21世纪研究生英语教材阅读教程

Lesson 1 Spillonomics: Underestimating Risk[1] In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. BakerⅢ, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues”.[2] Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely—but that would bring enormous costs.[3] Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine an itwas.[4]For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally, ”Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic—and opposite—types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen , at least not to them.[5] Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble because it had never been in one before. Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house prices would decline. And may home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgages, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price rose. That’s what house prices did, it seemed.[6]On the other hand, when an unlikely event is all too easy to imagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and took to the road. There were no terrorist attacks in this country in 2002, yet theadditional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalities.[7]When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.[8] In a little-noticed provision in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller’s liability over and above cleanup costs at $7500 million for a rig spill. Even if the party is on the hook for only $7500 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claims it deems legitimate. ) Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.[9] In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress and Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reducethe risks of another deep-water disaster. Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway of industry. But it would be foolish to think that the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salient.[10]The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble. Instead, it may be the huge deficits that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years—and the possibility that lender will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get worked up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured on the Unite States government before and show no signs of doing so now. but isn’t that reminiscent of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?[11]Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells ( among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least three degrees over the next century and cause droughts, storms and more ice-cap melting. The researcher’s estimates have risen recently, too, and it is also possible the planet could get around 12 degree hotter. That kind of could flood major cities and cause parts of Antarctica to collapse.[12]Nothing like that has ever happened before. Even imagining it is difficult. It is much easier to hope that the odds of such an outcome are vanishingly small. In fact, it’s only natural to have this hope. But that doesn’t make it wise.。

Unit 5 Why genes aren’t destiny为什么基因不是命运The remote, snow-swept expanses of northern Sweden are an unlikely place to begin a story about cutting-edge genetic science. The kingdom's northernmost county, Norrbotten, is nearly free of human life; an average of just six people live in each square mile. And yet this tiny population can reveal a lot about how genes work in our everyday lives.1. 偏远，白雪皑皑的瑞典北部区域不像是一个关于最前沿的基因科学的故事开始的地方。

北博滕是这片区域最北部的一个镇，那儿人烟稀少，每平方公里平均只有两人居住。

然而如此稀少的人口却大大揭示了基因在我们日常生活中的作用。

Norrbotten is so isolated that in the 19th century, if the harvest was bad, people starved. The starving years were all the crueler for their unpredictability. For instance, 1800, 1812, 1821, 1836 and 1856 were years of total crop failure and extreme suffering. But in 1801, 1822, 1828, 1844 and 1863, the land spilled forth such abundance that the same people who had gone hungry in previous winters were able to gorge themselves for months.2. 北博滕是如此的与世隔绝以至于在十九世纪时，如果收成不好，人们就只能挨饿。

研究生英语阅读教程上册UNIT1-6课后答案及翻译刘朝武主编《21世纪研究生英语教材》阅读教程UNIT1-6课后答案及课文翻译（上册）UNIT ONEThe Belly BurdenAmanda SpakeKey to ExercisesI. Reading Comprehensioni 1. B 2. C 3. C 4. D 5. C 6. D 7. C 8. B 9. B 10. Aii (略)II Vocabulary and Structurei 1.Obesity 2.circulate 3.abdominal 4.break down 5.mortality6.variable7.resistance8.modified9.critically 10. inertii 1. internist 2.supplant. 3.willowy (twiggy) 4.slow down 5.set off 6. nonchalantly 7.accumulate 8. unravel 9.culprit 10. affirm III Cloze1. D2. A3. B4. A5. B6. D7. C8. A9. D 10. C 11. B 12. B 13. A 14. A 15. D 16. C 17. B 18. A 19. A 20. C IV Translationi1. 几个世纪以来，妇女们始终相信一条朴实的真理：腰越细，生活就越好—医学研究者们如今正开始了解这一简单真理背后的生理机能。

2.与腹部脂肪是位于腰部无所事事的惰性软组织这一观念相反，腹部脂肪实际上是一些小的内分泌工厂，会制造一些把信息传送给许多器官的激素。

3. 医学解开代谢之谜是脂肪的难题尚需数十年。

医生们说，在此期间采取的主要行动是制止腰部变粗。

萨瓦德说：“我们每个人都需要放慢让自己体形变得更像苹果的过程。

体形实在不容忽视。

Unit 9 End-of-life care临终关怀Into the sunset桑榆迟暮The idea that the terminally ill need pain relief and humane care instead of 'curing' is catching on. But what about the people who just grow old?1 绝症患者所需要的不是“治疗”，而是减轻痛苦和人道关怀，这一点正逐步得到认同。

