph is advertised as preventive for heart health.

b.Renamed with a brand. St. Joseph has been introduced as a medicine for cardiovascular diseases.

c. Reproduced as low-dose brand, the company tried to sell it as a good medicine for heart disease.

II. Vocabulary StudyA. Contextual meaning of wordsWrite a definition, synonym, or description of each italicized vocabulary item in the space provided using the context provided to determine the meanings of the italicized words or phrases.

1. _____________________ …whose father was being done in by the treatments in the ….(para.1)

2. _____________________ … who didn’t care to wait for a first heart attack before availing themselves of aspirin’s benefit.(para.1)

3. _____________________ ….not just because it makes hangovers more bearable.(para. 2)

1. _____________________ …. Researchers now view inflammation as a likely culprit in atherosclerosis. (para.2)

5. _______________________ Hippocrates used a chemical precursor, extracted from willow bark to treat headaches and fever…(para.2)

6. _______________________Researchers now view inflammation as a likely culprit in atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s and even cancer. (para.2)

7._______________________ ….acquired St. Joseph aspirin, a moribund brand of what was once called “baby aspirin”…(para.3)

8._______________________ Other studies correlate aspirin use with lowered incidence of various cancers.(para.7)

III. Understanding the DiscourseA. Recognizing SourcesRead the article and answer the following questions:1. …should everyone be taking it? Should I? (paragraph 1)

What does I refer to ? __________________________________________

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2. …but they were more central to human survival at the time…. (paragraph 2)What does they refer to? _________________________________________

3. I’m surprised at how many do. (paragraph 3)Do what? _________________________________________________________

4. …an experiment planned for 10 years was cut short after five. (paragraph 4)Why was it cut short? _______________________________________________

5. …moderately elevated total cholesterol and very good HDL…(paragraph 5)What does HDL stand for? ____________________________________________

6. Take Alzheimer’s. (paragraph 6)What is omitted in the sentence? ________________________________________

B. Related Information For each key word find out the related information from the text

Key words Related InformationProstaglandins function:

Pain before nowadays

Bayer as a brand

St. Joseph as a brand

Candidate for aspirin Task force standard

Aspirin by effects

Unit 5 An Animal’s Place (I)

Michael Pollan

1 The first time I opened Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation,” I was dining alone at

the Palm, trying to enjoy a rib-eye steak cooked medium-rare. If this sounds like a

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good recipe for cognitive dissonance (if not indigestion), that was sort of the idea.

Preposterous as it might seem, to supporters of animals rights, what I was doing was

tantamount to reading “ Uncle Tom’s Cabin” on a plantation in the Deep South in

1852.

2 Singer and the swelling ranks of his followers ask us to imagine a future in which

people will look back on my meal, and this steakhouse, as relics of an equally

backward age. Eating animals, wearing animals, experimenting on animals, killing

animals for sports: all these practices, so resolutely normal to us, will be seen as the

barbarities they are, and we will come to view “speciesism”---a neologism I had

encountered before only in jokes---as a form of discrimination as indefensible as

racism or anti-Semitism.

3 Even in 1975, when “Animal Liberation” was first published, Singer, an Australian

philosopher now teaching at Princeton, was confident that he had the wind of history

at his back. The recent civil rights past was prologue, as one liberation movement

followed on the heels of another. Slowly but surely, the white man’s circle of moral

consideration was expanded to admit first blacks, then women, then homosexual. In

each case, a group once thought to be different from the prevailing “we” as to be

undeserving of civil rights was, after a struggle, admitted to the club. Now it was

animals’ turn.

4 That animal liberation is the logical next step in the forward march of moral

progress is no longer the fringe idea. A growing and increasingly influential

movement of philosophers, ethicists, law professors and activists are convinced that

the great moral struggle of our time will be for the rights of animals.

5 So far the movement has scored some of its biggest victories in Europe. Earlier this

year, Germany became the first nation to grant animals a constitutional right: the

words “and animals” were added to a provision obliging the state to respect and

protect the dignity of human beings. The farming of animals for fur was recently

banned in England. In several European nations, sows may no longer be confined to

crates nor laying hens to “battery cages”---stacked wired cages so small the birds

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cannot stretch their wings. The Swiss are amending their laws to change the status of

animals from “things” to “beings.”

6 Though animals are still very much “things” in the eyes of American law, change

is in the air. Thirty seven states have recently passed laws making some forms of

animal cruelty a crime, 21 of them by ballot initiative. Following protests by activists,

McDonald’s and Burger King forced significant improvements in the way the U.S.

meat industry slaughters animals. Agribusiness and the cosmetics and apparel

industries are all struggling to defuse mounting public concerns over animal welfare.

7 Once thought of as a left-wing concern, the movement now cuts across ideological

lines. Perhaps the most eloquent recent plea on behalf of animals, a new book called

“Dominion” was written by a former speechwriter for President Bush. And once

outlandish ideas are finding their way into mainstream opinion. A recent Zogby poll

found that 51 percent of Americans believe that primates are entitled to the same

rights as human children.

8 What is going on here? A certain amount of cultural confusion, for one thing. For

at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral

consideration to animals, in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more

suffering on more animals than at any time in history. One by one, science is

dismantling our claims to uniqueness as a species, discovering that such things as

culture, tool-making, language and even possibly self-consciousness are not the

exclusive domain of Homo sapiens. Yet most of the animals we killed lead lives

organized very much in the spirit of Descartes, who famously claimed that animals

were mere machines, incapable of thought and feelings. There is a schizoid quality to

our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half

the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to

consider the miserable life of the pig---an animal easily as intelligent as a dog---that

becomes the Christmas ham.

