Unit 10 The Idiocy of Urban Life习题答案综合教程四

Unit 10 The Idiocy of Urban Life

Key to the Exercises

Text comprehension

I . Decide which of the following best states the author's purpose of writing.

B

II. Judge, according to the text, whether the following statements are true or false.

1. F (Refer to Paragraph

2. It is human beings who bring the rat race into human society.)

2. F (Refer to Paragraph 2. It tells us that the opposite is true. Urban life today is aggressively individualistic and atomized. Cities are not social places.)

3. T (Refer to Paragraph

4. "... they have created a little Manhattan-by-the-Sea around the Hamptons, spreading over the Long Island potato fields whose earlier solitude was presumably the reason why they first went there.")

4. T (Refer to Paragraph 4. "The main streets of America's small towns ?are now strips of boutiques. Old-fashioned barbers become unisex hairdressing salons.")

5. F (Refer to Paragraphs 5 and

6. According to the author, work in the rural areas is meaningful whereas the frenzy of the urban work hours is pointless. When the farmer walks to his farm in the morning, he is doing something significant. By contrast, the city worker is starting the first idiocy of his day when he is getting ready for his journey to work at this time of the day.)

6. T (Refer to Paragraph

7. The windows in the modern office buildings are perhaps the most symbolic lunacy of all. Even on the fairest spring or fall day the workers cannot put their heads outside.)

III. A nswer the following questions.

1. Refer to Paragraph 1. The author mentions rats at the beginning of the article for the purpose of contrasting rats with human beings. In a sense, both rats and human beings are city dwellers, but there are differences between them in terms of life in the city. As natural inhabitants of the city, rats are social creatures and lead a stable urban life. By contrast, most human dwellers do not enjoy the urban life but try to live outside the city boundaries; and they live an individualistic and atomized rather than gregarious life. Therefore, relatively speaking, rats are true city dwellers.

2. Refer to Paragraph

3. The idiocy of the practice lies in the pretence of the city dwellers. For one thing, they disdain rural life on the one hand, and on the other hand they try to simulate it by creating large or small patches of greenery around their suburb, exurb or rururb residences. For another, while they intend to live a rural life by going to

the country, they have in fact spoiled the natural features of the rural areas and created urban surroundings where they have settled down. As a result their purpose fails in the end.

3. Refer to Paragraph 6. The author's saying so reflects his attitude towards office work in the city. Unlike farming which is part of the rural home life, joyless work in the city is separated, both physically and emotionally, from home life and consequently causes unnecessary frenzy. The worker's going to and returning from work wastes a lot of time and thus is pointless, yet the worker "not only accepts but even seeks" it. Hence the idiocy of "the journey to work."

4. Refer to Paragraph 8. The quoted statement describes in what environment the city dweller lives and works. With the windows that never open, the modern office, artificially cooled in summer and heated in winter, alienates the worker from the true natural world. The home surroundings are no better. They provide the dweller with no true sense of the seasons either. In general, the city dweller is removed from nature and submerged in a man-made environment every day.

5. Refer to Paragraph 9. This phenomenon is caused by the demerits of office work. Compared with physical labor in rural life, office work in the city needs very little physical exertion, but it requires long-time sitting with the same posture every day. Even the after-work exercises cannot compensate for the damage done to the physical constitution of the worker during work hours. This accounts for the round-shoulderedness of Americans.

IV. Explain in your own words the following sentences.

1. Rats make city life courteous and refined when they dominate the city deep at night.

2. City dwellers create all kinds of city vogues in the country, for they will not live without these fashionable things.

3. These windows are disgraceful because they put the lives of office workers in danger if a fire should occur.

4. A lawn in the backyard and a few spindle-shaped trees struggling for life are not enough to give the dweller any true sense of the season changes.

Structural analysis of the text

The text can be divided into the following three parts:

Part 1, Paragraphs 1?: the author presents the thesis of his argument, i.e. aggressively individualistic and atomized urban life goes against both the purpose of the city and human nature, and thus is foolish.

Part 2, Paragraphs 3?: the author provides evidence for the idiocy of urban life.

Part 3, Paragraph 10: the author reiterates his thesis, i.e. urban life is idiotic.

