大学英语教材课文听力原文
现代大学英语精读4第二版unit5aforwantofadrink课文原文
现代大学英语精读4第二版U n i t5A F o r W a n t o f a D r i n k课文原文-CAL-FENGHAI.-(YICAI)-Company One1For Want of a Drink1.When the word water appears in print nowadays, crisis is rarely far behind. Water, it is said, is the new oil: a resource long squandered, now growing expensive and soon to be overwhelmed by insatiable demand. Aquifers are falling, glaciers vanishing, reservoirs drying up and rivers no longer flowing to the sea. Climate change threatens to make the problem worse. Everyone must use less water if famine, pestilence and mass migration are not to sweep the globe.2.The language is often overblown, and the remedies sometimes ill-conceived, but the basic message is not wrong. Water is indeed scarce in many places, and will grow scarcer. Bringing supply and demand into equilibrium will be painful, and political disputes may increase in number and intensify in their capacity to cause trouble. To carry on with present practice would indeed be to invite disaster.3.WhyThe difficulties start with the sheer number of people using the stuff. When, 60 years ago, the world's population was about 2.5 billion, worries about water supply affected relatively few people. Both drought and hunger existed, as they have throughout history, but most people could be fed without irrigated farming. Then the green revolution,in an inspired combination of new crop breeds, fertilizers and water, made possible a huge rise in the population. The number of people on Earth rose to 6 billion in 2000, nearly 7 billion today, and is heading for 9 billion in 2050. The area under irrigation has doubled and the amount of water drawn for farming has tripled. The proportion of people living in countries chronically short of water is set to rise from 8% at the turn of the 21st century to 45% by 2050.4.Farmers' increasing demand for water is caused not only by the growing number of mouths to be fed but also by people's desire for better-tasting, more interesting food. Unfortunately, it takes nearly twice as much water to grow a kilo of peanuts as a kilo of soybeans, nearly four times as much water to produce a kilo of beef as a kilo of chicken. With 2 billion people around the world about to enter the middle class, the agricultural demands on water would increase even if the population stood still.5.Industry, too, needs water. It takes about 22% of the world's withdrawals. Domestic activities take the other 8%. Together, the demands of these two categories quadrupled in the second half of the 20th century, growing twice as fast as those of farming.6.Meeting that demand is a difficult task. One reason is that the supply of water is finite. The world will have no more of it in 2025 or 2050 than it has today, or when it lapped at the sides of Noah's Ark. This is because the law of conservation of mass says, broadly, that however you use it, you cannot destroy the stuff. Neither can you readily make it. If some of it seems to come from the skies, that is because it has evaporated from the Earth's surface, condensed and returned.7.Most of this surface is sea, and the water below it—over 97% of the total on Earth—is salty. In principle, the salt can be removed to increase the supply of fresh water, but at present desalination is expensive and uses lots of energy.8.Of the 2.5% of water that is not salty, about 70% is frozen, either at the poles, in glaciers or in permafrost. So all living things, except those in the sea, have about 0.75% of the total to survive on. Most of this available water is underground, in aquifers or similar formations. The rest is falling as rain, sitting in lakes and reservoirs or flowing in rivers where it is, with luck, replaced by rainfall and melting snow and ice. There is also, take note, water vapor in the atmosphere.9.The value of water as a commodity of course varies according to locality, purpose and circumstance. Take locality first. Water is not evenly distributed—just nine countries account for 60% of all available fresh supplies—and among them only Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Congo, Indonesia and Russia have an abundance. America is relatively well off, but China and India, with over a third of the world's population between them, have less than 10% of its water.10.Even within countries the variations may be huge. The average annual rainfall in India's northeast is 110 times that in its western desert. And many places have plenty of water, or even far too much. Flooding is routine, and may become more frequent and damaging with climate change.11.Scarce or plentiful, water is above all local. It is heavy—one cubic water weighs a tonne—, so expensive to move. Surface water—mostly rivers, lakes and reservoirs—will not flow from one basin into another without artificial diversion, and usually only with pumping. Within a basin, the water upstream may be useful for irrigation, industrial or domestic use. As it nears the sea, though, the opportunities diminish to the point where it has no uses except to sustain deltas, wetlands and to carry silt out to sea.12.These should not be overlooked. If rivers do not flow, nothing can live in them. Over a fifth of the world's freshwater fish species of a century ago are now endangered or extinct. Half the world's wetlands have also disappeared over the past 200 years. The point is, though, that even within a basin water is more valuable in some places than in others.13.Almost anywhere arid, the water underground, once largely ignored, has come to be seen as especially valuable as the demands of farmers have outgrown their supplies of rain and surface water. Groundwater has come to the rescue, and for a while it seemed a miraculous solution: drill a borehole, pump the stuff up from below and in due course it will be replaced. In many places, however, from the United States to India and China, the quantities being withdrawn exceed the annual recharge. This is serious for millions of people not just in the country but also in many of the world's biggest cities, which often depend on aquifers for their drinking water.14.The 20 million inhabitants of Mexico City and its surrounding area, for example, draw over 70% of their water from an aquifer that will run dry within 200 years, maybe sooner.Already the city is sinking as a result. In the Hai river basin in China, deep-groundwater tables have dropped by up to 90 meters.15.Part of the beauty of the borehole is that it requires no elaborate apparatus. A single farmer may be able to sink his own tube well and start pumping. That is why India and China are now perforated with millions of irrigation wells, each drawing on the common resource. Sometimes this resource may be huge. But even big aquifers are not immune to the laws of physics. Many places are seriously overdrawn. In those places, farmers probably have to pay something for the right to draw groundwater. But almost nowhere will the price reflect scarcity, and often there is no charge at all and no one measures how much water is being taken.16.Priced or not, water is certainly valued, and that value depends on the use to which it is harnessed. Water is used not just to grow food but to make every kind of product, from microchips to steel girders. The largest industrial purpose to which it is put is cooling in thermal power generation, but it is also used in drilling for and extracting oil, the making of petroleum products and ethanol, and the production of hydroelectricity. Some of the processes involved, such as hydro power generation, consume little water(after driving the turbines, most is returned to the river), but some, such as the techniques used to extract oil from sands, are big consumers.17.Industrial use takes about 60% of water in rich countries and 10% in the rest. The difference in domestic use is much smaller, 11% and 8% respectively. Some of the variation is explained by capacious baths, power showers and flush lavatories in the rich world. All humans, however, need a basic minimum of two litres of water in food or drink each day, and for this there is no substitute. No one survived in the ruins of Port-au-Prince for more than a few days after January's earthquake unless they had access to some water-based food or drink. That is why many people in poor and arid countries—usually women or children—set off early each morning to trudge to the nearest well and return five or six hours later burdened with precious supplies. That is why many people believe water to be a human right, a necessity more basic than bread or a roof over the head.18.From this much follows. One consequence is a widespread belief that no one should have to pay for water. The Byzantine emperor Justinian declared in the 6th century that "by natural law" air, running water, the sea and seashore were "common to all." Many Indians agree, seeing groundwater in particular as a "democratic resource." In Africa it is said that "even the jackal deserves to drink."19.A second consequence is that water often has a sacred or mystical quality that is invested in deities like Gong Gong and Osiris and rivers like the Jordan and the Ganges. Throughout history, man's dependence on water has made him live near it or organize access to it. Water is in his body and in his soul. It has provided not just life and food but a means of transport, a way of keeping clean, a mechanism for removing sewage, a home for fish and other animals, a medium with which to skate and sail, a thing of beauty to provideinspiration, to gaze upon and to enjoy. No wonder a commodity with so many qualities, uses and associations has proved so difficult to organize.。
