大一英语考试资料

新的开端 Fresh Start [1] I first began to wonder what I was doing on a college campus when my parents drove off, leaving me standing pitifully in a parking lot. I decided I wanted nothing more than to find my way safely to my dorm room. It seemed that everyone on campus was watching me. My plan was to keep my ears open and my mouth shut and I hoped no one would notice I was a freshman. [2] The next morning I found my first class and marched in. Once I was in the room, however, another problem awaited me. Where to sit? After much hesitation I chose a seat in the first row and to the side. [3] "Welcome to Biology 101," the professor began. Oh, God, I had thought it was a literature class. A cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I groped for my schedule and checked the room number. I was in the right room but the wrong building. [4] So now what? Get up and leave in the middle of the lecture? Wouldn't the professor be angry? I knew everyone would stare. Forget it. I settled into my chair and tried to look as serious as a biology major might be. [5] After class I felt a little hungry, and I hurried to the cafeteria. I piled my tray with sandwiches and was heading for the seat when I accidentally stepped in a large puddle of ketchup. My food tray tipped and I lost my balance. As my rear end met the floor, I saw my entire life pass before my eyes; it ended with my first day of college classes. [6] In the seconds after my fall I thought how nice it would be if no one had noticed. But as all the students in the cafeteria came to their feet, cheering and clapping, I knew they had not only noticed, they were determined that I would never forget it. [7] For the next three days I dined alone on nothing more than shame, and some junk food from a machine placed outside my room. On the fourth day I thought I needed some real food badly. Perhaps three days was long enough for the campus population [N] to have forgotten me. So off to the cafeteria I went. [8] I made my way through the food line and tiptoed to a table. Suddenly I heard a crash that sounded familiar. I looked up to find that another poor soul had met the same fate as I had. My heart went out to him as people began to cheer and clap as they had for me. He got up, hands held high above his head in a victory clasp, grinning from ear to ear. I expected him to slip out of the cafeteria as I had, but instead he turned around and began preparing another tray. And that's when I realized I had been taking myself far too seriously. [9] Who cared whether I dropped a tray, where I sat in class, or even whether I showed up in the wrong lecture? Nobody. This wasn't like high school. In college, it didn't matter. This was my big chance to do my own thing. [10] Once I realized that I had no one's expectations to live up to but my own, I relaxed. I began to view college as a wonderful experiment. I dressed a little differently, I discovered a taste for jazz, and I decided I liked going barefoot. [11] I gave up trying to act my way through college and began not acting at all. College, I decided, was probably the only time I would be completely forgiven for any mistakes (including stepping in puddles of ketchup and dropping food trays). So I used the opportunity to make all the ones I thought I'd ever make. [12] Three years after graduation, I'm still making mistakes. And I'm even being forgiven for a few. Do Animals Have a Culture? John Friedl Lately, social scientists have begun to ask if culture is found just in humans, or if some animals have a culture too. When we speak of culture. We mean a way of life a group of people have in common. Culture includes the beliefs and attitudes we learn. It is the patterns of behavior that help people to live together. It is also the patterns of behavior that make one group different from another group. Our culture lets us make up for having lost our strength, claws, long teeth and some other defenses. Instead, we use tools, cooperate with one another, and communicate with language. But these aspects of behavior, or ’’culture”, can also be found in the lives of certain animals. We used to think that the ability to use tools was the dividing line between human beings and animals. Lately, however we have found that this is not the case. Chimpanzees can not only use tools, but actually make tools themselves. This is a major step up from simply picking up a handy object and using it. For example, chimpanzees have been seen stripping the leaves of a branch, then putting it