Rhetorical features of the text

The following italicized words and expressions are used to express the author's attitude towards city life:

The Idiocy of Urban Life / aggressively individualistic and atomized / not social places / lunacy of modern city life / create simulations of it / a pretense to bosky woodlands / take their filth with them / maintain the pointless frenzy of their work hours in their hours off / work at their play with the same joylessness / a scandal / has no knowledge of the seasons / fetid central heating / no true sense of the rhythms of the seasons / reels from unreality to unreality / don't know it once had roots.

Vocabulary exercises

I. Explain the underlined part in each sentence in your own words.

1. doing propaganda work/printing lies on paper

2. fierce competition among people

3. foolishness/stupidity

4. senseless turmoil

5. something disgraceful

6. people with bent shoulders

II. Fill in the blank in each sentence with a word or phrase from the box in its appropriate form.

1. knowledge

2. simulation

3. insolence

4. urban

5. scurry

6. congregation

7. compensate 8. rat race

III. F ill in the blanks with the appropriate forms of the given words.

1. idiotic

2. urbanity

3. solitary

4. exerted

5. insolent

6. grieved

7. lunatic 8. habitat

IV. Choose the word that can replace the underlined part in each sentence without changing its original meaning.

1. B

2. C

3. C

4. A

5. B

6. A

7. A

8. B

V. Give a synonym or an antonym of the word underlined in each sentence in the sense it is used.

1. Synonym: bearing (stance)

2. Antonym: impolite (rude, ill-mannered)

3. Synonym: friendly (social, sociable)

4. Antonym: modestly (timidly, gently)

5. Synonym: smelly (stinking, foul, malodorous)

6. Synonym: thin (lanky)

7. Antonym: accept (respect)

8. Synonym: strangely

VI. Explain the meaning of the underlined part in each sentence.

1. somewhere away from a studio, office, library or laboratory where practical work is done or data is collected

2. support

3. seemingly

4. unconscious

5. very happy

6. ask for

Grammar exercises

I. Highlight the parts of the following sentences as required, using "it be ?that/who."

1. It was Harry who told the police.

2. It was I who told him the news.

3. Subject: It was Susan who would like to read some detective stories.

Object: It was some detective stories that Susan would like to read.

4. It is only when one is ill that one realizes the value of health.

5. Subject: It was John who painted a lovely picture.

Object: It was a lovely picture that John painted.

6. Subject: It was Galileo who invented the telescope.

Object: It was the telescope that Galileo invented.

7. Subject: It was Tom's mother who threw an egg at the minister yesterday.

Object: It was an egg that Tom's mother threw at the minister yesterday.

Adverbial of place: It was at the minister that Tom's mother threw an egg yesterday.

Adverbial of time: It was yesterday that Tom's mother threw an egg at the minister.

8. Subject: It was Bill who released the chairman's illness to the reporters at the party last night.

Direct object: It was the chairman's illness that Bill released to the reporters at the party last night.

Adverbial of place: It was at the party that Bill released the chairman's illness to the reporters last night.

Adverbial of time: It was last night that Bill released the chairman's illness to the reporters at the party.