大学英语教材课文原文
大学英语教材课文原文Unit 1Text 1Section 1A New Semester BeginsThe bell on the first day of the new semester rang, bringing excitement and anticipation to the students of the English Department. As they gathered in the classroom, the teacher, Ms. Johnson, welcomed everyone with a warm smile.Section 2Introductions and ExpectationsMs. Johnson introduced herself and encouraged each student to introduce themselves one by one. It was a diverse group, with students coming from different cities and backgrounds. They shared their expectations for the semester, expressing their desire to improve their English skills and broaden their cultural knowledge.Section 3Exploring the TextbookNext, Ms. Johnson distributed the new edition of the English textbook. The students eagerly flipped through the pages, taking note of the interesting topics and engaging exercises. Ms. Johnson emphasized the importance of regular self-study and assigned the first chapter as homework.Section 4Reading and Comprehension ExercisesThe following week, the students began their journey into the first unit of the textbook. They read the text carefully, underlining unfamiliar words and discussing the main ideas. Ms. Johnson guided them through comprehension exercises, ensuring they understood the context and nuances of the reading.Section 5Group ActivitiesTo encourage active participation, Ms. Johnson organized group activities. The students worked in pairs or small groups, discussing the text and exchanging ideas. Through these activities, they not only improved their language skills but also developed teamwork and communication abilities.Section 6Writing AssignmentsWriting assignments were an integral part of the course. The students were given topics related to the text they had read, and they had to write essays expressing their thoughts and opinions. Ms. Johnson provided constructive feedback and encouraged them to revise their work for better clarity and coherence.Section 7Speaking and Presentation SkillsIn addition to writing, speaking and presentation skills were emphasized in the English Department. The students had opportunities to give presentations on various topics, ranging from personal experiences to global issues. Peer evaluations and constructive criticism helped them refine their public speaking abilities.Section 8Final AssessmentAs the end of the semester approached, the students prepared for the final assessment. It consisted of a comprehensive exam, covering all the units they had studied. They reviewed the textbook, practiced writing essays, and participated in mock speaking tests to build confidence and consolidate their learning.Section 9Reflections and FarewellOn the last day of the semester, the students gathered once again in the classroom. Ms. Johnson reflected on their progress and growth throughout the semester, expressing her pride in their achievements. She wished them success in their future endeavors and reminded them to continue pursuing their English language skills beyond the classroom.In conclusion, the English Department's new semester brought students on a journey of language learning and personal growth. Through engaging activities, comprehensive assessments, and supportive mentoring, the students were able to improve their English skills and develop as individuals. As they said goodbye to Ms. Johnson and their classmates, they carried withthem the knowledge and experiences gained from the course, ready to face new challenges in their academic and professional lives.。
新标准大学英语综合教程3课文原文
We all listen to music according to our separate , for the sake of analysis, the whole listening process may become clearer if we break it up into its component parts, so to certain sense we all listen to music on three separate lack of a better terminology, one might name these: 1) the sensuous plane, 2) the expressive plane, 3) the sheerly musical only advantage to be gained from mechanically splitting up the listening process into these hypothetical planes is the clearer view to be had of the way in which we listen.The simplest way of listening to music is to listen for the sheer pleasure of the musical sound is the sensuous is the plane on which we hear music without thinking, without considering it in any turns on the radio while doing something else andabsent-mindedly bathes in the kind of brainless but attractive state of mind is engendered by the mere sound appeal of the music.The surprising thing is that many people who consider themselves qualified music lovers abuse that plane in go to concerts in order to lose use music as a consolation or an enter an ideal world where one doesn’t have to think of the realities of everyday course they aren’t thinking about the music allows them to leave it, and they go off to a place to dream, dreaming because of and apropos of the music yet never quite listening to it.Yes, the sound appeal of music is a potent and primitive force, but you must not allow it to usurp a disproportionate share of your sensuous plane is an important one in music, a very important one, but it does not constitute the whole story.The second plane on which music exists is what I have called the expressive , immediately, we tread on controversial have a way of shying away from any discussion of music’s expressive not Stravinsky himself proclaim that his music was an “object”, a “thing”, with a life of its own, and with no other meaning than its own purely musical existenceThis intransigent attitude of Stravinsky’s may be due to the fact that so many people have tried to read different meanings into so many knows it is difficult enough to say precisely what it is that a piece of music means, to say it definitely to say it finally so that everyone is satisfied with your that should not lead one to the other extreme of denying to music the right to be “expressive”.Listen, if you can,to the 48 fugue themes of Bach’s Well-tempered to each theme, one after will soon realize that each theme mirrors a different world of will also soon realize that the more beautiful a theme seems to you the harder it is to find any word that will describe it to your complete , you will certainly know whether it is a gay theme or a sad will be able, on other words, in your own mind, to draw a frame of emotional feeling around your study the sad one a little closer.Try to pin down the exact quality of its it pessimistically sad or resignedly sad; is it fatefully sad or smilingly sadLet us suppose that you are fortunate and can describe to your own satisfaction in so many words the exact meaning of your chosen is still no guarantee that anyone else will be need they important thing is that each one feels for himself the specific expressive quality of a theme or, similarly, an entire piece of if it is a great work of art, don’t expect it to mean exactly the same thing to you each time you return to it.The third plane on which music exists is the sheerly musical the pleasurable sound of music and the expressive feeling that it gives off, music does exist in terms of the notes themselves and of their listeners are not sufficiently conscious of this third plane.It is very important for all of us to become more alive to music on its sheerly musical all, an actual musical material is being intelligent listener must be prepared to increase his awareness of the musical material and what happens to must hear the melodies, the rhythms, the harmonies, the tone colors in a more conscious above all he must, in order to follow the line of the composer’s thought, know something of the principles of musical to all of these elements is listening to the sheerly musical plane.Let me repeat that I have split up mechanically the three separate planes on which we listen merely for the sake of greater clarity. Actually, we never listen on one or the other of these we do is to correlate them—listening in all three ways at the same takes no mental effort, for we do it instinctivelyPerhaps an analogy with what happens to us when we visit the theater will make this instinctive correlation the theater, you are aware of the actors