9 We tolerate the disconnect because of the life of the pig has moved out of view.

When is the last time you saw a pig? Except for our pets, real animals---animal living

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and dying---no longer figure in our everyday lives. Meat comes from the grocery

store, where it is cut and packed to look as little like parts of animals as possible. The

disappearance of animals from our lives has opened a space in which there is no

reality check, either on the sentiment or the brutality. This is pretty much where we

live now, with respect to animals, and it is a space in which the Peter Singers and

Frank Perdues of the world can evidently thrive equally well.

10. Several years ago, the English critic John Berger wrote an essay, “Why Look at

Animals?” in which he suggested the loss of everyday contact between ourselves and

animals ---and especially eye contact ---has left us deeply confused about the terms of

our relationship to other species. That eye contact, always slightly uncanny, had

provided a vivid daily reminder that animals were at once crucially like and unlike us;

in their eyes we glimpsed something unmistakably familiar (pain, fear, tenderness)

and something irretrievably alien. Upon this paradox people built a relationship in

which they felt they could both honor and eat animals without looking away. But that

accommodation has pretty much broken down; nowadays, it seems, we either look

away or become vegetarian. For my own part, neither option seemed especially

appetizing, which might explain how I found myself reading “Animal Liberation” in a

steakhouse.

（to be continued）Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

the author: Michael Pollan, contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and author, has done a range of work in journalism, environmentalism, and architecture. He served for many years as executive editor for Harper's Magazine and writes a column on architecture for House & Garden. Pollan received the 2000 Reuters-World Conservation Union Global Award for Environmental Journalism for reporting on genetic engineering.

Peter Singer: a professor at Princeton University, USA. He was formally Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Human Bioethics at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of Animal Liberation, which can be considered

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the Bible of the animal rights movement.

Anti-Semitism: an idea or belief which is against the Arab and Jewish races and their languages

Burger King: an American fast food restaurant founded in Miami in 1954, the Burger King system has grown to 11,450 restaurants in 58 countries and territories worldwide.

Zog poll: an information service agency which offers market research, conduct public opinion poll based on accuracy and detailed survey.

Rene Descartes (1596---1650), French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. Because he was one of the first to oppose scholastic Aristotelianism, he is considered as the father of modern philosophy.

Charles Robert Darwin (1809---1882), English naturalist, author of “ On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”

Cartesian principles: ideas and theories of the thinker and mathematician Rene

Descartes 思想家、数学家笛卡尔的思想和理论

U.S.D.A.： the United States Department of Agriculture

North Carolina: 北卡罗来纳州（美国州名）

Unit 6An Animal’s Place (II)

Michael Pollan

1. Whether our interest in eating animals outweighs their interest in not being eaten

(assuming for the moment that is their interest) turns on the vexed question of animal

suffering. Vexed, because it is impossible to know what really goes on in the mind of

a cow or a pig or even an ape. Strictly speaking, this is true of other humans, too, but

since humans are all basically wired the same way, we have excellent reason to

assume that other people’s experience of pain feels much like our own. Can we say

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that about animal?

2. I have yet to find anyone who still subscribes to Descartes’s belief that animals

can’t feel pain because they lack a soul. The general consensus among scientists and

philosophers is that when it comes to pain, the higher animals are wired much like we

are for the same evolutionary reasons, so we should take the writhings of the kicked

dog at face value. Indeed, the very premise of a great deal of animal testing---the

reason it has value---is that animals’ experience of physical and even some

psychological pain closely resembles our own. Otherwise, why would cosmetics

testers drip chemicals into the eyes of rabbits to see if they sting? Why would

researchers study head trauma by traumatizing chimpanzee heads? Why would

psychologists attempt to induce depression and “learned helplessness” in dogs by

exposing them to ceaseless random patterns of electrical shock?

3. It can be argued that human pain differs from animal pain by an order of

magnitude. This qualitative difference is largely the result of our possession of

language and, by virtue of language, an ability to have thoughts about thoughts and to

imagine alternatives to our current reality. The philosopher Daniel C. Dennett

suggests that we would do well to draw a distinction between pain, which a great

many animals experience, and suffering, which depends on a degree of self-

consciousness only a few animals appear to command. Suffering in this view is not

just lots of pain but pain intensified by human emotions like loss, sadness, worry,

regret, self-pity, shame, humiliation and dread.

4. Consider castration. No one would deny the procedure is painful to animals, yet

animals appear to get over it in a way humans do not. (Some rhesus monkeys

competing for mates will bite off a rival’s testicle; the very next day the victim may be

observed mating, seemingly little the worse for wear.) Surely the suffering of a man

able to comprehend the full implications of castration, to anticipate the event and

contemplate its aftermath, represents an agony of another order.

5. By the same token, however, language and all that comes with it can also make

certain kinds of pain more bearable. A trip to the dentist would be a torment for an ape

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that couldn’t be made to understand the purpose and duration of the procedure.

6. It’s not easy to draw lines between pain and suffering in a modern egg or hog

confinement operation. These are places where the subtleties of moral philosophy and

animal cognition mean less than nothing, where everything we’ve learned about

animals at least since Darwin has been simply…set aside. To visit a modern CAFO

(Confined Animal Feeding Operation) is to enter a world that, for all its technological

sophistication, is still designed according to Cartesian principles: animals are

machines incapable of feeling pain. Since no thinking person can possibly believe this

any more, industrial animal agriculture depends on a suspension of disbelief on the

part of the people who operate it and a willingness to avert your eyes on the part of

everyone else.

