新标准大学英语综合教程2原文UNIT1College just isn't special any more1 "If you can remember anything about the 1960s, you weren't really there," so the saying goes. It may be true for those who spent their college years in a haze of marijuana smoke. But there is one thing everyone remembers about the 1960s: Going to college was the most exciting and stimulating experience of your life.2 In the 1960s, California's colleges and universities had transformed the state into the world's seventh largest economy. However, Berkeley, the University of California's main campus, was also well-known for its student demonstrations and strikes, and its atmosphere of political radicalism. When Ronald Reagan ran for office as governor of California in 1966, he asked if Californians would allow "a great university to be brought to its knees by a noisy, dissident minority". The liberals replied that it was the ability to tolerate noisy, dissident minorities which made universities great.3 On university campuses in Europe, mass socialist or communist movements gave rise to increasingly violent clashes between the establishment and the college students, with their new and passionate commitment to freedom and justice. Much of the protest was about the Vietnam War. But in France, the students of the Sorbonnein Paris managed to form an alliance with the trade unions and to launch a general strike, which ultimately brought about the resignation of President de Gaulle.4 It wasn't just the activism that characterized student life in the 1960s. Everywhere, going to college meant your first taste of real freedom, of late nights in the dorm or in the Junior Common Room, discussing the meaning of life. You used to have to go to college to read your first forbidden book, see your first indie film, or find someone who shared your passion for Jimi Hendrix or Lenny Bruce. It was a moment of unimaginable freedom, the most liberating in your life.5 But where's the passion today? What's the matter with college? These days political, social and creative awakening seems to happen not because of college, but in spite of it. Of course, it's true that higher education is still important. For example, in the UK, Prime Minister Blair was close to achieving his aim of getting 50 per cent of all under thirties into college by 2010 (even though a cynic would say that this was to keep them off the unemployment statistics). Yet college education is no longer a topic of great national importance. Today, college is seen as a kind of small town fromwhich people are keen to escape. Some people drop out, but the most apathetic stay the course because it's too much effort to leave.6 Instead of the heady atmosphere of freedom which students in the 1960s discovered, students today are much more serious. The British Council has recently done research into the factors which help international students decide where to study. In descending order these are: quality of courses, employability prospects, affordability, personal security issues, lifestyle, and accessibility. College has become a means to an end, an opportunity to increase one's chances on the employment market, and not an end in itself, which gives you the chance to imagine, just for a short while, that you can change the world.7 The gap between childhood and college has shrunk, and so has the gap between college and the real world. One of the reasons may be financial. In an uncertain world, many children rely on their parents' support much longer than they used to. Students leaving university in the 21st century simply cannot afford to set up their own home because it's too expensive. Another possible reason is the communications revolution. Gone are the days when a son or daughter rang home once or twice a term. Today students are umbilically linked to their parents by their cell phones. And as for finding like-minded friends to share a passion for obscure literature or music, well, we have the Internet and chat rooms to help us do that.8 "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,9 But to be young was very heaven!"10 Wordsworth may have written these lines about the French Revolution, but theywere also true for the students of the 1960s. So why aren't they true for thestudents of today?UNIT2How empathy unfolds1 The moment Hope, just nine months old, saw another baby fall, tears welled up in her own eyes and she crawled off to be comforted by her mother, as though it were she who had been hurt. And 15-month-old Michael went to get his own teddy bear for his crying friend Paul; when Paul kept crying, Michael retrieved Paul's security blanket for him. Both these small acts of sympathy and caring were observed by mothers trained to record such incidents of empathy in action. The results of the study suggestthat the roots of empathy can be traced to infancy. Virtually from the day they are born infants are upset when they hear another infant crying—a response some see as the earliest precursor of empathy.2 Developmental psychologists have found that infants feel sympathetic distress even before they fully realize that they exist apart from other people. Even a few months after birth, infants react to a disturbance in those around them as though it were their own, crying when they see another child's tears. By one year or so, they start to realize the misery is not their own but someone else's, though they still seem confused over what to do about it. In research by Martin L. Hoffman at New York