and actresses, costumes and sets, sounds and these give one the sense that the theater is a pleasant place to be constitute the sensuous plane in our theatrical reactions.The expressive plane in the theater would be derived from the feeling that you get from what is happening on the are moved to pity, excitement, or is this general feeling, generated aside from the particular words being spoken, a certain emotional something which exists on the stage,that isanalogous to the expressive quality in music.The plot and plot development is equivalent to our sheerly musical playwright creates and develops a character in just the same way that a composer creates and develops a to the degree of your awareness of the way in which the artist in either field handles his material will you become a more intelligent is easy enough to see that the theatergoer never is conscious of any of these elements is aware of them all at the same same is true of music simultaneously and without thinking listen on all three planes.It is not surprising that modern children tend to look blank and dispirited when info rmed that they will someday have to “go to work andmake a living”. The problem is that they cannot visualize what work is in corporate Americ a.Not so long ago, when a parent said he was off to work, the child knew very well what was about to happen. His parent was going to make something or fix something. The parent could take his offspring to his place of business and let him watch while he repai red a buggy or built a table.When a child asked, “What kind of work do you do, Daddy” his father could answer in terms that a child could come to grips with, such as “I fix steam engines” or “I make hor se collars.Well, a few fathers still fix steam engines and build tables, but most do not. Nowad ays, most fathers sit in glass buildings doing things that are absolutely incomprehensible t o children. The answers they give when asked, “What kind of work do you do, Daddy” are likely to be utterlymystifying to a child.”I sell space””I do market research.”,”I am a data processor.””I am in public relation s.””I am a systems analyst” Suchexplanations must seem nonsense to a child. How can he possibly envision anyone analyzi ng a system or researching a marketEven grown men who do market research have trouble visualizing what a public rel ations man does with his day, and it is a safe bet that the average systems analyst is as baf fled about what a space salesman does at the shop as the average space salesman is about the tools needed to analyze a system.In the common everyday job, nothing is made any more. Things are now made by machines. Very little is repaired. The machines that makethings make them in such a fashion that they will quickly fall apart in such a way that repai rs will be prohibitively expensive. Thus the buyer isencouraged to throw the thing away and buy a new one. In effect, the machines are makin g handful of people remotely associated withthese machines can, of course, tell their inquisitive children “Daddy makes junk”. Most of t he workforce, however, is too remote from junkproduction to sense any contribution to the industry. What do these people do Consider the typical 12-story glass building in the typical American city. Nothing is b eing made in this building and nothing is being repaired, including the building itself. Cons tructed as a piece of junk, the building will be discarded when it wears out, and another pi ece of junk will be set in its place.Still, the building is filled with people who think of themselves as working. At any given moment during the day perhaps one-third of them will be talking into telephones. Most of these conversations will be about paper, for paper is what occupies nearly every one in this building. Somejobs in the building require men to fill paper with words. There are persons who type ne atly on paper and persons who read paper and jot notes in the margins. Some persons m ake copies of paper and other persons deliver paper. There are persons who file paper a nd persons who unfile paper.Some persons mail paper. Some persons telephone other persons and ask that pa per be sent to them. Others telephone to ascertain thewhereabouts of paper. Some persons confer about paper. In the grandest offices, men a pprove of some paper and disapprove of other paper.The elevators are filled throughout the day with young men carrying paper from fl oor to floor and with vital men carrying paper to bediscussed with other vital men.What is a child to make of all this His father may be so eminent that he lunches wi th other men about paper. Suppose he brings his son towork to give the boy some idea of what work is all about. What does the boy see happ eningHis father calls for paper. He reads paper. Perhaps he scowls at paper. Perhaps he makes an angry red mark on paper. He telephones another man and says they had bette r lunch over paper.At lunch they talk about paper. Back at the office, the father orders the paper rety ped and reproduced in quintuplicate, and then sent toanother man for comparison with paper that was reproduced in triplicate last year.Imagine his poor son afterwards mulling over the mysteries of work with a friend, who asks him, ”What’s your father do” What can the boy reply “It beats me,” perhaps, if he is not very observant. Or if he is, “Something that has to do with making junk, I think . Same as everybodyelse.”It was snowing heavily, and although every true New Yorker looks forward to a white Christmas, the shoppers on Fifth Avenue were in a hurry, not just to track down the last-minute presents, but to escape the bitter cold and get home with their families for Christmas Eve.Josh Lester turned into 46th Street. He was not yet enjoying the Christmas spirit, because he was still at work, albeit a working dinner at Joanne's. Josh was black, in his early thirties, and an agreeable-looking person, dressed smartly but not expensively. He was from a hard-working family in upstate Virginia, and was probably happiest back home in his parents' house. But his demeanor concealed a Harvard law degree and an internship in DC with a congressman, a junior partnership in a New York law firm, along with a razor-sharp intellect and an ability to think on his feet. Josh was very smart.The appointment meant Josh wouldn't get home until after Christmas. He was not, however, unhappy. He was meeting Jo Rogers, the senior senator for Connecticut, and one of the best-known faces in the US. Senator Rogers was a Democrat in her third term of office, who knew Capitol Hill inside out but who had nevertheless managed to keep her credibility with her voters as a Washington outsider. She was pro-abortion,anti-corruption, pro-low carbon emissions and anti-capital punishment, as fine a progressive liberal as you could find this side of the Atlantic. Talk show hosts called her Honest Senator Jo, and a couple of years ago, Time magazine had her in the running for Woman of the Year. It was election time in the following year, and the word was she was going to run for the Democratic nomination. Rogers had met Josh in DC, thought him highly competent, and had invited him to dinner.Josh shivered as he checked the address on the slip of paper in his hand. He'd never been to Joanne's, but knew it by reputation, not because of its food, which had often been maligned, or its jazz orchestra, which had a guest slot for a well-known movie director who played trumpet, but because of the stellar quality of its sophisticated guests: politicians, diplomats, movie actors, hall-of-fame athletes, journalists, writers, rock stars and Nobel Prize winners – in short, anyone who was anyone in this city of power brokers.Josh told him, and although the waiter refrained from curling his lip, he managed to show both disdain and effortless superiority with a simple flaring of his nostrils.“Yes, Senator, please come this way,” and as Senator Rogers passed through the crowded room, heads turned as the diners recognized her and greeted her with silent applause. In a classless society, Rogers was the closest thing to aristocracy that America had. Alberto hovered for a moment, then went to speak to a colleague.After two hours, Rogers and Josh got up to leave. There was a further flurry of attention by the staff, including an offer by Alberto to waive payment of the bill, which Rogers refused. As they were putting on their coats, Rogers said, “Thank you, Alberto. Oh, have I introduced you to my companion, Josh Lester”A look of panic, followed by one of desperate optimism flashed across Alberto's face.“Ah, not yet, no, ... not properly, ” he said weakly.