7. From everything I’ve read, egg and hog operations are the worst. Beef cattle in

America at least still live outdoors, albeit standing ankle deep in their own waste

eating a diet that makes them sick. And broiler chickens although they do get their

beaks snipped off with a hot knife to keep them from cannibalizing one another under

the stress of confinement, at least don’t spend their eight-week lives in cages too small

to ever stretch a wing. That fate is reserved for the American laying hen, who passes

her brief span piled together with a half dozen other hens in a wire cage whose floor a

single page of this magazine could carpet. Every natural instinct of this animal is

thwarted, leading to a range of behavioral “vices” that can include cannibalizing her

cagemates and rubbing her body against the wire mesh until it is featherless and

bleeding. Pain? Suffering? Madness? The operative suspension of disbelief depends

on more neutral descriptors, like “vices” and “stress.” Whatever you want to call what

is going on in those cages, the 10 percent or so of hens that can’t bear it and simply

die is built into the cost of production. And when the output of the others begins to

ebb, the hens will be “force-molted”---starved of food and water and light for several

days in order to stimulate a final bout of egg laying before their life’s work is done.

8. Piglets in confinement operations are weaned from their mothers 10 days after

birth (compared with 13 weeks in nature) because they gain weight faster on their

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hormone-and antibiotic-fortified feed. This premature weaning leaves the pigs with a

lifelong craving to suck and chew, a desire they gratify in confinement by biting the

tail of the animal in front of them. A normal pig would fight off his molester, but a

demoralized pig has stopped caring. “Learned helplessness” is the psychological term,

and it is not uncommon in confinement operations, where tens of thousands of hogs

spend their entire lives ignorant of sunshine or earth or straw, crowded together

beneath a metal roof upon metal slats suspended over a manure pit. So it’s not

surprising that an animal as sensitive and intelligent as a pig would get depressed, and

a depressed pig will allow his tail to be chewed on to the point of infection. Sick pigs,

being under-performing “production units,” are clubbed to death on the spot. The

U.S.D.A.’s recommended solution to the problem is called “tail docking.” Using a

pair of plies (and no anesthetic), most but not all of the tail is snipped off. Why the

little stump? Because the whole point of the exercise is not to remove the object of

tail-biting so much as to render it more sensitive. Now, a bite on the tail is so painful

that even the most demoralized pig will mount a struggle to avoid it.

9. Much of this description is drawn from “Dominion,” Matthew” Scully’s recent

book in which he offers a harrowing description of a North Carolina hog operation.

Scully, a Christian conservative, has no patience for lefty rights talk, arguing instead

that while God did give man “Dominion” over animals, he also admonished us to

show them mercy. “ We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have

rights or power or some claim to equality but…because they stand unequal and

powerless before us.”

Unit 7 Intelligence Test

Howard Gardner

1 Psychologists who study intelligence have argued chiefly about three questions.

The first: Is intelligence singular, or does it consist of various more or less

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independent intellectual faculties? The purists---ranging from the turn-of-the century

English psychologist Charles Spearman to his latter-day disciples Richard J. Herrntein

and Charles Murray---defend the notion of a single overarching "g," or general

intelligence. The pluralists---ranging from L.L. Thurstone, of the University of

Chicargo, who posited seven vectors of the mind, to J. P. Guilford, of the University

of Southern California, who discerned 150 factors of the intellect---construe

intelligence as composed of some or even many dissociable components.

2 The public is more interested in the second question: Is intelligence (or are

intelligences ) largely inherited? This is by and large a Western question. In the

Confucian societies of East Asia individual differences in endowment are assumed to

be modest, and differences in achievement are thought to be due largely to effort. In

the West, however, many students of the subject sympathize with the view ---

defended within psychology by Lewis Terman, among others---that intelligence is

inborn and one can do little to alter one's intellectual birthright.

3 Studies of identical twins reared apart provide surprisingly strong support for the

"heritability" of psychometric intelligence. That is, if one wants to predict someone's

score on an intelligence test, the scores of the biological parents (even if the child has

not had appreciable contact with them) are more likely to prove relevant than the

scores of the adoptive parents. By the same token, the IQs of identical twins are more

similar than the IQs of fraternal twins. And, contrary to common sense, the IQs of

biologically related people grow closer in the later years of life. Still, because of the

intricacies of behavioral genetics and the difficulties of conducting valid experiments

with human child-rearing, a few defend the proposition that intelligence is largely

environmental rather than heritable, and some believe that we cannot answer the

question at all.

4 Most scholars agree that even if psychometric intelligence is largely inherited, it is

not possible to pinpoint the sources of differences in average IQ between groups, such

as the fifteen point difference typically observed between African-American and

white populations. That is because in our society the contemporary---let alone the

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historical---experiences of these two groups cannot be equated. One could ferret out

the differences (if any) between black and white populations only in a society that was

truly color-blind.

5 One other question has intrigued lay people and psychologists: Are intelligence

tests biased? Cultural assumptions are evident in early intelligence tests. Some class

biases are obvious---who except the wealthy could readily answer a question about

polo? Others are more subtle. Suppose the question is what one should do with money

found on the street. Although ordinarily one might turn it over to the police, what if

one had a hungry child? Or what if the police force were known to be hostile to

members of one's ethnic group? Only the canonical response to such a question would

be scored as correct.

6 Psychometricians have striven to remove the obviously biased items from such

measures. But situation biases that are built into the test itself are far more difficult to

deal with. For example, a person's background affects his or her reaction to being

placed in an unfamiliar locale, being instructed by someone dressed in a certain way,

and having a printed test booklet thrust into his or her hands. And as the psychologist

Claude M. Steele has argued that the biases prove even more acute when people know

that their academic potential is being measured and that their racial or ethnic group is

widely considered to be less intelligent than the dominant social group.

7 The idea of bias touches on the common assumption that tests in general, and

intelligence tests in particular, are inherently conservative instruments---tools of the

establishment. It is therefore worth noting that many testing pioneers thought of

themselves as progressives in the social sphere. They were devising instruments that

could reveal people of talent even if those people came from remote and apparently

inferior backgrounds. And occasionally, the tests did discover intellectual diamonds in

the rough. More often, however, they picked out the privileged. The still unresolved

question of the causal relationship between IQ and social privilege has stimulated

many a dissertation across the social sciences.

