-
Unit 1
If you ask me, real life
is not all it's cracked up to be. Twelve years at
school and three years at
university,
teachers banging on about opportunities in the big
wide world beyond our sheltered life
as
students, and what do I find?
Try
as I might to stay cheerful, all I ever get is
hassle, sometimes with people (especially boys,
god, when will they grow up?), but
mostly with money. It's just so expensive out
here! Everyone
wants a slice off you.
The Inland Revenue wants to deduct income tax, the
bank manager wants
repayments on my
student loan, the landlord wants the rent, gas,
water, electricity and my mobile
bills
keep coming in, and all that's before I've had
anything to eat. And then some bright spark calls
me out of the blue, asking if I'm
interested in buying a pension. At this rate, I
won't even last till the
end of the
year, let alone till I'm 60
。
依我看，现实生活并没有人们想象的那么好。我们上了
12
年的中、小学，又上了
3
年的大学，
这期间老师们一直在没完没了地谈论在备受呵护的学生生活之外的那个广阔天地里的各种机会，
可我
遇到的又是什么呢？
无论我怎么想保持心情愉快，可麻烦事总是接踵而来：有时是和人发生矛盾（尤其是跟男孩子，
天哪！他们什么时候才能长大？），但通常是为钱发愁。这个地方什么东西都很贵！人人都想
从我身
上赚点钱：税务局要收个人所得税，银行经理要我偿清学生贷款，房东催我交房租
、燃气费、水费、
电费，手机账单也不断地寄来。所有这些还没算上吃饭的钱。更可气的
是，不知从哪里冒出一个自作
聪明的家伙给我打电话，问我要不要买养老金。照这样下去
，我甚至都支撑不到年底，更别提活到
60
岁领养老金了。
2.
我认为，选修第二专业并不合适
每一位本科生。我大学本科主修英语专业，大一时就开始辅修经
济学了。无疑，我是班里
最用功的学生。我竭尽全力想同时达到两个不同专业的要求，但还是有不及
格的时候。因
为经济学需要良好的数学基础，我不得不花大量时间钻研数学，因而忽略了英语学习。
第二学期，《英国文学》及《宏观经济学》两门课不及格给我
敲响了警种，这可是我一生中第一
次考试不及格，
这大大打击了
我的自信心。
虽然我不是一个容易向命运低头的人，
在暑假结束
的时候，
我还是决定放弃经济学，以免两个专业都难以完成。当我只需修一个专业的时候
，一切似乎又回到了
正轨。
(if you ask me;
odds; try as … might; sap one’s confidence;
g
iven that; bow to fate; come to a
close; for fear that; now that)
If you ask me, taking a
second major isn’t good for every undergraduate.
In my freshman year
as an English
major, I took economics as my minor. By all odds,
I was the most hardworking student
in
my class. But try as I might to meet the
requirements of the two different subjects, I
still couldn’t
do well enough to pass
all the that the study of economics required a
good command
of mathematics, I had to
spend so much time on math that I neglected my
English major.
Failing English Literature and Macro-
economics in the second semester sounded the alarm
for
me.
This
was
the
first
time
I
did
not
pass
a
course
in
my
life,
which
had
greatly
sapped
my
gh I
was not a man who would easily bow to fate, as the
summer break came to a
close, I decided
to give up economics for fear that I would fail in
both subjects. Now that I had only
one
subject to attend to, everything seemed to be on
the right track again.
Unit 2
1
，
Indubitably the
vast majority of books overlap one another. Few
indeed are those which give the
impression
of
originality,
either in
style
or
in
content.
Rare
are
the
unique
books
—
less
than
50,
perhaps,
out
of
the
whole
storehouse
of
literature.
In
one
of
his
recent autobiographical
novels,
Blaise Cendrars
points out that Ré
my de Gourmont,
because of his knowledge and awareness of
this repetitive quality in books, was
able to select and read all that is worthwhile in
the entire realm
of
literature.
Cendrars
himself
—
who
would
suspect
it?
—
is
a
prodigious
reader.
He
reads
most
authors in their
original tongue. Not only that, but when he likes
an author he reads every last book
the
man has written, as well as his letters and all
the books that have been written about him. In our
day his case is almost unparalleled, I
imagine. For, not only has he read widely and
deeply, but he
has himself written a
great many books. All on the side, as it were.
For, if he is anything, Cendrars,
he is
a man of action, an adventurer and explorer, a man
who has known how to
royally. He is, in
a sense, the Julius Caesar of
literature
。
不容置疑的是，
大多数书都互相重复，
在文
体或内容上让人感到具有独创性的书实在是少之又少。
在整个文学库藏中，只有极少数作
品
——
或许不到
50
< br>本
——
是独具一格的。在最近出版的一部自传
体小说中，布莱斯
?
