1、1.Defeat Disability 战胜残疾Yangs ambition was to get an architect certificate or become a bowling master. But when he was conducting experiments with a microscope in the basement, a tank on the bench exploded, sending him flying outwards through the exit. He was out of breath while knowing he lost his
2、eyesight as well as 70% of his hearing. In other words,he was disabled.Feeling clumsy, he was annoyed at first though nobody made fun of him. He cut out going outdoors and just sat around at home talking to his parrot or tortoise silently. His sister resigned to help him in many ways. Her assistance
3、 and encouragement were so beneficial to his psychology that he adapted to his disability soon and became outgoing again. In a college accessible to him, he studied politics and literature. He always sat in the front row near the entry without any absence and, with the help of his handy laptop,he st
4、udied well by means of dictation. His thesis, Abolishing Slavery, met with all professors approval. After class, he and his companions often played drum music, which was noisy but suitable for his hearing. After graduation, he made high profits by designing software for a firm. All in all, in his co
5、mmunity, he won his dignity and peoples congratulations.He always wished all the best to his disabled fellows and encouraged them, “Never mind! All you have is adequate to get your achievement.”阳的雄心是,要么获得一张建筑师证书,要么成为一名保龄球高手。但是在地下室里的显微镜下进行试验时,放在长凳上的一只大桶突然爆炸,把他从出口处炸飞了出去。当知道自己除了失去70%的听力之外,还失去了视力时,他完全喘不
6、过气来。换句话说,他残疾了。 最初,尽管没人取笑他,他还是非常气恼于自己的笨拙。他取消了外出,总是在家里闲坐,和他的鹦鹉和乌龟默默相对。他的姐姐辞了职,用许多方式帮助他。她的帮助和鼓励对他的心理是如此地有益,以致他很快就适应了自己的残疾,再次变得外向起来。他在一所接受他就读的学校里学习政治和文学,总是坐在靠近入口的前排,从不缺席。在他轻便好用的手提电脑的帮助下,他用听写的方式学习得很好。他的论文废除奴隶制受到所有教授的一致认可。课后,他和伙伴们还常常演奏大声却适合他听觉的鼓乐。毕业后,他通过设计软件为一家公司获得很高的利润。总之,在他的社区里,他赢得了自己的尊严和人们的祝贺。他一直都把所有最好
7、祝愿给予他残疾的同伴,并鼓励他们:“没关系,你拥有的一切一定足够你取得自己的成就!”2.Helping the Remote Village 援助山村A year ago, the famous astronaut received an invitation by airmail from a remote village.Intending to sniff some fresh air, he and his interpreter paid a fortnight visit there. It was a privilege for them to be there, but the
8、y were shocked by what they saw. The tracks were muddy. The river was drying up. Most villagers only possessed one broom, a few tins and several jars and their rectangular grass huts with round angles were surrounded by weeds. Besides, their school had no roof and platform, and the students had no c
9、oncept of clicking a computer at all. They were badly in need. Soon, the astronaut made a generous voluntary donation to the village. There were textbooks for students, sewing machines for tailors and tractors for farmers. His distribution catalogue also included operating a clinic and a trunk libra
10、ry, as well as giving weekly lessons to teach relevant farming knowledge like how to dry out seeds or raise oxen. He himself not only helped do some paperwork but also purchased grills for boys to toast potatoes and combs for girls who were dying to get one. The other day, he heard from the villager
11、s again inviting him to participate in the donation anniversary. For political and security reasons, he couldnt adjust his outgoing arrangement-otherwise he would go. But his deeds were remembered forever.一年前,那位著名的宇航员收到一份由一个偏远村庄通过航空邮件寄来的邀请。因为想要呼吸一下新鲜空气,他和翻译到那儿做了一次两周的访问。当地之行使他们倍感荣幸,但却震惊于所见所闻。泥泞的道路、河流
