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1、Unit 1Time-Conscious AmericansAmericans believe no one stands still.If you are not moving ahead,you are falling behind.This attitude results in a nation of people committed to researching,experimenting and exploring.Time is one of the two elements that Americans save carefully,the other being labor.
2、We are slaves to nothing but the clock,it has been said.Time is treated as if it weresomething almost real.We budget it,save it,waste it,steal it,kill it,cut it,account for it;we alsocharge for it.It is a precious resource.Many people have a rather acute sense of the shortness ofeach lifetime.Once t
3、he sands have run out of a persons hourglass,they cannot be replaced.Wewant every minute to count.A foreigners first impression of the US is likely to be that everyone is in a rushoften underpressure.City people always appear to be hurrying to get where they are going,restlessly seekingattention in
4、a store,or elbowing others as they try to complete their shopping.Racing throughdaytime meals is part of the pace of life in this country.Working time is considered precious.Others in public eating-places are waiting for you to finish so they,too,can be served and get backto work within the time all
5、owed.You also find drivers will be abrupt and people will push past you.You w川 miss smiles,brief conversations,and small exchanges with strangers.Dont take itpersonally.This is because people value time highly,and they resent someone else“wasting”itbeyond a certain appropriate point.Many new arrival
6、s in the States will miss the opening exchanges of a business call,forexample.They will miss the ritual interaction that goes with a welcoming cup of tea or coffee thatmay be a convention in their own country.They may miss leisurely business chats in a restaurantor coffee house.Normally,Americans do
7、 not assess their visitors in such relaxed surroundingsover extended small talk;much less do they take them out for dinner,or around on the golfrather than socially,we start talking business very quickly.Time is,therefore,always ticking in ourinner ear.Consequently,we work hard at the task of saving
8、 time.We produce a steady flow oflabor-saving devices;we communicate rapidly through faxes,phone calls or emails rather thanthrough personal contacts,which though pleasant,take longer-especially given our traffic-filledstreets.We,therefore,save most personal visiting for after-work hours or for soci
9、al weekendgatherings.To us the impersonality of electronic communication has little or no relation to thesignificance of the matter at hand.In some countries no major business is conducted without eyecontact,requiring face-to-face conversation.In America,too,a final agreement will normally besigned
10、in person.However,people are meeting increasingly on television screens,conductingteleconferences to settle problems not only in this country but also-bysatellite-internationally.The US is definitely a telephone country.Almost everyone uses the telephone to conductbusiness,to chat with friends,to ma
11、ke or break social appointments,to say Thank you,to shopand to obtain all kinds of information.Telephones save the feet and endless amounts of time.Thisis due partly to the fact that the telephone service is superb here,whereas the postal service isless efficient.Some new arrivals will come from cul
12、tures where it is considered impolite to work tooquickly.Unless a certain amount of time is allowed to elapse,it seems in their eyes as if the taskbeing considered were insignificant,not worthy of proper respect.Assignments are,consequently,given added weight by the passage of time.In the US,however
13、;it is taken as a sign of skillfulnessor being competent to solve a problem,or fulfill a job successfully,with speed.Usually,the moreimportant a task is,the more capital,energy,and attention will be poured into it in order to get itmoving.Unit 3Marriage Across NationsGail and I imagined a quiet wedd
14、ing.During our two years together we had experienced theusual ups and downs of a couple learning to know,understand,and respect each other.Butthrough it all we had honestly confronted the weaknesses and strengths of each otherscharacters.Our racial and cultural differences enhanced our relationship
15、and taught us a great dealabout tolerance,compromise,and being open with each other.Gail sometimes wondered why Iand other blacks were so involved with the racial issue,and I was surprised that she seemed toforget the subtler forms of racial hatred in American society.Gail and I had no illusions abo
16、ut what the future held for us as a married,mixed couple inAmerica.The continual source of our strength was our mutual trust and respect.We wanted to avoid the mistake made by many couples of marrying for the wrong reasons,and only finding out ten,twenty,or thirty years later that they were incompat
17、ible,that theyhardly took the time to know each other,that they overlooked serious personality conflicts in theexpectation that marriage was an automatic way to make everything work out right.That pointwas emphasized by the fact that Gails parents,after thirty-five years of marriage,were goingthroug