8 Paradoxically, one of the clearest signs of the success of intelligence tests is that

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they are no longer widely administered. In the wake of legal cases about the propriety

of making consequential decisions about education on the basis of IQ scores, many

public school officials have become test-shy. By and large, the testing of IQ in the

schools is restricted to cases involving a recognized problem (such as a learning

disability) or a selection procedure (determining eligibility for a program that serves

gifted children).

9 Despite this apparent setback, intelligence testing and the line of thinking that

underlies it have actually triumphed. Many widely used scholastic measures, chiefly

among them the SAT (renamed the Scholastic Assessment Test a few years ago), are

thinly disguised intelligence tests that correlate highly with scores on standard

psychometric instruments. Virtually no one raised in the developed world today has

gone untouched by Binet's seemingly simple invention of a century ago.

(From The Atlantic Monthly)

Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

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Word Glossary

facultyoverarching a. 含盖各方面的pluralist n. 多元论者purist n. 单一论者canonical a. 教规的、规范的locale n. （事情发生的）地点、场所identical twins n. 同卵双胞胎fraternal twins n. 异卵双胞胎

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The author: Howard Gardner is the John H and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Harvard University. He is best known for his theory of multiple intelligence, a critique of the notion that there exists but a single human intelligence that can be accessed by standard psychometric instruments. Gardner is the author of eighteen books and several hundred articles.

IQ: an abbreviation for intelligence quotient, it designates the ratio between mental age and chronological age. Mental age refers to the level of understanding and

performance that a person has reached; (智龄)while chronological age refers to a

person’s age from his birth to a specific point.

intelligence test: Different kinds of tests are administered across the U.S.: Intelligence Tests, Achievement Tests, Scholastic Assessment Tests, Aptitude Tests, etc. All American school children and many adults are tested at various times. The purposes of these tests are the same--- to see how an individual stands in relation to others.

Lewis Terman (1877-1956): American psychologist whose major contribution to American psychology was his work in intelligence testing and his evaluation of gifted persons. The test he adopted and later revised became known as the Standford-Benit Intelligence Scale.

polo: a game in which players riding horses use wooden hammers with long handles

to hit a ball into a opposing team’s goal马球Alfred Binet (1857-1911): French psychologist, the outstanding pioneer in the development of the modern intelligence test. With his student, Theodore Simon, Binet invented the Binet-Simon Intelligence Scale (1905), which was soon adopted in many countries.

Exercises

I. Understanding the text1. A. Sentence ComprehensionRead the text carefully and then choose the best answers1.What can you infer from the sentence “One could ferret out the differences (if any)

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Learn about the text

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between black and white populations only in a society that was truly color-blind.”? (paragraph. 4)

a. Some Americans are unable to distinguish between certain colors.b. Blacks and whites are treated equally in the United States.c. There is still racial discrimination in the United States.d. Whites are more intelligent than blacks.

2. How would you interpret the sentence “What if one had a hungry child?”(paragraph. 5)

a. What would be his/her answer if he/she had a hungry child?b. What would he/she think if he/she had a hungry child?c. What would he/she want if he/she had a hungry child?d. What would he/she do with the money if he/she had a hungry child?

3.By “Paradoxically, one of the clearest signs of the success of intelligence tests is

that they are no longer widely administered.” the author means (paragraph. 8)a. Since the tests are biased, it is a good thing that the tests are no longer widely used.b. Testing pioneers gained success as the traditional IQ tests are no longer administered.c. People are happy that they don't need to take IQ tests.d. Public school officials won't be accused of administering IQ tests too widely.

4. Why do public school officials become test-shy about administering IQ tests?a. They are not sure whether the test results are reliable or not.b They will be sued if they've made decisions on the basis of IQ scores.c. Decisions mainly based upon IQ scores are wrong.d. They don't know how to get rid of the biases of IQ tests.

5. The author's attitude towards intelligence testing is largely ________. a. critical b. objective c. indifferent d.. biased

II. Vocabulary StudyA. Word Recognition 1. In paragraph 3 find the word which means

large enough to be noticed or have an effect___________________________ 2. In paragraph 3 find the equivalent of the word

complexity. ___________________________________________________ 3. In paragraph 4 find the phrase which means

discover by searching _____________________________________________ 4. In paragraph 5 find the word which means

make people interested in__________________________________________ 5. In paragraph 6 find the word which means

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push something forcefully_________________________________________ 6. In paragraph 7 find the phrase which means

mention briefly ________________________________________________ 7. In paragraph 8 find the equivalent of the word

Conduct ______________________________________________________ 8. In paragraph 9 find the equivalent of the word

Almost _______________________________________________________

III. Understanding the textThree questions that psychologists are mainly concerned with are

___________________________. ↓The transitional sentence in paragraph 2 is _________________________.It raises ________________________. Also it serves as the topic sentence of that

paragraph. ↓Paragraph 3 and 4 expand the discussion on the issue whether

________________________. ↓The transitional sentence in paragraph 5 is ___________________________. ↓The two follow-up paragraphs (6 and 7) focus on the discussion of

____________________in IQ tests. ↓Paragraph 8 describes the __________________________________of IQ tests. ↓The author ends up the article by telling us_________________________.

Unit 8 The McDonaldization of Society

Robert Keel

1 Since 1955 McDonald's has grown to over 12,000 outlets worldwide. The central

concepts employed in the fast-food industry have spread to all types of restaurants.

Everything from pizza to lobster, from ice cream to bread, from alcohol to fried

chicken is dominated by the Chain mentality.