12、干枯,大部分的村民拥有的财产只不过是一只扫帚、几个瓶瓶罐罐而已,圆角的矩形草屋四周长满了杂草,学校也没有屋顶和讲台,学生们更对点击操作电脑毫无概念。他们生活确实相当困难。很快,宇航员就向村庄做了慷慨的自愿捐赠。捐赠品中有给学生的课本,给裁缝的缝纫机,还有给农民的拖拉机。捐赠金的分配目录中还包括一间诊所和一间书箱图书馆的运作,并有传授像怎么使种子干透,或者怎么养牛这种相关农业知识的每周课程。他自己不仅亲自帮助做一些文书工作,还给男孩子们购买了烤马铃薯的烤架、给渴望得到梳子的女孩子们买了梳子。前几天,他又收到了村民们邀请他参加捐赠周年会的来信。出于政治和安全原因,他无法调整外出时间安排,否则他就会
13、去了。不过他所做的一切村民们都永远记得。3.An Interesting Festival 有趣的节日The Agricultural Feast takes place after the Independence Day. It is not a worldwide celebration. Only Christians in Mexico look forward to its arrival for its religious origin:Long ago, humans ancestors were bad. They fooled and played tricks on ea
14、ch other and never kept their word. So God turned up and drowned all their crops. Humans starved day and night, weeping. In order to gain Gods forgiveness, a woman poet set off to see God. She admired God and kept apologizing. God was moved. With his permission, humans finally had good harvests agai
15、n. So, to wipe sadness and remind themselves of the belief in God, people began the festival.On the festival, people gather in open air, such as playgrounds or parking lots, and energetically have fun with each other all night long, as though they were never tired. When a beauty dressed up in lovely
16、 clothing reads poems in memory of the poet, everyone holds their breath. Then, it is the custom that the bone of a rooster head is given to her as an award. Obviously, the story is not true, but the festival is interesting.农业盛会在独立日后举行。它不是一个世界性的庆典,由于它的宗教起源,只有墨西哥的基督徒才盼着节日的到来:很久以前,人类的祖先很坏,他们互相欺骗,耍诡计,从
17、不遵守诺言。于是,上帝出现了,淹死了他们所有的作物。人们日夜挨饿,哭泣着。为了获得上帝的原谅,一位女诗人出发去见上帝。她对上帝的赞美和怀有的歉意感动了上帝,有了他的允许,人类终于又获得了丰收。因此,为了抹去忧伤并提醒自己对上帝的信仰,人们开始举办这个节日。在节日那天,人们聚集在露天场所,例如操场或停车场,通宵达旦地玩得非常开心,精力充沛的人们似乎不知疲倦。当一位用可爱的衣服盛装打扮的美女朗读诗歌以纪念那位诗人时,在场的每个人都屏住了呼吸,然后,按照风俗,将奖励给她一只公鸡的头骨。很明显,这个故事不是真的,但是节日却很有趣。3.Chaplin-A Great Master of Humour 幽
18、默大师卓别林Chaplin was an extraordinary performer who starred in and directed many outstanding comedies. Few were bored watching his moustache, his gestures or his entertaining reactions when chased by detectives. Being drunk, sliding on a banana skin or whispering his own failures to nobody, he made us
19、feel more content with our life without any verbal explanation. His particular sense of humor has astonished everybody throughout the world up to now.In a small budget film, he played a badly-off and homeless person wearing worn-out shoes and messy clothes. On one occasion, he was trapped by a snows
20、torm in a vast mountainous area. Though he overcame many difficulties, he wasnt fortunate enough. With all the porridge eaten up, he picked out a shoe and boiled it to eat. He cut off the leather bottom and chewed it like a pancake. According to an actress, his acting was so convincing and amusing t
21、hat everybody couldnt help bursting into laughter.卓别林是一名非凡的演员,他主演并导演了多部杰出的喜剧。看见他可笑的小胡子、滑稽的手势动作,还有面对警探的追捕时有趣的反应,很少有人会觉得厌烦。喝醉酒啦,踩到香蕉皮滑倒啦,或者自言自语(低语)自己的糗事啦,他无需任何语言解释的表演总是使我们对自己的生活感到更加满意。他独特的幽默感直到现在依然使世界各地的人们都感到惊讶。 在一部小预算的电影里,他穿着磨破的鞋子和脏兮兮的衣服,扮演了一名贫穷又无家可归的人。在一幕场景中,他被一场暴风雪困在一片多山的区里。尽管他克服了许多困难,但是他还是运气不好的。粥都
22、吃完了,他只好挑出一只鞋子煮来吃。他切下皮革的鞋底,像烙饼一样地咀嚼起来。据一名女演员所说,他的表演是如此地令人信服而又逗人发笑的,以致在场的所有人都忍不住大笑起来。4.A Brave Maid 勇敢的女仆A wooden vase from the Ming Dynasty at the entrance of the reception hall amazed everyone. The artists designed it in a rare style and selected valuable jewels to decorate it. People thought highly
