UNIT 1 PASSAGES OF HUMAN GROWTH (I)
1 A person’s life at any given time incorporates both external and internal aspects. The external system is composed of our memberships in the culture: our job, social class, family and social roles, how we present ourselves to and participate in the world. The interior realm concerns the meanings this participation has for each of us. In what ways are our values, goals, and aspirations being invigorated or violated by our present life system? How many parts of our personality can we live out, and what parts are we suppressing? How do we feel about our way of living in the world at any given time?
2 The inner realm is where the crucial shifts in bedrock begin to throw a person off balance, signaling the necessity to change and move on to a new footing in the next stage of development. These crucial shifts occur throughout life, yet people consistently refuse to recognize that they possess an internal life system. Ask anyone who seems down, “Why are you feeling low?” Most will displace the inner message onto a marker event: “I’ve been down since we moved, since I changed jobs, since my wife went back to graduate school and turned into a damn social worker in sackcloth,” and so on. Probably less than ten percent would say: “There is some unknown disturbance within me, and even though it’s painful, I feel I have to stay with it and ride it out.” Even fewer people would be able to explain that the turbulence they feel may have no external cause. And yet it may not resolve itself for several years.
3 During each of these passages, how we feel about our way of living will undergo subtle changes in four areas of perception. One is the interior sense of self in relation to others. A second is the proportion of safeness to danger we feel in our lives. A third is our perception of time—do we have plenty of it, or are we beginning to feel that time is running out? Last, there will be some shift at the gut level in our sense of aliveness or stagnation. These are the hazy sensations that compose the background tone of living and shape the decisions on which we take action.
4 The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our own distinctiveness.
Pulling Up Roots
5 Before 18, the motto is loud and clear: “I have to get away from my parents.” But the words are seldom connected to action. Generally still safely part of our families, even if away at school, we feel our autonomy to be subject to erosion from moment to moment.
6 After 18, we begin Pulling Up Roots in earnest. College, military service, and short-term travels are all customary vehicles our society provides for the first round trips between family and a base of one’s own. In the attempt to separate our view of the world from our family’s view, despite vigorous protestations to the contrary—“I know exactly what I want!”— we cast about for any beliefs we can call our own. And in the process of testing those beliefs we are often drawn to
fads, preferably those most mysterious and inaccessible to our parents.
7 Whatever tentative memberships we try out in the world, the fear haunts us that we are really kids who cannot take care of ourselves. We cover that fear with acts of defiance and mimicked confidence. For allies to replace our parents, we turn to our contemporaries. They become conspirators. So long as their perspective meshes with our own, they are able to substitute fo r the sanctuary of the family. But that doesn’t last very long. And the instan t they diverge from the shaky ideals of “our group”, they are seen as betrayers. Rebounds to the family are common between the ages of 18 and 22.
8 The tasks of this passage are to locate ourselves in a peer group role, a sex role, an anticipated occupation, an ideology or world view. As a result, we gather the impetus to leave home physically and the identity to begin leaving home emotionally.
9 Even as one part of us seeks to be an individual, another part longs to restore the safety and comfort of merging with another. Thus one of the most popular myths of this passage is: We can piggyback our development by attaching to a Stronger One. But people who marry during this time often prolong financial and emotional ties to the family and relatives that impede them from becoming self-sufficient.
10 A stormy passage through the Pulling Up Roots years will probably facilitate the normal progression of the adult life cycle. If one doesn’t have an identity crisis at this point, it will erupt during a later transition, when the penalties may be harder to bear.
The Trying Twenties
11 The Trying Twenties confront us with the question of how to take hold in the adult world. Our focus shifts from the interior turmoils of late adolescence—“Who am I?”“What is truth?”—and we become almost totally preoccupied with working out the externals. “How do I put my aspirations into effect?” “What is the best way to start?” “Where do I go?” “Who can help me?” “How did you do it?”
12 In this period, which is longer and more stable compared with the passage that leads to it, the tasks are as enormous as they are exhilarating: To shape a Dream, that vision of ourselves which will generate energy, aliveness, and hope. To prepare for a lifework. To find a mentor if possible. And to form the capacity for intimacy, without losing in the process whatever consistency of self we have thus far mustered. The first test structure must be erected around the life we choose to try.
13 Doing what we “should” is the most pervasive theme of the twenties. The “shoulds” are largely defined by family models, the press of the culture, or the prejudices of our peers. If the prevailing cultural instructions are that one should get married and settle down behind one’s own door, a nuclear family is born.
14 One of the terrifying aspects of the twenties is the inner conviction that the choices we make are irrevocable. It is largely a false fear. Change is quite possible, and some alteration of our original choices is probably inevitable.
15 Two impulses, as always, are at work. One is to build a firm, safe structure for the future by making strong commitments, to “be set”. Yet people who slip into a ready-made form without much self-examination are likely to find themselves locked in.
16 The other urge is to explore and experiment, keeping any structure tentative and therefore easily reversible. Taken to the extreme, these are people who skip from one trial job and one limited personal encounter to another, spending their twenties in the transient state.
17 Although the choices of our twenties are not irrevocable, they do set in motion a Life Pattern. Some of us follow the locked-in pattern, others the transient pattern, the wunderkind pattern, the caregiver pattern, and there are a number of others. Such patterns strongly influence the particular questions raised for each person during each passage through the life.
18 Buoyed by powerful illusions and belief in the power of the will, we commonly insist in our twenties that what we have chosen to do is the one true course in life. Our backs go up at the merest hint that we are like our parents, that two decades of parental training might be reflected in our current actions and attitudes.
19 “Not me,” is the motto, “I’m different.”
UNIT 2 AIDS IN THE THIRD WORLD A GLOBAL DISASTER
1 In rich countries AIDS is no longer a death sentence. Expensive drugs keep HIV-positive patients alive and healthy, perhaps indefinitely. Loud public-awareness campaigns keep the number of infected Americans, Japanese and West Europeans to relatively low levels. The sense of crisis is past.
2 In developing countries, by contrast, the disease is spreading like nerve gas in a gentle breeze. The poor cannot afford to spend $10,000 a year on wonder pills. Millions of Africans are dying. In the longer term, even greater numbers of Asians are at risk. For many poor countries, there is no greater or more immediate threat to public health and economic growth. Yet few political leaders treat it as a priority.
3 Since HIV was first identified in the 1970s, over 47 million people have been infected, of whom 1
4 million have died. Last year saw the biggest annual death toll yet: 2.
5 million. The disease now ranks fourth among the wor ld’s big killers, after respiratory infections, diarrhea disorders and tuberculosis. It now claims many more lives each year than malaria, a growing menace, and is still nowhere near its peak. If India and other Asian countries do not take it seriously, th e number of infections could reach “a new order of magnitude”, says Peter Piot, head of the UN’s AIDS programme.
4 The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), is thought to have crossed from chimpanzees to humans in the late 1940s or early 1950s in Congo. It took several years for the virus to break out of Congo’s dense and sparsely populated jungles but, once it did, it marched with rebel armies through the continent’s numerous war zones, rode with truckers from one rest-stop brothel to the next, and eventually flew,
perhaps with an air steward, to America, where it was discovered in the early 1980s. As American homosexuals and drug infectors started to wake up to the dangers of bath-houses and
needle-sharing, AIDS was already devastating Africa.
5 So far, the worst-hit areas are east and southern Africa. In Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, between a fifth and a quarter of people aged 15-49 are afflicted with HIV or AIDS. In Botswana, children born early in the next decade will have a life expectancy of 40; without AIDS it would have been near 70. Of the 25 monitoring sites in Zimbabwe where pregnant women are tested for HIV, only two in 1997 showed prevalence below 10%. At the remaining 23 sites,
20-50% of women were infected. About a third of these women will pass the virus on to their babies.
6 The region’s giant, South Africa, was largely protected by its isolation from the rest of the world during the apartheid years. Now it is host to one in ten of the world’s new infections—more than any other country. In the country’s most populous province, KwaZulu-Natal, perhaps a third of sexually active adults are HIV-positive.
7 Asia is the next disaster-in-waiting. Already, 7 million Asians a re infected. India’s 930 million people look increasingly vulnerable. The Indian countryside, which most people imagined relatively AIDS-free, turns out not to be. A recent study in Tamil Nadu found over 2% of rural people to be HIV-positive: 500,000 peopl e in one of India’s smallest states. Since 10% had other sexually transmitted diseases (STDS), the avenue for further infections is clearly open. A survey of female STD patients in Poona, in Maharashtra, found that over 90% had never had sex with anyone but their husband; and yet 13.6% had HIV.
8 No one knows what AIDS will do to poor countries’ economies, for nowhere has the epidemic run its course. An optimistic assessment, by Alan Whiteside of the University of Natal, suggests that the effect of AIDS on measurable GDP will be slight. Even at high prevalence, Mr. Whiteside thinks it will slow growth by no more than 0.6% a year. This is because so many people in poor countries do not contribute much to the formal economy. To put it even more crudely, where there is a huge oversupply of unskilled labour, the dead can easily be replaced.
9 Other researchers are more pessimistic. AIDS takes longer to kill than did the plague, so the cost of caring for the sick will be more crippling. Modern governments, unlike medieval ones, tax the healthy to help look after the ailing, so the burden will fall on everyone. And AIDS, because it is sexually transmitted, tends to hit the most energetic and productive members of society. A recent study in Namibia estimated that AIDS cost the country almost 8% of GNP in 1996. Another analysis predicts that Kenya’s GDP will be 14.5% smaller in 2005 than it would have been without AIDS, and that income per person will be 10% lower.
