unit7

Unit 7Unit 7

Watch the video and answer the following questions.

1. What do you think of the boy that the teachers were talking about? What attitudes did the teachers have towards the boy?

2. Do you have any study problem? What’s your teachers’ attitude?

Audiovisual supplementCultural information

The boy had some study problems. Most of the teachers did not believe that the boy could make any progress, but the young lady thought that he could.

Open.

Teacher 1:

Teacher 2:

Teacher 3:Teacher 1:Teacher 3:

Teacher 4:Teacher 2:Teacher 4:

The big kid’s been here for, what, a month? He’s still not cutting it in my class.Why does Admissions do this? I mean, it’s not fair to us or the boy. They’re just setting him up to fail.I don’t think he has any idea of what I’m teaching. And how would you know if he did? He won’t even talk.He writes. His name. Barely.He threw this in the trash can. “I look and I see white everywhere: white walls, white floors, and a lot of white people. The teachers do not know I



Teacher 1:

have no idea of anything they are talking about. I do not wanna listen to anyone, especially the teachers. They are giving homework and expecting me to do the problems on my own. I have never done homework in my life. I go to the bathroom, look in the mirror and say: ‘This is not Michael Oher.’” He entitled it “White Walls.”How’s the spelling?

1. QuoteHistories make men wise; poems witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

— Francis Bacon


improvement), in percentages, or, as is common in some post-secondary institutions in some countries, as a Grade Point Average (GPA). The GPA can be used by potential employers or further post-secondary institutions to assess


2. Grades Grades are standardized measurements of varying levels of comprehension within a subject area. Grades can be assigned in letters (for example, A, B, C, D, or F), as a range (for example 4.0 –1.0), as descriptors (excellent, great,

satisfactory, needs


and compare applicants. A Cumulative Grade Point Average is the mean GPA from all academic terms within a given academic year, whereas the GPA may only refer to one term.

Structural analysisText analysis

1. What issues does the writer of the letter intend to deal with?

How should students regard grades, both good and bad? Are grades as important as they are assumed to be? Do good grades necessarily lead to achievements and bad grades result in failure in a student’s later life?


2. What’s the theme of this piece of writing?

It is explicitly stated in the first sentence of the third paragraph: to put a B student’s disappointment in perspective by considering exactly what the grade B means and doesn’t mean.

Paragraphs

Main idea

1

2-5

6-8

It introduces the topic of the letter.

Grades do not mean everything.

Getting a B in class does not mean one will always be a B performer in life.

1. Divide the text into parts by completing the table.

Text analysis Structural analysis

Paragraphs

Main idea

9-10In a complex society like ours, labels are necessary but they should be kept in perspective.


2. Apart from the first paragraph, the rest of the text falls clearly into three parts, each of which is marked at the beginning by a key word or words. Try to find these key words.

Paragraphs 2–5: DisappointmentParagraphs 6-8: The student as

performer; the student as human being.

Paragraphs 9-10: Perspective

Main idea Structural analysis

Your final grade for the course is B. A respectable grade. Far superior to the “Gentleman’s C” that served as the norm a couple of generations ago. But in those days A’s were rare: only two out of twenty-five, as I recall. Whatever our norm is, it has shifted upward, with the result that you are probably disappointed at not doing better. I’m certain that nothing I can say will remove that feeling of disappointment, particularly in a climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special programs.

Letter to a B Student

Detailed reading

Robert Oliphant1

Disappointment. It’s the stuff bad dreams are made of: dreams of failure, inadequacy, loss of position and good repute. The essence of success is that there’s never enough of it to go round in a zero-sum game where one person’s winning must be offset by another’s losing, one person’s joy offset by another’s disappointment. You’ve grown up in a society where winning is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing. To lose, to fail, to go under, to go broke — these are deadly sins in a world where prosperity in the present is seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future. In a different society, your disappointment might be something you could shrug away. But not in ours.

Detailed reading

2

My purpose in writing you is to put your disappointment in perspective by considering exactly what your grade means and doesn’t mean. I do not propose to argue here that grades are unimportant. Rather, I hope to show you that your grade, taken at face value, is apt to be dangerously misleading, both to you and to others.

Detailed reading

3

As a symbol on your college transcript, your grade simply means that you have successfully completed a specific course of study, doing so at a certain level of proficiency. The level of your proficiency has been determined by your performance of rather conventional tasks: taking tests, writing papers and reports, and so forth. Your performance is generally assumed to correspond to the knowledge you have acquired and will retain. But this assumption, as we both know, is questionable; it may well be that you’ve actually gotten much more out of the course than your grade indicates — or less.

Detailed reading

4

Lacking more precise measurement tools, we must interpret your B as a rather fuzzy symbol at best, representing a questionable judgment of your mastery of the subject.

Detailed reading

Your grade does not represent a judgment of your basic ability or of your character. Courage, kindness, wisdom, good humor — these are the important characteristics of our species. Unfortunately they are not part of our curriculum. But they are important: crucially so, because they are always in short supply.

5

The student as performer; the student as human being. The distinction is one we should always keep in mind. I first learned it years ago when I got out of the service and went back to college. There were a lot of us then: older than the norm, in a hurry to get our degrees and move on, impatient with the tests and rituals of academic life. Not an easy group to handle.

If you value these characteristics in yourself, you will be valued — and far more so than those whose identities are measured only by little marks on a piece of paper. Your B is a price tag on a garment that is quite separate from the living, breathing human being underneath.

Detailed reading

6

One instructor handled us very wisely, it seems to me. On Sunday evenings in particular, he would make a point of stopping in at a local bar frequented by many of the GI-Bill students. There he would sit and drink, joke, and swap stories with men in his class, men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities: former platoon sergeants, bomber pilots, corporals, captains, lieutenants, commanders, majors — even a lieutenant colonel, as I recall. They enjoyed his company greatly, as he theirs. The next morning he would walk into class and give these same men a test. A hard test. A test on which he usually flunked about half of them.

Detailed reading

7

Oddly enough, the men whom he flunked did not resent it. Nor did they resent him for shifting suddenly from a friendly gear to a coercive one. Rather, they loved him, worked harder and harder at his course as the semester moved along, and ended up with a good grasp of his subject — economics. The technique is still rather difficult for me to explain; but I believe it can be described as one in which a clear distinction was made between the student as classroom performer and the student as human being. A good distinction to make. A distinction that should put your B in perspective — and your disappointment.