“Josh Lester. This is the latest recruit to my election campaign. He's going to be my new deputy campaign manager, in charge of raising donations. And if we get that Republican out of the White House next year, you've just met my Chief of Staff.”It came as if from nowhere.There were about two dozen of us by the bank of elevators on the 35th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center. We were firefighters, mostly, and we were in various stages of exhaustion. Some guys were sweating like pigs. Some had their turnout coats off, or tied around their waists. Quite a few were breathing heavily. Others were raring to go. All of us were taking a beat to catch our breaths, and our bearings, figure out what the hell was going on. We'd been at this thing, hard, for almost an hour, somea little bit less, and we were nowhere close to done. Of course, we had no idea what there was left to do, but we hadn't made a dent.And then the noise started, and the building began to tremble, and we all froze. Dead solid still. Whatever there had been left to do would now have to wait. For what, we had no idea, but it would wait. Or, it wouldn't, but that wasn't the point. The point was that no one was moving. To a man, no one moved, except to lift his eyes to the ceiling, to see where the racket was coming from. As if we could see clear through the ceiling tiles for an easy answer. No one spoke. There wasn't time to turn thought into words, even though there was time to think. For me anyway, there was time to think, too much time to think, and my thoughts were all over the place. Every possible worst-case scenario, and a few more besides. The building was shaking like in an earthquake, like an amusement park thrill ride gone berserk, but it was the rumble that struck me still with fear. The sheer volume of it. The way it coursed right through me. I couldn't think what the hell would make a noise like that. Like a thousand runaway trains speeding towards me. Like a herd of wild beasts. Like the thunder of a rockslide. Hard to put it into words, but whatever the hell it was it was gaining speed, and gathering force, and getting closer, and I was stuck in the middle, unable to get out of its path.It's amazing, the kind of thing you think about when there should be no time to think. I thought about my wife and my kids, but only fleetingly and not in any kind oflife-flashing-before-my-eyes sort of way. I thought about the job, how close I was to making deputy. I thought about the bagels I had left on the kitchen counter back at the firehouse. I thought how we firemen were always saying to each other, "I'll see you at the big one." Or, "We'll all meet at the big one." I never knew how it started, or when I'd picked up on it myself, but it was part of our , no matter how big this fire is, there'll be another one bigger, somewhere down the road. We'll make it through this one, and we'll make it through that one, too. I always said it, at big fires, and I always heard it back, and here I was, thinking I would never say or hear these words again, because there would never be another fire as big as this. This was the big one we had all talked about, all our lives, and if I hadn't known this before – just before these chilling moments – this sick, black noise now confirmed it.I fumbled for some fix on the situation, thinking maybe if I understood what was happening I could steel myself against it. All of these thoughts were landing in my brain in a kind of flashpoint, one on top of the other and all at once, but there they were. And each thought landed fully formed, as if there might be time to act on each, when in truth there was no time at all.Richard Picciotto (also known as Pitch) was in the north tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed in theaftermath of the massive terrorist attack on 11 September 2001. A battalion commander for the New York Fire Department, he was on the scene of the disaster within minutes of the attack, to lead seven companies of firefighters into the tower to help people trapped and to extinguish fires blazing everywhere.The north tower was the first of the twin towers to be hit. It was followed 17 minutes later by the south tower. The south tower, however, was the first to collapse, at 9:59 am. At that moment, Picciotto was in the north tower, racing upwards by the stairs because the elevators were out of action. He then gave the order to evacuate. On the 12th story he came across 50 people amid the debris, too badly hurt or frightened to move. Picciotto and his men helped them down. When he reached the seventh floor, the tower fell, and he was buried beneath thousands of tons of rubble. He eventually came round four hours later, leading his men to safety.Picciotto was the highest ranking firefighter to survive the attack. The chief of the department, the first deputy and the chief of rescue operations had all been killed. Altogether the death toll included 343 firefighters and more than 3,000 civilians.Toast always lands butter side down. It always rains on bank holidays. You never win the lottery, but other people you know seem to ... Do you ever get the impression that you were born unlucky Even the most rational person can be convinced at times that there is a force out there making mishaps occur at the worst possible time. We all like to believe that Murphy's Law is true。
21世纪大学英语教程(第四册)Unit1课文原文
21世纪大学英语读写教程（第四册）Unit1课文原文《Who Is Great?》Michal Ryan As a young boy, Albert Einstein did so poorly in school that teachers thought he was slow. The young Napoleon Bonaparte was just one of hundreds of artillery lieutenants in the French Army. And the teenage George Washington, with little formal education, was being trained not as a soldier but as a land surveyor.Despite their unspectacular beginnings, each would go on to carve a place for himself in history. What was it that enabled them to become great? Were they born with something special? Or did their greatness have more to do with timing, devotion and, perhaps, an uncompromising personality?For decades, scientists have been asking such questions. And, in the past few years, they have found evidence to help explain why some people rise above, while others—similarly talented, perhaps—are left behind. Their findings could have implications for us all.Who is great? Defining who is great depends on how one measures success. But there are some criteria. "Someone who has made a lasting contribution to human civilization is great," said Dean Keith Simonton, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis and author of the 1994 book Greatness: Who Makes History and Why. But he added a word of caution: "Sometimes great people don't make it into the history books. A lot of women achieved great things or were influential but went unrecognized."In writing his book, Simonton combined historical knowledge about great figures with recent findings in genetics, psychiatry and the social sciences. The great figures he focused on include men and women who have won Nobel Prizes, led great nations or won wars, composed symphonies that have endured for centuries, or revolutionized science, philosophy, politics or the arts. Though he doesn't have a formula to define how or why certain people rise above (too many factors are involved), he has come up with a few common characteristics.A "never surrender" attitude. If great achievers share anything, said Simonton, it is an unrelenting drive to succeed. "There's a tendency to think that they are endowed with something super-normal," he explained. "But what comes out of the research is that there are great people who have no amazing intellectual processes. It's a difference in degree. Greatness is built upon tremendous amounts of study, practice and devotion."He cited Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister during World War II, as an example of a risk-taker who would never give up. Thrust into office when his country's morale was at its lowest, Churchill rose brilliantly to lead the British people. In a speech following the Allied evacuation at Dunkirk in 1940, he inspired the nation when he said, "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end...We shall never surrender."Can you be born great? In looking at Churchill's role in history—as well as the roles of other political and military leaders—Simonton discovered a striking pattern: "Firstborns and only children tend to make good leaders in time of crisis: They're used to taking charge. But middle-borns are better as peacetime leaders: They listen to different interest groups better and make the necessary compromises. Churchill, an only child, was typical. He was great in a crisis, but in peacetime he was not effective—not even popular."Timing is another factor. "If you took George Washington and put him in the 20th century he would go nowhere as a politician," Simonton declared. "He was not an effective public speaker, and he didn't like shaking hands with the public. On the other hand, I'm not sure Franklin Roosevelt would have done well in Washington's time. He wouldn't have had