23、 of its fancy color of honey and the beautiful paintings on it.The vase used to belong to a former castle. But when the country was at war, the enemy troops exploded the castle. Debates on how the vase survived went on and on. In order to remove peoples doubt, a team of no less than 20 people carrie
24、d out an informal investigation. The evidences they found showed that a maid took the vase apart and asked a sailor to sink it in a local well. She never gave away the secret even under the cruel trial of the enemies who were in search of treasures. It is worth giving this brave maid a fortune in re
25、turn.接待大厅入口处的明朝木制花瓶 使每个人都惊奇不已。艺术家以一种罕有的风格设计它,并挑选了贵重的珠宝装饰它。人们高度赞赏它那蜂蜜般的奇特颜色,还有上面绘制的绘画。 这个花瓶曾经属于一座从前的城堡,但在战争期间,敌人的军队炸毁了城堡,于是关于这个花瓶是如何幸存下来的争论就一直在持续着。为了解开人们的疑问,一个由不少于20人的调查队开展了一次非正式的调查。他们找到的证据表明,有个女仆把花瓶拆开,然后让一名水手把它沉到当地的一个水井里。她从来没有泄露这个秘密,即使是在搜寻财宝的敌人残酷的审讯下。这位女仆真是值得给予一大笔钱作为对她的回报。5.Immigrate to America 移民美国
26、Attracted by the boom in America, my nephew teamed up with a Korean to illegally cross the Bearing Strait in the Arctic to America. To avoid the Customs punishment, they hid in a small ferry called the North Pole Seagull, sitting back to back without sleeping, showering and shaving for 3 days, and h
27、ad no chance to mourn their lost luggage when landing. The hardship of this crossing was apparent.At first, he made a living by means of raising cattle and then was hired in aircraft industries. He lived in a Catholic district. Taking in a small percentage of Pakistani immigrants, the majority of th
28、e residents were from Italy and Denmark, who all kept up their customs and cultures. Different blocks here were distinctly marked out and indicated from the racial angle. It was unfair and needed reforming. But with nowhere else to go, my nephew lived on and managed to make a life for himself.My nep
29、hews fortune came when he bravely helped a conductor brake a ream to stop it from slipping out of the rails. The man was elected vice chairman of the Socialist Party later. It occurred to my nephew that he could grasp this opportunity to ask for his help. The man who was thankful helped him apply to
30、 the civil authority for the right to live in America by inserting his brave deed into his documents. Unlike a great many other applicants, his application was approved by the Federal Justice Ministry. Before long, he started his own bakery and lived a better life.因为受到美国繁荣的吸引,我的侄子与一名韩国人合作,从北极的白令海峡偷渡
31、到美国。为了避开海关的惩处,他们躲在一艘叫“北极海鸥”的渡轮里,背靠背坐着,整整3天没有睡觉、洗澡和刮胡子,上岸的时候也没有机会心痛他们丢失的行李,这次横渡的艰辛是显而易见的。起初,他借助饲养牲畜谋生,后来受雇于飞机制造工业。他住的地方是一个天主教区,除了包括一小部分(百分比)的巴基斯坦移民,大部分的居民都来自于意大利和丹麦,他们都保持着自己的风俗和文化,使这里的街区都从种族的角度清楚地划出界线,明确标示。这很不公平,极需改革,但我的侄子没别的地方可去,只好继续居住下去,想法设法开始新的生活。 ,我侄子的好运在他勇敢地帮助一名列车员刹停一列电车以防止其滑出轨道时到来了。那个人后来被选为社会党的
32、副主席,我侄子就想到应该抓住机会请求他的帮助。这个人充满感激,立即把我侄子的勇敢事迹插入到申请文件中,帮助我侄子向美国国内政权当局申请美国居住权。不像别的许多申请人,我侄子的申请很快被联邦司法部批准了。不久,他就开了自己的面包店,过上了稍好一点的生活。6.一宗谋杀案When giving a lecture about the significance of punctuation, the academic professor was interrupted and arrested by the police for murdering his wife, a receptionist o
33、f a kindergarten. The police found some photos he deleted from their e-album showing that they used to have a gay life. But, fed up with her wrinkled face, he murdered her instead of divorcing her to avoid fortune division. He cut up a kind of seashell with a sharpened knife, and hammered it into po