Detailed reading

8

Perspective. It is important to recognize that human beings, despite differences in class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit together by common bonds of fear and joy, suffering and achievement. Warfare, sickness, disasters public and private — these are the larger coordinates of life. To recognize them is to recognize that social labels are basically irrelevant and misleading. It is true that these labels are necessary in the functioning of a complex society as a way of letting us know who should be trusted to do what, with the result that we need to make distinctions on the basis of grades, degrees, ranks, and responsibility.

Detailed reading

9

But these distinctions should never be taken seriously in human terms, either in the way we look at others or in the way we look at ourselves.

Detailed reading

Even in achievement terms, your B label does not mean that you are permanently defined as a B achievement person. I’m well aware that B students tend to get B’s in the courses they take later on, just as A students tend to get A’s. But academic work is a narrow, neatly defined highway compared to the unmapped rolling country your will encounter after you leave school.

10

What you have learned may help you find your way about at first; later on you will have to shift to yourself, locating goals and opportunities in the same fog that hampers us all as we move toward the future.

Detailed reading

2. What, according to the author, has caused the feeling of disappointment?

It has to do with the general social climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special programs. This is why the author says there is nothing he can do to remove the feeling of disappointment.

1. What change about grades has the author mentioned briefly?

The author has mentioned briefly the change in the way grades are regarded, i.e. the norm has shifted upward.

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

3. Has the author stated his purpose of writing in this paragraph? If yes, what is it? If not, where is it stated in the text?

The purpose of writing the letter is not stated in this paragraph. It is not specifically mentioned until the third paragraph.

1. How does the author explain the notion of disappointment?Refer to Paragraph 2. Disappointment is a negative feeling. It is the stuff bad dreams are made of. What deserves our attention here is that the author explains disappointment in relation to success.

Detailed reading

There does not exist the situation in which all those who are involved will turn out successful and no one feels disappointed. Wherever there are winners, there are losers. When someone feels happy about his success, someone else may feel disappointed at his failure. In a highly competitive society where the importance of winning is emphasized so much, it is inevitable that those who fail in the competition will feel disappointed.

2. How do you interpret the second sentence in Paragraph 2 “The essence of success is that …”?

Detailed reading

What does the phrase “put sth. in perspective” mean?

It means “judge the importance of sth. correctly.” So what the author wants to do is to show the students how they should regard / view their disappointment correctly.

Detailed reading

Try to find out what a grade means and what it does not mean.

It means the successful completion of a specific course at a certain level of proficiency. It is an indication of the student’s performance of some conventional tasks. However, it may not be a truthful indication of the student’s knowledge. It does not represent a judgment of the student’s basic ability or of his character.

Detailed reading

1. What is the author’s view concerning social labels?

Social labels are on the one hand irrelevant and misleading and on the other hand necessary in a complex society.

Detailed reading

2. How do you interpret the sentence “To recognize them is to recognize that social labels are basically irrelevant and misleading”?

If we are aware that human beings, despite their apparent differences, are basically identical physically and emotionally, we would think definitely that the social labels used to distinguish them are irrelevant, i.e. meaningless, and misleading, i.e. distorting the fact.

Detailed reading

How does the author relate a student’s academic performance with his future life?

While a student’s performance at school may be quite consistent throughout his school years and what he has learned at school may help him after he leaves school, in the long run he will depend much more on himself, i.e. he will have to learn to find his way when traveling in his life path. A grade B student may turn out to be a grade A life achiever.

Detailed reading

norm n.1) an accepted standard or a way of behaving or

doing things that most people agree with

e.g.You must adapt to the norms of the society you live in.

Derivation:normal a.normally ad.normalize v.normalization n.

Detailed reading

2) the norm = a situation or type of behavior that is expected and considered to be typical

e.g.One child per family is fast becoming the norm in some countries.

shift vt.& vi.1) to (cause something or someone to) move or change fr

om one position or direction to another, especially slightly

e.g.She shifted (her weight) uneasily from one foot to the other.

The wind is expected to shift (to the east) tomorrow.

Detailed reading

2) transfer sth.

e.g.This simply shifts the cost of medical insurance from the employer to the employee.

Detailed reading

Collocation:

shift sth. (from A to / onto B) 转移或转换某事物shift (your) ground （辩论中）改变立场或方法

e.g.He’s annoying to argue with because he keeps shifting his ground.

Derivation:

shift n.shiftless a.

1. 教师让学生们挪动了教室里的椅子，以便小组成员坐在一起开展讨论。

2. 最近，媒体的注意力转移到了环境方面的问题。

Translation:

The teacher asked the students to shift the chairs around in the classroom so that the group members could sit together for the discussion.

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

Media attention has shifted recently into environmental issues.

_______________________________________________

________________________

Detailed reading

eligibility n. the qualifications or abilities required for doing somethinge.g. I’ll have to check her eligibility to take part in

this competition.

Derivation:

eligible a.eligible (for sth. / to do sth.)

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

1. Her qualifications and experience confirm her eligibility

for the job.

2. 只有在公司工作三年以上的人才能得到住房补贴。

Translation:

她的资历和经验确定她适合做这项工作。_______________________________________________________

Only those who have worked in this company for at least three years are eligible for housing allowance.

_________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

Detailed reading

I’m certain that nothing I can say will remove that feeling of disappointment, particularly in a climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special program.

Translation:

我肯定无论我说什么都不会消除你的沮丧心情，特别是在我们生活的环境中，考试分数直接决定你是否有资格读研究生和申请一些特别的学习项目。

inadequacy n.1) being too low in quality or too small in amount

e.g. The inadequacy of water supply for city people has already been a problem no government can take lightly.

Detailed reading

2) fault or failing; weakness

e.g. I always suffer from feelings of inadequacy when I’m with him.

Detailed reading

Derivation:inadequate a.inadequately ad.

Antonym:

adequacy

Detailed reading

Exercise: Use the following words to fill in the blanks.

1. Unemployment can often cause feelings of and low self-esteem. 2. He doubted her for the job. 3. Will future oil supplies be to meet

world needs? 4. While some patients can be cared

for at home, others are best served by care in a hospital.

5. Our scientific research is funded.

inadequacy____________

inadequacy inadequately adequacy adequate adequately

inadequately______________

adequacy___________

adequate___________

adequately_____________

essence n. the most basic and important idea or qualitye.g. The essence of his argument was that education

should continue throughout life.

Yet change is the very essence of life.

Detailed reading

Collocation:

in essence 本质上，大体上

of the essence 非常重要的，不可缺少的e.g. In essence, both sides agree on the issue.

e.g. In any of these discussions, of course, honesty is of the essence.

Derivation:

essential a. & n.essentially ad.

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

offset vt. to counterbalance or compensate fore.g.