II. Emphasize the underlined parts of the following sentences, using whatever means possible.

1. Do be civil this time.

2. Even the victims themselves can't explain how the accident occurred.

3. John I can comprehend; but the others speak gibberish.

4. Ambitious she must have been, or she wouldn't have come.

5. His face not many admired, while his character still fewer could praise.

6. They have promised to finish the work, and finish it they will.

7. Hidden in the cellar were several barrels of wine. / It was several barrels of wine that were hidden in the cellar.

8. What he was doing was making a plan.

III. G ive responses to the questions below, beginning with "No, what I ?" correcting what was said in the questions.

1. No, what I said was that I wanted you to fill the boxes with these books.

2. No, what I did was to invite her to my house instead.

3. No, what I thought was that he was going on his own.

4. No, what I did was to repair the old one.

5. No, what I did was to phone the managing director directly.

6. No, what I'd like you to work on is Exercise Two.

7. No, what I meant was that I will text-message you when I get there.

8. No, what I did was to send them some home-made cakes.

IV. Turn the following sentences into the active voice. Where no agent is mentioned, one must be supplied.

1. People say that Byron lived on vinegar and potatoes.

2. They were towing the damaged ship into harbour when the towline broke.

3. They are lengthening the runways at all the main airports.

4. Experts have proved that this scientific theory is false.

5. Get a builder to put in a lift and then you won't have to climb up all these stairs.

6. Our opponents must have started this rumour.

7. The authorities put this ship into quarantine and forbade passengers and crew to land.

8. People say that early Egyptian and Greek soldiers used carrier pigeons.

V. Put the following sentences into English.

1. The door won't lock.

2. The door hasn't been locked.

3. His new novel sells well.

4. The girl doesn't photograph well.

5. He has not been photographed well.

6. This material doesn't dye well.

7. The flat is to let.

8. The railway divides here into two lines.

VI. Make sentences of your own after the sentences given below, keeping the underlined structures in your sentences.

(Reference version)

1. As the gate was closed, he walked away.

The sun was setting as we reached home.

As he predicted, the wind changed.

2. They have to face the fact that the nearest filling station is 30 miles away.

Translation exercises

I. Translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1. 偶尔从寂静中开来一辆汽车，在闪烁的交通灯下轻巧地驶过。

2. 他们不遗余力地让城里人想象自己现在住的地方绝不是城市：在较为现代化的城郊铺上几块草坪，在更为富裕的远郊，草坪的面积更大。

3. 即使城市居民在他们郊区的家外面能知道有时天气热了，有时天气冷了，但仅凭他们后院的草坪或几颗半死不活的小树，他们是无法知道季节更迭的真正节奏的。

4. 城里人日复一日地生活在非现实之中，自命不凡、举止愚蠢，城里人即使在赶路时也是步履沉重，他们从不仰视他们的建筑，更不会仰望天空。恰恰是这种生活使他们带着傲慢的神情蔑视和讥讽供养他们的乡下人的有益且有回报的生活。

II. Translate the following sentences into English, using the words or phrases given in brackets.

1. The government promises that it will spare no effort to support our environmental protection projects.

2. She had no knowledge of Chinese history, geography and culture before she came to China.

3. The fire that broke out in the kindergarten endangered 23 children's lives.

4. We tried our best to head him off the topic, because we knew he would reveal confidential information.

5. The sonorous voice of the speaker is echoing round the hall.

6. Industry and loyalty sometimes compensate for the lack of ability.

7. As far as I know, he was one of the few people who got out of the rat race.

8. He left a few men behind to clean up the last of the enemy positions.

III. T ranslate the following passage into Chinese.

为什么那么多人十分急切地想离开自己从小长大的小城镇或村庄，奔向大都市呢？他们常说自己的家乡“枯燥乏味”，或者“死气沉沉”，或者最苛刻地指责为“土里吧唧”。

如果我们超脱一点来研究这个问题，就像我们远距离地审视整个国家一样，我们对到底是什么诱使我们到大城市来这个问题就会有一点眉目了。大城市值得注意的主要一点就是"大"：人多，发生的事情也多。如果你真正从一个很远的距离，如夜晚航行的飞机上，俯视一座城市，你会被眼前难以置信的明亮所打动：那么多的灯光，以至于你会情不自禁地以为五彩缤纷的生活就在下面向你招手。然而，一旦你落地，失望之情便会油然而生，因为当你驱车从机场驶入市中心时，你会意识到光明不过是绵延几英里的路灯和霓虹招牌。它们本身并非是快乐与幸福的源泉。城市之光并不友善，仅仅只是灯光而已。事实上，其效果或许还让你感到寂寞和孤独。

Exercises for integrated skills

I. Dictation

In one sense, / we can trace all the problems of the American city / back to a single starting point: / we Americans don't like our cities very much.

That is, on the face of it, absurd. / After all, more than three-fourths of us now live in cities, / and more are flocking to them every year. / We are told that the problems of our cities / are receiving more attention, / and scholarship has discovered a whole new field in urban studies.

Nonetheless, it is historically true: / in the American psychology, / the city has been a basically suspect institution, / filled with the corruption of Europe, / totally lacking that sense of spaciousness / and innocence of the frontier / and the rural landscape.

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

(1) as (2) with

(3) While (4) much

(5) farming (6) still

(7) for (8) rural