但对那些走向死亡的老者又应如何？'MOST things may never happen: this one will.' That stark allusion to death, penned by the poet Philip Larkin, sums up the philosophical starting-point of the hospice movement, which began in Britain 40 years ago and has since become influential, in various ways, in almost every corner of the world. Given that your time on earth is bound to finish one day, assuring a decent quality of life in the final months and years often makes better sense than trying to prolong a painful existence for a short period; so in many cases, loving care and pain relief should take priority over aggressive intervention. When Dame Cicely Saunders, who founded the Saint Christopher's Hospice in London in 1967, first aired those ideas, the medical world was hostile. Now her beliefs enjoy wide acceptance.2 “世间事多数未必发生，唯有这一桩必定发生。

Lesson 1 Spillonomics: Underestimating Risk[1] In retrospect, the pattern seems clear. Years before the Deepwater Horizon rig blew, BP was developing a reputation as an oil company that took safety risks to save money. An explosion at a Texas refinery killed 15 workers in 2005, and federal regulators and a panel led by James A. BakerⅢ, the former secretary of state, said that cost cutting was partly to blame. The next year, a corroded pipeline in Alaska poured oil into Prudhoe Bay. None other than Joe Barton, a Republican congressman from Texas and a global-warming skeptic, upbraided BP managers for their “seeming indifference to safety and environmental issues”.[2] Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work. The people running BP did a dreadful job of estimating the true chances of events that seemed unlikely—but that would bring enormous costs.[3] Perhaps the easiest way to see this is to consider what BP executives must be thinking today. Surely, given the expense of the clean-up and the hit to BP’s reputation, the executives wish they could go back and spend the extra money to make Deepwater Horizon safer. That they did not suggests that they figured the rig would be fine an itwas.[4]For all the criticism BP executives may deserve, they are far from the only people to struggle with such low-probability, high-cost events. Nearly everyone does. “These are precisely the kinds of events that are hard for us as humans to get our hands around and react to rationally, ”Robert N. Stavins, an environmental economist at Harvard, says. We make two basic—and opposite—types of mistakes. When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood. This is the proverbial black swan. Most of the people running Deepwater Horizon probably never had a rig explode on them. So they assumed it would not happen , at least not to them.[5] Similarly, Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan liked to argue, not so long ago, that the national real estate market was not in a bubble because it had never been in one before. Wall Street traders took the same view and built mathematical models that did not allow for the possibility that house prices would decline. And may home buyers signed up for unaffordable mortgages, believing they could refinance or sell the house once its price rose. That’s what house prices did, it seemed.[6]On the other hand, when an unlikely event is all too easy to imagine, we often go in the opposite direction and overestimate the odds. After the 9/11 attacks, Americans canceled plane trips and took to the road. There were no terrorist attacks in this country in 2002, yet theadditional driving apparently led to an increase in traffic fatalities.[7]When the stakes are high enough, it falls to government to help its citizens avoid these entirely human errors. The market, left to its own devices, often cannot do so. Yet in the case of Deepwater Horizon, government policy actually went the other way. It encouraged BP to underestimate the odds of a catastrophe.[8] In a little-noticed provision in a 1990 law passed after the Exxon Valdez spill, Congress capped a spiller’s liability over and above cleanup costs at $7500 million for a rig spill. Even if the party is on the hook for only $7500 million. (In this instance, BP has agreed to waive the cap for claims it deems legitimate. ) Michael Greenstone, an M.I.T. economist who runs the Hamilton Project in Washington, says the law fundamentally distorts a company’s decision making. Without the cap, executives would have to weigh the possible revenue from a well against the cost of drilling there and the risk of damage. With the cap, they can largely ignore the potential damage beyond cleanup costs. So they end up drilling wells even in places where the damage can be horrific, like close to a shoreline. To put it another way, human frailty helped BP’s executives underestimate the chance of a low-probability, high-cost event. Federal law helped them underestimate the costs.[9] In the wake of Deepwater Horizon, Congress and Obama administration will no doubt be tempted to pass laws meant to reducethe risks of another deep-water disaster. Certainly there are some sensible steps they can take, like lifting the liability cap and freeing regulators from the sway of industry. But it would be foolish to think that the only risks we are still underestimating are the ones that have suddenly become salient.[10]The big financial risk is no longer a housing bubble. Instead, it may be the huge deficits that the growth of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will cause in coming years—and the possibility that lender will eventually become nervous about extending credit to Washington. True, some economists and policy makers insist the country should not get worked up about this possibility, because lenders have never soured on the Unite States government before and show no signs of doing so now. but isn’t that reminiscent of the old Bernanke-Greenspan tune about the housing market?[11]Then, of course, there are the greenhouse gases that oil wells ( among other things) send into the atmosphere even when the wells function properly. Scientists say the buildup of these gases is already likely to warm the planet by at least three degrees over the next century and cause droughts, storms and more ice-cap melting. The researcher’s estimates have risen recently, too, and it is also possible the planet could get around 12 degree hotter. That kind of could flood major cities and cause parts of Antarctica to collapse.[12]Nothing like that has ever happened before. Even imagining it is difficult. It is much easier to hope that the odds of such an outcome are vanishingly small. In fact, it’s only natural to have this hope. But that doesn’t make it wise.。