In basketball, he offsets his small size by his cleverness and speed.

Forests can help offset human-caused climate warming, and scientists want to know how big a role these particular forests will play.

Collocation:

offset sth. by sth. / doing sth.

Detailed reading

1. The extra cost of travelling to work is offset by the lower price of houses here.

2. He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.

Translation:

此处的低房价可以抵消从这里去上班时交通方面的额外支出。_______________________________________________________

_____________

他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。________________________________________________________

go under to fail; to be overwhelmed

e.g. His business went under because of competition from the large corporations.

Poor Donaldson had no head for business, and it was not long before he went under.

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

go / be broke to become penniless; to go bankrupt

e.g. The business kept losing money and finally went broke.I can’t afford to go on holiday this year — I’m broke. A lot of small businesses went broke during the recession.经济不景气，很多小公司都倒闭了。

Detailed reading

perspective n. a way of regarding situations, facts, etc.

e.g.His father’s death gave him a whole new perspective on life.

The novel is written from the perspective of a child.

The background of this picture is all out of perspective.

Collocation:

in / out of perspective

e.g.

He sees things in their right perspective.e.g.

Detailed reading

Collocation:put / see / view sth. in perspective to compare something to other things so that it can be accurately and fairly judgedget / keep sth. in perspective to think about a situation or problem in a wise and reasonable way

You must keep things in perspective — the overall situation isn’t really that bad.

e.g.

take … at face value to accept something for what it appears to be

e.g.She took his stories at face value and did not know he was joking.

If you take his remarks only at their face value, you will not have understood his full meaning.

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

Translation:

1. 如果这一生中我学会了一件事的话，那就是绝不要听什么就相信什么。

2. 我们不应只看到失败的表面，而要从失败中得出经验教训。

If there is one thing I have learned in life, it is never to take anything you are told at face value.

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

We shouldn’t take failures at face value. Instead, we should learn from our failures.________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

Detailed reading

be apt toto have the tendency to

e.g. A careless person is apt to make mistakes.

My pen is rather apt to leak.

Synonym:

be inclined tobe likely to

Detailed reading

Translation:

1. 第一次来到异国的人往往感到自己周围的一切既陌生又有趣。

2. 正如醉汉易认为自己很是清醒，年轻人往往认为自己十分聪明。

Anyone who has come to a foreign country for the first time is apt to find everything around him both strange and interesting.

_______________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

____________________________

Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.

________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________

__________

Detailed reading

proficiency n. skill; ability

e.g. It said in the job ad that they wanted proficiency in at least two languages.

You have to take a test of proficiency in English before you can apply for the job.

Derivation:

proficient a. proficiently ad.

Collocation:

proficiency in sth. / doing sth.

conventional a. traditional and ordinary

e.g.conventional behavior / attitudes / clothes / methodI find his art rather dull and conventional.

Derivation:

convention n.conventionally ad.conventionalize v.conventionality n.

Antonym:

unconventional

Detailed reading

correspond to to match; to be similar or equal to

e.g. The wing of a bird corresponds to the arm of a man.

The American Congress corresponds to the British Parliament.

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

assumption n.what is thought to be true or will happen, without any real proof

e.g. These calculations are based on the assumption that prices will continue to rise.

I’m working on the assumption that the money will come through.

Collocation:

assumption of sth.

Detailed reading

Translation:

1. 这一理论是以一系列错误的设想为根据的。

2. 看见不明飞行物时，有些人就设想在其他行星上有生命。

The theory is based on a series of wrong assumptions.__________________________________________________________

Some people assume that there is life on other planets when they see UFOs.__________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________

1. Through this failure, he realized his personal

2. The of his speech is that this accident

will bring great impact on the factory’s

production.

3. He gave his wife a luxurious car to her

hard work in bringing up children.

Detailed reading

Fill in each blank with the proper form of the following words or expressions.

inadequacy assumption correspond to essence offset conventional go under perspective proficiency be apt to

inadequacy____________.essence_________

offset_______


Detailed reading

4. A great many companies in the

fierce financial risk.

5. Everyone sees things from his or her own

6. She live in the country, but her

husband wanted to live in the city.

7. Tom’s as a professor is well known.

went under_____________

perspective______________.

was apt to____________

proficiency_____________

Detailed reading

8. English is always thought to be a

nation.

9. The working of this machine that

of the human brain.

10. The of their son’s coming back after

the

war proved to be wrong.

conventional______________

corresponds to________________

assumption_____________


我们所生活的社会就像一个零和游戏，只要有人赢，就会有人输；只要有人感到幸福，就会有人感到沮丧。从来都不存在大家都成功而没有人失落的情况。这就是成功的核心因素。

Detailed reading

The essence of success is that there’s never enough of it to go round in a zero-sum game where one person’s winning must be offset by another’s losing, one person’s joy offset by another’s disappointment.

Paraphrase:“Zero-sum game” refers to a situation in which if one person gains an advantage from it, someone else involved in it must suffer an equivalent disadvantage.

Translation:

… winning is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

Explanation: This is a special type of negation. The author is not negating the importance of winning; rather, with the sentence that follows the negative one, the author gives the utmost emphasis to the importance of winning. What the author wants to say is “Winning is of primary importance; nothing could be more important than winning.”

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

e.g.To improve your oral English, practicing is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

Ours is a time of information explosion; to keep up with the times, updating our knowledge is not the most important thing — it’s the only thing.

成功不是最重要的事情——它是唯一的事情。

Translation:

Detailed reading

假如你处在另一个社会里，你可以对你的沮丧置之不理，但是在我们这个社会里是无法回避的。

In a different society, your disappointment might be something you could shrug away. But not in ours.

Paraphrase:If you are in a different society, you could just ignore your disappointment, but in our society, it’s inescapable.

Translation:

make a point of to take particular care to do sth.e.g. He makes a point of jogging for an hour

every morning, rain or shine.

To prevent loss of data, I always make a point of making a copy on a floppy disk of what I have done during the day.

Detailed reading

Translation:

1. 作为未来的英语教师，我们认为掌握好英语语法是很有必要的。

2. 她一直保存所有的购物小票。

As would-be English teachers, we make a point of having a good knowledge of English grammar.

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________

She makes a point of keeping all her shopping receipts.

____________________________________________________________

Detailed reading

Detailed reading

flunk vt.1) to fail an examination or course of studye.g. I flunked my second-year exams and was lucky n

ot to be thrown out of college.

e.g. If he is no good, flunk him.

2) give a failing mark to sb.

Collocation:

flunk out 因成绩不及格而被学校除名e.g. Dan won’t be in college next year — he’s

been flunked out.