the radio to do his fireside chats."Can you be too smart? One surprise among Simonton's findings is that many political and military leaders have been bright but not overly so. Beyond a certain point, he explained, other factors, like the ability to communicate effectively, become more important than innate intelligence as measured by an IQ test. The most intelligent U.S. Presidents, for example—Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson and John F. Kennedy—had a hard time getting elected, Simonton said, while others with IQs closer to the average (such as Warren G. Harding) won by landslides. While political and economic factors also are involved, having a genius IQ is not necessary to be a great leader.In the sciences, those with "genius level" IQs do have a better chance at achieving recognition, added Simonton. Yet evidence also indicates that overcoming traditional ways of thinking may be just as important.He pointed to one recent study where college students were given a set of data and were asked to see if they could come up with a mathematical relation. Almost a third did. What they did not know was that they had just solved one of the most famous scientific equations in history: the Third Law of Planetary Motion, an equation that Johannes Kepler came up with in 1618.Kepler's genius, Simonton said, was not so much in solving a mathematical challenge. It was in thinking about the numbers in a unique way—applying his mathematical knowledge to his observations of planetary motion. It was his boldness that set him apart.Love your work. As a child, Einstein became fascinated with the way magnets are drawn to metal. "He couldn't stop thinking about this stuff," Simonton pointed out. "He became obsessed with problems in physics by the time he was 16, and he never stopped working on them. It's not surprising that he made major contributions by the time he was 26.""For most of us, it's not that we don't have the ability," Simonton added, "it's that we don't devote the time. You have to put in the effort and put up with all the frustrations and obstacles."Like other creative geniuses, Einstein was not motivated by a desire for fame, said Simonton. Instead, his obsession with his work was what set him apart.Where such drive comes from remains a mystery. But it is found in nearly allcreative geniuses—whether or not their genius is acknowledged by contemporaries."Emily Dickinson was not recognized for her poetry until after her death," said Simonton. "But she was not writing for fame. The same can be said of James Joyce, who didn't spend a lot of time worrying about how many people would read Finnegans Wake."Today, researchers have evidence that an intrinsic passion for one's work is a key to rising above. In a 1985 study at Brandeis University conducted by Teresa Amabile, now a professor of business administration at Harvard University, a group of professional writers—none famous—were asked to write a short poem. Each writer was then randomly placed in one of three groups: One group was asked to keep in mind the idea of writing for money; another was told to think about writing just for pleasure; and a third group was given no instruction at all.The poems then were submitted anonymously to a panel of professional writers for evaluation. The poetry written by people who thought about writing for money ranked lowest. Those who thought about writing just for pleasure did the best. "Motivation that comes from enjoying the work makes a significant difference, "Amabile said.。
新标准大学英语 课文原文
新标准大学英语课文原文New Standard College English Text Original。
Unit 1。
Part I Pre-reading Task。
Text A。
The Dangers of Smoking。
Smoking is a dangerous habit. It causes many different diseases, such as lung cancer and heart disease. Many people die from smoking-related illnesses every year. In addition, smoking can harm other people who are nearby. This is called passive smoking. The smoke from a cigarette not only affects the person who is smoking, but also the people around them. This is why many countries have banned smoking in public places.Part II Global Reading。
Text A。
The Dangers of Smoking。
Smoking is a dangerous habit that can have serious consequences. It not only harms the person who smokes, but also those around them. The smoke from a cigarette can cause lung cancer, heart disease, and many other illnesses. In addition, passive smoking can also lead to health problems for non-smokers. This is why it is important to create smoke-free environments in public places.Part III Detailed Reading。
大学英语综合教程第二版第四册Unit1TextB课文原文及翻译
大学英语综合教程第二版第四册Unit1TextB课文原文及翻译The Normandy LandingsThe largest and most ambitious mili-tary expedition in history was the inva-sion of Normandy in northern France by British, American and Canadian forces that took place in the summer of 1944. Even nature played a role.lt took more than a year for military planners to orchestrate every movement of troops, artillery, ships and aircraft and to set everything in place for the move that was to open up a second front in Europe. This would liberate France and open the way for the final assault on Ger-many itself.Everything was controlled; right down to the placement of military decoys across the English Channel to fool the Germans into thinking the attack would come from Britain's closest point to France at Pas de Calais3 rather than in Normandy as planned.Everything was controlled, that is, except the weather.D-Day, the code name given to the day of invasion, was originally scheduled for 5 June 1944. This date had been ar-rived at by considering two factors -moonlight and tide. The hour of the in-vasion would need to be near sunrise, when the seaborne troops would have a rising tide. This would enable them to land close to the obstacles that had been placed to hinder their landing without coming ashore on top of them. The paratroopers needed a full moon for visibility. The days with the proper tide-moonlight formula closest to the target date were 5, 6 and 7 June. (1) The fifth was chosen for D-Day to allow a safety margin in case the attack needed to be postponedIn addition to moonlight and favorable tides, calm seas were needed for the crossing. (2) But an unusually stormy transitionfrom spring toward summer that year held out little hope that there would be a suitable break in the weather It also meant the possibility that Operation Overlord, as the invasion was called, might have to be postponed until later in the year or even the following year. Z With the arrival of 5 June, the weather was so bad that General Eisenhower4, supreme commander of the invasion forces, was forced to postpone the invasion by one day. When he met with his staff to review their options, they were faced with the grim reality that 6 June did not look much better than the original D-Day. The meteorological re-port gave a thin ray of hope that a lull in the storm would allow enough time to. launch the invasion. Consultations went on late into the night on whether to press ahead. Opinions were divided. Finally, Eisenhower made his decision. "I am quite positive we must give the order," he said. "I don't like it, but there it is. I don't see how we can do anything else." Within hours, an armada of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 other ships, and 500 naval vessels began to leave English ports.8. Meanwhile, critical errors by the Ger-man side allowed them to be taken com-pletely by surprise. Due to the bad weather, the German navycancelled its usual patrol of the English Channel. Also, a practice drill scheduled for June 6 was called off. The German meteorological services were unaware of the break in the weather. On the eve of the attack, many of the top German leaders were absent from their commands. Rommel 5, the gen-eral in charge of the coastal defenses, was in Germany visiting his wife on her birthday, and several officers were some distance away in Rennes6 or on their way there for a war-game exercise.The assault on Normandy began at 12:15 a.m., when thepathfinders for the American airborne units left their planes and parachuted to earth. Five minutes later, on the other side of the invasion area, the British pathfinders made their jump. The pathfinders were specially trained to find and mark the drop zones. The main airborne assault was to commence within the hour.The airborne attack became confused because of stiff winds and the evasive fly-ing of the transport planes when they en-countered anti-aircraft fire. As a result, the paratroopers were scattered over a wide area and most missed their drop zones, some by as much as 20 miles. Other com-plications were caused by the terrain, and the worst terrain was on the Cotentin Peninsula. The Germans had laced the open fields with anti-personnel and glider stakes and flooded the low areas. The flooding caused the most trouble for the Americans