The cost of the disease
10 In general, the more advanced the economy, the worse it will be affected by a large number of AIDS deaths. South Africa, with its advanced industries, already suffers a shortage of skilled manpower, and cannot afford to lose more. In better-off developing countries, people have more savings to
fall back on when they need to pay medical bills. Where people have health and life insurance, those industries will be hit by bigger claims. Insurers protect themselves by charging more or refusing policies to HIV-positive customers. In Zimbabwe, life-insurance premiums quadrupled in two years because of AIDS. Higher premiums force more people to seek treatment in public hospitals: in South Africa, HIV and AIDS could account for between 35% and 84% of
public-health expenditure by 2005, according to one projection.
11 At a macro level, the impact of AIDS is felt gradually. But at a household level, the blow is sudden and catastrophic. When a breadwinner develops AIDS, his (or her) family is impoverished twice over: his income vanishes, and his relations must devote time and money to nursing him. Daughters are often forced to drop out of school to help. Worse, HIV tends not to strike just one member of a family. Husbands give it to wives, mothers to babies.
12 The best hope for halting the epidemic is a cheap vaccine. Efforts are under way, but a vaccine for a virus that mutates as rapidly as HIV will be hugely difficult and expensive to invent. For poor countries, the only practical course is to concentrate on prevention. But this, too, will be hard, for a plethora of reasons.
Sex is fun... Many feel that condoms make it less so. Zimbabweans ask: “Would you eat a sweet with its wrapper on?”
... and discussion of it is often taboo. In Kenya, Christian and Islamic groups have publicly burned anti-AIDS leaflets and condoms, as a protest against what they see as the encouragement of promiscuity.
Poverty. Those who cannot afford television find other ways of passing the evening. People cannot afford antibiotics, so the untreated sores from STDS provide easy openings for HIV.
Migrant labour. Since wages are much higher in South Africa than in the surrounding region, outsiders flock in to find work. Migrant miners (including South Africans forced to live far from their homes) spend most of the year in single-sex dormitories surrounded by prostitutes. Living with a one-in-40 chance of being killed by a rockfall, they are inured to risk. When they go home, they often infect their wives.
War. Refugees, whether from genocide in Rwanda or state persecution in Myanmar, spread HIV as they flee. Soldiers, with their regular pay and disdain for risk, are more likely than civilians to contract HIV from prostitutes. When they go to war, they infect others. In Africa the problem is dire. In Congo, where no fewer than seven armies are embroiled, the government has accused Ugandan troops (which are helping the Congolese rebels) of deliberately spreading AIDS. Unlikely, but with estimated HIV prevalence in the seven armies ranging from 50% for the Angolans to an incredible 80% for the Zimbabweans, the effect is much the same. Sexism. In most poor countries, it is hard for a woman to ask her partner to use a condom. Wives who insist risk being beaten up. Rape is common, especially where wars rage. Forced sex is a particularly effective means of HIV transmission, because of the extra blood. Drinking. Asia and Africa make
many excellent beers. They are also home to a lot of people for whom alcohol is the quickest escape from the stresses of acute poverty. Drunken lovers are less likely to remember to use condoms.
How to fight the virus
13 Pessimists look at that situation and despair. But three success stories show that the hurdles to prevention are not impossibly high.
14 First, Thailand. One secret of Thailand’s success has been timely, accurate
information-gathering. HIV was first detected in Thailand in the mid-1980s, among male homosexuals. The health ministry immediately began to monitor other high-risk groups, particularly the country’s many heroin addicts and prostitutes. In the first half of 1988, HIV prevalence among drug injectors tested at one Bangkok hospital leapt from 1% to 30%. Shortly afterwards, infections soared among prostitutes.
15 The response was swift. A survey of Thai sexual behaviour was conducted. The results, which showed men indulging in a phenomenal amount of unprotected commercial sex, were publicized. Thais were warned that a major epidemic would strike if their habits did not change. A “100% condom use” campaign persuaded prostitutes to insist on protection 90% of the time with non-regular customers.
16 Most striking was the government’s success in persuading people that they were at risk long before they started to see acquaintances die from AIDS. There was no attempt to play down the spread of HIV to avoid scaring off tourists, as happened in Kenya. Thais were repeatedly warned of the dangers, told how to avoid them, and left to make their own choices. Most decided that a long life was preferable to a fast one.
17 Second, Uganda. Thailand shows what is possible in a well-educated, fairly prosperous country. Uganda shows that there is hope even for countries that are poor and barely literate. President Yoweri Museveni recognized the threat shortly after becoming president in 1986, and deluged the country with anti-AIDS warnings.
18 The key to Uganda’s success is twofold. First, Mr. Museveni made every government department take the problem seriously, and implement its own plan to fight the virus. Accurate surveys of sexual behaviour were done for only $20,000-30,000 each. Second, he recognized that his government could do only a limited amount, so he gave free rein to scores of
non-governmental organizations (NGOS), usually foreign-financed, to do whatever it took to educate people about risky sex.
19 Third, Senegal. If Uganda shows how a poor country can reverse the track of an epidemic, Senegal shows how to stop it from taking off in the first place. This West African country was fortunate to be several thousand mi les from HIV’s origin. In the mid-1980s, when other parts of Africa were already blighted, Senegal was still relatively AIDS-free. In concert with
non-governmental organizations and the press and broadcasters, the government set up a national AIDS-control programme to keep it that way.
20 Contrast these three with South Africa. On December 1st, World AIDS Day, President Nelson Mandela told the people of KwaZulu-Natal that HIV would devastate their communities if not checked. The speech was remarkable not for its quality—Mr. Mandela is always able to move audiences—but for its rarity. Unlike Mr. Museveni, South Africa’s leader seldom uses his authority to encourage safer sex. It is a tragic omission. Whereas the potholed streets of Kampala are lined with signs promoting fidelity and condoms, this correspondent has, in eight months in South Africa, seen only two anti-AIDS posters, both in the UN’s AIDS office in Pretoria.
UNIT 3 NEW FINDINGS OF HIV
1 For almost four years, research into HIV has been dominated by a single theory about how the virus causes the catastrophic collapse of the immune defences that leads to AIDS. But the consensus on this theory is now crumbling, thanks in part to the work of a Dutch team led by immunologist Frank Miedema. If the Dutch team is right, the consequences will be profound. People with HIV may hope for new types of treatment. And some of the most cherished dogmas of
a multibillion-dollar research industry may be overturned.
2 The prevailing view about how HIV causes AIDS is that every day the virus makes billions of copies of itself and, in doing so, kills billions of the key defence cells that it infects, a class of T cell known as CD4 cells. These vital cells orchestrate the body’s immune response. Every da y the infected person’s immune system attempts to replace these cells. After years of waging this immunological war, the body eventually fails to keep pace with the virus and the numbers of CD4 cells become dangerously low, leaving the body unable to defend itself against microorganisms and cancerous cells.
3 But Miedema and his colleagues at the University of Amsterdam see things differently. They agree that the number of CD
4 cells ultimately dwindles, but not because the virus is killing them off. In their view, the virus impairs the body’s ability to produce new CD4 cells, and—critically—it traps existing cells in lymph nodes and other tissues, preventing their movement in and out of the bloodstream. As large numbers of CD4 cells become trapped in this way, and the body fails to produce a sufficient number of new ones, the dwindling population of circulating cells becomes increasingly restricted in its range and ability to respond to different invading microbes.
4 Naturally, the champions of the prevailing theory dispute the Dutch ideas. David Ho, chief architect and proponent of the accepted view, at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York, has told colleagues that “the whole field would have to be turned upside down if they were right”. But elsewhere, the controversial Dutch theory is gaining ground. Indeed, it builds on ideas that have been circulating since about 1990, among researchers such as Yvonne Rosenberg at TherImmune, a company in Maryland, and John Sprent, at the University of California, San Diego. Earlier this month, Miedema
’s latest findings were aired at a major international meeting in Glasgow on new therapies for HIV—a sign that the ideas are attracting interest from those at the sharp end of AIDS treatment.
5 The widely accepted view, that HIV is a mass murderer of cells, first took hold in 1995, when Ho and his colleagues in New York, and another group led by George Shaw of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, published two seminal papers in the journal Nature. These papers reported that there was a large and rapid turnover of CD4 cells in people with HIV infection, and that therapy with a powerful cocktail of antiviral drugs brought about huge and immediate increases in the numbers of these cells. The fact that the cells bounced back so quickly was due, Ho and Shaw reasoned, to the effects of the antiviral drugs. By stopping HIV from building new copies of itself, the drugs stopped the virus from killing (or “lysing”)cells, while new cells continued to be produced at a rapid rate. This compelling idea offered a simple explanation for how HIV could wreak such havoc. Overnight, the theory became dogma.
6 Then, in November 1996, Miedema proposed an alternative view. His work at that time centred on telomeres. These are the small sections of DNA at each end of a chromosome that are shortened with each cycle of cell division. Miedema and his colleagues reasoned that if CD4 cells were being constantly destroyed, then the unremitting cell division needed to supply the new cells would wear away their telomeres.