2 We no longer have to go to the chains. They have come to us. They are in the

suburbs, the central cities, the malls, our schools and military bases, our hospitals and

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airports, even our airplanes and ballparks. They dominate our highway interchanges-

every exit looks the same. It's not only the food industry that represents this process of

McDonaldization. Toy stores (Toys R Us), Bookstores (B. Dalton's), Newspapers

(USA Today), child care (Kinder Care), learning (Sylvan Learning Centers) and a host

of others have followed.

3 "In the 1980s and 1990s McDonaldization has extended its reach into more and

more regions of society, and those areas are increasingly remote from the heart of the

fast-food business." (Ritzer 1994:137)

4 Each new spin-off serves to further extend the process. The "news bites" of USA

Today have changed the way most local papers present the news, perhaps even the

way we see and hear the news on TV-take a look at Headline Network News. And

even the way "news" is constructed-work of PR managers and press releases. Ritzer

outlines five dominant themes within this McDonaldization process: Efficiency,

Calculability, Predictability, Increased Control, and the Replacement of Human by

Non-human Technology.

Efficiency

5 Efficiency means the choosing of means to reach a specific end rapidly, with the

least amount of cost or effort. The idea of efficiency is specific to the interests of the

industry or business, but is typically advertised as a benefit to the customer. Examples

are plentiful: the drive-up window, salad bars, fill your own cup, self-serve gasoline,

ATM's, Voice Mail, microwave dinners and supermarkets (versus the old-time

groceries where you gave your order to the grocer). The interesting element here is

that the customer often ends up doing the work that previously was done for them.

And the customer pays for the "privilege." We end up spending more time, being

forced to learn new technologies, remember more numbers, and often pay higher

prices in order for the business to operate more efficiently (maintain a higher profit

margin).

Calculability

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6 "(this) involves an emphasis on things that can be calculated, counted, quantified.

Quantification refers to a tendency to emphasize quantity rather than quality. This

leads to a sense that quality is equal to certain, usually (but not always) large

quantities of things." (Ritzer 1994:142)

7 Examples of this element include: the "Big Mac," the Whopper," "Big Gulp,"

Wendy's "Biggie Meals," food sold by its weight--Taco Bell's 8 ounce burrito. Another

manifestation relates to time-quicker is better. "Lose weight fast," microwaving

allows for "spending less time in the kitchen," and in news reporting; no details to

slow you down. A further extension involves the credentialing process. Status,

capability and competence are assumed to be related to the number of initials one lists

behind one's name or the number of pieces of paper we have hanging on our office

walls.

Predictability

8 Predictability refers to the attempt to structure our environment so that surprise and

differentness do not encroach upon our sensibilities. Rational people need to know

what to expect. They want to be sure that the fun, satisfaction, taste, and benefits they

received last week in Cincinnati will be repeated next week in San Diego. A Big Mac

is a Big Mac is a Big Mac.

9 The movie industry builds upon this concept by churning out sequel after sequel.

The spin-off series in television programming, or the success of authors like Tom

Clancy, also represent the importance of predictability: We get to follow our favorite

characters and the publishers and producers can be assured of a predictable profit.

Shopping is predictable in the mall, the same stores, often the same layout, enclosed

and protected from the unpredictable weather. Our lives are structured and controlled;

we go through the motions on autopilot.

Control Through the Substitution of Nonhuman for Human Technology

10 Ritzer's discussion combines these last two elements of the McDonaldization

process. “...these two elements are closely linked. Specifically, replacement of human

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by nonhuman technology is often oriented towards greater control. The great source

of uncertainty and unpredictability in a rationalizing system are people---either the

people who work within those systems or the people who are served by them.” (Ritzer

1994:148)

11 Everything is pre-packaged, pre-measured, automatically controlled. The human

employee is not required to think, just follow the instructions and push a button now

and then. At home, our ovens and probes tell us when our food is done, seasoning is

premixed, or the meal comes complete in one convenient package.

12 Checkers at the supermarket don't have to think either, just scan the barcode

(we've already weighed and labeled the produce). "The next step in this development

is to have the customer do the scanning,..." (Ritzer 1994:150). The scanners are

replacing the checkers, but they also allow for more control over the customer; prices

are no longer on the items we buy so we have less ability to oversee our spending and

the accuracy of the store's charges. We accept the "infallibility" of the computerized

checkout.

13 Airplanes are already under the control of computers, pilots merely oversee the

process. Soon automobiles will follow suit---already diagnostic modules "tell"

mechanics what components need to be replaced (note: there is little repair that takes

place).

14 What this means is that the skills and capabilities of the human actor are quickly

becoming things of the past. Who we are and how we interact is becoming defined by

our dependence upon and subordination to the machine.

The Irrationality of Rationality

15 Although there have been many benefits and conveniences that are related to this

process of McDonaldization: variety, round-the-clock banking and shopping, and

often speedier service; there is a certain sense that these rational systems tend to turn

in on themselves, to lead to irrational outcomes.

16 "Most specifically, irrationality means that rational systems are unreasonable

systems. By that I mean that they deny the basic humanity, the human reason, of the

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people who work within or are served by them." (Ritzer 1994:154)

17 The lines at the fast-food restaurants can be very long, and waiting to get through

the drive-thru can even take longer than going inside. These rational systems don't

save us money; we might spend less, but we do more work. The food we eat is often

less nourishing, loaded with stabilizers and flavor enhancers, fats, salt and sugar. This

contributes to the health problems of our society, a definitely "antihuman" component.

As our children grow up within these systems, they develop habits, which insure our

increasing dependency upon the systems. The packaging used in fast food industry

pollutes the environment. And the family: part of its solidarity and integrity was

centered around the family meal:

18 The communal meal is our primary ritual for encouraging the family to gather

together every day. If it is lost to us, we shall have to invent new ways to be a family.