of the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions, with many of the troops drowned, laden down by their heavyequipment.11. The airborne units were to secure the flanks of the amphibious assault. That meant capturing bridges, crossroads and coastal batteries. After accomplishing those tasks, the paratroopers had to with-stand any German counterattacks.12 As the airborne units struggled to achieve their goals, the great fleet made its way across the channel to its appoint-ment with destiny. Leading that grand ar-mada were the minesweepers. Behind them followed a vast array of naval ves-sels of every conceivable type. Never be-fore had such a fleet been assembled. Including the landing craft carried on board, the combined Allied invasion armada num-bered up to 6,000 ships. Approximately 150,000 men were to cross the English Channel and land atassault beaches code-named "Utah" ' "Omaha" ' "Gold" ' "Juno" and "Sword."The first areas of French soil wrested from German control were a group of small islands located three miles off Utah Beach. Allied commanders were con-cerned that these islands could be used as sites for heavy guns. The men of the U.S. 4th and 24th Cavalry squadrons were des-ignated to take the islands prior to the main invasion. The assault teams found only land mines. The Germans had left the islands unoccupied.For the majority of the assault troops, however, the war had not begun yet. Af-ter spending as long as 48 hours aboard the various transport shipsas a result of the delay, many of the men were miser-ably seasick and in poor shape for the chal-lenge ahead.The naval bombardment began around 5:45 a.m. The air attack followed. The naval and air bombardments were designed to destroy the beach guns and obstacles, pin down the enemy and pro-vide shelter for the ground troops on the open beaches by making craters. Both, however, largely failed in their objectives. Weather conditions had improved, but they were not perfect. Because of poor visibility caused by low cloud cover, it was decided that the bombers would delay the release of bombs 30 seconds to avoid hit-ting the assaulting troops. As a result, the bombs fell inland and missed their targets. Although the naval bombardment was more accurate, it was not much more ef-fective against the hardened German gun emplacements.The weather also was partially re-sponsible for causing some of the assault craft to miss their assigned landing areas. Additionally, many of the landing craft and amphibious tanks foundered in the rough sea. In the Omaha area, most of the craftcarrying artillery and tanks intended to support the incoming troops sank in the high waves.At Utah Beach, however, a strange stroke of good fortune occurred when the assault craft encountered a southerly cur-rent that caused them to land in the wrong sector. (3) The German shore batteries that would have contested a landing in the original area would undoubtedly have taken aheavy toll. The landing at the new sector was virtually unopposed.(4) Despite difficulties, Eisenhower's gamble with the elements was to pay off The invasion forces succeeded in estab-lishing a toehold on French soil. Rein-forcements began to pour in, thrusting on deep into France. Within a year Hitler's empire, which he had boasted would last a thousand years, lay in ruins.诺曼底登陆历史上规模最大、最雄心勃勃的军事远征是1944年夏天英国、美国和加拿大军队入侵法国北部的诺曼底。
大学英语教材第一册课文原文
大学英语教材第一册课文原文Unit 1 TravelText ATravelingTraveling by air is becoming more and more popular. More and more people are using the air services. But why do they prefer traveling by air to traveling by train or by car?Speed is one of the important things. You can travel hundreds of miles in a few hours by plane. You can get to most places in the world in twenty-four hours or less. In the past, a journey of that distance often took weeks. Some journeys still take weeks or even months now if you do not go by air.But the most important reason for traveling by air is comfort. On a modern plane, you can sit in a comfortable seat with plenty of room. You can get meals and drinks during the flight. And you can walk around the plane if you want to. You do not have to sit in one place all the time. When the weather is good, you can enjoy the beautiful view from the windows. When the weather is bad, you can read, watch TV or just sleep.But not all air travel is comfortable. Economy class travel can be uncomfortable. You usually have very little room for your legs and there is very little personal service.Still, most people think that it is better to travel by plane than by train or by car. Even though air travel is sometimes uncomfortable, it is both faster and more convenient than other types of travel.ExercisesA. Choose the correct answers:1. Which one is an important reason for traveling by air?A. Speed.B. Comfort.C. Low cost.D. Adventure.2. How long does it take to travel by plane to most places in the world?A. A few hours.B. Two days.C. Weeks.D. Twenty-four hours or less.B. Complete the following sentences according to the text:1. Air travel is becoming more and more popular. _______ ______________ _______ the air services.2. On a modern plane, you can sit in a _______ _______ with plenty of room.3. _______ _______ _______ in the past, a journey of hundreds of miles often took weeks.Text BFour Ways of TravelingMany people like to travel. There are different ways of traveling, and they all have their advantages and disadvantages. Here we look at four ways of traveling.Two of the most popular ways are traveling by car and traveling by train. Traveling by car has some advantages. It is cheap, and you can stop whenever and wherever you want. You can also carry a lot of luggage with you. But there are also disadvantages. Sometimes there are traffic jams and accidents, and you can spend a lot of time waiting. Traveling by train is comfortable and you can see the country. You can move around on the train and you can eat in the restaurant car. But trains are not as flexible as cars. They only go to certain places, and you have to catch the train at certain times.Another way of traveling is by boat. If you like ships and the sea, traveling by boat is an excellent way to relax and enjoy yourself. Boats are big and comfortable, and you can have a very good time on board. You can eat and drink in the restaurants and bars, and you can do a lot of shopping. But moving around on a boat can be tiring. You can only go where the boat goes, and you may have to share your cabin with other people.Finally, there is air travel. It is the fastest and most comfortable way of traveling long distances. You can get to most places in the world quickly and easily by plane. You can eat and sleep on the plane, and you can watch TV or listen to music. But air travel is expensive. And sometimes airports can be crowded and noisy.So if you like traveling, what is the best way? It depends on where you want to go, how much money you have, and how much time you have.。
新世纪大学英语4课文原文
1、Man in the Realm of NatureHuman beings live in the realm of nature. They are constantly surrounded by it and interact with it. Man is constantly aware of the influence of nature in the form of the air he breathes, the water he drinks, and the food he eats. We are connected with nature by "blood" ties and we cannot live outside nature.Man is not only a dweller in nature, he also transforms it. Humanity converts nature's wealth into the means of the cultural, historical life of society. Man has subdued and disciplined electricity and compelled it to serve the interests of society. Not only has man transferred various species of plants and animals to different climatic conditions, he has also changed the shape and climate of his environment and transformed plants and animals.As society develops, man tends to become less dependent on nature directly, while indirectly his dependence grows. Our distant ancestors lived in fear of nature's destructive forces. Very often they were unable to obtain the merest daily necessities. However, despite their imperfect tools, they worked together stubbornly, collectively, and were able to attain results. Nature was also changed through interaction with man. Forests were destroyed and the area of farmland increased. Nature with its elemental forces was regarded as something hostile to man. The forest, for example, was something wild and frightening and people tried to force it to retreat. This was all done in the name of civilization, which meant the places where man had made his home, where the earth was cultivated, where the forest had been cut down.But as time goes on mankind becomes increasingly concerned with the question of where and how to obtain irreplaceable natural resources for the needs of production. Science and man's practical transforming activities have made humanity aware of the enormous geological role played by the