7 Yet the length of the telomeres turned out to be stable. “This means that cells are not being turned over in massive numbers,” Miedema said at the time. “Our data cannot be interpreted any other way.” He sugg ested that if the cells are disappearing but not being destroyed, then HIV must be hitting their production instead.
8 Ho disagreed. He said that an enzyme called telomerase, which rebuilds telomeres in cells that need to carry on dividing indefinitely, such as reproductive cells, is overactive in people with HIV. The enzyme is active in their immune cells, where normally it is absent. He argued that this overactivity could explain why the telomeres do not shorten. But Miedema’s group has tested T cells from people with HIV and has found no evidence of increased telomerase activity. Ho retorts that their tests are not sufficiently sensitive, and that special assays are needed.
9 Ho’s views find support from Tomas Lindahl, a telomere specialist at Britain’s Imperial Cancer Research Fund. “I don’t think the telomere argument... is very strong,” he says. “Telomerase activity is notoriously difficult to measure.”
10 Indeed, other researchers now suggest that Miedema may have misinterpreted his original results. They believe that he found the average length of telomeres to be stable because he missed those cells that were disappearing most rapidly—the very cells that would have the shortest telomeres if they were turning over at the rate Ho suggests.
11 Whether the telomere research is significant or not, a growing number of researchers now believe that HIV does prevent the production of new T cells. Mike McCune at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that the site of this inhibition could be the thymus, the organ
where CD4 cells develop. But the Dutch group and others were increasingly convinced that there was another possibility. If T cells were disappearing from the blood, perhaps it was not just because new cells were failing to appear. It could also be that existing cells were being hidden away in other tissues. Miedema and his colleagues were puzzled by the flood of CD4 cells rushing into the blood that Ho and others had observed when infected people start to take antiviral drugs. They knew that the rise was rapid and then reached a plateau, and so they argued that it could not be due to the production of new cells because this would lead to a slow, more sustained increase. Instead, it must be due to the release of existing CD4 cells trapped in lymph nodes and elsewhere.
12 Their own experiments supported their hunch. When they analysed T cells in the blood of people with HIV as they started antiviral treatment, they found the same steep rise of CD4 cells, reaching a plateau within three weeks. The findings also appear to explain a phenomenon that has puzzled doctors, namely that the more advanced a person’s HIV infection, the greater the initial rise in their CD4 cell count when they start antiviral therapy. This, says Miedema, is because more and more cells become trapped as infection persists. If Ho and Shaw were right, the increase in CD4 cells should be modest in such people, because the virus would have killed so many of their cells.
13 But the nature of the newly appeared cells gave the Dutch team further support. They were virtually all so-called CD4 memory cells——that is, cells that had already come into contact with antigens from specific invading microbes. What is more, so-called naive CD4 cells——those that have not yet met an antigen—did not immediately appear. These findings strengthen the argument that antiviral drugs were not preventing HIV from killing cells, but simply releasing into the blood mature CD4 cells that had been trapped elsewhere.
14 An obvious response to the suggestion that CD4 cells are disappearing from blood into lymph tissue might be: “ Why not count them?” Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Removinglymph tissue is awkward and unpleasant—and may be unhelpful to patients whose immune systems are already disrupted. Equally important, researchers would not know exactly how many CD4 cells a patient had in the first place, and therefore would have no baseline figure with which to compare their estimate. Finally, even in healthy individuals, the number of CD4 cells in the bloodstream is a tiny proportion—between 1 and 2 per cent—of the total. So even if the researchers measured their decline in the bloodstream and estimated their numbers in the lymph nodes over a period of time, the margin of error would probably be too wide for the counts to be meaningful.
15 The Dutch group now has the backing of a growing number of immunologists. Brigitte Autran at the Pitié-Salpetrière Hospital in Paris has found that, in people with HIV who take powerful drug cocktails, the immune system appears to be able to take a break from the damaging effects of the virus and boost its numbers of naive CD4 cells. This implies that the unchecked virus does indeed prevent the production of new CD4 cells. And, in the latest move, also reported at the Glasgow meeting, Miedema found that the immature
“progenitor” cells that eventually mature into T cells are also disrupted. When his team took progenitor cells from people with HIV and from uninfected people, and put them into mice to mature in the thymus, they found that cells from HIV-infected people matured more quickly——suggesting that the virus is cranking up the immune system into excessive activity from the earliest stage.
16 Taken together, says Mario Roederer of Stanford University, who studies T-cell dynamics, these findings are “the final nails in the coffin” for the theory put forward by Ho and Shaw. Roederer believes the virus completely “rearranges” the immune system, rendering it ineffective and drastically reducing the repertoire of CD4 cells available to fight off infections.
UNIT 4 WHO’S IN CHARGE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY?
1 Driven by the telecommunications revolution, the global economy is like a speeding train that keeps getting faster, says Thomas Friedman1, the New York Times foreign policy columnist. “What’s worse,” Friedman writes, “no one can slow the train down, because the world economy today is just like the Internet: everybody is connected but nobody is in charge.”
2 The idea that the global economy is out of control has a certain appeal to those who feel left in the dust by corporate mega-mergers, down-sizing, monolithic chain stores, ever-morphing financial markets, and an emerging culture that seems alien to human values.
3 But unlike Fr iedman, I have a pretty good idea who’s in charge. They are trade and finance ministers of the wealthy nations, leaders of multi-national manufacturing and finance firms, and high-level staff of institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization (WTO). A good number of them will be meeting in Seattle at the end of November, when the WTO holds its third ministerial meeting. High on the agenda will be the decision whether to launch a new “millennium” round of comprehensive trade n egotiations. Many people who are concerned about the impact of globalization will have their eyes on Seattle.
4 There are lots of reasons to be concerned. When leading policy-makers and economists speak about the booming global economy and the benefits of free trade, they too often ignore the people who are losing out. The CEOs of Microsoft and Boeing, co-chairs of the Seattle Host Committee for the WTO meeting, are among the winners. But the form globalization has taken has increased the gap between rich and poor nations. According to the United Nations Development Program, “the income gap between the richest fifth of the world’s people and the poorest fifth, measured by average national income per head, increased from 30 to one in 1960 to 74 to one in 1997.” Nearly 90% of all economic activity takes place in the rich nations where only 20% of the world’s population lives. The result of globalization, says the UNDP in its latest Human Development Report, is “a grotesque and dangerous polarization between people and countries benefiting from the system and those that are merely passive recipients of its effects.”
5 Inequality is also growing within nations, and globalization is a key factor. Since 1977, according to a new study from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the income of the wealthiest one percent of Americans has risen 120%, while the income of the poorest sixty percent has actually declined over the same period. Forbes reports that the richest 400 Americans now control more than $1 trillion in personal wealth. The Economic Policy Institute concludes that globalization and related shifts from industrial to service employment account for about one-third of the growth in U.S. wage inequality over the past generation.When employers are free to site their activities anywhere in the world, it is no surprise that jobs shift to locations with lower wages, less respect for human rights, and weaker environmental and public health protections. “Ideally, you’d have every plant you own on a barge,” was the way General Electric’s CEO put it, describing how his company moved a factory from Mexico to Korea in only 45 days.
6 And when large corporations are as big as medium-sized governments (GE’s annual sales are about the same as Australia’s and Brazil’s federal budgets), it is no surprise that global commerce is organized to meet corporate requirements.
7 Without rules in place that create enforceable procedures to protect workers’ interests, the environment, and human interests that do not appear on corporate balance sheets, the global economy runs like a race to the bottom for the vast majority of people in the United States and throughout the world. That is why the World Trade Organization, where the rules of the global economy are set, is such a crucial institution.
8 Established in 1995 as the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the WTO is an international organization that is “writing the constitution of a single global economy”, according to former WTO Director General Renato Ruggiero. The WTO aims to increase global trade by reducing restrictions on cross-border commerce, such as tariffs (taxes on imports). According to classical theory, an international economy works most efficiently if each nation produces those goods it is most suited to produce, and trades them for goods in which other nations have a “comparative advantage”.
9 But in the new global economy, international trade is not just cross-border sales of cars, bananas, sneakers, and other products. It includes dealings as diverse as:
international currency transactions, which amount to more than $1.5 trillion a day;
stock and bond markets in major cities that attract global speculators;
the sale of images and ideas, also known as “intellectual property”;
sales of services like insurance and banking; and
transfer of goods from a corporate subdivision in one country to its subdivision in another, which accounts for some 40% of all trade in goods.
10 And in the new “free trade” philosophy, laws that regulate any business activity in order to protect public health, the environment, human rights, or local community interests may be considered “non-tariff barriers to trade”, and be prohibited.
11 It is at the WTO where the people in charge of the global economy set the rules for what can be protected, what can be regulated, and what punishments can be imposed on whoever breaks the rules. When the WTO met in Singapore three years ago, it rejected a proposal to incorporate labor standards, such as the right to organize unions and prohibit child labor, into the “free trade” rules. It did, however, agree to allow nations to protect intellectual property, such as patents and trademarks. Following that summit, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions noted that “Mickey Mouse has more rights than the workers who make toys, because the WTO covers trademarks but not labor standards.”