into a termite nest. When the termites bite at the stick, the chimpanzee removes it and eats them off the end----like our use of a fork. For some time we thought that although human beings learned their culture, animals could not be taught such behavior. Or even if they could learn, they would not teach one another in the way humans do. This ,too, has proven to be untrue. A group of Japanese monkeys was studied at the Kyoto University Monkey Center in Japan. They were given sweet potatoes by scientists who wanted to attract them to the shore of an island. One day a young female began to wash her sweet potato to get rid of the sand. This practice soon spread through the group. It became learned behavior, not from humans but from other monkeys. Now almost all the monkeys who have come into contact with this group do not. Thus there is “culture”deference among animals. We have ruled out tool use and invention as ways of telling animal behavior and human behavior. We have also ruled out the learning and sharing of behavior. Yet we still have held onto the last feature---language. But even the use of language can no longer separate human culture from animal culture. Attempts to teach apes to speak have failed. But teaching them language has been very successful if we are willing to accept other forms than just the spoken word. Two psychologists trained a chimpanzee named Washoe to use Standard American Sign Language. This is the same language used by deaf people. In this language, talk is made through gestures, and not by spelling out words with individual letters. By the time she was five years old, Washoe had a vocabulary of 130 signs. Also, she could put them together in new ways that had not been taught originally. This means she could create language and not just mimic it. She creates her own sentences that have real meaning. This has allowed two-way talk. It permits more than one-way command and response. Of course, there are limits to the culture of animals. As far as we know, no ape has formed social institutions such as religion or law. Also, some chimpanzees may be able to learn sign language, but this form of language is limited in its ability to communicate abstract ideas. Yet with a spoken language we can communicate our entire culture to anyone else who knows that language. Perhaps the most important thing is that the line dividing us from them is not as clear as we used to think. from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in fine weather. There was a total of fourteen men on board the planes. The planes were in good condition; they had the best equipment on board including compasses and radios, and they also carried life rafts. The planes could float on water for ninety seconds. One and a half hours after the take-off, a radio message from one of the planes was heard at the control tower at Fort Lauderdale. [2] "I don't know where we are." [3] After that the planes could no longer speak to the control tower, but they could speak to and hear each other, and the control tower could hear them. [4] "The magnetic compass is going crazy." [5] "We're completely lost." [6] No other messages were heard after that. Nobody else heard from the planes or saw them again. Three hundred planes and many boats searched the area, but not one trace of Flight 19 was found. Then one of the planes that was sent to look for them also disappeared completely. [7] These planes had disappeared in a very mysterious part of the world in the western Atlantic Ocean where lots of strange events have taken place. The mystery started long before 1945, and since that year many other ships and planes have also disappeared in this area. It is called the Bermuda Triangle. It is a large, triangular area of the ocean with the island of Bermuda at its northern tip. [8] Planes and ships disappear in other parts of the world, but there are more disappearances in the Triangle than in other areas. For years now scientists and others have been puzzled by this mystery. There have been many attempts to explain why people, planes and ships disappear in such high numbers here . [9] One writer, John Spencer, believes that the ships and planes have been carried off from the sea and sky by flying saucers or UFOs from another planet. Since there are millions of other planets in the universe, Spencer believes there must be other intelligent creatures somewhere in the universe. These creatures are interested in collecting humans and their equipment so that they can examine them carefully. [10] Another