Detailed reading

resent vt. to feel angry because you have been forced to accept someone or something that you do not likee.g. Her father seems to resent her new boyfriend

for he has no job.

Her roommate seems to resent my being in their dorm.

Derivation:

resentment n.resentful a.resentfulness n.

gear n.1) the machinery in a vehicle that turns power from

the engine into movement

e.g. Don’t turn off the engine while you’re still in gear.

e.g. The landing gear of a plane has jammed.

2) a piece of machinery that performs a particular job

e.g. We’re only going for two days; you don’t need to bring so much gear.

3) a set of equipment or tools you need for a particular activity

Collocation:change / shift gear 换档

Detailed reading

coercive a. using force to persuade people to do what they are unwilling to do

e.g. coercive methods / measures

The president relied on the coercive powers of the military.

Derivation:coerce v.coercion n.

Detailed reading

e.g. The Chamber of Commerce was making efforts to coerce the strikers into compliance. 商会正在努力迫使罢工者妥协。You can’t coerce her into obedience.

Collocation:coerce sb. into sth. / doing sth.

Detailed reading

… when I got out of the service …

Paraphrase:

… when I got out of the army …

Translation:

……当我退役的时候……

Explanation:

Usually the plural form “services” is used to refer to the three armed forces, i.e. the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force.

Detailed reading

他们刚脱下军装、离开自己军人的身份，他们曾是：陆军副排长、轰炸机飞行员、下士、海军上校、中尉、指挥官、陆军少校——甚至还有陆军中校……

... men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities: former platoon sergeants, bomber pilots, corporals, captains, lieutenants, commanders, majors — even a lieutenant colonel …

Translation:

Explanation:Here “men who had but recently put away their uniforms and identities” refer to former GIs, who, like the author himself, had taken off their army uniforms and changed their identities from servicemen to civilians. Many of these men had been officers of various ranks.

Detailed reading

他们也不因他突然从和蔼可亲的态度转向严厉苛刻的面孔而憎恨他。

Detailed reading

Nor did they resent him for shifting suddenly from a friendly gear to a coercive one.

Explanation:The word “gear” originally means a device in a vehicle which controls the rate at which the energy being used is converted into motion. While driving, a driver sometimes shifts or changes gear. In this sentence, the shifting of gear refers to the change in the instructor’s manner of dealing with his students. When drinking with the students in the pub, he was easy-going and friendly; but in the classroom, he became stern and severe.Translation:

Detailed reading

如果弄清了它们的真实意义我们就会明白社会标签本来就毫无关系，它只会掩人耳目，使人误入歧途。

To recognize them is to recognize that social labels are basically irrelevant and misleading.

Translation:

Phrase practice

Word derivation

Synonym / Antonym

Prefix

Vocabulary Translation Integrated skillsOral activitiesWriting ListeningGrammar

essence: inner nature; indispensable quality; the most important part 本质，实质，精髓

e.g. His works reflect the essence of fascism. 他的作品反映出法西斯的本质。


mislead: make you think or act wrongly 误导，误入歧途

e.g. He deliberately misled us about the nature of their relationship. 关于他们究竟是什么关系，他故意给我们留下错误印象。

This sentence has misled us into thinking that the answer was wrong. 这句话误使我们认为那个答案是错误的。


conventional task: task traditionally required of students 传统任务

e.g.This conventional task is so easy that even a pupil can finish it. 这个传统任务是如此简单，甚至小学生都能完成。


in short supply: far from enough 供给不足，缺乏

e.g. The water and food for disaster area is in short supply. 这些水和食物给灾区是远远不够的。

Potatoes are in short supply because of the bad harvest. 由于收成不好，现在马铃薯供应不足。



Fill in the blanks with the appropriate forms of the given words.

1. His vision was nearly restored to normal after the (remove) of the tumor in his brain. removal_________

2. The major issue of the conference was how to cope with the severe consequences resulting from the

(climate) changes on our planet.

climatic_________

3. This company is in trouble and the latest plan for its (salvage) has few supporters.

salvation__________


4. It is said in the job ad that those who apply for the vacancy should have (proficient) in at least two languages.

proficiency_____________

5. Don’t rely on the information she gave you — it’s pure

(assume) on her part.

assumption____________

6. The age of college students (norm) ranges from 18 to 22.

normally__________


7. The government’s inaction to curb inflation and unemployment caused strong (resent) among the public.

resentment_____________

8. The Sichuan earthquake turned out to be the most

(disaster) one the country has witnessed in the past one hundred years.

disastrous___________


remove removableremoval

消除，除去；脱掉可除去的，可移动的移动，移居；除去

1.

e.g. 我们的家已从北京迁到上海。

他脱下帽子表示敬意。

Our home has removed from Beijing to Shanghai.

He removed his hat as a sign of reverence.

v. a.n.


climateclimatic

气候；风气气候上的

2.

e.g. 她很快就适应了这种多变的气候。She adapted herself quickly to the changeable climate.

n.a.


salvagesalvageablesalvation

打捞，抢救可抢救的，可打捞的得救，拯救；赎罪

3.

e.g. 房子里没有什么东西可救的了。

天气干旱了这么久，这场雨成了农民的救星。

There is nothing that is salvageable in the building.

After so much dry weather, the rain has been the farmer’s salvation.

v. a.n.


proficient a.proficiency n.

熟练的，精通的熟练，精通

4.

e.g. 我可以说对唱歌很在行。

I’d say I am quite proficient at singing.


assumeassumingassumption

假定，设想；承担；认为假定，假如假定，设想

5.

e.g. 我以为你能讲流利的英语。

假定那是真的，我们现在该怎么办？

I assumed you could speak English fluently.

Assuming that it is true, what should we do now?

v.conj.n.


normnormalnormalitynormalize

标准，规范正常的，正规的常态使正常，使标准化

6.

e.g. 过了几天，洪水才退，生活恢复了正常。

我们的关系正常了。

It was several days before the floodwater sank and life returned to normal.

Our relationship has been normalized.

n.a.n.v.


resentresentmentresentfulresentfulness

憎恨，生气怨恨，愤恨不满的怨恨，愤恨

7.

e.g. 我非常讨厌别人侵占我的时间。

他对所受的待遇感到忿恨。

I bitterly resent the encroachment on my time.

He is resentful at the way he has been treated.

v.n.a.n.


disaster n.disastrous a.

灾难灾难性的

8.

e.g. 这场灾难过后，许多人既没有食物又没有住处。

国家的经济形势非常糟糕。

After the disaster there were many who wanted food and shelter.