12 In general, the WTO has adopted rules which are in the interest of trans-national business and rejected rules opposed by business. WTO policies have been protested by representatives of “civil society”, such as unions, consumer activists, environmentalists, indigenous people, and women’s groups. In Mexico, where a currency crisis threw the nation into depressi on shortly after implementation of NAFTA, small business owners were in the streets, too, opposing “free trade”. Poor countries of the global south, which disagree with northern unions over labor protections, agree the WTO is not working in the interests of most people.
13 Since the 1996 Singapore summit, which concluded the “Uruguay Round” of negotiations, the WTO has ruled against provisions of the U.S. Clean Air Act, which would have blocked the use of dirty, imported gasoline. The WTO ruled against European laws which banned the sale of beef raised (in the U.S.) with artificial growth hormones. Laws that ban the import of products made by child labor could be ruled illegal as well.
Unit 5 ANYTHING BUT BEEFS
1 Distraught callers jammed Germany’s consumer hot lines with “mad cow” questions all week. Is milk safe to drink? (Yes.) Can you catch the disease from sitting in leather chairs? (No.) In London, where the panic began, an insurance company introduced customized coverage for humans who are worried about contracting the illness. For a ￡40 annual premium, Millennium Insurance Management promises a ￡40,000 payout to any policyholder upon diagnosis. Shoppers in Britain and across the Continent developed a sudden appetite for spring lamb and veggie burgers—anything but steak. Sales of beef tumbled by a third in France, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium. In Germany, they plunged 40 percent and slaughterhouses sent their workers home on forced vacations. The World Health Organization announced an emergency meeting to be held in Geneva this week.
2 At the center of the storm, Prime Minister John Major flung blame in all directions. “What has happened is collective hysteria—partly media, partly opposition and partly European,” the British prime minister declared. Yet even in the ranks of his own Conservative Party, some members are openly critical of the way Major’s government has handled the crisis．“It has been at best clumsy, at worst catastrophic,” says Edwina Currie, a Tory member of Parliament and former health minister. Two weeks ago press leaks forced the health minister, Stephen Dorrell, to make a
hasty disclosure.
3 Scientists had found 10 individuals dead or dying from a new strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease(CJD)，a rare but lethal degenerative brain condition. Worse yet, they suspected that the infection might have come from cattle infected with mad-cow disease. That was frightening news in a country where roughly 160,000 cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) have been reported since 1985. It scared other Europeans, too. They consume roughly more than half of Britain’s exported beef—considerably more than 250,000 metric tons in 1995 alone.
4 Early last week the European Union imposed a worldwide ban on exports of British beef and byproducts, from gelatin to cosmetics. Major howled that the prohibition was illegal, but it scarcely mattered. International demand for British beef had already dropped to just about zero. The ban remained. Farmers and butchers unions in Germany and France applauded. They had complained for years about being undersold by British farm products, and they hailed the Health Ministry’s disclosure as a backhanded vindication.
5 By midweek that attitude began to change. The ban was supposed to protect the European market against fears of tainted beef. Instead, the public regarded the move as an official confirmation of the mad-cow threat. Europe’s homemakers quit buying beef of any sort, whether British or domestic. The unions began complaining of a “crisis of consumer confidence”. France’s President, Jacques Chirac, and Germany’s chancellor, Helmut Kohl, phoned Major and offered their support. Kohl recalled that the European Union had come up with about $300 million to help Germany and Belgium halt an epidemic of swine fever a decade ago. Last year the European Agricultural Fund produced an unexpected surplus of $5 billion. Some of that money could help compensate Britain’s stricken beef farmers. On the eve of the EU’s Inter-Governmental Conference, such a move might even convince the British that Europe could actually be useful.
6 Indeed, at the conference that opened on Friday in Turin, the continent’s leaders turned the summit into a pep rally for Major, for Britain—and for beef. Little business was on the schedule, so the leaders were free to set their own agenda. Chirac insisted there was “not a shred of scientific evidence” that mad-cow disease can infect human beings. Major, noticeably more cautious, proclaimed British beef “safe in the ordinary meaning of the word”. Jacques Santer, the European Commission’s president, called for “a return to consumer confidence” and hinted that Britain’s export ban might be lifted “very soon”. Others denounced the “mass hysteria” sweeping Europe. “Instead of mad cows,” cracked Austria’s chancellor, Franz Vranitzky, “we should be talking about mad reporters.”
7 But the crisis is no tabloid fantasy. On the contrary, it’s just as serious as the money the summit leaders pledged to rescue the beef industry. They earmarked up to $2.5 billion in EU funds to support beef prices and to compensate British farmers for livestock that may be destroyed in order to eradicate the mad-cow threat. They also ordered a series of emergency round-the-clock talks between Britain’s agriculture minister, Douglas Hogg, and representatives of the European Commission. The assignment is to draw up a plan for how to eliminate the disease and how to pay