It is worth considering whether the shared joy that food can provide is worth giving

up. (Visser, 1989:42; in Ritzer, 1994:156)

19 Microwavable foods and fast-food restaurants allow us to eat what we want, when

we want it. The ritual of cooking, eating together, and sharing is fading from the

American family.

20 Two final problems are worth noting. How long will it be before these rational

systems evolve beyond the control of people? How much of our lives are already

subject to their influence and control? What happens when the people who control the

systems succumb to being controlled?

21 And, as these systems expand and develop interdependencies amongst themselves-

both nationally and internationally, the possibility of a small number of individuals

exercising tremendous control over the people dependent upon the systems becomes

increasingly realistic. Perhaps a Brave New World is already in the making. What do

you THINK?

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Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

George Ritzer: sociologist, professor of the university of Maryland main works: Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit-Card Society. Newbury Park, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1995. Metatheorizing in Sociology. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1991.Sociology: A Multiple Paradigm Science, Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1975. A revised paperback edition published in March, 1980.

Big Mac: A giant Hamburger 巨无霸

Taco Bell：Taco Bell Corp., a subsidiary of TriCon Global Restaurants, Inc. Inc. is

the largest quick-service Mexican-style restaurant chain in the world, with approximately 4,600 locations in 50 states and a growing international market. At this time, nearly 200 restaurants are operating in Canada, Guam, Japan, Grand Cayman, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Chile, Egypt, Oman, Poland, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Aruba, Qatar, Ecuador, Jamaica, Peru, and Hawaii. Approximately 30% of the units are owned and operated by independent franchises

Whopper：a big hamburger

Exercises

I.Understanding the text

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Word Glossary mentality n. a way of thinking 思想，心理ballpark n. baseball playground burrito n. a Mexican food, bread folded with meat, cheese and beanmanifestation n. see clearly encroach v. to take other’s territory, etc. gradually 蚕食，侵占credentials n. something that proves your ability（阅历，学历等）证书，委任状churn out v. mass producing of low quality goodssuccumb v. yield, give up 屈服

Learn about the text

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A. Multiple Choice Questions1. The quick growth of McDonald restaurants worldwide since 1955 has resulted in

_____.a. a belief that business should be expended overseas for more profit b. a concept of expending business by opening more outlets under the same standard.

c. the rise of food-processing industry in different countries around the worldd. the high competition among fast-food industry nationwide and worldwide

2. The process of McDonaldization seems to have _______.a. achieved great success only in fast-food industryb. extended to the remote fast-food restaurantsc. chained all types of restaurants together.d. extended to other areas in society than food industry

3. According to the text, the idea of efficiency is actually _______.a. absurd and unreliableb. to the benefit of customerc. achieved at high cost d. in favor of the business

4.Calculability is a key factor of McDonaldization because ______.a. all the products need to be calculated before they are put on the shelvesb. the cost of product can be easily calculated by the customerc. it creates an illusion in customer that the more you buy the better they ared. products of good quality are usually sold in bulk

5.Which of the following statement will the author support?a. The element of calculability can be found even on one’s calling card.b. Big Mac represents the idea of fast, time-saving servicec. The more paper we hang on our office wall, the better business we’ll haved. Initials are usually listed behind one’s name.

6.The statement “ A Big Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac” implies thata. Big Mac is a prestigious brand in Americab. Customers are tired of seeing Big Mac all around the countryc. People expect to have the standard quality and serviced. Big Mac is a dominant company in fast-food industry

7. Which of the following does not involve nonhuman technology?a. A checker scans the barcode of the goods in a groceryb. A housewife cooks chicken with microwave ovenc. A student does his laundry in a DIY laundryd. A carpenter repairs a broken armchair.

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8. According to the author, what is becoming increasingly realistic?a. McDonaldization extended world-wide and reached into various social entities.b. The defects of McDonaldization will surpass its meritsc. Nonhuman technology takes the total control and becomes dominantd. Irrational behaviors prevails the rational human choices.

II Vocabulary StudyA. Choose the one that best explains the meaning of the underlined words1. Since 1955 McDonald's has grown to over 12,000 outlets worldwide.

a. subsidiaries b. products c. advertisements d. staff

2. TV program “Maude” was a spin-off from “All in the Family”a. TV program with same character from the otherb. TV program that is much recent than the otherc. TV program that is more popular than the otherd. TV program that is comparatively lousy than the other

3.Who we are and how we interact is becoming defined by our dependence upon and subordination to the machine.

a. secondary b. control c. operation d. coordination

4. The movie industry builds upon this concept by churning out sequel after sequel.a. mass producing low quality staff c. selling at high priceb. introducing in large quantity d. cheating one after another

5. The communal meal is our primary ritual for encouraging the family to gather together every day. If it is lost to us, we shall have to invent new ways to be a family

a. private b. shared c. communicative d. companionable

III. Understanding the DiscourseA. Diagram of the text organizationFill in the blanks with right information you get from the text

The growth of McDonald since 1955 has lead to a ↓The second paragraph serves as a paragraph to provide readers with illustrating the above-mentioned idea . ↓ is the term that is applied to summarize the above-mentioned concept.

↓The quote in paragraph 3 implies that and the follow-up paragraph will tell us

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↓The transition sentence in paragraph 4 is the sentence.

↓The five dominant themes regarding to McDonaldization are:

↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

↓In the Irrationality of Rationality section the author tries to point out thatin spite of all the benefits and conveniences, there are

↓The author ends up his discussion with and suggests that

Unit 8 Bringing Up Adultolescents

Millions of Americans in their 20s and 30s are still supported by their parents. The Me Generation is raising the Mini-Me Generation.