The economic condition of the country is disastrous.

balanced, compensated

Give a synonym or an antonym of the word underlined in each sentence in the sense it is used.1. The essence of success is that there’s never

enough of it to go round in a zero-sum game where one person’s winning must be offset by another’s losing …

Antonym:unconventional

2. The level of your proficiency has been determined by your performance of rather conventional tasks …

Synonym:


3. But they are important: crucially so, because they are always in short supply.

Antonym: abundant, plentiful

4. If you value these characteristics in yourself, you will be valued — and far more so than those whose identities are measured only by little marks on a piece of paper.


evaluated, assessedSynonym:

5. There were a lot of us then: older than the norm, in a hurry to get our degrees and move on …

6. It is important to recognize that human beings, despite differences in class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit together by common bonds of fear and joy …


averageSynonym:

essentially, basicallySynonym:

7. But these distinctions should never be taken seriously in human terms …

Antonym: lightly, frivolously


8. Even in achievement terms, your B label does not mean that you are permanently defined as a B achievement person.

Antonym: temporarily

Write in each space one word that has the same prefix as underlined in each given word.1. interfere

2. transcend

3. circumstances

4. neocolonial

5. control

6. antibiotic

7. unlock

8. outnumber

international ___________________

translate___________________

circumference ___________________

neoclassical___________________

conform___________________

antisocial___________________

undo___________________

outshine___________________



Explanation:

e.g. interaction, interdependent, interconnect

inter-: between


Explanation:

e.g. transplant, transform, transatlantic

trans-: across or beyond


Explanation:

e.g. circumcision, circumlocution, circumspect

circum-: surrounding


Explanation:

e.g. neonatal, neo-fascist, neo-Georgian

neo-: new, in a later form


Explanation:

e.g. convince, constrain, conquer

con-: strengthen or reinforce


Explanation:

e.g. antiwar, antihero, antidote

anti-: opposed to, against


Explanation:

e.g. unfold, unload, unbend, uncut

un-: in verbs that describe the opposite of a process


Explanation:

e.g. outgrow, outlive, outwit

out-: greater, better, further, etc.

Vocabulary Grammar Translation Integrated skillsOral activitiesWriting Listening

Disjunct

Relative words

whatever, wherever, whoever, whichever, whenever, and however


e.g. Honestly, I couldn’t believe it.Unfortunately, Kim has had to leave us.

A disjunct is a type of adverbial that expresses information that is not considered essential to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the speaker’s or writer’s attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional content of the sentence.

More generally, the term disjunct can be used to refer to any sentence element that is not fully integrated into the clausal structure of the sentence. Such elements usually appear peripherally (at the beginning or end of the sentence) and are set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma (in writing) and a pause (in speech).


Practice Rewrite the following sentences using proper disjuncts.

1. It is hoped that the report will go out to shareholders no later than June 1.

2. It is odd enough that he did not raise any objection to the plan.

Hopefully, the report will go out to shareholders no later than June 1.

Oddly enough, he did not raise any objection to the plan.


3. She was so wise to spend the money.

4. It is regrettable the book was not well served by its proof-readers.

Wisely, she spent the money.

Regrettably, the book was not well served by its proof-readers.

5. It is strange enough that the burglar should not have taken the diamond away.Strangely enough, the burglar didn’t take the diamond away.


6. It is sad that one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you’re being sincere all the time.

Sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you’re being sincere all the time.

I know many boys who / that play rugby. The shirt which / that Carl bought has a stain on the pocket. This is the boy whose mother works for the BBC. Barnstaple has a very old covered market where I bought some lovely old plates. Sunday is the day when people usually don’t go to work.

Relative words are used to refer to a noun mentioned before and of which we are adding more information. They are used to join two or more sentences in the way we call “relative sentences”.

e.g.


The music which / that Julie listens to is good.e.g.


If the verb in the relative clause needs a preposition, we usually put it at the end of the clause:

Sometimes, the preposition can also be placed before the relative pronoun.

My brother met a woman with whom I used to work.It was the stream in which the elephant and the mouse preferred to swim.

e.g.

Notice that we cannot use who or that after a preposition, for the relative pronoun now serves as the object of the preposition.

1. Good writing is built on a solid framework of logic, argument, narrative, or motivation runs through the entire piece of writing and holds it together. This is the time many writers find it most effective to outline as a way of visualizing the hidden spine the piece of writing is supported.

2. The man, father is a professor, forgot his umbrella.

PracticeFill in each blank with a proper relative word. Use “preposition + relative word” if necessary.

which / that_____________


by which__________

when______

whose_______


3. Australia is one of the few countries people drive on the left.

4. James Russell is a man I have the greatest respect.

5. His glasses, he could see nothing, fell on the ground and broke.

6. He built a telescope he could study the sky.

where / in which__________________

for whom___________

without which_______________

through which_______________

Whatever you may say, I am not going to take him back. (No matter what you say, ...) Wherever you go, I shall follow you. (No matter where you go, I shall follow you.) Whoever disobeys the law must be punished. (No matter who disobeys the law …)

e.g.


The words whatever, wherever, whoever, whichever, whenever and however have similar meanings to “no matter who, what, which …”. A word of this kind has a double function: it acts as a subject, object or adverb in its own clause. It also acts as a conjunction joining its clause to the rest of the sentence.

I shall come whenever I can slip away. We shall send whoever is available. You will have to be content with whatever you can get.

e.g.


These words are also used to suggest something not definitely known.

However much he eats, he never gets fat. (No matter how much he eats, …)

e.g.

1. problems you may have, we will help.

2. Take book you like best.

3. late it is, you must come to the party

because it will be something fantastic.

PracticeComplete the following sentences with the appropriate words in the box.


Whatever___________

whichever___________

whoever wherever whateverhowever whenever whichever

However__________


4. You will see this product advertised you

like.

5. you come, you will be warmly

welcomed.

6. uprooted that tree ought to be

ashamed of themselves.

7. This is one possible solution to the problem.

there are others.

whoever wherever whateverhowever whenever whichever

wherever__________

Whenever___________

Whoever__________

However__________,

1. 他因急性阑尾炎住院治疗，结果连期末考试都没参加。(with the result that)

He was hospitalized with acute appendicitis, with the result that he missed the final examination.


Translate the following sentences into English.

The burglar wore gloves, with the result that there is no fingerprint to be found.

The mistakes we have made since the founding of the People’s Republic were all due to over-eagerness: disregarding China’s realities, setting excessively high targets, with the result that progress was slowed.