人教版八年级英语下课文原文 Unit 1 What’s the matter? 1. Bus Driver and Passengers Save an Old Man At 9:00 a.m. yesterday, bus NO.26 was going along Zhonghua Road when the driver saw an old man lying on the side of the road. A woman next to him was shouting for help. The bus driver, 24-year-old Wang Ping, stopped the bus without thinking twice. He got off and asked the woman what happened. She said that the man had a heart problem and should go to the hospital. Mr. Wang knew he had to act quickly. He told the passengers that he must take the man to the hospital. He expected most or all of the passengers to get off and wait for the next bus. But to his surprise, they all agreed to go with him. Some passengers helped Mr. Wang to move the man into the bus. Thanks to Mr. Wang and the passengers, the doctors saved the man in time. “It’s sad that many people don’t want to help others because they don’t want any trouble, ”says one passenger. “But the driver didn’t think about himself. He only thought about saving a life.” 2. He Lost His Arm But Is Still Climbing Aron Ralston is an American man who is interested in mountain climbing. As a mountain climber, Aron is used to taking risks. This is one of the exciting things about doing dangerous sports. There were many times when Aron almost lost his life because of accidents. On April 26, 2003, he found himself in a very dangerous situation when climbing in Utah. On that day, Aron’s arm was caught under a 360-kilo rock that fell on him when he was climbing by himself in the mountains. Because he could not free his arm, he stayed there for five days and hoped that someone would find him. But when his water ran out, he knew that he would have to do something to save his own life. He
如对您有帮助，请购买打赏，谢谢您！ 人教新目标八年级英语上册一单元课文翻译：Unit 1 How often do you exercise? SECTION A 图片周末你通常做什么？我经常去看电影。 1c她在周末做什么？她经常去看电影。 2a你多久看一次电视？每周两次。 2c你多久看一次电视？我每天看电视。你最喜欢什么节目？《动物世界》。你多久看一次？Grammar Focus你周末通常做什么？我通常踢足球。他们周末做什么？他们经常去看电影。他周末做什么？他有时看电视。你多久购物一次？我每月购物一次。程多久看一次电视？他每周看两次电视。 3格林中学学生做什么？大多数学生每周锻炼三或四次。一些学生每周锻炼一两次。一些学生非常活跃，每天都锻炼。至于家庭作业，大多数学生每天都做家庭作业。一些学生每周做三或四次家庭作业。没有学生每周做一两次作业。关于“看电视”的结果很有趣。一些学生每周看一两次电视，一些学生每周看三或四次电视。但大多数学生每天都看电视。 4谁是最好的英语学生？你能做什么来提高你的英语水平？你多久读一次英语书？我每周读两次英语书。 SECTION B 1a垃圾食品牛奶水果蔬菜睡觉咖啡 1b刘芳，你多久喝一次牛奶？我每天喝牛奶。你喜欢牛奶吗？不喜欢，但我妈妈想让我喝。她说牛奶对我的健康有益。 2c你多长时间运动一次？我每天都运动。你多长时间……一次？ 3a……但是我非常健康。我每天都锻炼，通常是在我放学回家的时候，我的饮食习惯非常好。我尽量多吃蔬菜。我每天都吃水果，每天都喝牛奶。我从不喝咖啡。当然了，我也喜欢垃圾食品，我每周吃二或三次。噢，还有，我每天晚上都睡九个小时。所以你看，我爱惜我身体。我的健康的生活方式帮助我取得了好的成绩。好的食品加上运动帮助我更好地学习。3b我认为我有点不健康。我几乎不锻炼。我每周吃两次蔬菜，但我从不吃水果。并且我不喜欢喝牛奶。啐！我喜欢垃圾食品，每周吃三到四次。我也喜欢喝咖啡。因此或许我不是很健康，尽管我拥有一个健康的习惯。我每天晚上都睡九个小时。 4 你多久吃一次蔬菜？你做什么运动？玛丽亚每天锻炼。她喜欢玩…… SELF CHECK 1妈妈想让我六点起床跟她一起打乒乓球。爷爷十分健康因为他每天都锻炼。大量的蔬菜帮助你保持健康。你必须得尽量少吃肉。你有健康的生活方式吗？ Just for fun你健康吗？噢，我很健康。你最喜欢的运动是什么？我喜欢打篮球。哇！ 二单元 SECTION A 图片怎么了？我感冒了。怎么了？我胃痛。我背痛。 1c怎么啦？我喉咙痛。 2a 1.发烧—d.多喝水2.喉咙痛—b.加蜂蜜的热茶 3.胃痛—a.躺下休息 4.牙痛——c.看牙医 2c怎么了？我牙痛。也许你应该去看牙医。好主意。
2018年新版八年级上册1 - 10单元 (课文+翻译) 八年级上册1 - 10单元(课文+翻译) Unit 1 Where did you go on vacation? ---------------------------------- P 2 你去哪儿度假了？ Unit 2 How often do you exercise? -------------------------------------- P4 你多久锻炼一次？ Unit 3 I’m more outgoing than my sister. ----------------------------- P6 我比我的姐妹外向。 Unit 4 What’s the best movie theater? ---------------------------------- P8 最好的电影院是哪家？ Unit 5 Do you want to watch a game show? -------------------------- P 10 1
你想看个游戏节目吗？ Unit 6 I'm going to study computer science. ------------------------- P 12我打算学习计算机科学。 Unit 7 Will people have robots? ---------------------------------------- P 14人们将会有机器人吗？ Unit 8 How do you make a banana milk shake? -------------------- P16 你怎样制作香蕉奶昔？ Unit 9 Can you come to my party? ------------------------------------P18 你能来我的聚会吗？ Unit 10 If you go to the party, you’ll have a great time! -------------P20如果你去参加聚会的话，你将会玩得非常高兴！ Unit 1 Where did you go on vacation? 你去哪儿度假了？Section A —1b（P1） Conversation 1（对话1） Xiang Hua: Hey, Tina. Where did you go on vacation? 嘿，蒂娜。你去哪儿度假了？ Tina: I went to the mountains with my family. 我和家人去爬山了。Xiang Hua: Did everyone have a good time? 大家都玩得开心吗？Tina: Oh, yes. Everything was excellent. Where did you go, Xiang Hua? 哦，是的。一切都很棒。你去哪儿了，项华？ Xiang Hua: I went to New York City. 我去了纽约市。Conversation 2（对话2） Girl: Where did you go on vacation, Sally? 莎莉，你去哪儿度假了？Sally: Nothing. I just stayed at home. 没有，我只是呆在家里。Girl: And did you do anything interesting, Bob? 你做了什么有趣的事吗，鲍勃？ Bob: Yes, I visited my uncle. We went fishing, but we didn’t get any fish. 是的，我看望了我叔叔。我们去钓鱼了，但是没钓到鱼。Conversation 3（对话3） Boy: Did you go anywhere on vacation, Tom? 汤姆，假期你去了什么地方吗？ Tom: I went to summer camp. 我去了夏令营。 Boy: Did you go with anyone? 你和别人去的吗？ 2
小学语文课文《唯一的听众》 用父亲和妹妹的话来说，我在音乐方面简直是一个白痴。这是他们在经受了我数次"折磨";之后下的结论。在他们听来，我拉小夜曲就像在锯床腿。这些话使我感到十分沮丧，我不敢在家里练琴了。我发现了一个练琴的好地方，楼区后面的小山上有一片树林，地上铺满了落叶。 一天早晨，我蹑（niè）手蹑脚地走出家门，心里充满了神圣感，仿佛要去干一件非常伟大的事情。林子里静极了。沙沙的足音，听起来像一曲悠悠的小令。我在一棵树下站好，庄重地架起小提琴，像举行一个隆重的仪式，拉响了第一支曲子。但我很快又沮丧起来，我觉得自己似乎又把锯子带到了树林里。 我感觉到背后有人，转过身时，吓了一跳：一位极瘦极瘦的老妇人静静地坐在木椅上，平静地望着我。我的脸顿时烧起来，心想，这么难听的声音一定破坏了这林中的和谐，一定破坏了这位老人正独享的幽静。 我抱歉地冲老人笑了笑，准备溜走。老人叫住了我，说："是我打扰了你吗，小伙子？不过，我每天早晨都在这儿坐一会儿。";一束阳光透过叶缝照在她的满头银丝上，"我想你一定拉得非常好，可惜我的耳朵聋了。如果不介意我在场，请继续吧。"; 我指了指琴，摇了摇头。意思是说我拉不好。 "也许我会用心去感受这音乐。我能做你的听众吗，每天早晨？"; 我被老人诗一般的语言打动了。我羞愧起来，同时有了几分兴奋。嘿，毕竟有人夸我了，尽管她是一个聋子。我拉了起来。以后，每天清晨，我都到小树林去练琴，面对我唯一的听众，一位耳聋的老人。她一直很平静地望着我。我停下来时，她总不忘说上一句："真不错。我的心已经感受到了。谢谢你，小伙子。";我心里洋溢着一种从未有过的感觉。
