21世纪大学英语读写教程第三册Unit7课文讲解

21世纪大学英语读写教程第三册Unit7课文讲解

21世纪大学英语读写教程第三册Unit7课文讲解

导语：业余活动有很多，看你喜欢花时间在哪一方面上，下面是一篇关于业余活动的英语课文，欢迎大家阅读。

Pre-reading Activities

Before you listen to the passage

1. Take a minute with a partner to match the sports in

Column A with the playing areas in Column B. Then in Column C,

list all the things (equipment, special clothing, etc.) that are

necessary to each of the sports.

Column A

baseball

bowling

golf

running

soccer (football)

tennis

Column B

alley

course

court

diamond

field (pitch)

track

Column C

_____

_____

_____

_____ _____

_____

Now listen to the passage

2. Which sport is it about? Compare your equipment list with

the equipment mentioned on the tape. What attracts you to the

activities that you enjoy in your spare time? How important is it

to you to "do them right"?

So What's So Bad About Being So-So?

Lisa Wilson Strick

The other afternoon I was playing the piano when my seven-year-old walked in. He stopped and listened for a while, then said:

"You don't play that thing very well, do you, Mom?"

No, I don't. My performance would make any serious music

student weep, but I don't care. I've enjoyed playing the piano

badly for years.

I also enjoy singing badly and drawing badly. I'm not

ashamed of my incompetence in these areas. I do one or two

other things well and that should be enough for anybody. But it

gets boring doing the same things over and over. Every now and

then it's fun to try something new.

Unfortunately, doing things badly has gone out of style. It

used to be a mark of class if a lady or a gentleman sang a little,

painted a little, played the violin a little. You didn't have to be

good at it; the point was to be fortunate enough to have the

leisure time for such pursuits. But in today's competitive world

we have to be "experts" even in our hobbies.

You can't tone up your body by pulling on your gym shoes

and jogging around the block a couple of times anymore. Why?

Because you'll be laughed off the street by the "serious runners"

— the ones who run twenty miles or more a week in their sixty-dollar running suits and fancy shoes. The shoes are really a big

deal. If you say you're thinking about taking up almost any sport,

the first thing the "serious" types will ask is what you plan to do

about shoes. Leather or canvas? What type of soles? Which brand?

This is not the time to mention that the gym shoes you wore in

high school are still in pretty good shape. As far as sports

enthusiasts are concerned, if you don't have the latest shoes you

are hopelessly committed to embarrassing yourself.

The runners aren't nearly so snobbish as the dancers,

however. In case you didn't know, "going dancing" no longer

means putting on a pretty dress and doing a few turns around

the dance floor with your favorite man on Saturday night.

"Dancing" means squeezing into tights and leg warmers, then

sweating through six hours of warm-ups, five hours of ballet and

four hours of jazz classes. Every week. Never tell anyone that you

"like to dance" unless this is the sort of activity you enjoy.

Have you noticed what this is doing to our children? "We

don't want that nerd on our soccer team," I overheard a ten-year-old complain the other day. "He doesn't know a goal kick from a

head shot." As it happens, the "nerd" that the boy was talking

about was my son, who did not — like some of his friends — start

soccer instruction at age three. I'm sorry, Son, I guess I blew it. In

my day, when we played baseball, we expected to give a little

instruction to the younger kids who didn't know how to play. It

didn't matter if they were terrible; we weren't out to slaughter the

other team. Sometimes we didn't even keep score. To us, sports

were just a way of having a good time.

I don't think kids have as much fun as they used to.

Competition keeps getting in the way. The daughter of a

neighbor is a nervous wreck worrying about getting into the best tennis school. "I was a late starter," she told me, "and I only get

to practice five or six hours a week, so my technique may not be

up to their standards." The child is nine. She doesn't want to be

a tennis player when she grows up; she wants to be a nurse. I

asked what she likes to do for fun in her free time. She seemed

to think it was an odd question. "Well, I don't actually have a lot

of free time," she said. "Homework and tennis and piano lessons

kind of eat it all up. I have piano lessons three times a week now,

so I have a good shot at getting into the all-state orchestra."

Ambition, drive and the desire to excel are all great within

limits, but I don't know where the limits are anymore. I know a