Peg Tyre

1. When Silvia Geraci goes out to dinner with friends, she has a flash of anxiety when

the check comes. She can pay her share --- her parents give her enough money to

cover all her expenses. It’s just that others in her circle make their own money now. “I

know I haven’t earned what I have. It’s been given to me,” says Geraci, 22, who

returned to her childhood home is suburban New York after graduating from college

last year. “It’s like I’m stuck in an in-between spot. Sometimes I wonder if I’m getting

left behind.” Poised on the brink of what should be a bright future, Geraci and

millions like her face a thoroughly modern truth: it’s hard to feel like a Master of the

Universe when you’re sleeping in your old twin bed.

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2. Whether it’s reconverting the guest room back into a bedroom, paying for graduate

school, writing a blizzard of small checks to cover rent and health-insurance

premiums or acting as career counselors, parents across the country are trying to

provide their twentysomethings with the tools they’ll need to be self-sufficient ---

someday. In the process, they have created a whole new breed of child --- the

adultolecsent.

3. For their part, these overgrown kids seem content to enjoy the protection of their

parents as they drift from adolescence to early adulthood. Relying on your folks to

light the shadowy path to the future has become so accepted that even the ultimate

loser move --- returning home to live with your parents --- has lost its stigma.

According to the 2000 Census, nearly 4 million people between the ages of 25 and 34

live with their parents. And there are signs that even more moms and dads will be

welcoming their not-so-little-ones back home. Last week, in an online survey by

Monster-TRAK.com, a job-search firm, 60 % of college students reported that they

planned to live at home after graduation --- and 21 % said that they planned to remain

there for more than a year.

4. Unlike their counterparts in the early ‘90s, adultolecsents aren’t demoralized

slackers lining up for the bathroom with their longing-to-be-empty-nester parents. Iris

and Andrew Aronson, two doctors in Chicago, were happy when their daughter,

Elena, 24, a Smith graduate, got a modest-paying job and moved back home last year.

It seemed a natural extension of their parenting philosophy --- make the children feel

secure enough and they’ll eventually strike out on their own. “When she was an

infant, the so-called experts said letting babies cry themselves to sleep was the only

way to teach them to sleep independent of their mother,” says Iris. “But I never did

that either.” Come fall, Elena is heading off to graduate school. Her sister, who will

graduate from Stanford University this spring, is moving in. Living at home works,

Elena explains, because she’s knows she’s leaving. “Otherwise, it’ll feel too much like

high school,” says Elena. “As it is, sometimes I look around and think, ‘OK, now it’s

time to start my homework.’”

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5. Most adultolecsents no longer hope, or even desire, to hit the traditional

benchmarks of independence --- marriage, kids, owning a home, financial autonomy

--- in the years following college. The average age for a first marriage is now 26, four

years later than it was in 1970, and child-bearing is often postponed for a decade or

more after that. Jobs are scarce, and increasingly, high-paying careers require a

graduate degree. The decades-long run-up in the housing market has made a starter

home a pipe dream for most people under 30. “The conveyor belt that transported

adultolecsents into adulthood has broken down,” says Dr. Frank Furstenberg, who

heads up a $3.4 million project by the MacArthur Foundation studying the

adultolecsent phenomenon.

6. Beyond the economic realities, there are some complicated psychological bonds

that keep able-bodied college graduates on their parents’ payroll. Unlike the

Woodstock generation, this current crop of twentysomethings aren’t building their

adult identity in reaction to their parents’ way of life. In the 1960’s, kids crowed about

not trusting anyone over 30; these days, they can’t live without them. “We are seeing

a closer relationship between generations than we have seen since World War II,” says

University of Maryland psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. “These young people

genuinely like and respect their parents.”

7. To some, all this support and protection --- known as “scaffolding” among the

experts --- looks like an insidious form of co-dependence. Psychiatrist Alvin

Rosenfeld says these are the same hyperinvolved parents who got minivan fatigue

from ferrying their kids to extracurricular activities and turned college admission into

a competitive sport. “They’ve convinced themselves they know how to lead a good

life, and they want to get that for their kids, no matter what,” says Rosenfeld.

8. By the time those children reach their 20s, says market researcher Neil Howe, their

desires for the future are often indistinguishable from the desires of their parents.

“The Me Generation,” says Howe, “has simply turned into the Mini-Me Generation.”

9. Trying to guarantee your children the Good Life, though, can sometimes backfire. A

few years ago, Janice Charlton of Philadelphia pressured her daughter, Mary, then 26,

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to get a master’s degree, even agreeing to cosign two $17,000 school loans if she did.

Mary dropped out, Janice says, and the loans went into default. “I’m sorry I ever

suggested it,” says Janice. “We’re still close but it’s a sticky issue between us.”

10. Many parents say they’re simply ensuring that their kids have an edge in an

increasingly competitive world. When Tom D’Agne’s daughter, Heather, 26, told him

she was thinking about graduate school, D’Agnes, 52, flew from their home in Hawaii

to San Francisco to help her find one. He edited the essay section of her application

and vetted her letters of recommendation, too. While Tom’s wife, Leona, worried

about creating a “dependency mentality,” Tom was adamant about giving his daughter

a leg up.

11. Parents aren’t waiting to get involved. Campus career counselors report being

flooded with calls from parents anxious to participate in their college senior’s job

search. Last fall the U.S. Navy began sending letters describing their programs to

potential recruits --- and their parents, “Parents are becoming actively involved in the

career decisions of their children,” says Cmdr. Steven Lowry, public-affairs officer for

Navy recruiting. “We don’t recruit the individual anymore. We recruit the whole

family.”