很快我就发觉自己变了。我又开始在家里练琴了。从我紧闭门窗的房间里，常常传出基本练习曲的乐声。我站得很直，两臂累得又酸又痛，汗水湿透了衬衣。以前我是坐在木椅上练琴的。同时，每天清晨，我要面对一位耳聋的老人尽心尽力地演奏；而我唯一的听众总是早早地坐在木椅上等我。有一次，她说我的琴声能给她带来快乐和幸福。我也常常忘记她是聋子，只看见老人微笑着靠在木椅上，手指悄悄打着节奏。她慈祥的眼神平静地望着我，像深深的潭水 我一直珍藏着这个秘密，直到有一天，我的一曲《月光》奏鸣曲让专修音乐的妹妹大吃一惊。妹妹追问我得到了哪位名师的指点。我告诉她："是一位老太太，就住在12号楼，非常瘦，满头白发，不过--她是个聋子。"; "聋子？";妹妹惊叫起来，"聋子！多么荒唐！她是音乐学院最有声望的教授，曾是乐团的首席小提琴手！你竟说她是聋子！"; 后来，拉小提琴成了我无法割舍的爱好，我能熟练地拉许多曲子。在各种文艺晚会上，我有机会面对成百上千的观众演奏小提琴曲。那时，我总是不由得想起那位"耳聋";的老人，那清晨里我唯一的听众
人教版新目标八年级英语初二英语上册课文翻译【全册】 一单元 SECTION A 图片周末你通常做什么？我经常去看电影。 1c她在周末做什么？她经常去看电影。 2a你多久看一次电视？每周两次。 2c 你多久看一次电视？我每天看电视。你最喜欢什么节目？《动物世界》。你多久看一次？ Grammar Focus 你周末通常做什么？我通常踢足球。他们周末做什么？他们经常去看电影。他周末做什么？他有时看电视。你多久购物一次？我每月购物一次。程多久看一次电视？他每周看两次电视。 3格林中学学生做什么？大多数学生每周锻炼三或四次。一些学生每周锻炼一两次。一些学生非常活跃，每天都锻炼。至于家庭作业，大多数学生每天都做家庭作业。一些学生每周做三或四次家庭作业。没有学生每周做一两次作业。关于“看电视”的结果很有趣。一些学生每周看一两次电视，一些学生每周看三或四次电视。但大多数学生每天都看电视。 4谁是最好的英语学生？你能做什么来提高你的英语水平？你多久读一次英语书？我每周读两次英语书。 SECTION B 1a垃圾食品牛奶水果蔬菜睡觉咖啡 1b刘芳，你多久喝一次牛奶？我每天喝牛奶。你喜欢牛奶吗？不喜欢，但我妈妈想让我喝。她说牛奶对我的健康有益。 2c你多长时间运动一次？我每天都运动。你多长时间……一次？ 3a……但是我非常健康。我每天都锻炼，通常是在我放学回家的时候，我的饮食习惯非常好。我尽量多吃蔬菜。我每天都吃水果，每天都喝牛奶。我从不喝咖啡。当然了，我也喜欢垃圾食品，我每周吃二或三次。噢，还有，我每天晚上都睡九个小时。所以你看，我爱惜我身体。我的健康的生活方式帮助我取得了好的成绩。好的食品加上运动帮助我更好地学习。 3b我认为我有点不健康。我几乎不锻炼。我每周吃两次蔬菜，但我从不吃水果。并且我不喜欢喝牛奶。啐！我喜欢垃圾食品，每周吃三到四次。我也喜欢喝咖啡。因此或许我不是很健康，尽管我拥有一个健康的习惯。我每天晚上都睡九个小时。 4 你多久吃一次蔬菜？你做什么运动？玛丽亚每天锻炼。她喜欢玩…… SELF CHECK 1妈妈想让我六点起床跟她一起打乒乓球。爷爷十分健康因为他每天都锻炼。大量的蔬菜帮助你保持健康。你必须得尽量少吃肉。你有健康的生活方式吗？ Just for fun你健康吗？噢，我很健康。你最喜欢的运动是什么？我喜欢打篮球。哇！ 二单元 SECTION A 图片怎么了？我感冒了。怎么了？我胃痛。我背痛。 1c怎么啦？我喉咙痛。 2a 1.发烧—d.多喝水2.喉咙痛—b.加蜂蜜的热茶 3.胃痛—a.躺下休息 4.牙痛——c.看牙医 2c怎么了？我牙痛。也许你应该去看牙医。好主意。 Grammar Focus 我头痛。你应当上床睡觉。我胃痛。他不应当吃东西。她牙痛。她应当看牙医。 3a怎么啦？我觉得不舒服。我感冒了。什么时候开始的？大约两天前。噢，那太糟糕了。你应当休息一下。是的，我也是这样想的。我希望你快点好起来。 4怎么啦？你喉咙痛吗？不，我不痛。你头痛吗？是的，我头痛。你应当躺下来休息一下。 SECTION B 1a疲乏的；劳累的饥饿的口渴的紧张的；有压力的1b吃个苹果。早点上床睡觉。喝些水。听音乐 2c吉娜怎么啦？她累了。噢，她应当早点上床睡觉。她不应该去参加聚会。 3a健康的生活方式，中国方式 传统中医认为我们需要阴阳食品的平衡以保持健康。例如，你经常没有力气并感到疲倦吗？这或许是因为你吃了太多的阴性食品，你应当吃含阳性较高的食品，像牛肉。吃党参和黄芪草对这方面也是有好处的。但那些太紧张和易怒的人也许吃了太多的阳性食品，中医认为他们应当多吃阴性食品，像豆腐。现在中药在很多西方国家很受欢迎。拥有一个健康的生活方式很容易，均衡饮食很重要。 3b每个人都会不时地感到疲倦。当你疲倦时，你不应当晚上外出。你应当几个晚上早儿上床睡觉，并且你应该锻炼以保持健康，你也应吃水果和其他健康的食品。你不应当在你感到疲倦时学习。
第一单元 Section A 图片你认为人们家里将会有机器人吗？是的，会有的。我想家家有会有一个机器人。孩子们还去学校上学吗？孩子们将不再去学校上学。他们将在家中通过电脑来学习。1a 人们家里见会有机器人。人们将不再使用钱。一切都将是免费的。书只会在电脑上出现，而不会在纸上。孩子们将不去上学。他们将在家里通过电脑学习。将会只有一个国家。人们将会活到200岁。 1c 100年后人们还用钱吗？不，不用了。一切都将会是免费的。人们会活到200岁吗？是的，他们会的。 2a 1.将会有更多的人。2.将会有更少的空余时间。3.将会有更少的小汽车。4.将会有更少的污染。5.将会有更少的树。 2b 1.将会有更少的人。3.人们会更少的使用地铁。5.城市将会庞大且拥挤不堪。 2c 我认为将会有更多的污染。喂，我不同意。但我认为将有更少的树木。我同意。 Grammar Focus将会有更少的污染吗？不，不会的。将会有更多的污染。将会有更少的树吗？对，会的。孩子们将不去上学。孩子们将在家中通过电脑学习。 将会有更少的树。将会有更少的污染。 3a五年前，拉萨在上高中。她踢足球。她有一只猫。现在，拉萨在上大学。她弹吉他。她有一条狗。五年后，拉萨将是一名医生（已婚的），她将打网球。她将有一辆跑车（一个孩子）。 3b 你认为拉萨五年后会做什么工作？我认为她会是一名医生。她将进行什么体育运动？ 4 我认为将有更多的高楼。而且小轿车会更少并且公交车会更多。 Section B 2c 你住在哪里？我住在一套公寓里。 3a十年后，我想我将成为一名记者。我将住在上海，因为我去年去了上海并且喜欢上了它。我认为上海真是一个漂亮的城市。作为一名记者，我想我会结识许多有趣的人。我想我将和我最好的朋友们一起住在一套公寓里，因为我不喜欢独自居住。我将养些宠物，现在我不能养宠物因为我妈妈讨厌宠物，而且我们的公寓太小了。因此十年后，我将养许多不同种类的宠物。我甚至会养一只宠物鹦鹉！我可能会天天都去滑冰、游泳。平日里我很可能会穿上套装，看上去将会挺漂亮的。在周末，我将会穿的更休闲一些。我想我将去香港度假，并且有一天我甚至可能会去澳大利亚观光。 3b这张纸上写着：“十年后我将是一名工程师。”我认为是林伟写的。是，是我写的。 4 我认为法国将会在下届世界杯赛中获胜。我不同意。我认为巴西下届将会获胜。 Self check 1当我长大了我想为自己工作。我们的朋友在他们家里养一头宠物猪。工作面试时我需要看起来漂亮一些。我们必须穿校服上学。总有一天人们会飞到月球上去度假。2预测未来可能会很难。有许多著名的预言从都没实现过。在1929年以前，电影是无声的。美国最大的电影公司之一的老板预言说没有人会愿意看到演员说话。当然，他错了！1977年，美国最大的电脑公司的老板说：“没人会想在自己家中拥有电脑。”他认为电脑绝不会为大众所用。 Just for fun! 你认为你下个月的生活将是什么样的？我的生活将比现在好得多！ Reading Section2 你认为你将拥有自己的机器人吗？ 在一些科幻影片中，未来的人们拥有自己的机器人。这些机器人像人类一样，他们帮助人们做家务，做人类最不想做的工作。一些科学家相信未来会有这样的机器人，然而，他们认为这样可能需要数百年的时间。科学家们现在正尽力使机器人看起来像人一样，与我们做同样的事情。日本的公司已经能让机器人走路、跳舞了。这种机器人看起来也是很有趣的。 但是机器人科学家詹姆斯·怀特不同意。他认为对机器人来说与人做同样的事情会很难。例如，对一个孩子来说醒来并不知道他在哪里是很容易的。怀特先生认为机器人将不能做到这一点。但是其他的科学家不这样认为。他们认为在25到50年内机器人将能够与人们对话。 机器人科学家们不仅仅是在尽力使机器人看起来像人，例如，已有机器人在工厂工作了。这些机器人看起来更像巨大的手臂。他们反复做那些简单的工作。人们不愿做这样的工作并且会厌烦。但是机器人永远不会厌烦。 在未来，到处都将有更多的机器人，并且人类将做更少的工作。新的机器人将有很多不同的形状。有些看起来像人，有些将会看起来像蛇。一场地震后，一个蛇形机器人能够帮助我们寻找（埋在）建筑物下面的人。现在看来似乎是不可能的。但在100年前，电脑、太空火箭甚至电动牙刷似乎也都是不可能的。我们永远都不知道未来会发生什么！ 第二单元 Section A 1a 我父母每天都想让我呆在家里。我弟弟播放唱片声音太大。我没有足够的钱。 2b 1.你可以给他写封信。2.也许你应当给他打个电话。 3.你应当说对不起。 4.也许你可以去他家。 5.你可以给他一张球赛的票。a.那不容易。c.我不想令他感到惊讶。d.我不喜欢写信。e.我不想在电话里谈那事。
Unit 3 Could you please clean your room? Section A 2d Role play the conversation. Sister：They, could you please help out with a few things? Brother：Could I at least finish watching this show? Sister：No. I think two hours of TV is enough for you! Brother：Fine. What do you want me to do? Sister：Could you take out the rubbish, fold the clothes and do the dishes? Brother：So much? sister：Yes, because Mom will be back from shopping any minute now. And she won’t be happy if she sees this mess. Brother：But the house is already pretty clean and tidy! Sister：Yes, well, it’s clean, but it’s not “mother clean”! 3a Read the story and answer the question. 1. Why was Nancy’s mom angry with Nancy? 2. Did they solve the problem? How? Last month, our dog welcomed me when I came home from school. He wanted a walk, but I was too tired. I threw down my bag and went to the living room. The minute I sat down in front of the TV, my mom came over. “Could you please take the dog for a walk?” she asked. “Could I watch one show first?” I asked. “NO!” she replied angrily. “You watch TV all the time and never help out around the house! I can’t work all day and do housework all evening.” “Well, I work all day at school, too! I’m just as tired as you are!” I shou ted back. My mom did not say anything and walked away. For one week, she did not do any housework and neither did I. Finally, I could not find a clean dish or a clean shirt. The next day, my mom came home from work to find the house clean and tidy. “What happened?” she asked in surprise. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I finally understand that we need to share the housework to have a clean and comfortable home,” I replied.