桑德拉尔指出，古尔蒙之所以
能够选择并通读文学领域中一切值得读的书籍，就
是因为他知识渊博，并且了解书的这种
重复性。桑德拉尔本人就是一个博览群书的人，没有人会怀疑
这一点。他阅读了大部分作
家的原作。不仅如此，一旦他喜欢上一个作家，他就会阅读这个作家写的
每一本书，包括
他的书信以及所有有关他的书籍。我猜想，在当今世界上，几乎没有人能像他一样，
不仅
读得广、读得精，而且还著述颇丰。可以说这一切都是在业余时间完成的。因为桑德拉尔是一个
< br>十足的行动家，一个四处跋涉的冒险家和探险家，一个懂得如何
“
肆意浪费
”
时间的人。从某种意义上
< br>说，他是文学界的凯撒大帝。
2.
张磊是在毕业工作后才开始意识到读书的乐趣的。反思
自己的大学教育时，他感慨不已：他的一
些同学都沉浸于从图书馆或书店找到的各种有趣
的书籍，
而他却只读了一些教科书，
其中连一本真正
能让他爱不释手、值得一读的书都没有。他可以说是被剥夺了通过书了解作家奇妙世界的特权。
如今，他嗜书如命，废寝忘食，好像要把大学期间没机会读的
好书全都读一遍。到目前为止他已
经利用业余时间读了几百本小说、传记和游记。他意识
到书不仅能向他展示一个充满希望的前景，帮
他消除现实生活中的压力和疲劳，而且能够
帮他澄清一些误解，找到生活的真谛。
(reflect on; in one
sitting; lay hands on; immerse in;
worthwhile; privilege; withstand; vista)
It
was
not
until
after
he
had
graduated
from
university
and
started
to
work
that
Zhang
Lei
became aware of the
pleasure of reading. Reflecting on his
undergraduate studies, he lamented
that
he,
unlike
his
classmates
who
had
immersed
themselves
in
various
interesting
books
they
were
able to lay hands on from the library or bookshop,
had only read textbooks, none of which was
really worthwhile, or could be read in
one sitting. He was deprived of the privilege of
gaining access
to the writers’
fantastic worlds through the windows their books
have opened, so to speak.
Now
he has become an avid and omnivorous reader. It is
as if he wants to make up for those
marvelous books he hadn’t
ha
d a chance to read in his university
days. By now, in his spare time,
he has
read several hundreds of books, including novels,
biographies and travel notes. He realizes
that books can not only reveal to him
the vista of a hopeful future and help him
withstand stresses
and strains, they
can also help him clear up some misconceptions and
discover the true meaning of
the life.
Unit 3
Sometimes the
hemline indicator, as it's called, can even
precede and predict a change in the
mood of the stock market long
before it actually happens. In
September 2007, at the New York
fashion
shows, which were displaying their styles for
spring 2008, the trend was for much longer
dresses and skirts, many to mid-calf or
even down to the ankles. Some people felt this
showed that
the hemline
indicator was no longer reliable, and
that designers no
longer
dictated
what people
would
wear.
During
the
London
and
New
York
fashion
shows
in
September
2008,
hemlines
continued to drop.
But sure enough, in the fall of 2008, the stock
market indexes fell dramatically
when
the banking crisis hit the US, Europe and then the
rest of the world. Hemlines were no longer
following the stock
market
—
they were showing the
way and indicating future economic trends.
有时候，所谓的裙摆标志甚至能够预示股市的行情。
2007
年
9
月的纽约
时装展展示了
2008
年
春季流行式样
，潮流转向了长衣、长裙，裙摆长及小腿中部，甚至到了脚踝。有人觉得这表明裙摆标
志
靠不住了，服装设计师已经丧失了对时装的主宰权。
2008
年
9
月，在伦敦和纽约时装展中，裙摆
的
高度继续降低。果然，
2008
年秋天金融危机袭击欧美，并波
及全球，股指急剧下跌。这时，裙摆
不再被动地追随股市的变化，而是预示股市行情及未
来的经济趋势。
2.
一个人的穿着似乎能影响他的行为方式。譬如，在校内要穿校
服是中小学生所必须严格遵守的规
矩之一。
倘若在学生着装整齐
划一和行为的统一规范之间不存在一种象征性关联的话，
校服便不可能
< br>如此盛行。
然而，
多年的学校生活让学生在内心里对随处可见的校服产生了抵触情绪，
校服
毕竟压制了个性
的表达。为了弥补这种损失，学生常常会在周末穿流行的休闲装。直到上
了大学，他们才会享受真正
的着装自由，而服装上的无序与大学培养创造力、鼓励自由表
达思想及展露才华密切相关。可惜这样
的好景不会太长，经过一段相对短暂的自由之后，
他们在毕业工作之后将再次经历着装规范的压力。
(hard and fast;
there is no doubt that; currency; correlation;
backlash; ubiquitous; compensate for;
anarchy; obtain; revive)
.