课文全文参考译文第一课漏油经济：低估风险戴维伦哈特·[1] 回想起来，模式似乎很清楚。

早在“深水地平线”钻机自爆前的很多年，BP 石油公司为了省钱甘冒安全的风险就已经声名狼藉。

2005 年得克萨斯州炼油厂爆炸中有15 名工人丧生。

联邦监管机构和前国务卿詹姆斯·贝克三世领导的专门小组认为，削减成本是事故的部分原因。

第二年，阿拉斯加腐蚀的管道将石油漏入普拉德霍湾。

就连乔·巴顿，对全球变暖持怀疑态度、来自得克萨斯州的共和党众议员，都谴责BP 管理人员“对安全和环境问题表现得漠不关心”。

[2] 这种冷漠大部分源于对利润的过度追求，不管出现什么情况。

但似乎也还有另一个因素在起作用，一个更普遍的人性的因素。

BP 的管理人员在估计似乎不太可能发生但一旦发生就会带来巨大损失的事件真正会发生的可能性时，犯了一个可怕的错误。

[3] 也许理解这一点最简单的方法就是思考一下BP 高管们如今的想法。

显然，考虑到清理费用和对BP 声誉的影响，高管们真希望可以回到过去，多花些钱让“深水地平线”更安全。

他们没有增加这笔费用就表明他们认为钻机在当时的状态下不会出问题。

[4] 尽管针对BP 高管的所有批评可能都是他们应得的，但是他们绝不是唯一艰难应对这种低概率、高成本事件的人。

几乎每个人都会如此。

“这些正是我们人类处理时很难做出合理反应的一类事件，”哈佛大学环境经济学家罗伯特·斯塔文斯说。

我们经常犯两种基本且性质相反的错误。

当一件事情是很难想象的，我们往往会低估它的可能性。

这就是众所周知的黑天鹅（稀有之物）现象。

大多数在“深水地平线”工作的人可能从未经历过钻井平台爆炸。

因此他们认为这不会发生，至少不会发生在他们身上。

[5] 同样，不久以前，本·伯南克和艾伦·格林斯潘也喜欢称全国房地产市场没有泡沫，因为以前从未有过泡沫。

华尔街交易员也持同样观点，他们建立的数学模型根本不存在房价下降的可能性。

Unit 3Economicsdeficit n.■［英JfdefisitlJ 美『血fisitLthe difference between the amount of something that you have and the higher amount that you need 赤字■shortfallin deficit■美国的国际收支平衡出现逆差。

■The US balance of payments was in deficiton course to do sth■likely to do sth■我们看可能打进锦标赛。

■We are on course to qualify for the championship.no end in sight■unlikely to end soon■罢工开给至今已六个月了，眼下还看不到结束的迹象。

■Six months from the start of the strike there is still no end in sight finance v.■to provide money to pay for sth 为…提供资金■fund v.■inflation n.■ a continuing increase in prices 物价上涨，通货膨胀■deflation通过紧缩■depreciation (line 3, para. 1)■［英Jldijprij/ifei/enlJ 美］［di’priJTe/onL■decrease in the value of a currency relative to other currencies (货币)贬值■外汇贬值是有关国家经济不景气的结果。