M1U1 托尼：呣…..好香啊。你做的比萨看上去不错。 贝蒂：谢谢！来一点尝尝？ 托尼：好的。看上去不错，闻起来香喷喷的，呣，好吃。 大明：这上面是什么？ 贝蒂：噢，是奶酪，想尝一块吗？ 大明：啊！不用了，谢谢，我不喜欢奶酪。奶酪闻起来不新鲜，气味太大，吃起来有点酸。 贝蒂：嗯，我的巧克力饼干做好了，尝尝吧！ 大明：谢谢！很甜，里面很酥软。 托尼：你是不是在做很多不同的食物啊？你看上去挺忙的！ 贝蒂：是的。我做了比萨和饼干，现在我在做苹果派和蛋糕。 大明：苹果派听起来不错呢。我喜欢甜食，你知道的。我给你拿糖吧？ 贝蒂：好。噢，你确定你拿的是糖吗？先尝一下，可能是盐。 大明：没拿错，是甜的，是糖。 托尼：这是什么？也是甜的。 贝蒂：是草莓酱，做蛋糕用的。 大明：太好了。每种东西都是甜丝丝的。我今天可真幸运啊！ M1U2 玲玲： 你好！ 谢谢你上次的来信，收到你的信真是太好了。真想马上见到你。 希望你能凭着照片在机场认出我来。我的个子比较高，留着一头金色短发，戴眼镜。为了旅行方便，我将穿牛仔裤和T恤，但我也会拿一件厚点的外套。我这里有你的照片，你非常漂亮，我想我们肯定能认出对方来！ 谢谢你告诉我你的爱好，我俩的爱好非常相似！我花很多时间在学校和朋友弹奏古典音乐，我也喜欢舞曲——我喜欢跳舞。我也喜欢运动，尤其是网球。我哥哥在我们学校网球队，我为他感到非常自豪。他各方面都很优秀，而我不行。有时候考得不好，我会难过。我要更加努力。 你问我：“要来中国了，你有什么感受？”嗯，每当我要离开父母几天时，起初都会有点感伤。和陌生人一起的时候，我会很害羞，讲汉语时我会感到紧张，但是过几天就好了。当我不知道该如何正确处理事情时，心里总
玲玲：你好，萨莉！进来坐坐。对不起房间有点不整洁。我收拾一下桌椅。 萨莉：嗨！瞧这些扇子！它们很漂亮！你有一个相当好的收藏品。 玲玲：是的，我有五六十把扇子。你收藏什么东西吗？ 萨莉：有，我收藏娃娃。我弟弟收集邮票。 大明：我收藏票——你知道的，汽车标和火车票。 玲玲：真的吗？但是我真正的爱好是音乐。我一直拉小提琴和听音乐。 玲玲：什么使你对音乐如此感兴趣？ 萨莉：我爸爸是一位音乐家。我经常听他拉小提琴。八年前他就给了我第一把小提琴。 玲玲：而现在音乐把你带到中国来。你下次什么时候演奏？ 萨莉：在这学期末。在北京电视台有一个音乐会。 大明：因此你现在能轻松一点，对吗？ 萨莉：哦，不。我要和你一起上学。 玲玲：太棒了。 萨莉：但下星期五不行…… 大明：下星期五有什么要发生？ 萨莉：我要去北京电视台。我将在明星大搜索节目中做一个采访。 大明：我听说过那个节目。人们唱歌或演奏音乐，而听众选择最佳歌手或作曲者。 玲玲：哇！你将会真的很出名。 特别的爱好 很多学生都有爱好，比如阅读、绘画、在花园里种菜和照顾动物等。有些爱好是休闲型的，其他是创意型的。爱好可以使我们成长，培养我们的兴趣，帮助我们学习新的技能。 大卫史密斯是个学生，他的爱好是写作。在2000夏天，他在夏令营度过四周。除了常见的活动如驾驶帆船、登山和山地自行车运动之外，还有一个有专业作家参加的讨论会。她叫我们想象我们在一个故事中。然后我们写写我们在夏令营中的经历。在高中时，他写了一个关于青少年的故事，于2003年出版成书。很多十几岁的青少年都喜欢读他的书，而大卫也因此成为一名成功的年轻作家。 大卫是幸运的，他的爱好不仅给他带来了快乐，同时还带来了成功。不过，他还对很多其他事情感兴趣。“我也喜欢排球。”大卫说：“我花一些空闲时间为校排球队打排球。也许将来我会写更多的书，但我也不肯定。” 有时候，我们很难记住“不要把所有的时间都花在最大的爱好上”这个建议。生活中有很多其他有趣的事情可做，我们应该尝试新的或不同的事情。
M1 u1 詹姆斯老师：同学们，欢迎回来！今天，我们打算谈论一下学习英语的好方法。准备好了吗？ 谁有一些建议？ 玲玲：在课堂上我们应该总是讲英语。 詹姆斯老师：好！让我们尽可能多地讲英语。 大明：为什么不在我们笔记本上记下我们的错误呢？ 詹姆斯老师：那是个好主意，而且不要忘记在错误旁边写下正确的答案，还有什么其它的建议？玲玲：每天拼写并大声朗读新单词是个好主意。 詹姆斯老师：非常感谢，玲玲，听广播怎么样？ 大明：是的，那也有益于我们的发音。但有很多生词。 詹姆斯老师：你（们）不必理解每个单词（的含义）。你（们）只需要听关键词和主要意思。 大明：阅读也一样。英语故事很有趣。通过阅读我逐渐了解了世界上的许多事情。 玲玲：我认为写作也很重要。我们为什么不尽量去找些英语笔友呢？我们可以给他们写信。 詹姆斯老师：太棒了！我同意你的建议我。 M1 U2 把你的问题发送给语言博士黛安娜。 很多学生请求给予如何提高他们的英语水平的建议。这儿是三个基本问题。 第一个问是关于（如何）理解英文电影和歌曲。来自湖北的李浩写道：我喜欢看英文电影和听英文歌曲，但我理解的不多。我该怎么办呢？ 看电影和听歌曲是学习英语很好的方式！看和听几遍，并猜测生词的含义。每一遍你都会学到新东西。我还建议你和朋友们谈论一下这些电影或歌曲。 第二个问题是关于口语的。来自吉林的王帆写道：“我们学校有一位来自美国的老师。我很腼腆，不敢与她说话。我该怎么办？” 你可以说：“嗨！你好吗？”“你喜欢中国吗”这些都是展开交谈的好方式。在你开始（讲英语）前，你应该向她微笑！记住这一点：不要害羞，去试一试。 第三个问题是关于词汇的。来自安徽的张雷写道：我写下生词，但我很快就忘记了，我怎样才能记住它们呢？ 不用担心，忘记生词是很自然的！我建议你每天把四五个单词写在纸片上并放在你的房间里。看到这些单词的时候就读一读，并且尽量使用它们。 M2 u1 托尼：嘿，大明！你的周末过得怎么样？ 大明：很好！我去深圳了。 托尼：深圳在哪？ 大明：哦，它在靠近香港的海边上。大约30年前它是一个小村庄，但现在它是一个非常大的城市托尼：这么说它是一个比香港更新的城市？ 大明：是的，它是一个很新的城市。实际上，它只是在20世纪80年代才变得重要起来。它正变得更大，更繁华。我相信有一天它会变得和香港一样繁华。 托尼：深圳人口有多少？ 大明：我认为有1000多万，比中国许多其他城市的人口都多。它的街道也更宽，更干净。我认为它是一个美丽的城市。 托尼：我想有一天我去那里看看。 大明：记住去参观一下地王大厦，它比深圳的许多其他建筑物都高。 M2 u2 剑桥、伦敦和英格兰 托尼·史密斯 我来自剑桥，一座位于英格兰东部的美丽城市。它位于康河河畔，人口约12万。我的家乡尤以它的大学而闻名。许多名人在这儿学习过，比如艾萨克·牛顿和查尔斯·达尔文。这儿有许多古老的建筑和教堂可以参观。学生和游客们喜欢乘船沿河旅行。 剑桥距离伦敦80千米。伦敦在英格兰的南部，位于泰晤士河畔。伦敦人口大约750万，所以它比剑桥更大、更繁华。伦敦有大约2000年的历史。它因大本钟，白金汉宫和塔桥而闻名。 英格兰本身是一个岛的一部分，四面近海。海岸上的小村庄和海滩是度假很受欢迎的地方。游客们喜欢北部低矮的山区和美丽的湖泊，喜欢南部的小山和美村庄。在英格兰的任何地方你都会注意到乡村是那么绿。
人教版八年级下册英语课文翻译 第一单元 UNIT 1 2d 莉萨，你好吗?我头痛，并且脖子不能动。我该怎么办?我应该量体温吗?不，听起来不像是你发烧。周末你做什么了?我整个周末都在玩电脑游戏。那很可能就是原因。你需要离开电脑休息几次。是的，我想我是一个姿势坐得太久没有移动。我认为你应该躺下休息。如果明天你的头和脖子还痛的话，就去看医生。好的。谢谢，曼迪。 3a 昨天上午九点，26路公交车正行驶在中华路上，这时司机看到一位老人躺在路边。在他旁边的一位妇女在喊救命。公交车司机，24岁的王平，没有多想就停下了公交车。他下了车并且问那个妇女发生了什么事。她说那个人有心脏病，应该去医院。王先生知道他必须快点行动。他告诉乘客他必须送老人去医院。他希望大部分或全部乘客下车去等下一辆班车。但出乎他的意料，他们都同意和他一起去。一些乘客帮助王先生把那个老人移到公交车上。 多亏了王先生和乘客们，医生及时挽救了老人的生命。“许多人因为不想有麻烦而不想帮助别人，这令人难受，”一位乘客说。“但是这位司机没有考虑自己。他只考虑挽救一条生命。”
2b 他失去了手臂但还在爬山 阿伦?罗尔斯顿是一个对爬山感兴趣的美国人。作为一名登山者，阿伦习惯于冒险。这是关于做危险运动的令人兴奋的事情之一。有许多次，阿伦因为(意外)事故几乎失去生命。在2003年4月26日，在犹他州登山时他发现自己在非常危险的处境。 在那天，当阿伦独自登山时，他的手臂被压在落在他身上的一块2000千克的岩石下。因为他的手臂不能自由活动，他在那儿待了五天，希望有人会发现他。但当时他的水喝完了，他知道他将不得不采取措施来挽救自己的生命了。他不愿那天就死去。因此他用刀子切除了他的一半右臂。然后，他用左臂给自己打上绷带以至于他不会失去太多的血。这之后，他爬下山寻求帮助。 在他失去手臂之后，他写了一本名为《生死抉择》(又译作《生死两难》)的书。他的意思是“处于一个你似乎无法摆脱的困境之中。”在这本书中，阿伦讲述了关于做出明智抉择和掌握自己生命的重要性。他对登山如此酷爱以至于即使这次经历之后他还继续爬山。 我们有和阿伦一样的勇气吗?在我们发现自己处于进退两难的处境之 前以及在我们不得不做出生死抉择之前，让我们来想想它。