University, for example, a one-year-old brought his own mother over to comfort a crying friend, ignoring the friend's mother, who was also in the room. This confusion is seen too when one-year-olds imitate the distress of someone else, possibly to better comprehend what they are feeling; for example, if another baby hurts her fingers, a one-year-old might put her own fingers in her mouth to see if she hurts, too. On seeing his mother cry, one baby wiped his own eyes, though they had no tears.3 Such motor mimicry, as it is called, is the original technical sense of the word empathy as it was first used in the 1920s by E. B. Titchener, an American psychologist. Titchener's theory was that empathy stemmed from a sort of physical imitation of the distress of another, which then evokes the same feelings in oneself. He sought a word that would be distinct from sympathy, which can be felt for the general plight of another with no sharing whatever of what that other person is feeling.4 Motor mimicry fades from toddlers' repertoire at around two and a half years, at which point they realize that someone else's pain is different from their own, and are better able to comfort them. A typical incident, from a mother's diary:5 A neighbor's baby cries and Jenny approaches and tries to give him some cookies. She follows him around and begins to whimper to herself. She then tries to stroke his hair, but he pulls away. He calms down, but Jenny still looks worried. She continues to bring him toys and to pat his head and shoulders.6 At this point in their development toddlers begin to diverge from one another in their overall sensitivity to other people's emotional upsets, with some, like Jenny, keenly aware and others tuning out. A series of studies by Marian Radke-Yarrow and Carolyn Zahn-Waxler at the National Institute of Mental Health showed that a large part of this difference in empathic concern had to do with how parents disciplined their children. Children, they found, were more empathic when the discipline included calling strong attention to the distress their misbehavior caused someone else: "Look how sad you've made her feel" instead of "That was naughty". They found too that children's empathy is also shaped by seeing how others react when someone else isdistressed; by imitating what they see, children develop a repertoire of empathic response, especially in helping other people who are distressed.UNIT3Stolen identity1 "Frank never went to pilot school, medical school, law school, ... because he's still in high school."2 That was the strapline of the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, which tells the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), a brilliant young master of deception who at different times impersonated a doctor, a lawyer, and an airplane pilot, forging checks worth more than six million dollars in 26 countries. He became the youngest man to ever make the FBI's most-wanted list for forgery. Hunted and caught in the film by fictional FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), Abagnale later escaped. He eventually became a consultant for the FBI where he focused on white-collar crime.3 It's a great film, but could it happen in real life? In fact, Catch Me If You Can is based on the true story of Frank Abagnale, whose career as a fraudster lasted about six years before he was caught, who escaped from custody three times (once through an airplane toilet), and who spent a total of six years in prison in France, Sweden and the US. He now runs a consultancy advising the world of business how to avoid fraud. He has raised enough money to pay back all his victims, and is now amulti-millionaire.4 Since 2003, identity theft has become increasingly common. Few people could imagine how important things like taking mail to the post office and not leaving it in the mailbox for pickup, shredding documents instead of throwing them out with the trash, even using a pen costing a couple of bucks, have become to avoid life-changing crimes.5 More and more people are becoming anonymous victims of identity theft. We spend many hours and dollars trying to recover our name, our credit, our money and our lives. We need to look for different ways to protect ourselves. We can improve our chances of avoiding this crime, but it will never go away.6 It's not just a list of do's and don'ts, we need to change our mindset. Although online banking is now commonplace, there's a significant group of people in the country—the baby boomers, 15 per cent of the population—who still prefer to usepaper. What's more, 30 per cent of cases of fraud occur within this group. A check has all the information about you that an identity thief needs. If you use a ballpoint pen, the ink can be removed with the help of a regular household chemical and the sum of money can be changed. More than 1.2 million bad checks are issued every day, more than 13 per second.7 Check fraud is big business ... and growing by 25 per cent every year. Criminals count on our mistakes to make their jobs easier. So how can we prevent identity theft before it happens to us?8 Take a few precautions. Don't leave your mail in your mailbox overnight or over the weekend. Thieves wait for the red flag to go up, so they can look through your outgoing mail for useful personal information or checks. Use a gel pen for checks and important forms, the ink is trapped in the fibre of the paper, and it can't be removed with