theory is that the geography of the area is responsible for the disappearances of the ships and planes. Bermuda lies on an earthquake belt. Underwater earthquakes result in large waves appearing suddenly. These waves are so big that they can break a ship into pieces. In the air, a similar thing can happen to airplanes because of sudden strong winds. [11] As with Flight 19, many boats and planes have reported that their magnetic compasses stop working properly in the Bermuda Triangle. Normally a magnetic compass points towards magnetic north . However, the Bermuda Triangle is one of the two places on Earth in which a compass points towards true north. Therefore, there is something strange about the magnetic properties of the area. [12] Many people have found these explanations difficult to believe. However, the most recent theory has a scientific basis and is more believable. The discovery of methane gas on the seafloor of the Bermuda Triangle started a scientist, Dr. Mclver, thinking about an explanation for the mysteries. Sometimes large amounts of the gas escape from the seafloor and rise into the air. This could produce large waves on the surface which would make a ship sink. When the gas mixes with air, it could also cause a ship's engine to stop or it could start a fire. Similarly, as the mixture rises into the air, it could cause an airplane's engine to stop or explode. The explosions would break a ship or a plane into tiny pieces. [13] This latest theory has yet to be proved but seems to offer a better explanation as to why Flight 19 and all the other planes, ships and people have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Unit 6 A World of Mystery The Bermuda Triangle [1] On 5th December 1945, Flight 19, which consisted of five US Navy planes, took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in fine weather. There was a total of fourteen men on board the planes. The planes were in good condition; they had the best equipment on board including compasses and radios, and they also carried life rafts. The planes could float on water for ninety seconds. One and a half hours after the take-off, a radio message from one of the planes was heard at the control tower at Fort Lauderdale. [2] "I don't know where we are." [3] After that the planes could no longer speak to the control tower, but they could speak to and hear each other, and the control tower could hear them. [4] "The magnetic compass is going crazy." [5] "We're completely lost." [6] No other messages were heard after that. Nobody else heard from the planes or saw them again. Three hundred planes and many boats searched the area, but not one trace of Flight 19 was found. Then one of the planes that was sent to look for them also disappeared completely. [7] These planes had disappeared in a very mysterious part of the world in the western Atlantic Ocean where lots of strange events have taken place. The mystery started long before 1945, and since that year many other ships and planes have also disappeared in this area. It is called the Bermuda Triangle. It is a large, triangular area of the ocean with the island of Bermuda at its northern tip. [8] Planes and ships disappear in other parts of the world, but there are more disappearances in the Triangle than in other areas. For years now scientists and others have been puzzled by this mystery. There have been many attempts to explain why people, planes and ships disappear in such high numbers here . [9] One writer, John Spencer, believes that the ships and planes have been carried off from the sea and sky by flying saucers or UFOs from another planet. Since there are millions of other planets in the universe, Spencer believes there must be other intelligent creatures somewhere in the universe. These creatures are interested in collecting humans and their equipment so that they can examine them carefully. [10] Another theory is that the geography of the area is responsible for the disappearances of the ships and planes. Bermuda lies on an earthquake belt. Underwater earthquakes result in large waves appearing suddenly. These waves are so big that they can break a ship into pieces. In the air, a similar thing can happen to airplanes because of sudden strong winds. [11] As with Flight 19, many boats and planes have reported that their magnetic compasses stop working properly in the Bermuda Triangle. Normally a magnetic compass points towards magnetic north . However, the Bermuda Triangle is one of the two places on Earth in which a