六年级上册《唯一的听众》课文内容 用父亲和妹妹的话来说，我在音乐方面简直是一个白痴。这是他们在经受了我数次“折磨”之后下的结论。在他们听来，我拉小夜曲就像在锯床腿。这些话使我感到十分沮丧，我不敢在家里练琴了。我发现了一个练琴的好地方，楼区后面的小山上有一片树林，地上铺满了落叶。 一天早晨，我蹑（niè）手蹑脚地走出家门，心里充满了神圣感，仿佛要去干一件非常伟大的事情。林子里静极了。沙沙的足音，听起来像一曲悠悠的小令。我在一棵树下站好，庄重地架起小提琴，像举行一个隆重的仪式，拉响了第一支曲子。但我很快又沮丧起来，我觉得自己似乎又把锯子带到了树林里。 我感觉到背后有人，转过身时，吓了一跳：一位极瘦极瘦的老妇人静静地坐在木椅上，平静地望着我。我的脸顿时烧起来，心想，这么难听的声音一定破坏了这林中的和谐，一定破坏了这位老人正独享的幽静。 我抱歉地冲老人笑了笑，准备溜走。老人叫住了我，说：“是我打扰了你吗，小伙子？不过，我每天早晨都在这儿坐一会儿。”一束阳光透过叶缝照在她的满头银丝上，“我想你一定拉得非常好，可惜我的耳朵聋了。如果不介意我在场，请继续吧。”
我指了指琴，摇了摇头。意思是说我拉不好。 “也许我会用心去感受这音乐。我能做你的听众吗，每天早晨？” 我被老人诗一般的语言打动了。我羞愧起来，同时有了几分兴奋。嘿，毕竟有人夸我了，尽管她是一个聋子。我拉了起来。以后，每天清晨，我都到小树林去练琴，面对我唯一的听众，一位耳聋的老人。她一直很平静地望着我。我停下来时，她总不忘说上一句：“真不错。我的心已经感受到了。谢谢你，小伙子。”我心里洋溢着一种从未有过的感觉。 很快我就发觉自己变了。我又开始在家里练琴了。从我紧闭门窗的房间里，常常传出基本练习曲的乐声。我站得很直，两臂累得又酸又痛，汗水湿透了衬衣。以前我是坐在木椅上练琴的。同时，每天清晨，我要面对一位耳聋的老人尽心尽力地演奏；而我唯一的听众总是早早地坐在木椅上等我。有一次，她说我的琴声能给她带来快乐和幸福。我也常常忘记她是聋子，只看见老人微笑着靠在木椅上，手指悄悄打着节奏。她慈祥的眼神平静地望着我，像深深的潭水…… 我一直珍藏着这个秘密，直到有一天，我的一曲《月光》奏鸣曲让专修音乐的妹妹大吃一惊。妹妹追问我得到了哪位名师的指点。我告诉她：“是一位老太太，就住在12号楼，非常瘦，满头白发，不过——她是个聋子。”
Unit3 Section A 2d A: Tony, could you please help out with a few things? B: Could I at least finish watching this show? A: No, I think two hours of TV is enough for you! B: Fine. What do you want me to do? A: Could you take out the rubbish fold the clothes and do the dishes? B: So much? A: Yes, because mom will be back from shopping any minute now. And she won't be happy if she sees this mess. B: But the house is already pretty clean and tidy! A: Yes, well, it is clean, but it is not "mother clean"! 3a Last month our dog welcomed me when I came home from school.He wanted a walk, but I was too tired.I threw down my bag and went to the living room.The minute I sat down in front of the TV, my mom came over."Could you please take the dog for a walk? "she asked. "Could I watch 1 show first?"I asked."No!"She replied angrily."You watch TV all the time and never help out around the house! I can't work all day and do housework all evening."Well, I work all day at school, too!I'm just as tired as you are!"I shouted back.
新目标人教版初二英语八年级英语上册课文翻译 Unit1 p3 格林中学的学生做什么？ 这是格林中学学生活动调查结果：大多数学生每周进行三至四次体育锻炼，有些学生每周进行一至两次体育锻炼。有些(some)学生很有活力，天天进行体育锻炼。至于家庭作业，大多数（most）学生每天都做家庭作业，有些(Some)学生每周做三至四次的家庭作业，没有）（No）学生一周做一至两次的家庭作业。“看电视”的调查结果很有意思。有些（Some）学生一周看一至两次电视，有些学生一周看三至四次（three or four times），而大部分学生每天看电视。 p5．．．．．．但我相当健康。我每天都锻炼，锻炼的时间通常是在我放学回家的时候。我的饮食习惯相当好。我努力吃大量的蔬菜，并且每天我都吃水果、喝牛奶。我从不喝咖啡。当然，我也喜欢吃垃圾食品，我每周吃二至三次。噢，而且每晚我睡9个小时。所以你看，我是在关注我的健康。我健康的生活方式帮助我取得好成绩。好的食品和锻炼帮助我学习得更好。 Unit2 P11一些健康的生活方式，中国的方式 传统中医认为我们要保持身体的阴阳平衡，这样才能健康。比如，你经常感到虚弱和疲倦吗？可能你阴气太盛。你应吃补阳的食物，如牛肉。吃党参和黄芪对此也很有益处。但是，压力大、易怒的人可能阳气太盛。中医认为他们应吃滋阴食品，如豆腐。现在，中药在很多西方国家流行。拥有一种健康的生活方式很容易，重要的是保持饮食平衡。 Unit3 P15托尼：假期你要干什么，林辉？林辉：我要去西藏待一个星期。 听起来很有趣！你要在那儿做什么？／我要在大山里徒步旅行。你呢，托尼？假期里你要干什么？／我要去看望在香港的朋友。／噢，真的？你要在那儿呆多久？／只呆四天。我不想离开太久。／好啦，祝你玩得愉快。从香港给我寄张明信片！／当然。我们回到学校时把你的照片给我看看。 P17本?兰伯特的假期计划！ 法国著名的歌手本?兰伯特今年夏天要度一个长假！他原想去希腊或西班牙，但最终还是决定去加拿大。“我总在欧洲度假。”他说道，“这一次我想做些不同的事情。我听说加拿大很美，并且我知道哪儿有许多人讲法语。”／本打算去加拿大的五大湖区。他要在六月的第一周动身并且一直呆到九月。他计划度过一个非常休闲的假期。“我要散步、去钓鱼、骑自行车旅行。我计划在美丽的
《唯一的听众》教案 学习目标 1、学习本课生字、新词，摘录印象深刻的句子。2、有感情地朗读课文，把握课文内容。 3、体会老教授对“我”的鼓励、给“我”带来的变化，感受人与人之间真情的美好。4、环境描写、人物心理描写的作用。教学目标1．学会6个生字。正确读写“神圣、悠悠、庄重、仪式、抱歉、溜走、介意、追问、荒唐、声望、割舍、大吃一惊”等词语。2．有感情地朗读课文。提出不懂的问题与同学讨论。抄写印象深刻的句子。3．理解课文内容，引导学生从老教授的言行与“我”的心理、行动变化两方面感受人对“我”的爱护、鼓励，以及“我”对她的敬佩、感激之情。教学重点引导学生从老教授的言行与“我”的心理、行动变化两方面感受老人对“我”的爱护、鼓励，以及“我”对她的敬佩、感激之情。教学准备：课件。教学时间：两课时教学过程：第一课时一、导入1．播放《月光奏鸣曲》。同学们，刚才你们听的这首小提琴曲美吗？大家听得多认真、多投入呀！你们，就是这首曲子的──听众（板书）可是，曲子好听琴难拉。有一位小提琴的爱好者，刚开始，他拉出的小夜曲，被人当作是锯桌腿的声音，他感到十分沮丧和灰心，但是后来，他成功了，这都是得益于他的那位──唯一的听众。板书：唯一的（理解词
语）2．齐读课题，质疑：同学们，读了课题，你最想问什么？同学们可真会提问题，老师把大家的问题归纳一下，不外乎这两个：“唯一的听众”是指谁？ “唯一的听众”她做了什么事情？二、初读课文1．那么，你有什么好办法解决这两个问题呢？（好好地读读课文）。2．下面就请同学们自读课文，要求能够读准字音，读通课文，读的时候也不要忘记想想这两个问题的答案。学生自由朗读课文3．现在这两个问题，你能解决吗？（1）“唯一的听众”是指谁？相机板书：老妇人这是一个怎样的老妇人呢？请同学们快速 浏览课文，找出文中相关的句子。交流： （）的老妇人（一位极瘦极瘦的老妇人静静地坐在木椅上，平静地望着我。）（2）“唯一的听众”她做了什么事情？（父亲和妹妹说“我”在音乐方面是个白痴，使“我”十分沮丧，不敢在家中练琴。于是“我”到林中练琴，遇到一位自称耳聋的老妇人，她猜想“我”拉得很好，并愿意天天做“我”的听众。每次“我”停下练琴，她总是夸奖“真不错”。在她的鼓励下，“我”找回了自信，又回到家中练琴。最后写“我”从妹妹那儿知道了老妇人的真实身份，心灵受到震撼。后来拉小提琴成了“我”无法割舍的爱好，每次演出时总会想起这位德高望重的老人。） 4、老师还要检查一下大家对字词的预习情况白痴荒唐声望沮丧绝望懊恼神圣