chemicals. Also, shred or tear up all documents which contain personal information before you put them in the trash.9 Remember that there are plenty of online opportunities for thieves to create a false identity based on your own. We're all aware of the risks to personal information on computer databases by hacking and Trojan horses. But choosing someone and doing a Google search can also yield large amounts of personal information, and so can online social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. And just as we take our pocketbook with us when we leave the office to go to the bathroom, it's also worth logging off your computer to avoid opportunistic theft.10 Finally, if you get robbed in a more traditional way—in the street—canceling your credit cards is obviously the first thing to do. But don't forget that even after they're reported lost, they can be used as identification to acquire store cards ... and you get the criminal record.11 Identity fraud can go on for years without the victim's knowledge. There is no escaping the fact that right now fraudsters are finding identity crime all too easy. If you haven't had your identity stolen, it's only because they haven't got to you yet. Your turn will come.UNIT4Making the headlines1 It isn't very often that the media lead with the same story everywhere in the world. Such an event would have to be of enormous international significance. But this is exactly what occurred in September 2001 with the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York. It is probably not exaggerated to say that from that moment the world was a different place.2 But it is not just the historical and international dimension that made 9/11 memorable and (to use a word the media like) newsworthy. It was the shock and horror, too. So striking, so sensational, was the news that, years after the event, many people can still remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard it. They can remember their own reactions: For many people across the globe their first instinct was to go and tell someone else about it, thus providing confirmation of the old saying that bad news travels fast.3 And so it is with all major news stories. I remember when I was at primary school the teacher announcing pale-faced to a startled class of seven year olds President Kennedy is dead. I didn't know who President Kennedy was, but I was so upset at hearing the news that I went rushing home afterwards to tell my parents (who already knew, of course). In fact, this is one of my earliest memories.4 So what exactly is news? The objective importance of an event is obviously not enough —there are plenty of enormous global issues out there, with dramatic consequences, from poverty to global warming—but since they are ongoing, they don't all make the just international, but odd, unexpected, and (in the sense that it was possible to identify with the plight of people caught up in the drama) very human.5 Odd doesn't mean huge. Take the story in today's China Daily about a mouse holding up a flight from Vietnam to Japan. The mouse was spotted running down the aisle of a plane in Hanoi airport. It was eventually caught by a group of 12 technicians worried that the mouse could chew through wires and cause a short circuit. By the time it took off the plane was more than four hours late.6 Not an event with momentous international consequences, you might say, (apart from a few passengers arriving late for their appointments in another country), but there are echoes of the story across the globe, in online editions of papers from Asia to America, via Scotland (Mouse chase holds up flight, in the Edinburgh Evening News).7 Another element of newsworthiness is immediacy. This refers to the nearness of the event in time. An event which happened a week ago is not generally news—unless you've just read about it. "When" is one of the five "wh" questions trainee journalists are regularly told that they have to use to frame a news story (the others are "who", "what", "where" and "why"); "today", "this morning", and "yesterday"are probably at the top of the list of time adverbs in a news report. Similarly, an event which is about to happen ("today", "this evening" or "tonight") may also be newsworthy, although, by definition, it is not unexpected and so less sensational.8 When it comes to immediacy, those media which can present news in real time, such as TV, radio, and the Internet, have an enormous advantage over the press. To see an event unfolding in front of your eyes is rather different from reading about it at breakfast the next morning. But TV news is not necessarily more objective or reliable than a newspaper report, since the images you are looking at on your screen have been chosen by journalists or editors with specific objectives, or at least following set guidelines, and they are shown from a unique viewpoint. By placing the camera somewhere else you would get a different picture. This is why it is usual to talk of the "power of the media"—the power to influence the public, more or less covertly.9 But perhaps in the third millennium this power is being eroded, or at least devolved to ordinary people. The proliferation of personal blogs, the possibility ofself-broadcasting through sites such as YouTube, and the growth of open-access web pages (wikis) means that anyone with anything to say—or show—can now reach a worldwide audience instantly.10 This doesn't mean that the press and TV are going