compass points towards true north. Therefore, there is something strange about the magnetic properties of the area. [12] Many people have found these explanations difficult to believe. However, the most recent theory has a scientific basis and is more believable. The discovery of methane gas on the seafloor of the Bermuda Triangle started a scientist, Dr. Mclver, thinking about an explanation for the mysteries. Sometimes large amounts of the gas escape from the seafloor and rise into the air. This could produce large waves on the surface which would make a ship sink. When the gas mixes with air, it could also cause a ship's engine to stop or it could start a fire. Similarly, as the mixture rises into the air, it could cause an airplane's engine to stop or explode. The explosions would break a ship or a plane into tiny pieces. [13] This latest theory has yet to be proved but seems to offer a better explanation as to why Flight 19 and all the other planes, ships and people have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Unit 8 Romantic Stories A True Love Story [1] Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning were both English poets. The story of how they met, fell in love, and married is one of the most famous love stories in history. This love story is famous for its purity, its poetry, and its passion. But most of all, it is famous because their romance took place primarily by mail. For the two years before they married, they wrote to each other almost every day. [2] Elizabeth Barrett lived a quiet life in the house of her father. She rarely left the house because she was very weak and sick with a lung disease. From childhood she spent her time reading, studying Greek, and writing poetry. Her poems were published and became popular both in England and in America. Elizabeth’s father, Mr. Barrett, supported his daughter’s writing. However, he was very strict and also eccentric--- he refused to let any of his three daughters marry. He wanted them all to stay with him. When Elizabeth was thirty-seven, she still lived with her father and her two unmarried sisters. She had never married or even been in love. She lived in a dream world. She knew Robert Browning only by name. However, she read his poetry and admired it greatly. She even put his name in a poem that she wrote. [3] Robert Browning’s childhood was similar to Elizabeth’s. He studied Greek, read a great deal, and wrote poetry at a very young age. As a young adult, he continued to read and write, and struggled to publish his work. By the age of thirty, he was not yet married. [4] One day, Robert was reading some of Elizabeth’s poems. He admired her poetry very much. Suddenly, he saw his name in one of her poems. He was so surprised and pleased that he decided to write her a letter. The year was 1844. [5] With this letter, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning began a secret correspondence. They wrote to each other almost every day. At first, their letters were formal and impersonal. They discussed poetry and literature. Slowly, the letters became more personal. A friendship developed as they discovered their common interests and ideas. They read and criticized each other’s poetry and began to discuss their friendship. They seemed to be perfectly compatible, both intellectually and spiritually. After one year, Robert wrote to Elizabeth that he loved her. They still had never met each other. [6] Finally, Elizabeth and Robert arranged to meet while Elizabeth’s father was not in the house. They were nervous, and even shocked, to see each other face to face at last. They continued meeting and talking secretly once or twice a week for the next year. They also continued to write each other letters every day. Elizabeth wrote: “…You cannot guess what you are to me---you cannot---it is not possible… it is something to me between dream and miracle.” Robert answered that he had never kept a journal before, but he had started one now. In it he wrote the date of every visit with her and how long it lasted. He even wrote the number of minutes they had been together and said that they added up to two full days in length. [7] Then, in September, 1846, in a secret marriage ceremony, Elizabeth Barrett became Elizabeth Barrett Browning. A week later, without telling Eliza beth’s father, the happy couple eloped to Italy. The shock was terrible for Mr. Barrett, but his anger could not diminish their happiness. In 1849, they succeeded in having a son. They lived in Italy, extremely happy, for fifteen years, until Elizabeth’s d eath in 1861. take risks when there's no danger 没有危险时请冒险 Wallace wilkins Many of us have grown up with warnings to be careful. When people 1.