industrial transformation of the earth.At present the previous dynamic balance between man and nature and between nature and society as a whole, has shown ominous signs of breaking down. The problem of the so-called replaceable resources of the biosphere has become particularly acute. It is getting more and more difficult to satisfy the needs of human beings and society even for such a substance, for example, as fresh water. The problem of eliminating industrial waste is also becoming increasingly complex. Modern technology is distinguished by an ever increasing abundance of produced and used synthetic goods. Hundreds of thousands of synthetic materials are being made. People increasingly cover their bodies from head to foot in nylon and other synthetic, glittering fabrics that are obviously not good for them. Young people may hardly feel this, and they pay more attention to appearance than to health. But they become more aware of this harmful influence as they grow older. As time goes on the synthetic output of production turns into waste, and then substances that in their original form were not very toxic are transformed in the cycle of natural processes into aggressive agents. Today both natural scientists and philosophers are asking themselves the question: Is man's destruction of the biosphere inevitable?The man-nature relation – the crisis of the ecological situation – is a global problem. Its solution lies in rational and wise organization of both production itself and care for Mother Nature, not just by individuals, enterprises or countries, but by all humanity. One of the ways to deal with the crisis situation in the "man-nature" system is to use such resources as solar energy, the power of winds, the riches of the seas and oceans and other, as yet unknown natural forces of the universe.But to return to our theme, the bitter truth is that those human actions which violate the laws of nature, the harmony of the biosphere, threaten to bring disaster and this disaster may turn out to be universal. How apt then are the words of ancient Oriental wisdom: live closer to nature, my friends, and its eternal laws will protect you!2、Technology and HappinessIn the 20th century, Americans, Europeans, and East Asians enjoyed material and technological advances that were unimaginable in previous eras. In the United States, for instance, gross domestic product per capita tripled from 1950 to 2000. Life expectancy soared. The boom in productivity after World War II made goods better and cheaper at the same time. Things that were once luxuries, such as jet travel and long-distance phone calls, became necessities. And even though Americans seemed to work extraordinarily hard, their pursuit of entertainment turned media and leisure into multibillion-dollar industries.By most standards, then, you would have to say that Americans are better off now than they were in the middle of the last century. Oddly, though, if you ask Americans how happy they are, you find that they are no happier than they were in 1946 (which is when formal surveys of happiness started). In fact, the percentage of people who say they are "very happy" has fallen slightly since the early 1970s – even though the income of people born in 1940 has, on average,increased by 116 percent over the course of their working lives. You can find similar data for most developed countries. The relationship between happiness and technology has been an eternal subject for social critics and philosophers since the advent of the Industrial Revolution. But it's been left largely unexamined by economists and social scientists. The truly groundbreaking work on the relationship between prosperity and well-being was done by the economist Richard Easterlin, who in 1974 wrote a famous paper entitled "Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot?" Easterlin showed that when it came to developed countries, there was no real correlation between a nation's income level and its citizens' happiness. Money, Easterlin argued, could not buy happiness – at least not after a certain point. Easterlin showed that though poverty was strongly correlated with misery, once a country was solidly middle-class, getting wealthier did not seem to make its citizens any happier.This seems to be close to a universal phenomenon. In fact, one of happiness scholars' most important insights is that people adapt very quickly to good news. Take lottery winners for example. One famous study showed that although winners were very, very happy when they won, their extreme excitement quickly evaporated, and after a while their moods and sense of well-being were indistinguishable from what they had been before the victory.So, too, with technology: no matter how dramatic a new innovation is, no matter how much easier it makes our lives, it is very easy to take it for granted. You can see this principle at work in the world of technology every day, as things that once seemed miraculous soon become common and, worse, when they don't work perfectly. It's hard, it turns out, to keep in mind what things were like before the new technology came along.Does our fast assimilation of technological progress mean, then, that technology makes no difference? No. It just makes the question of technology's impact, for good or ill, more complicated. Let's start with the downside. There are certain ways in which technology makes life obviously worse. Telemarketing, traffic jams, and identity theft all come to mind. These are all phenomena that make people consciously unhappy. But for the most part, modern critiques of technology have focused not so much on specific, bad technologies as the impact of technology on our human relationships.Privacy has become increasingly fragile in a world of linked databases. In many workplaces, technologies like keystroke monitoring and full recordings of phone calls make it easier to watch workers. The notion that technology disrupts relationships and fractures community gained mainstream prominence as an attack on television. Some even say that TV is chiefly responsible for the gradual isolation of Americans from each other. Similarly, the harmful effects of the Internet, which supposedly further isolates people from what is often called "the real world".This broad criticism of technology's impact on relationships is an interesting one and is especially relevant to the question of happiness, because one of the few things we can say for certain is that the more friends and the closer relationships people have, the happier they tend to be.Today, technological change is so rapid that when you buy something, you do so knowing that in a few months there's going to be a better, faster version of the product, and that you're going to be stuck with the old one. Someone else, in other words, has it better. It's as if disappointment were built into acquisition from the very beginning.Daily stress, an annoying sense of disappointment, fear that the government knows a lot more about you than you would like it to – these are obviously some of the ways in which technology reduces people's sense of well-being. But the most important impact of technology on people's sense of well-being is in the field of health care. Before the Industrial Revolution, two out of every three Europeans died before the age of 30. Today, life expectancy for women in Western Europe is almost 80 years, and it continues to increase. The point is obvious: the vast majority of people are happy to be alive, and the more time they get on earth, the better off they feel they'll be. But until very recently, life for the vast majority of people was nasty, rough, and short. Technology has changed that, at least for people in the rich world. As much as we should worry about the rising cost of health care and the problem of the uninsured, it's also worth remembering how valuable for our spirits as well as our bodies are the benefits that medical technology has brought us.On a deeper level, what the technological improvement of our health and our longevity emphasizes is a paradox of any discussion of happiness on a national or a global level: even though people may not be happier, even though they are wealthier and possess more technology, they're still as hungry as ever for more time. It's like that old joke: the food may not be so great, but we want the portions to be as big as possible.3、The Rainbow of KnowledgeFor more than 3/4 of my life – 39 of my 50 years – I've either studied or taught in a school or a college in New York.You might think, then, that after all this time I'd have some grasp of the situation, that I'd actually know things – that I'd have some positive sense of assurance, of certainty, about knowledge and about life. But I don't. In fact, the more I know, the more I know I don't know.To say that the more I know, the more I know I don't know is, of