to disappear overnight, of course. But in their never-ending search for interesting news items—odd, unexpected, and human—they are going to turn increasingly to these sites for their sources, providing the global information network with a curiously local dimension.UNIT5Catch-22Catch-22 is one of the most famous novels of the last century. It is set in an American military base on a small island in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. Although the story reveals some of the horrors of war through episodes of bloodshed and destruction, it is not a traditional war novel. There are no heroes or heroic acts, and the enemy is not really the Germans (who do not appear in the story), but anyone who can get you killed—and that includes your own commander. Catch-22 is primarily a comic novel, whose main character, an airman called Yossarian, has only one aim—to survive the war and go back home. He thinks he can do this by pretending to be insane.1 It was a horrible joke, but Doc Daneeka didn't laugh until Yossarian came to him one mission later and pleaded again, without any real expectation of success, to be grounded. Doc Daneeka snickered once and was soon immersed in problems of his own, which included Chief White Halfoat, who had been challenging him all that morning to Indian wrestle, and Yossarian, who decided right then and there to go crazy.2 "You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.3 "Can't you ground someone who's crazy?"4 "Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy."5 "Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger."6 "Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him."7 "Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."8 "They're crazy."9 "Then why don't you ground them?"10 "Why don't they ask me to ground them?"11 "Because they're crazy, that's why."12 "Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?"13 Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"14 "He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.15 "Can you ground him?"16 "I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."17 "Then why doesn't he ask you to?"18 "Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."19 "That's all he has to do to be grounded?"20 "That's all. Let him ask me."21 "And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.22 "No. Then I can't ground him."23 "You mean there's a catch?"24 "Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."25 There was only one catch and that was catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.26 "That's some catch, that catch-22," he observed.27 "It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.UNIT6My dream comes true1 The rain had started to fall gently through the evening air as darkness descended over Sydney. Hundreds of lights illuminated Stadium Australia, and the noise was deafening. As I walked towards the track I glanced around me at the sea of faces in the stands, but my mind was focused. The Olympic gold medal was just minutes away, hanging tantalisingly in the distance.2 My heart was beating loudly, my mouth was dry and the adrenaline was pumping.I was so close to the realisation of my childhood dream and the feeling was fantastic; it was completely exhilarating, but also terrifying. I knew I would have to push myself beyond my known limits to ensure that my dream came true.3 I tried to keep composed, telling myself not to panic, to stick to the plan and run my own race. I knew the Russian girls would set off quickly — and I had to finish this race fewer than ten seconds behind the Russian athlete Yelena Prokhorova. If I could do that, the title would be mine.4 I looked out along the first stretch of the 400m track and caught my breath. The 800m race had punished me so much over the years — in the World, Commonwealth and European Championships— and now it stood between me and the Olympic title.5 The British supporters were cheering so loudly it seemed as if they were the only fans there. I could hear my name being called. I could hear the shouts of encouragement and the cries of hope. Union Jacks fluttered all around the vast, beautiful stadium. I felt unified with the crowd — we all had the same vision and the same dream.6 My ankle was bandaged against an injury I had incurred in the long jump just a couple of hours earlier, but I shut out all thoughts of pain. I tried to concentrate on the crowd. They were so vocal. My spirits lifted and I felt composed.7 I knew I would do my best, that I would run my heart out and finish the race. I felt the performer in me move in and take over. I had just two laps to run, that was all. Just two laps until the emotional and physical strain of the past two days and the last 28 years would be eclipsed by victory or failure. This race was all about survival. It's only two minutes, I kept telling myself, anyone can run for two minutes.8 The starting gun was fired, and the race began. The first lap was good, I managed to keep up with the group, but I was feeling much more tired than I usually did, and much more than I'd anticipated. Both the long, hard weeks of training that had led up to this championship, and the exhaustion from two days of gruelling competition were showing in my performance. Mental and physical fatigue were starting to crush me, and I had to fight back.9 Prokhorova had set the pace from the start. It was important that I didn't let her get too far in front. I had to stay with her. At the bell