Practice：盗贼戴上手套，因而没有留下指纹。

建国以来我们犯的几次错误，都是由于要求过急，目标过高，脱离了中国的实际，结果发展反倒慢了。


2. 前来听讲座的人远远超出原来的计划，分发给大家的讲义不够了。 (go round)


As many more people came to the lecture than expected, there were not enough handouts to go round.

Practice：你领的书不够数。

计算机不够整个年级学生用的。


You didn’t get enough books to go round.

There aren’ t enough computers for the whole grade of students to go round.

3. 第一次来到异国的人往往会感到自己周围的一切既陌生，又有趣。 (be apt to)


Anyone who has come to a foreign country for the first time is apt to find everything around him both strange and interesting.

Practice：我对此类鸡毛蒜皮的小事总是很不在乎。

她常常直言不讳地说出全部真情，而其他人在这种情况下则往往会保持沉默。


I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs.

She was apt to speak out the whole truth, in cases where other people would have kept silence.

4. 他的话，你得好好想一想，千万不要他说什么就信什么。(take at face value)


Never take what he says at face value. Think it over yourself.

If you take her remarks only at their face value, you will not have understood her full meaning.


Practice：她好像很亲切，可是我不应该信以为真 .

如果你只听懂她说的话的字面意义，那你就不能充分理解她的用意。

She seems very friendly but I shouldn’t take her at face value.


Dictation

Cloze


Dictation You will hear a passage read three times. At

the first reading, you should listen carefully for its general idea. At the second reading, you are required to write down the exact words you have just heard (with proper punctuation). At the third reading, you should check what you have written down.


Professors may establish social relationships with students / outside of the classroom, / but in the classroom they maintain the instructor’s role. / A professor may have coffee one day with students / but the next day expect them to meet a deadline / for the submission of a paper or to be prepared for a discussion or an exam. / The professor may give extra attention outside of class / to a student in need of help / but probably will not treat him or her differently / when it comes to evaluating schoolwork. / Professors have


several roles in relation to students; / they may be counselors and friends as well as teachers. / Students must realize / that when a teacher’s role changes, / they must appropriately adapt their behavior and attitudes. /

Student life at American universities is chaotic during the first week of each quarter or semester. Registering (1) classes, becoming familiar with the buildings on campus, buying books, (2) and dropping classes, and paying fees are confusing for everyone. During this busy period there is (3) time for students to anticipate (4) they will later encounter in the classroom.

adding________

little______

what______


for____

International students, accustomed to their countries’ education expectations, must adapt to new classroom norms in a (5) college or university. Whereas in one country prayer may be acceptable in a classroom, in another it may be (6) . In some classrooms around the world students must humbly (7) their teacher’s commands and (8) absolutely silent during a class period. In (9) , students may talk, eat, and smoke during lectures as well as criticize a teacher’s methods or even contradict his or her statements. It is not always (10) to understand a new educational system.


foreign________

forbidden___________

obey_____

remain________

others_______

easy_____


Giving a talk

Having a discussion

Suppose you are a B student, and this is disappointing to your parents, who always expect you to be a straight-A student. In a recent English test you got a B again. Now talk to your parent, exchange ideas about grades with him / her, and try to persuade him / her into believing that while grades do mean something, they are not everything.


For reference


You may use the following words or expressions in your talk:norm, repute, put … in perspective, take … at face

value, be apt to, proficiency, flunk, resent, shift, determine, assumption, successful, indicate, correspond to, represent, measurement tool, be determined by, judgment, make distinctions, achievement

It is not unusual nowadays that some students who did not do well at school turn out to be very successful in life after leaving school while some A students are far less successful. Thus some people believe that grades are not as important as they seem. Do you agree or disagree with their opinion? Give three reasons to support yourself. Then form two opposing groups to debate the issue.


For reference

I agree with their opinion. First, one’s grade can mean one’s achievement in study but can not represent a judgment of his basic ability or of his character such as courage, virtue, wisdom which are important to one’s success. Second, the classification of grade, which is created by man, is not a precise measurement tool to indicate one’s overall proficiency. Third, to judge whether a student is excellent or not, we should consider the combination of moral qualities, intellectual ability, physical fitness and aesthetic appreciation.


Viewpoints for reference:

•


• I disagree with their opinion. First, A students tend to get A’s. Their A grade means that they have successfully completed courses of study with a high level of proficiency, which will lay a solid foundation for their future success. Second, A students’ characters such as courage, diligence and persistence contribute to their good performance at school. Those characters are also good cornerstone of their future success. Third, when A students graduate from school, they are more favored by employers and are given more job opportunities with which they may enjoy greater possibility of success.


Paragraph development — Classification

In our daily life we are constantly organizing things in one way or another. Classification is the grouping of items into categories according to some consistent principle. Most families of things can be divided or classified according to several different principles. The key to good classification writing is to use a single rule of division for each part. Classification is done of things that belong to one family, things that have something in common, but the purpose of classification is to compare and contrast them, showing their differences, so that the reader might have a better understanding of them.

Classification is extensively used in technical writing, but the strategy can also be used for nontechnical purposes. Original and interesting classification for rhetorical effect can surprise the readers and capture their attention. Words and expressions often used for classification include, among many others, the following: include, comprise, contain, have, be sorted into, be classified into, differ in, be divided into, be a type of, fall under, belong to, be a part of, fit into, be grouped with, and be associated with.


• The perpetual studier studies until really late at night.

• The average studier studies sufficiently but doesn’t

work more than necessary.• The crammer studies only when the threat of

taking that class over is very great.


Exercises: Write two paragraphs based on the following topic sentences with the classification strategy.1. High school teachers tend to sort their students

into the following categories: perpetual studier, average studier, crammer and never studier.

Ideas for reference:


The perpetual studier is a rare breed indeed. They usually write about three pages of notes a day regardless of how much material the teacher covers. They don’ t talk to anyone except to answer questions. When a perpetual studier goes home, before he does anything else, he takes out all his books and begins studying for the classes that he has the next day. He studies until really late at night, stopping only once or twice for a quick snack. The majority of students fall into a category called the average studier. This person studies sufficiently but doesn’t work more than

Sample:

necessary. When he studies for a test, he will look over the notes taken, reread appropriate pages in the textbook, and study with a friend sometimes. Overall, he may put in anywhere from two to six hours a day studying during the week leaving Friday and Saturday for his social life and then spend from four to eight hours studying on Sunday. The third type of studier is the crammer. This type of person studies only when the threat of taking that class over is very great. When he studies for a test, he doesn’t begin until the night before or the morning of the test. He spends most of his time doing anything that doesn’t have to do with school.