12. The steady flow of cash from one generation of active consumers to another has

marketers salivating. These twentysomethings are adventuresome, will try new

products and have a hefty amount of discretionary money. “They’re willing to spend it

on computers an big-screen TVs, travel and sports cars, things that other generations

would consider frivolous,” says David Morrison, whose firm, Twentysomething Inc.,

probes adultolecsents for companies like Coca-Cola and Nokia.

13. Jimmy Finn, 24, a paralegal at the Manhattan-based law firm of Sullivan &

Cromwell, made the most of his $66,000 annual income by moving back to his

childhood home in nearby Staten Island. While his other friends paid exorbitant rents,

Finn bought a new car and plane tickets to Florida so he could see his girlfriend on the

weekends. He had ample spending money for restaurants and cabs, and began paying

down his student loans. “New York is a great young person’s city but you can’t beat

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home for the meals,” says Finn.

14. With adultolecsents all but begging for years of support after college, many

parents admit they’re not sure when a safety net becomes a suffocating blanket. “I’ve

seen parents willing to destroy themselves financially,” says financial planner Bill

Mahoney of Oxford, Mass. “They’re giving their college graduates $20,000, $30,000,

even $40,000 --- money they should be plowing into retirement.” And it might only

buy them added years of frustration. Psychiatrists say it’s tough to convince a parent

that self-sufficiency is the one thing they can’t give their children.

15. No matter how loving the parent-child bond, parents inevitably heave a sigh of

relief when their adult kids finally start paying their own way. Seven months ago,

when Finn’s paralegal job moved to Washington, D.C., he left home and got an

apartment there. The transition, he said, was hard on his mother, Margie. Mom,

though, reports that she’s doing just fine. She’s stopped making plates of ziti and

meatballs for her boy and has more time for her friends. “The idea all along was that

he should be self-sufficient,” she says. It just took a little while.

Background and Culture Notes

Let me tell you

census: an official counting of a country’s total population, with other important information about the people. In Britain and the US there is usu. a census every ten years. PRC did 5 census respectively in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990 and 2000.

Stanford: a highly respected liberal univ. in the 1980s and 90s it began teaching literature by women, minorities and by people from other cultures in its literature courses. This upset some people, who worried that important works of western civilization, such as those by Plato and Shakespeare would not be taught in order to find time to teach these other works.

The Woodstock generation: a popular music festival in the town of Woodstock near NY in 1969 which attracted thousands of young people, which is often seen as presently Hippie movement of the 1960s and early 70s.

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Coca-Cola: tdmk (a small bottle, can or glass of) a sweet non-alcoholic carbonated drink of Am. origin.

twentysomething

Exercises

I. Understanding the textA. Multiple Choice Comprehension Questions1. Which of the following expressions doesn’t convey negative meaning?

a. college senior c. not-so-little-onesb. overgrown kids d. slackers

2. The tone of the author referring to American people in 20s and 30s is _____. a. positive c. negative b. interesting d. inappreciative 3. According to paragraph 2, parents are doing all the following except _____ for their

children. a. pay their rent and health-insurance premium b. change the guest room back into bedroom c. give career consultation d. provide tools needed in their career

4. What is the modern truth Geraci and other American youth face? a. They are still using the old bed even though they have been university students.b. It is a bit embarrassing that they still depend on their old family as post-graduatesc. The life in university seems quite unbearable comparing to that at home.d. They are not welcomed at home by parents who wished they could be independent

5. Which of the following statements is TRUE?a. Parents are happy to welcome their children back from college.b.Young people take it for granted to live with their parents upon college graduation.c. Parents are unwilling to have their college graduated children live with them.d.Young people have no way but to live with their parents upon graduation.

6. From paragraph 4, we can tell _____.a. Experts think that the only way for an infant to learn indecency is to let it cry to

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Learn about the text

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sleepb. Iris and Andrew Aronson never take experts’ opinion into consideration before

they are doctors themselves.c. Elena has to move out because her sister is moving in.d. Mr. & Mrs. Aronson would like to make their daughters feel safe before they

are fully self-sufficient.

7. According to paragraph 7 and 8, the following sayings are true except _____.a. The author disapproves of the co-dependence between parents and the childrenb. Janice Charlton forced her daughter to study for master degree, but reached an

unexpected resultc. The Me Generation and the Mini Me Generation shared the same good lifec. Parents believe they know how to get good life for their kids in the increasing

competitive world

8. US Navy sent recruiting letters to both parents and their children because _____.a. young people have to get approval from their parents before joining the Navyb. young people genuinely like and respect their parents’ opinionsc. parents are willing to play the role as career consolersd. the Navy tries to recruit the whole family

II. Vocabulary StudyA. Match each word in column A with the meaning in column B that comes closest to it.

A B1. bring up a) raise2. hefty b) big and powerful3. blizzard c) on the verge of4. stigma d) burst5. insidious e) difficult, awkward6. adamant f) be slightly better than7. give sb. a leg up g) large in amount8. have the edge on I) help sb. to improve one’s situation9. sticky j) a very bad snowstorm

10. vet l) a feeling of shame or dishonorm) secretly harmfuln) firm and immovable in purpose

III. Understanding the DiscourseA. Read the article and answer the following questions:

1.…even agreeing to cosign two $17,000 school loans if she did. (paragraph 9)What does “did” stand for ? _________________________

2. …flew from their home in Hawaii to San Francisco to help her find one. (paragraph

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10)What do they want to help her to find? _____________________

3 …says Cmdr. Steven Lowry, public-affairs officer for Navy recruiting. (paragraph 11)

What is the full name of the abbreviation?4. Relying on your folks to light the shadowy path to the future… (paragraph 3)

What do your folks refer to?5. To some, all the support and protection…(paragraph 7)

What does some mean?6. It just took a little while. (paragraph 15) What takes a little while?

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