course, contradictory. But then, modern physics tells us that reality itself is contradictory. The more scientists look into our physical reality, the more it slips away from them. In a way, the more they learn, the less they know.Knowledge itself is contradictory. For example, picture your knowledge as a dot, as perhaps the period at the end of this sentence. Notice the tiny circumference of that period, and let that represent the interface of the known with the unknown – in other words, your awareness of what you don't know.But now imagine that little period growing, its blackness consuming more and more of the page. As it grows, so does its circumference. And if that growing blackness represents knowledge, then as it grows, so does the awareness of what remains unknown. In other words, the more you know, the more you know you don't know.No doubt you have experienced this yourself in your own personal quests for knowledge. At first, you don't even know a field of learning exists. It's been there all along, of course; you just haven't noticed it before. When I got my first computer in 1988, I walked down to the magazine store, hoping to find something about computing and was amazed at the number of choices. Likewise, when I lucked into an opportunity to teach film analysis, I found myself dazzled at the sheer number of books devoted to the subject.Let's say you decide to learn about this topic. You buy one of these books, the best and most complete one you can find (or so you think), or perhaps you borrow it from the library. But you quickly find that your reading, rather than answering questions, only creates more of them.Earlier this year, for example, I not only had no idea that I had any interest at all in the relationship of technology to freedom; I didn't even realize that a connection between them might exist. So I started reading books and became more and more aware of the relationship between technology and freedom. Then, on the one hand, I now know much more about this topic than I did a few short months ago. But on the other hand, all this reading has made me see how little I really know and how much more I need to read and think and write. Once I've finished reading a book, I always feel that I need to read three more to gain a better grasp of the topic. And I think and write at the same time. In fact, it is my writing that has led me into it. We think often that only people who know and who are sure of themselves write. For me, however, it's just the opposite. Writing doesn't close things off – it opens things up.For a long time, I, as a writer, was paralyzed by this paradox – the more I know, the more I know I don't know. I was very aware of the teaching from Taoism that said "those who know don't speak; those who speak don't know." I wasn't sure I should write at all, and, even if I did, I didn't believe that I was qualified to do it. I always felt I had to know more first. It took me a long time not to let this paradox freeze me and to believe that it was my writing that would qualify my knowledge, and not the other way around. I think of my work not as articles or as columns but as essays – a word from French, meaning "to try". I do not know truth. I only try to find it.I don't mean, of course, to suggest that we should not learn, or that we should not read and write and think and talk. I do not mean to suggest that we should not try. An infinite quest is not a hopeless one. I only suggest that an understanding will inevitably and doubtlessly lead us away from the force and rigidity of dogmatism and toward the flexibility and freedom of the individual. As Taoism teaches, "the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death. The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life."We must temper our pride in knowing with the humility of not knowing. The truth, as they say, is out there, but, maybe, like the rainbow, we can never really grasp it, never hold it in our hands and truly know it. We can only, as William James said, "live today by what truth we can get today and be ready to call it falsehood tomorrow."4、Work, Labor, and PlaySo far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been abolished, whether what a man does has social value depends on whether he ispaid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.The opposite to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his own point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not, for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. Which a man is can be seen from his attitude toward leisure. To a worker, leisure means simply the hours he needs to relax and rest in order to work efficiently. He is therefore more likely to take too little leisure than too much; workers die of heart attacks and forget their wives' birthdays. To the laborer, on the other hand, leisure means freedom from compulsion, so that it is natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours he has to spend laboring, and the more hours he is free to play, the better.What percentage of the population in a modern technological society are, like myself, in the fortunate position of being workers? At a guess I would say sixteen per cent, and I do not think that figure is likely to get bigger in the future. Technology and the division of labor have done two things: by eliminating in many fields the need for special strength or skill, they have made a very large number of paid occupations which formerly were enjoyable work into boring labor, and by increasing productivity they have reduced the number of necessary laboring hours. It is already possible to imagine a society in which the majority of the population, that is to say, its laborers, will have almost as much leisure as in earlier times was enjoyed by the aristocracy . When one recalls how aristocracies in the past actually behaved, the prospect is not cheerful. Indeed, the problem of dealing with boredom may be even more difficult for such a future mass society than it was for aristocracies. The latter, for example, ritualized their time; there was a season to shoot grouse, a season to spend in town, etc. The masses are more likely to replace an unchanging ritual by fashion which changes as often as possible in the economic interest of certain people. Again, the masses cannot go in for hunting, for very soon there would be no animals left to hunt. For other aristocratic amusements like gambling, dueling, and warfare, it may be only too easy to find equivalents in dangerous driving, drug-taking, and senseless acts of violence. Workers seldom commit acts of violence, because they can put their aggression into their work, be it physical like the work of a smith, or mental like the work of a scientist or an artist. The role of aggression in mental work is aptly expressed by the phrase "getting one's teeth into a problem ".。
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大学英语教材课文听力原文
Unit 1
Part 1: Listening Comprehension (70%)
1. Questions and Answers
Question 1: What's the weather like today?
Answer: It's sunny and warm.
Question 2: What did John do yesterday?
Answer: He went shopping with his friends.
Question 3: How did Lisa prepare for the exam?
Answer: She studied hard and reviewed her notes.
Question 4: Why did Mike miss the meeting?
Answer: He had a doctor's appointment.
Question 5: Where is the library located?
Answer: It's on Main Street, next to the park.
Part 2: Short Conversations (20%)
1. Conversation 1
A: Excuse me, do you know where the nearest post office is?
B: Yes, it's just around the corner. Turn right at the next intersection. A: Thank you!
B: You're welcome.
2. Conversation 2
A: Can I borrow your pen? I left mine at home.
B: Sure, here you go.
A: Thanks a lot.
B: No problem.
Part 3: Passages (10%)
1. Passage 1
In this passage, the speaker talks about his experience studying abroad. He shares the challenges he faced, such as language barrier and cultural differences, but also the benefits of immersing oneself in a different culture and learning from new experiences.
2. Passage 2
The second passage is about the importance of time management. The speaker explores various strategies for organizing one's time effectively, such as setting goals, prioritizing tasks, and avoiding procrastination. The passage emphasizes the value of time and the benefits of being disciplined in managing it.
Overall, the listening comprehension section of the college English textbook provides students with various exercises to improve their listening skills. From simple questions and answers to short conversations and longer passages, students are exposed to different types of listening scenarios that
they may encounter in real-life situations. By practicing listening to and comprehending English, students can enhance their language skills and become more proficient in understanding spoken English.。