18、h a bitter and painful divorce,which had destroyed Gail and for a time had a negative effecton our budding relationship.When Gail spread the news of our wedding plans to her family she met with some resistance.Her mother,Deborah,all along had been supportive of our relationship,and even joked aboutw
19、hen we were going to get married so she could have grandchildren.Instead of congratulationsupon hearing our news,Deborah counseled Gail to be really sure she was doing the right thing.So it was all right for me to date him,but its wrong for me to marry him.Is his color theproblem,Mom?Gail subsequent
20、ly told me she had asked her mother.To start with I must admit that at first I harbored reservations about a mixed marriage,prejudices you might even call them.But when I met Mark I found him a charming and intelligentyoung guy.Any mother would be proud to have him for a son-in-law.So,color has noth
21、ing to dowith it.Yes,my friends talk.Some even express shock at what you are doing.But they live in adifferent world.So you see,Marks color is not the problem.My biggest worry is that you may bemarrying Mark for the same wrong reasons that I married your father.When we met I saw him asmy beloved,int
22、elligent,charming,and caring.It was all so new,all so exciting,and we boththought,on the surface at least,that ours was an ideal marriage with every indication that itwould last forever.I realized only later that I didnt know my beloved,your father,very well whenwe married.But Mark and I have been t
23、ogether more than two years,Gail railed.Weve been throughso much together.Weve seen each other at our worst many times.Im sure that time will onlyconfirm what we feel deeply about each other.You may be right.But I still think that waiting wont hurt.Youre only twenty-five.GaiTs father,David,whom I ha
24、d not yet met personally,approached our decision with afather-knows-best attitude.He basically asked the same questions as Gails mother:Why thehaste?Who is this Mark?Whats his citizenship status?And when he learned of my problemswith the citizenship department,he immediately suspected that I was mar
25、rying his daughter inorder to remain in the United States.But Dad,thats harsh,Gail said.Then why the rush?he asked repeatedly.Mark has had problems with citizenship before and has always taken care of them himself,Gail defended.In fact,he made it very clear when we were discussing marriage that if I
26、 had anydoubts about anything,I should not hesitate to cancel our plans.Her father proceeded to quote statistics showing that mixed couples had higher divorce ratesthan couples of the same race and gave examples of mixed couples he had counseled who werehaving marital difficulties.Have you thought a
27、bout the hardships your children could go through?he asked.Dad,are you a racist?No,of course not.But you have to be realistic.Maybe our children will have some problems,but whose children dont?But one thingtheyll always have:our love and devotion.Thats idealistic.People can be very cruel toward chil
28、dren from mixed marriages.Dad,well worry about that when the time comes.If we had to resolve all doubt before weacted,very little would ever get done.Remember,its never too late to change your mind.Unit5Weeping for My Smoking DaughterMy daughter smokes.While she is doing her homework,her feet on the
29、 bench in front of herand her calculator clicking out answers to her geometry problems,I am looking at the half-emptypackage of Camels tossed carelessly close at hand.I pick them up,take them into the kitchen,where the light is better,and study themtheyre filtered,for which I am grateful.My heart fe
30、elsterrible.I want to weep.In fact,I do weep a little,standing there by the stove holding one of theinstruments,so white,so precisely rolled,that could cause my daughters death.When shesmoked Marlboros and Players I hardened myself against feeling so bad;nobody I knew eversmoked these brands.She doe
31、snt know this,but it was Camels that my father,her grandfather,smoked.But beforehe smoked cigarettes made by manufacturerswhen he was very young and very poor,withglowing eyeshe smoked Prince Albert tobacco in cigarettes he rolled himself.I remember thebright-red tobacco tin,with a picture of Queen
32、Victoria*s partner;Prince Albert,dressed in a blackdress coat and carrying a cane.By the late forties and early fifties no one rolled his own anymore(and few women smoked)in my hometown of Eatonton,Georgia.The tobacco industry,coupled with Hollywood movies inwhich both male and female heroes smoked
33、like chimneys,completely won over people like myfather,who were hopelessly hooked by cigarettes.He never looked as fashionable as Prince Albert,though;he continued to look like a poor,overweight,hard-working colored man with too large afamily,black,with a very white cigarette stuck in his mouth.I do