Their homework is last on their list of things to do. But before they do such a deed, they will rack their brains trying to think of something else to do. Cleaning the room even takes precedence over homework — not to mention sleep. It can be argued, of course, that there should be a fourth category — the never studier, one who quite literally never studies not even at the very last minute. But then, this person doesn’t remain classified as a student for very long.



• There are regional differences between the five tests.• The five tests differ in their compulsoriness.• Testees are also divided on the purposes for which they take the five tests.

2. In Shanghai, the most popular English language examinations include, among others, TEM 4, TEM 8, Interpreter Certificate, TOEFL, and IELTS.

Ideas for reference:


In Shanghai, the most popular English language examinations include, among others, TEM 4, TEM 8, Interpreter Certificate, TOEFL, and IELTS. There are some differences between these tests. The first three, TEM 4 (short for “Test for English Majors Band 4”), TEM 8 and Interpreter Certificate, are domestic tests, and among them Interpreter Certificate is a local one, peculiar to the city. Both TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and IELTS (International English Language Testing System) are international tests, organized by the American and British educational

Sample:


authorities respectively. The five tests differ in their compulsoriness. The first two are compulsory: almost all college English majors are required to take them; the other three fall under the optional group. Besides, testees are also divided on the purposes for which they take the five tests. They sit in the two mandatory tests for their bachelor’s degree, while the Interpreter Certificate is popular because it helps when a holder of it is looking for a job. Unlike them, participants in the two international English tests are usually planning to receive higher education in English-speaking countries.


A. Listen to the report — “Go to the Head of the Class.” Write in the second column of the table below the five ideas that can help you leap to the top of the class. Then listen to the report again, and write in the third column of the table the key words and phrases that best illustrate each idea. The first one is already given as an example.

Make reading automatic.

key to school success / take practice / automatic reader / read with expression / read with a sense of meaning

1


Win equal opportunity in the classroom.

same classroom / different educations / no equal-opportunity education / discuss with the teacher / let the teacher know what’s on your mind

Learn to think.

lower mental process – rote learning / higher mental processes – problem-solving, analyzing, interpreting / improve thinking skills / gain in rote learning

2

3


Have classmates help.

teamwork / cooperative learning / reward / peer pressure / bonuses / self-esteem / value of cooperation / better attitudes toward classmateshome / better predictor of success / great impact / homework and reading / given priority / parents / encourage and praise / family members / talk and do things together

Educate at home.

4

5


B. After listening, discuss the following two questions.

1. Do you agree with the saying “Inside almost every poor to average student, there’s a smart kid yearning to get out”?

2. What can you do to help bring your “smart kid” out?

Go to the Head of the Class


How smart are you? How much can you learn? How high can you climb? Until now, schoolchildren seemed frozen in place. An average student in second or third grade paddled along, just fair to middling, until graduation from high school. A poor student languished at the bottom of each successive class. Studies showed that more than four out of five students began and ended schools at the same level of performance.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Benjamin Bloom, a professor of education at the University of Chicago, supervised two separate research projects. In each, students were selected at random and provided with

private teachers. With this one-to-one instruction, below-average students climbed to better-than-average, while average students outperformed 98 percent of the boys and girls in conventional classrooms. Bloom identified and tested five remarkable simple ideas aimed at reproducing in the classroom the most effective components of one-to-one instruction: attention, feedback, support, encouragement, and self-esteem. Here are the five ideas that can help you leap to the top of the class:1. Make reading automatic. Reading is the key to school success and, like any skill, it takes practice. A child learns to walk by practicing until he no longer has to think about how to put one foot in front of the other. And you do the



same thing when you learn to read. You are not an automatic reader until you can read with expression, with a sense of meaning of the sentences rather than read one word at a time, without expression or meaning.2. Win equal opportunity in the classroom. Sitting in the same classroom, different students get very different educations. Teachers often tend to give most of their attention to a handful of students, usually the top third of the class. If you think that you are not getting an equal-opportunity education, discuss it with your teacher. Let your teacher know what’s on your mind. Just raising the question will make your teachers take a closer look at what they’re doing.


3. Learn to think. Are you learning to remember information — or to use it? Do you memorize a math formula, or do you learn how it applies to all the circles of your life? According to Bloom, about 95 percent of today’s teaching focuses on the “lower mental process” — rote learning of grammar, multiplication tables, historical names and dates. Most teachers spend very little time on the “higher mental processes.” — problem-solving, analyzing and interpreting. When you improve your thinking skills there is a gain in rote learning too. Knowing what an idea or a principle means, and how it can be applied, helps you learn better and remember longer.

4. Have classmates help. More and more schools are trying teamwork or, as educators call it, “cooperative learning.” There are a number of ways to organize these teams, but two things are essential. First, youngsters need a reward — praise, a certificate of recognition — for doing well as a team. Second, the teams’ success must depend on how well each member learns. It’s the good side of peer pressure. There are also important bonuses to team study. Self-esteem goes up. Students learn the value of cooperation and develop better attitudes toward classmates with different social backgrounds or physical handicaps.



5. Educate at home. According to the experts, what happens in your home is a better predictor of success in school than in any I.Q. or achievement test. The home environment has great impact on how a child learns. It is as important as the quality of teachers or curriculum. In the homes of top achievers, homework and reading are given priority over play or television; parents encourage their children’s intellectual interests and praise school achievement. Family members talk together and do things together. Inside almost every poor to average student, there’s a smart kid yearning to get out. With these ideas, we can help to unlock that potential.

Text II Memorable quotes

Lead-in questions

Text

Questions for discussion

Do you find college life always exciting? If not, what kind of frustrations do you have?



College Pressures

William Zinsser

1 I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today; economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villains — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains; only victims.

(Abridged)


2 “In the late 1960s,” one dean told me, “the typical question that I got from students was ‘Why is there so much suffering in the world?’ or ‘How can I make a contribution?’ Today it’s ‘Do you think it would look better for getting into law school if I did a double major in history and political science, or just majored in one of them?’” Many other deans confirmed this pattern. One said: “They’re trying to find an edge — the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.”

3 Note the emphasis on looking better. The transcript has become a sacred document, the passport to security. How one appears on paper is more important than how one appears in person. A is for Admirable and B is for Borderline, even though, in Yale’s official system of grading, A means “excellent” and B means “very good.” Today, looking very good is no longer good enough, especially for students who hope to go on to law school or medical school. They know that entrance into the better schools will be an entrance into the better law firms and better medical practice where they will make a lot of money.