I was 2.3 seconds behind her. Just one lap to go. One lap. I could do it. I had to keep going. In the final 150 metres I could hear the roar of the crowd, giving me a boost at exactly the moment I needed it the most—just when my legs were burning and I could see the gap opening between me and the Russian. Thankfully, my foot was holding out, so now it was all down to mental stamina.10 Prokhorova was pulling away. I couldn't let her get too far; I had to stay with her. I began counting down the metres I had left to run: 60m, 50m, 40m, 20m. I could seethe clock. I could do it, but it would be close. Then finally the line appeared. I crossed it, exhausted. I had finished.11 As I crossed the line my initial thought was how much harder the race had been than expected, bearing in mind how, only eight weeks before, I had set a new personal best of two minutes 12.2 seconds. Then my mind turned to the result. Had I done it? I thought I had. I was aware of where the other athletes were, and was sure that I'd just made it. But, until I saw it on the scoreboard, I wouldn't let myself believe it. As I stood there, staring up and waiting for confirmation, I tried hard to keep negative thoughts from my mind—but I couldn't help thinking, what if I have just missed out? What if I've been through all this, and missed out?12 In the distance I could hear the commentary team talking about two days of tough competition, then I could almost hear someone say, "I think she's done enough." The next thing I knew, Sabine Braun of Germany came over and told me I'd won. They had heard before me, and she asked what it felt like to be the Olympic champion. I smiled, still not sure.13 Then, the moment that will stay with me for the rest of my life — my name in lights. That was when it all hit me. Relief, a moment of calm, and a thank you to my inner self for taking me through these two days. I felt a tingle through the whole of my body. This was how it is meant to be — arms aloft and fists clenched.14 I looked out at the fans, who were waving flags, clapping and shouting with delight. I was the Olympic champion. The Olympic champion.UNIT7Protection1 When Soren was leaving for Japan to study carpentry, he asked if Hogahn, who was his dog originally, could live with me. "Of course," I said, "he'll protect me." There had been robberies in the neighborhood recently, and my house in Massachusetts was surrounded by a pond and woods to the north and west, so that someone could easily approach after dark without being seen.2 Soren laughed. "Hogahn doesn't exactly bark when someone comes to the door," he said. "If a burglar came, he would probably lick him."3 But Hogahn sensed that his connection to me was different from his connection to Soren. Soren, who is strong and relatively fearless, did not need much protection. When Soren was in a hurry, he would lift Hogahn like a small child into the bed of the pickup. I could not lift him. We were just about the same weight, and Hogahn was younger and stronger. As a woman, I faced dangers that Soren and Hogahn did not have to know about. After a week of living with me, Hogahn was barking at anyone who came near the house.4 Our protecting relationship began early, with me as the initial protector. Hogahn was a puppy, about seven months old, when Soren left him with me for the first time, only for a weekend. It was a cold, late November morning and the water in the pond was just beginning to freeze. A thin layer of ice held blowing leaves and light branches, but was much too tenuous for animal paws.5 I was hanging up the laundry in the backyard on a long clothesline which stretched from the giant oak tree next to the house to the spruce at the edge of the water. A light blue sheet was lifting itself with the wind and was trying to sail off over the pond to join the sky. As I struggled to trap it with a clothespin, Hogahn was panting warm clouds of air at my feet, lifting and dropping a two-foot oak branch that had fallen into his loving possession.6 Focused on capturing the sheet so that it draped evenly over the line, I distractedly picked up the stick and tossed it down the hill toward the fence that separated the yard from the water.7 I had tossed sticks for him before and knew the approximate distance they would go, depending upon their weight and my motion. This stick, however, caught a gust and, flying where the sheet wanted to go, sailed across the yard, over the fence, and, with a fine skater's touch, glided onto the pond. As I looked up, I saw Hogahn racing through the gate and, with a magnificent leap, crashing through the ice just short of the stick and into the water.8 Time froze as I stood at the clothesline. I thought: Soren has given me this child to watch over. He is my first grandchild. I have to save him. I was penetratingly aware of the dangers of the pond in November. I had fallen through once and saved myself because I had stayed very calm and moved very slowly. I knew that Hogahn could claw at me in his panic, pulling me down, and we could both go under.9 The next moment I was standing in the water and Hogahn was swimming toward me, breaking the ice with his front paws. He seemed a little startled by the intrusion of the ice in his path, but definitely in control. I went as far as I could until the pond bottom sank down under my weight and the ice water penetrated my jacket, and I stood and waited. He swam into my neck, and I lifted his puppy-body and carried him。
