剑桥英语教程

Are You in Love?What is the difference between “having a crush ” on someone and falling in love?You think you’re falling in love. You’re really attracted to a certain person. But this happened before, but it was just a “crush”. How can you tell if it’s real this time? Here’s what our readers said:If you’re in love,…You’ll find yourself talking to or telephoning the person for no reason.(You might pretend there’s a reason, but often there’s not. )You’ll find yourself bringing this person into every conversation.(“when I was in Mexico-,”a friend begins. You interrupt with, “my boyfriend made a great Mexican dinner last week.”)You might suddenly be interested in things you used to avoid.(“when a woman asks me to tell her all about football, I know she’s fallen in love,” said a TV sports announcer.)OK, so you’re fallen in love. But falling in love is one thing, and stay in love is another. How can you tell, as time passes, you’re still in love? If you stay in love, your relationship will change. You might not talk as much about the person you are in love with. You might not always call him or her so often. But this person will nevertheless become more and more important in your life. You’ll find that you can be yourself with this person. When you first fell in love, you were probably afraid to admit certain things about yourself. But now you can be totally honest. You can trust him or her to accept you just as you are. Falling in love is great-staying in love is even better!Friends Again-Forever(Unit1)Do you have any friends that you have known almost all your life?Mary Allen was my best friend-like the sister I never had. We did everything together : piano lessons, movies, swimming, horseback riding.When I was 13, my family moved away. Mary and I kept in touch through letters, and we saw each other on special occasions-like my wedding and Mary’s. Soon we were busy with children and moving to new homes, and we wrote less often. One day a card that I sent came back stamped “Address Unknown.”I had no idea how to find Mary.Over the years, I thought of Mary often. I wanted to share stories of my children and then grandchildren. And I needed to share my sorrow when my brother and then mother died. There was an empty place in my heart that only a friend like Mary could fill.One day I was reading the newspaper when I noticed a photo of a young woman who looked a lot like Mary and whose last name was Wagman-Mary’s married name.“There must be thousands of Wagmans,”I thought, but I wrote to her anyway.She called as soon as she got my letter.“Mrs.Tobin!”she said excitedly. “Mary Allen Wagman is my mother.”Minutes later I heard a voice that I recognized instantly, even after 40 years. We laughed and cried and caught up on each other’s lives.Now the empty place in my heart is filled. And there’s one thing that Mary and I know for sure: We won’t lose each other again!Strategies for Keeping Your Job(Unit2)In some countries, unemployment because if worker cutbacks is a big problem. Is this a problem in your country?After six years with the company, Bob Conger lost his job. Bob hadn’t done anything wrong. On the contrary, he was a good worker, but his company was cutting its workforce. Workforce cutbacks were a common occurrence in the early 1990s. In response, career experts developed strategies for holding on to a job.Make sure everyone knows you. Being a good worker is sometimes less important than making sure that people know you’re a good worker. Volunteer for new responsibilities, push your ideas, and generally make yourself visible.Learn everything that could help you do your job better. If the company buys new computers, learn how to use them. If learning more about the marketing could help you, take a short course in marketing.Make sure you know everything about the company. And use this knowledge. If you find out that sales is becoming the most important department, try making a move to sales.Be positive. People who find things to complain about are a lot less popular than people who find things to praise.Improve your speaking and writing skills. Having good ideas isn’t enough. You need to be able to communicate your ideas.Impress your boss.You can often impress a boss by arriving early and working late and by dressing in a businesslike way even if others dress causally.In the end, it all comes down to one basic strategy: Make yourself so valuable that the company won’t want to lose you.The Threat to Kiribati(Unit7)Look at the picture. What do you think the threat to Kiribati might be?The people of Kiribati are afraid that one day in the not-distant future, their country will disappear from the face of the earth-literally. Several times this year, the Pacific island nation has been flooded by a sudden high tide. These tides, which swept across the island and destroyed houses, came when there was neither wind and nor rain.“This never happened before,”say the older citizens of Kiribati.What is causing these mysterious high tides? The answer may well be global warming. When fuels like oil and coal are being burned, pollutants are released; these pollutants trap heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Warmer temperatures cause water to expand and also create more water to expand and also create more water by melting glaciers and polar ice caps.If the trend continues, scientists say, many countries will suffer. Bangladesh, for example, might lose one-fifth of its land. The coral island nations of the Pacific, like Kiribati and Marshall Islands, however, would face an even worse fate-they would be swallowed by the sea. The loss of these coral islands would be everyone’s loss. Coral formations are home to more species than any other place on earth.The people of these nations feel frustrated. The sea, on which their economics have always been based, is suddenly threatening their existence. They don’t have the money for expensivetechnological solutions like seawalls. And they have no control over the pollutants, which are being released mainly by activities in large industrialized countries. All they can do is to hope that industrialized countries will take steps to reduce pollution.The Global Village(Unit10)What do you think the term global village means?More and more often, the term global village is used to describe the world and its people. In a typical village, however, everyone knows everyone else and the people face the same kinds of problems. How can the world be a village, when it is home to almost 6 billion people? Political and technological changes in the past century have made the global village possible.Political changes The years following World WarⅡseemed to promise peace and more equality among people. For example, the United Nations was founded in 1945 to help countries resolve disputes peacefully. This promise was soon shattered, however, by the Cold War-tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. These two superpowers engaged in an arm race, spending huge sums of money on weapons. Most nations of the world aligned themselves with either one of these two countries, and the world appeared to be in a state of hostility, seemingly on the brink of war.It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991 that the Cold War ended. The end of Cold War tension made the global village more politically possible by opening new channels of communications between nations.Technological changes Technologically, the greatest contributor to the global village is microchip-an electronic circuit on a tiny chip. The microchip has made satellites and computers possible. These forms of high-tech communications allow news and ideas to travel quickly from country to country, making people aware of their neighbors around the globe in dramatic new ways. Through the Internet, we can get information from anywhere and carry on electronic conversations with people everywhere. Through television programs transmitted by satellite, we are exposed to many cultures.What will happen as we move into the twenty-first century and beyond? Almost certainly the development of the global village will continue. Not only is this possible, but the challenges that world faces-for example, pollution, population growth, and conflicts among peoples-will make it necessary.。