4 The pressure is almost as heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. Long gone are the days of the “gentleman’s C,” when students journeyed through college with a certain relaxation, sampling a wide variety of courses — music, art, philosophy, classics, anthropology, poetry, religion — that would send them out as liberally educated men and women. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know countless students whose inquiring minds exhilarate me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I don’t know if they are getting As or Cs, and I don’t care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They can’t.



5 Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Tuition, room, and board at most private colleges now comes to at least $7,000, not counting books and fees. This might seem to suggest that the colleges are getting rich. But they are equally battered by inflation. Heating oil is up. Insurance is up. Postage is up. Health-premium costs are up. Everything is up. Deficits are up. We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers — colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debts.

6 Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined.7 I see many students taking premedical courses with joyless tenacity. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people.8 “Do you want to go to medical school?” I ask them.9 “I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or “Not really.”10 “Then why are you going?”11 “Well, my parents want me to be a doctor. They’re paying all this money and …”


12 Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well; they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the sons and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy — subjects with no “practical” value. Where’s the payoff on the humanities? It’s not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics — an ability to synthesize and relate, to weigh cause and effect, to see events in perspective — are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field. Still, many fathers would rather put their money on courses that point toward a specific profession.



13 Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin almost at the beginning of freshman year.14 “I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,” one dean told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn’t tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”


15 The story is symptomatic of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they could sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the clacking of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

16 Part of the problem is that they do more than they are expected to do. A professor will assign five-page papers. Several students will start writing ten-page papers to impress him. Then more students will write ten-page papers, and a few will raise the ante to fifteen. Pity the poor student who is still just doing the assignment.17 “Once you have twenty or thirty percent of the student population deliberately overexerting,” one dean points out, “it’s bad for everybody. When a teacher gets more and more effort from his class, the student who is doing normal work can be perceived as not doing well. The tactic works, psychologically.


18 Ultimately it will be the students’ own business to break the circles in which they are trapped. They are too young to be prisoners of their parents’ dreams and their classmates’ fears. They must be jolted into believing in themselves as unique men and women who have the power to shape their own future.



About the author: William Zinsser was born in 1922 in New York City, and studied at Princeton University. He was a feature writer, film critic, and drama editor for the New York Herald Tribune and later a columnist for Look and Life, and has also written numerous books. In 1971 he took a teaching position in the English department at Yale University. He is the author of the best-selling book On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1976).

They’re trying to find an edge — the intangible something that will look better on paper if two students are about equal.: “Edge” here means an advantage over others, as in the expression “have the edge on / over,” meaning “be slightly better than someone or something because you have an advantage they do not have.” What the dean means is that they try to find an advantage over others, i.e. they try to have higher marks on their transcript, so that they will appear to be academically superior to others. This is especially so when two students are more or less the same. But the dean seems to think that marks are not really very reliable and valid indications of the real quality of the students.


sampling a wide variety of courses: taking numerous courses without necessarily going deep into any of them …



If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades.: If I were an employer, I would employ those students who take all these courses and thus have a wide range of knowledge and are always curious about what is new and unknown; I would not employ those who only take those courses they can safely pass and score high marks.


But they are equally battered by inflation. : But they (the colleges) are as badly affected by inflation as the parents and the students are.

We are witnessing in America the creation of a brotherhood of paupers — colleges, parents, and students, joined by the common bond of debts.: Here in America we find coming into being a union of colleges, parents, and students; what they have in common is that they are all in debt.



tenacity: determination to continue what one is doing


They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt.: A web is a complicated pattern of connections or relationships. Both the students and their parents find themselves caught in a web: The parents, out of good intention, want their children to take courses which they think are more profitable; the children are not interested in these courses, but they feel they just have to take them, otherwise they would suffer from a sense of guilt because it is their parents who have paid for their education. Such a web has long been in existence in human history, thus “one of the oldest webs.”

Where’s the payoff on the humanities?: What financial benefit can students get from courses in humanities? “Humanities” are subjects such as history, philosophy, and literature, which are concerned with human ideas and behavior. Such courses do not usually lead immediately to profitable occupations as courses related to law and medicine do.


self-induced pressure: pressure brought on by the students themselves



The story is symptomatic of all the pressures put together.: The story indicates all the pressures combined.

1. How do you interpret the last sentence of the first paragraph “There are no villains; only victims”?

No one is really to blame for the pressures working on college students, not the colleges, or the professors, or the parents, or the students themselves. In fact, they (the colleges, the professors, the parents, and the students) are all victims.


The students in the late 1960s seemed to be more concerned with what was happening in the world as a whole, and what they could do to make our world a better place to live in. The college students of the time when the article was written were more concerned about their own future and career; they seemed to be more egoistic.

2. From Zinsser’s quotation of a certain dean in the 2nd paragraph, what idea do you get of the difference between the students in the late 1960s and students of the time when the article was written (presumably in the 1970s–1980s)?



To both kinds of students, a good transcript will serve as a passport to security. They want their grades to look better so that they can either be enrolled by a graduate school or find a good job.

3. Why do students, both of those who want to enter graduate schools and those who just want to graduate and get a job, attach so much importance to grades?


Most parents want their sons and daughters to take courses that would lead them to occupationswith a good payoff such as law and medicine. But Zinsser would rather that they took a wide range of courses in the humanities, such as philosophy, history, music, and religion, so that they would become liberally well-educated men and women.

4. Zinsser obviously holds a different opinion from many of the parents with regard to the courses the students should take. Describe this difference and voice your own opinion.

The mentality that underlies peer pressure and self-induced pressure is the fear of being outshone by one’s fellow students, the fear of appearing inferior.

5. According to the text, what mentality underlies peer pressure and self-induced pressure?


Open to discussion.

6. As a college student do you feel any of the four pressures Zinsser has described in the text? Is there any other pressure you feel? Discuss with your classmates the pressure(s) you feel and try to suggest a way “to break the circles in which you are trapped.”

What do you think are the aims of education? Read the following quotes and find out whether your opinions echo the speakers’.


Guidance: The aim of education, as Newman said, is to nurture a person, a good citizen rather than a hero. Education could be a philosophical problem with its social responsibility and responsibility for personal growth.

It is astonishing that education would only increase a lack of knowledge about the world, if it is about the factual information such as theories, concept and facts regardless of the real application.

1. Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

— Henry Adams


The aim of education is to help one who knows little become receptive to new ideas and more possibilities.

2. The purpose of education is to replace

an empty mind with an open one.

— Malcolm Forbes


Henry Adams (1838–1918) was an American educator, journalist, historian, and novelist.


Malcolm Stevenson Forbes (1919–1990) was the publisher of Forbes magazine, today run by his son.


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