What
you
wear
seems
to
dictate
the
kind
of
person
you
are
supposed
to
be.
Take
primary
school and high school students for
example. One of the hard and fast rules they have
to observe is
that they must
wear uniforms at school. There is no
doubt that school uniforms would
not have
achieved their
currency without a symbolic correlation between
the uniformity of clothes and the
students’ conformity to some
common code of conduct.
However, after
years of
school life, there is always a backlash secretly
nursed in the students’
mind
against
the
ubiquitous
uniform
which
suppresses
the
expression
of
individuality.
To
compensate for this loss, students try
to hunt for more casual and popular clothes and
wear them
on weekends. It is not until
they start university, however, that they can
really enjoy the freedom of
dress, an
anarchy associated with the cultivation of
creativity and the encouragement of the free
expression of ideas and talents. But
this s
ituation won’t obtain for long.
After a relatively short time
of
liberty, they may experience again the revived
pressure of dress code as soon as they become
professionals.
Unit 4
Today,
while most of us marry for romantic reasons,
marriage at its core is still a financial union.
So much of what we
want
—
or don't
want
—
out of life boils down
to dollars and cents, whether it's
how
hard we choose to work, how much we consume or how
much we save. For some people, it's
working 80-hour weeks to finance a
third home and country club membership; for
others, it means
cutting back on office
hours to spend more time with the family.
said Betsey
Stevenson, assistant professor of business and
public policy at the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School, who
researches the economics of marriage and divorce.
the choices we make in how we want to
live our lives involve how we spend our
money.
Making those choices as a team is
one of the most important ways to preserve your
marital
assets, and your union, experts
say. But it's that much easier when you already
share similar
outlooks on money
matters
—
or when you can, at
the very least, find some middle ground.
如今，尽管我们大多数人是因相爱而结婚，婚姻从根本上讲仍然是金钱上的结合。不管是工作的
努力程度，
还是决定消费多少或储蓄多少，
我们生活
中想要得到的
——
或不想得到的
——<
/p>
许多东西归
根结底都跟钱有关。对一些人来说，他们想要的就是一
周工作
80
小时来支付第三套房的房款和乡村
< br>俱乐部的会员费；而对另一些人来说，他们想缩短上班时间，花更多的时间陪伴家人。
“
有关钱的许多争论是提示我们想如何生活的密码，而生
活方式的许多选择则与如何花钱密切相
关。
”
< br>宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院的商业及公共政策助理教授贝齐
?
史蒂文森如是说，他研究婚姻和离
婚经济学。
专家们说，夫妻共同做出这些选择是维护婚姻资产及婚姻关系的最重要的方法之一。当然，如
果
夫妻双方一开始就在钱的问题上看法相似，
或者至少能够在钱
的问题上相互妥协，
那么事情就好办多
了。
2.
谈及目前经济萧条所带来的影响，学生活动的减少就是一个很好的例证。为了活跃校园生活，大
学愿意划拨一部分资金来资助学生社团活动，
但由于今年学校的预算大幅减少
，
对社团的资助也相应
缩减了不少。显然，学生社团要恢复以前
的活力就必须想办法克服自身的经济困难。有人主张招募更
多会员，因为会员费的增加可
以帮助他们度过难关。
当然，
如果有
更多的会员交年费，
而且缩减一些日常开支，
我们还是能省下一
些钱来组织活动的。
但是，问题的关键在于社团活动的费用与参加活动的人数是成正比的
，因此这种方法恐怕不太可行。
要推进社团活动，同时又不使经费超支，我们必须群策群
力，拿出别的筹钱方法，而不是仅仅依赖学
校拨款和会员费。
(
when it comes to; carve out; pare down; cut back
on; bottom line; go into the red;
pool;
in lieu of)
When
it
comes
to
the
effects
of
the
current
economic
downturn,
the
decrease
of
student
activities is a good
case in point. To enliven campus life, the
university is always willing to carve out
money for activities organized by
student clubs and societies, but such sponsorships
have been
pared
down
this
year
because
of
huge
budget
cut.
Apparently,
student
organizations
need
to
weather their own
financial crisis if they want to recover from
their current state of inactiveness.
Some
suggest
enrolling
more
club
members,
on
the
ground
that
the
consequent
increase
of
membership fees may help them get out
of the difficulty.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
上一篇：高中英语30个长难句锦集
下一篇：高一完形填空简单6篇(含答案分析)