■Foreign currency depreciation is a result of economic depression in the country concerned.■knowledgeable adj.■learned■well-informedunsustainable adj.■unable to continue 难以维持的sustain v.■to make sth continue■maintain■她发现很难维持孩子们的兴趣。

Biographies and personal recollections传记和个人回忆Biography is writing the story of someone's life (it is an autobiography if the story is about the author himself or herself). Most biographies are about famous people—movie stars, important historical figures, scientists who changed the world, and so on—but some writers have had success writing about ordinary people, too.传记是写某人一生的故事（如果故事是关于作者本人的，那就是自传）。

大多数传记都是关于名人、电影明星、重要的历史人物、改变世界的科学家等，但也有一些作家成功地描写了普通人。

In general, autobiography is easier to make than biography. That is because in autobiography the author could easily include all kinds of stuff材料，原料，资料like snippets （尤指讲话或文字的）小片，片段，零星的话of the author's own poetry, stream of consciousness writing or whatever else seems appropriate, whereas the author may not be able to find that kind of material when the author is writing about someone else. The author also can't really make up dialogues or dramatic scenes for effect (where the author could pull scenes and dialogue from the author's own life). It is a limitation imposed by the material available, though, rather than the form itself.Now that we know the author can't make up things like scenes and dialogues when the author is writing biography, however, it is possible that the author is writing a biographical novel. A biographical novel is really fiction based on non-fiction, rather than non-fiction that uses the techniques of fiction. In addition, if the author has recorded dialogues or actions, the author can transcribe them into his or her works. In a word, it all depends on what material is available.现在我们知道作者在写传记的时候不能编造场景和对话之类的东西，但是，有可能作者在写传记小说。