我们许多人从小到大一直被提 醒要小心谨慎。 leave one another, for example, they often say,”Take care.” Taking these 比如当人们分别时 常常互相叮嘱“小心点”倘若你认真听从 words seriously could inhibit your development. Imagine how differently 这些话很可能会妨 碍你的发展。想象一 下 you might have developed if your friends and family said to you, ”Take 假定你的朋友和家人对你说的是“去冒冒险吧” risks.” Pause to consider how different you might be. Do you imagine that if 2那么你的发展又会是多么的不同。你不妨停下来想一想你的You take more risks in the future you will be extremely successful? Or 未来会有多么不同。你是否设想过如冒冒险 你会取得巨大的成功。does the thought cross your mind that you might become physically 或者说 你的脑海里是否出现过自己身体会受到伤害的念头 injured or harmed? When dealing with risks, many people often believe that risk brings 3说到冒险 许多人常常认为它会带来危险。 danger. This is because our language confuses dangers with the 这是因为我们的语言常把两个概念混为一谈 possibilities of discomfort or disapproval that risk brings. When 危险及冒险可能会带来的困苦或责怪。 considering taking a risk, some people will imagine: 在考虑是否冒险时 有的人会这么想 “if I’m not careful, he’ll kill me!” 4 “如果我不小心他会要我的命”“I would just die!” 5“我就会死” “I’d fall to pieces!” 6 “我会粉身碎骨” Can you think of similar expressions? If you color your thoughts about 7 你会有类似的想法吗倘若你在思想上给未来抹上 the future with alarming thoughts, you will inhibit your action. However, 惊恐的色彩你的行动就会受到制约。而这类惊恐都是虚惊。those alarms. Those mistaken expressions do not describe what actually happens when 8 这些错误的想法并不意味着在你尝试某种变革时的确会发生 you try to change something. You are not likely to be killed or fall to 这样的情况。你不可能被杀死或者粉身碎骨。 pieces. If the outcome isn’t what you had hoped, you may experience 假如事与愿违 也许你会经受些轻微的困苦 some mild discomfort, and that’s all. Mild discomfort is part of the risk 仅此而已。但这点困苦却是为获取最终成功所冒的风险的一部分。 for achieving final success. When those strong expressions bother you, you won’t take a risk. The 9 当(上述)那些过激的想法令你不安时你就不去冒险。 only things that will be “killed” are your initiative, your confidence, and 被“扼杀”的只能是你的主动性、你的自信和发展。 your advancement. You can advance your career by knowing the differences between risk 10 明白了冒险和危险的区别你就能拓展事业。 and danger. Here’s the difference: Risk is when an outcome is uncertain. 这两者的区别是当结果不确定时就有风险而当你肉体要受到 Danger is when your flesh will be torn. 严重伤害时就有危险。 Some new ideas succeed. Some don’t. The risk of failure does not make 11 有些新想法能够获得成功而有些则不能。有失败的风险并不 the future dangerous. Your flesh will not get torn during most changes. 意味着未来很危险。大多数的变更 不会使你的身体遭受严重的伤害。 For many people, public speaking is a great example of confusing risk 12 对许多人来说演讲就是一个混淆风险和危险的最典型例子。 with danger. I know a manager who used to be frightened by the thought 我认识一位经理他以前一想到要面对公众演讲就十分害怕。 of speaking in front of an audience. Of course, he did not know what the 当然,在第一次演讲前他并不知会有outcome would be before his first speech. Instead of thinking that it was怎样的结果。 他没意识到 only a risk, he created excessive anxiety as if it was dangerous. Even 演讲不过是一种冒险反而把自己搞 得过分地紧张,犹如大敌当前。though he knew it was not likely, he imagined that the audience might 他想象着听众会向他扔东西或者愤 怒地群起而攻之, throw objects at him, or attack him like an angry crowd. 尽管他知道这不太可能。 While anxious, he took the risk and gave his first speech. He found that 13 尽管他感到忐忑不安 他冒险地作了平生第一次演讲。 the audience was casually supportive. With his new skill, he has 结果发现 听众很随和地支持他。由于具备了演讲这一新技能developed into a more positive, successful leader. He still makes a few 他成了一位更积极、更成功的领导者。尽管他在 mistakes during his speeches. But no audience has ever torn his flesh! 演讲时还要出点差错 但从来没有听众伤害过他。 Each time you do something new or different, you are faced with a risk. 14 每当做一件新的或者不同的事情时 你都会面临风险。 The next time you face uncertainty about the future, separate risk from 下一次你不能确定未来会怎样时 请把风险与危险区分开。 danger. If you know that danger is likely. I suggest that you avoid the 如果你知道危险存在的可能性很大。那么我建议你避开dangerous situation unless you know that you can manage the danger. 危险情 除非你确信自己能够对付它。 If you determine that danger is not likely, then think about possible 15 如果你断定不大会有危险 那就考虑一下将来 results that may occur in the future. If it seems the future is safe, put 会出现什么情况。如果看来前景是安全的 your plans into practice. You don’t have to be certain about what will 那就实施你的 计划 项目进度计划表范例计划下载计划下载计划下载课程教学计划下载 。在采取行动前 你不必把将会发生什么 happen before you take action. 弄得清清楚楚。 You can use these danger-free, risk-taking strategies immediately. The 16 对这种不会有危险的冒险策略你可以马上采用。 next time you leave someone, notice if the other person says, “Take 下一回与朋友分别时注意他是否嘱咐你说“小心点。” care.” Surprise your friend by saying“Take risks!” 如果是那你就给他一个意外对他说“冒冒险吧