34、 not remember when he started to cough.Perhaps it was unnoticeable at first,a littlecoughing in the morning as he lit his first cigarette upon getting out of bed.By the time I wassixteen,my daughters age,his breath was a wheeze,embarrassing to hear;he could not climbstairs without resting every thir
35、d or fourth step.It was not unusual for him to cough for an hour.My father died from the poor man*s friend,pneumonia,one hard winter when his lungillnesses had left him low.I doubt he had much lung left at all,after coughing for so many years.He had so little breath that,during his last years,he was
36、 always leaning on something.Iremembered once,at a family reunion,when my daughter was two,that my father picked her upfor a minutelong enough for me to photograph thembut the effort was obvious.Near thevery end of his life,and largely because he had no more lungs,he quit smoking.He gained acouple o
37、f pounds,but by then he was so slim that no one noticed.When I travel to Third World countries I see many people like my father and daughter.Thereare large advertisement signs directed at them both:the tough,confident or fashionable olderman,the beautiful,worldly young woman,both dragging away.In th
38、ese poor countries,as inAmerican inner cities and on reservations,money that should be spent for food goes instead tothe tobacco companies;over time,people starve themselves of both food and air,effectivelyweakening and hooking their children,eventually killing themselves.I read in the newspaper and
39、in my gardening magazine that the ends of cigarettes are so poisonous that if a baby swallows one,it is likely to die,and that the boiled water from a bunch of them makes an effective insecticide.There is a deep hurt that I feel as a mother.Some days it is a feeling of uselessness.Iremember how care
40、fully I ate when I was pregnant,how patiently I taught my daughter how tocross a street safely.For what,I sometimes wonder;so that she can struggle to breathe throughmost of her life feeling half her strength,and then die of self-poisoning,as her grandfather did?There is a quotation from a battered
41、womens shelter that I especially like:Peace on earthbegins at home.I believe everything does.I think of a quotation for people trying to stopsmoking:Every home is a no-smoking zone.Smoking is a form of self-battering that also battersthose who must sit by,occasionally joke or complain,and helplessly
42、 watch.I realize now that as achild I sat by,through the years,and literally watched my father kill himself:Surely one suchvictory in my family,for the prosperous leaders who own the tobacco companies,is enough.Unit 6As His Name Is,So Is He!For her first twenty-four years,shed been known as Debbie-a
43、 name that didnt suit hergood looks and elegant manner.My name has always made me think I should be a cook,shecomplained.I just dont feel like a Debbie.One day,while filling out an application form for a publishing job,the young womanimpulsively substituted her middle name,Lynne,for her first name D
44、ebbie.That was thesmartest thing I ever did/she says now.As soon as I stopped calling myself Debbie,I felt morecomfortable with myself.and other people started to take me more seriously.Two years afterher successful job interview,the former waitress is now a successful magazine editor.Friends andass
45、ociates call her Lynne.Naturally,the name change didnt cause Debbie/Lynnes professional achievementbut itsurely helped if only by adding a bit of self-confidence to her talents.Social scientists say thatwhat youre called can affect your life.Throughout history,names have not merely identifiedpeople
46、but also described them.As his name is,so is he.says the Bible,and WebstersDictionary includes the following definition of name:a word or words expressing some qualityconsidered characteristic or descriptive of a person or a thing,often expressing approval ordisapproval.Note well approval or disappr
47、oval.For better or worse,qualities such asfriendliness or reserve,plainness or charm may be suggested by your name and conveyed toother people before they even meet you.Names become attached to specific images,as anyone whos been called a plain Jane orjust an average Joe can show.The latter name par
48、ticularly bothers me since my name is Joe,which some think makes me more qualified to be a baseball player than,say,an art critic.Yet,despite this disadvantage,I did manage to become an art critic for a time.Even so,one prominentmagazine consistently refused to print Joe in my by-line,using my first
49、 initials,J.S.,instead.Isuspect that if I were a more refined Arthur or Adrian,the name would have appeared complete.Of course,names with a positive sense can work for you and even encourage newacquaintances.A recent survey showed that American men thought Susan to be the mostattractive female name,
50、while women believed Richard and David were the most attractive formen.One woman I know turned down a blind date with a man named Harry because hesounded dull.Several evenings later,she came up to me at a party,pressing for an introductionto a very impressive man;theyd been exchanging glances all ev