研究生英语阅读教程（基础级2版）课本01READING SELECTION AWorld English: A Blessing or a Curse? Universal languageBy Tom McArthur[1] In the year 2000, the language scholar Glanville Price, a Welshman, made the following assertion as editor of the book Languages in Britain and Ireland:For English is a killer. It is English that has killed off Cumbric, Cornish, Norn and Manx. There are still parts of these islands where sizeable communities speak languages that were there before English. Yet English is everywhere in everyday use and understood by all or virtually all, constituting such a threat to the three remaining Celtic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh... that their long-term future must be considered... very greatly at risk. (p 141)Some years earlier, in 1992, Robert Phillipson, English academic who currently works in Denmark, published with Oxford a book entitled Linguistic Imperialism. In it, he argued that the major English-speaking countries, the worldwide English-language teaching industry, and notably the British Council pursue policies of linguistic aggrandisement. He also associated such policies with a prejudice which he calls linguicism(a condition parallel to(equal to/ similar to) racism and sexism). As Phillipson sees it, leading institutions and individuals within the predominantly "white" English-speaking world, have [by design(=deliberate) or default(=mistake)] encouraged or at least tolerated—and certainly have not opposed—the hegemonic spread of English, a spread which began some three centuries ago as economic and colonial expansion.[2] Phillipson himself worked for some years for the British Council, and he is not alone among Anglophone academics who have sought to point up the dangers of English as a world language. The internationalization of English has in the last few decades been widely discussed in terms of three groups: first, the ENL countries, where English is a native language (this group also being known as the "inner circle"); second, the ESL countries, where English is a second language (the "outer circle"); and third, the EFL countries, where English is a foreign language (the "expanding circle"). Since the 1980s, when such terms became common, this third circle has in fact expanded to take in the entire planet.[3] For good or for ill, there has never been a language quite like English. There have been many "world languages", such as Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit. By and large, we now view them as more or less benign, and often talk with admiration and appreciation about the cultures associated with them and what they have given to the world. And it is fairly safe to do this, because none of them now poses much of a threat.[4] English however is probably too close for us to be able to analyze and judge it as dispassionately, as we may now discuss the influence of Classical Chinese on East Asia or of Classical Latin on Western Europe. The jury is still out in the trial of the English language, and may take several centuries to produce its verdict, but even so we can ask, in this European Year of Languages, whether Price and Phillipson are right to warn us all about the language that I am using at this very moment.[5] It certainly isn't hard to look for situations where people might call English a curse. An example is Australia, which is routinely regarded as a straightforward English-speaking country.The first Europeans who went there often used Latin to describe and discuss the place. The word Australia itself is Latin; evidently no one at the time thought of simply calling it "Southland" (which is what Australia means). In addition, in South Australia there is a wide stretch of land called the Nullarbor Plains, the first word of which sounds Aboriginal, but nullarbor is Latin and means "no trees". And most significantly of all, the early settlers called the continent a terra nullius. According to the Encarta World English Dictionary (1999) the Latin phrase terra nullius means: ... the idea and legal concept that when the first Europeans arrived in Australia the land was owned by no one and therefore open to settlement. It has been judged not to be legally valid.But that judgment was made only recently. When the Europeans arrived, Australia was thinly populated—but populated nonetheless—from coast to coast in every direction. There were hundreds of communities and languages. Many of these languages have died out, many more are in the process of dying out, and these deadand dying languages have been largely replaced by either kinds of pidgin English or general Australian English. Depending on your point of view, this is either a tragic loss or the price of progress.[6] At the same time, however, can the blame for the extinction of Aboriginal languages be laid specifically at the door of English? The first Europeans to discover Australia were Dutch, and their language might have become the language of colonization and settlement. Any settler language could have had the same effect. If for example the Mongols had sustained their vast Eurasian empire, Mongolian might have become a world language and gone to Australia. Again, if history had beensomewhat different, today's world language might have been Arabic, a powerful language in West Asia and North Africa that currently affects many smaller languages, including Coptic and Berber. Spanish has adversely affected indigenous languages in so-called "Latin" America, and Russian has spread from Europe to the Siberian Pacific. If English is a curse and a killer, it may only be so in the sense that any large language is likely to influence and endanger smaller languages.[7] Yet many people see English as a blessing. Let me leave aside here the obvious advantages possessed by any world language, such as a large communicative network, a strong literary and media complex, and a powerful cultural and educational apparatus. Let us instead look at something rather different: the issue of politics, justice, and equality. My object lesson this time is South Africa. Ten years ago, South Africa ceased to be governed on principles of racial separateness, a system known in Afrikaans (a language derived from Dutch) as apartheid. The system arose because the Afrikaner community—European settlers of mainly Dutch descent—saw themselves as superior to the indigenous people of the land they had colonized.[8] English-speaking South Africans of British descent were not particularly strong in opposing the apartheid regime, and the black opposition, whose members had many languages, was at first weak and disorganized. However, the language through which this opposition gained strength and organization was English, which became for them the key language of freedom and unity, not of oppression. There are today eleven official languages in South Africa—English, Afrikaans, and nine vernacular languages that include Zulu, Ndebele, and Setswana. But which of these nine do black South Africans use (or plan touse) as their national lingua franca? Which do they wish their children to speak and write successfully (in addition to their mother tongues)? The answer is none of the above. They want English, and in particular they want a suitably Africanized English.[9] So, a curse for the indigenous peoples of Australia and something of a blessing for those in South Africa...[10] How then should we think of English in our globalizing world with its endangered diversities? The answer, it seems to me, is crystal clear. Like many things, English is at times a blessing and at times a curse—for individuals, for communities, for nations, and even for unions of nations. The East Asian symbolism of yin and yang might serve well here: There is something of yang in every yin, of yin in every yang. Although they are opposites, they belong together: in this instance within the circle of communication. Such symbolism suggests that the users of the world's lingua franca should seek to benefit as fully as possible from the blessing and as far as possible avoid invoking the curse. (1, 292 words)ABOUT THE AUTHORDr. Tom McArthur is founder editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language(1992) and the quarterly English Today: The International Review of the English Language (Cambridge, 1985— ). His more than 20 published works include the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English (1981), Worlds of Reference: Language, Lexicography and Learning from the Clay Tablet to the Computer(1986), and The English Languages(1998). He is currently Deputy Director of the Dictionary Research Center at the University of Exeter.EXERCISESI. Reading ComprehensionAnswer the following questions or complete the, following statements.1. It can be inferred from Glanville Price's statement that he is ______.A. happy that English is everywhere in Britain and IrelandB. worried about the future of the remaining Celtic languagesC. shocked by the diversity of languages in Britain and IrelandD. amazed that many people in the UK still speak their Aboriginal languages2. Cumbric is used as an example of ______.A. a local dialectB. a victim of the English languageC. a language that is on the verge of extinctionD. a language that is used by only a limited number of people3. Which of the following is the major concern of the book Linguistic Imperialism?A. English teaching overseas.B. British government's language policies.C. Dominance of English over other languages.D. The role of English in technology advancement.4. Both Price and Phillipson are ______.A. government officialsB. advocates of linguistic imperialismC. in support of language policies carried out by the British CouncilD. concerned about the negative effect of English on smaller languages5. According to the text, the EFL countries ______.A. are large in numberB. is known as the "outer circle"C. will be endangered by EnglishD. have made English their official language6. According to McArthur, Chinese is different from English in that ______.A. it has made a great contribution to the worldB. it has had positive influence on other languagesC. it may result in the disappearance of other languagesD. it probably will not endanger the existence of other languages7. When he said the jury is out in the trial" (Line 3, Paragraph4), McArthur meant ______.A. punishment is dueB. the jury is waiting for a trialC. no decision has been made yetD. there is no one to make the decision8. Australia might be used as an example to show that ______.A. languages are changing all the timeB. some English words are derived from LatinC. English has promoted the progress of some nationsD. English should be blamed for the extinction of smaller languages9. Many people see English as a blessing for people in ______.A. AustraliaB. East AsiaC. South AfricaD. ESL countries10. The main theme of this speech is that ______.A. English should be taught worldwideB. English as a world language does more harm than goodC. we should be objective to the internationalization of EnglishD. we should be aware of (realize) the danger of English as a world languageB. Questions on global understanding and logical structures1. Why does McArthur introduce Glanville Price and Robert Phillipson's points of view on the spread of English? What is his? Intention?McArthur quotes Price’s assertion and cites Pillipson’s viewpoint on the spread of English as sort of cons to initiate his argument. Cons are usually popular ly believed arguments or opinions that are against the author’s point of view. Cons are commonly used writing techniques and are often employed in order to appeal the audience and h ighlight the author’s viewpoint.2. Does McArthur agree with what Price and Phillipson argued? From as early as which section does McArthur show his attitude? Toward the dominance of English as a world English?No. McArthur’s opinion is different from Pric e and Pillipson’s arguments. He doesn’t believe that English is a killer and should be blamed for the extinction of smaller languages. He sees English as both a blessing and a curse, maybe as a blessing more than a curse. After introducing Price and Pillip son’s viewpoints, McArthur writes about his own ideas on the issue of En glish as a world language. From the sentence “For good or for ill, there has never been a language quite like English”, we can learn that McArthur does not curse English like Price and Pillipson and he has a different point of view.3. By reading "It certainly isn't hard to look for situations where people might call English a curse", could we conclude thatMcArthur believes English is a curse?No. This sentence is a kind of justification. Although McArthur literally justifies the fact that there are situ ations where people might call English a curse, he doesn’t believe that English is virtually a curse. By adding the word “certainly” McArthur shows his intent.4. Could you pick up some words and expressions that signal change or continuation in McArthur's thought?“For good or for ill”(paragraph 3) /“however” (paragraph 4) /“But”(paragraph 5) / “At the same time, however”(paragraph 6) /“Yet”(paragraph 7)5. How many parts can this speech be divided? How are the parts organized?Part One: paragraphs 1 and 2. These two paragraphs introduce the situation that many academics argue against English as a world language.Part Two: paragraphs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Paragraph three is a transit ional paragraph that initiates McArthur’s own argument. In these pa ragraphs McArthur argues that English is not only a curse as many people have believed, but a blessing as well.Part Three: paragraph 10. McArthur concludes in the last paragraph that English may be a curse or a blessing depends on different situations and we should make advantages of world languages and avoid their disadvantages.II. VocabularyA. Choose the best word from the four choices to complete each of the following sentences.1. There has been much opposition from some social groups, ______ from the farming community.A. straightforwardlyB. notablyC. virtuallyD. exceptionally2. The ______ view in Britain and other Western countries associates aging with decline, dependency, isolation, and often poverty.A. predominantB. credulousC. inclusiveD. sustainable3. But gifts such as these cannot be awarded to everybody, either by judges or by the most ___ of governments./ reward rewardingA. toughB. demandingC. diverseD. benign4. The foreman read the ______ of guilty fourteen times, one for each defendant.A. prejudiceB. verificationC. verdictD. punishment5. They fear it could have a(n) ______ effect on global financial markets.A. sizeableB. adverse(negative)C. beneficialD. consequential6. The UN threatened to ______ economic sanctions if the talks were broken off.A. engageB. pursueC. abandon/ abundantD. invoke7. There are at least four crucial differences between the new ______ and the old government.A. regimeB. hegemonyC. complexD. federation/ fedal<->federal, confederate)8. These questions ______ a challenge to established attitude of superiority toward the outside world.A. evolveB. constituteC. tolerateD. aroused9. Because of this, a strong administrative ______ was needed to plan the use of scarce resources, organize production and regulate distribution.A. apparatusB. constitutionC. insistenceD. promotion10. I learnt that there are no genuinely ______ animals in this area, all the animals were brought here from other places.A. endangeredB. domesticatedC. indigenousD. extinctB. Choose the hest word or expression from the list given for each Honk Use each word or expression only once and make proper changes where necessary.point up by and large take in descent for good or illleave aside crystal clear die out endanger lay... at the door of1. The book concludes with a review of the possible impact (influence) of more intimate computers for good or ill, in various areas of human life.2. Moreover, it had become clear from the opinion polls that the unpopularity of the new tax was being laid at the door of the government which had introduced it, rather than the local authorities who were responsible for levying and collecting it.3. This case gave the example of breaking someone's arm: that is a really serious injury, but one which isunlikely to endanger the victim's life.4. Many of those who hold it live in poor areas and some are Colored, that is (i.e./ namely), of mixed European and African descent.5. This debate is important because it points up (stress/ emphasize) that "the facts" are not necessarily as simple and straightforward as they might at first sight seem.6. In the beginning, the meaning of life might be debated, but once past the first period, many of the conversations follow a well-worn route from one topic to the next and back again, taking in most of human life.7. But since agriculture forms the basis (base) of our industry, it was, by and large (on the whole), also an intensification of the crisis in the national economy in general.8. Let us leave aside other relevant factors such as education,career structure, pay and conditions of service and concentrate on (focus on) manpower management.(relate A to B)9. It is true that the exact nature of this issue is uncertain. However, one thing is crystal clear: it will not endanger the planet and its inhabitants.10. But if animal populations are too small, then they simply die out.III. ClozeThere are ten blanks in the following passage. Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer from the four choices given for each blank. [criteria: (1)semantic/ (2)grammatic]A simplified form of the English language based on 850 key words was developed in the late 1920s by the English psychologist Charles Kay Ogden and 1 by the English educator I.A. Richards. Known as Basic English, it was used mainly to teach English to non-English-speaking persons and 2 as an international language. The complexities of English spelling and grammar, however, were major 3 to the adoption of Basic English as a second language.The fundamental principle of Basic English was that any idea, 4 complex, may be reduced to simple units of thought and expressed clearly by a limited number of everyday words. The 850-word primary vocabulary was 5 600 nouns (representing things or events), 150 adjectives (for qualities and _ 6 ), and 100 general "operational" words, mainly verbs and prepositions. Almost all the words were in 7 use in English-speaking countries. More than 60 percent of them were one-syllable words. The basic vocabulary was created 8 by eliminating 9 the use of 18 "basic" verbs, such as make, get, do, have, and be.Numerous words which have the same or similar meaningsand by verbs, such as make, get, do, have, and be. These verbs were generally combined with prepositions, such as up, among, under, in, and forward. For example, a Basic English student would use the expression “go up”10 "ascend". (Semantic / grammatical criterion)1. A. created B. publicized C. invented D. operated2. A. proved B. provided C. projected D. promoted3. A. advantages B. objections C. obstacles D. facileties4. A. however B. whatever C. wherever D. whenever5. A. comprised of B. made of C. composed of D. constituted of6. A. personalities B. properties C. preferences D. perceptions/ perceive)7. A. common B. ordinary C. average D. nonprofessional8. A. in all B. at times C. for good D. in part/ partially)9. A. experiencing B. exchanging C. excluding D. extending10. A. in spite of =despite B. in favor of C. instead of D. in case ofII. TranslationPut the following passages into Chinese.1. For English is a killer. It is English that has killed off Cumbric, Cornish, Norn and Manx. There are still parts of these islands where sizeable communities speak languages that were there before English. Yet English is everywhere in everyday use and understood by all or virtually all, constituting such a threat to the three remaining Celtic languages, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Welsh... that their long-term future must be considered... very greatly at risk.因为英语是个杀手。