34、wder on a skateboard, and made at most one gram, which was enough to accelerate ones pulse until he or she dies. This kind of poison can date back to 10,000 BC when people rubbed it on spears to kill beasts. The professor mixed the poison with onion, watermelon and yogurt for his wife. Howling and s
35、cratching her chest, she felt dizzy and died soon.After tentative examination, the police assumed she died of heart disease. But systematic botanical analyses showed that the watermelon spit on the messy mat and the quilt was poisonous. Regardless of exhaustion and starvation, the acute and skillful
36、 policemen used radioactive equipment to make sure the category of the poison. Primitive and not ample as their alternative equipment was, they got perfect accuracy somehow.People applauded the police and the womans family can look ahead with relief now.那位学院的教授在发表关于标点符号重要意义的演讲时被警察打断了,他因谋杀自己的妻子一位幼儿园的
37、接待员而被逮捕。警察找到了一些被他从电子相册里删除的照片,照片表明,他们曾经有过快乐的生活,但是,因为厌烦了妻子起皱的脸,他杀死她而不是和她离婚以避免离婚时的财产分割。他用一把磨利的小刀切碎一种贝壳,然后在滑板上锤打成粉末,最多1克就足以加速人的脉搏直到其死亡。这种毒药可以追溯到公元前10,000年,当时它就被涂抹在长予上杀死野兽。教授把这种毒药混合在洋葱、西瓜和酸奶里给他的妻子,后者叫喊、抓挠胸口、头晕目眩,很快就死了。在初步检查之后,警察设想她是死于心脏病。但是系统的植物学分析却表明,吐在凌乱的席子和被子上的西瓜有毒。敏锐而又技术娴熟的警察不顾疲劳和饥饿,用放射性的设备确定了毒素的种类。尽
38、管可供选择的设备原始,且数量不足,他们还是设法取得了完美的准确度。 人们都为警察欢呼鼓掌,而那位女人的家人现在也可以带着欣慰为将来打算了。7.A Misunderstanding 一场误会In general, spoken statements are the major way of communication, but body language and facial expressions also have such kinds of function. For example, yawning means being not interested and turning ones
39、back to someone or swinging your fist shows your anger. But what those gestures really mean is subjective in different cultures. Thus, misunderstandings happen now and then in todays world of cultural crossroads.Once, representing the Adults Education Association, I went to the airport to meet an of
40、ficial of high rank from Columbia and take him to his dormitory and then to the canteen. After the flight arrived, I saw a man looking around curiously. So I approached to greet him. He suddenly dashed to hug me and kissed me on both cheeks. As a young girl, I felt truly embarrassed and put up my ha
41、nds to defend myself. His false smile told me that he had lost face.Later, I received a cassette from him, in which he recorded his apology. On hearing that Columbians were more likely to kiss others, I soon felt at ease.通常说来,口头表达是人们交流的主要方法,但是肢体语言和面部表情也有这种功能。例如,打哈欠意味着不感兴趣,背对别人或向其挥舞拳头表达的是愤怒。但是在不同的文化中
42、那些手势表达的真正意思是很主观的。由此,误会就时不时地发生在今天这个文化交叉碰撞的世界里。有一回,我代表成人教育协会到机场去接一位从哥伦比亚来的高级官员,我得带他到宿舍和食堂。当他的航班到达时,我看见一名男子好奇地东张西望,于是走上前去和他打招呼。他突然猛冲过来拥抱我,还亲了我的脸颊。还是个年轻姑娘的我感到真尴尬,不由自主举起手来保护自己。他的假笑告诉我他感到丢了面子。后来,我收到他送来的一盒磁带,里面录了他的道歉。当听到这只是因为哥伦比亚人更倾向于见面时互相亲吻时,我很快就感到轻松安心了。8.An Amateur Journalist 业余记者Jane is a housewife, but
43、 delighted to work as an amateur journalist. It is a dilemma for her to rush between family and work, and it is also unusual for the News Department to depend on an amateur to cover crimes. But Jane is really gifted. It is admirable that she is seldom accused of making mistakes. And, eager to become
44、 more professional, she concentrates on her job and updates herself now and then.Once she is informed of a new case, her normal working process is as follows: first, she makes appointments with guilty people for interviews. So as to acquire accurate stories, she usually demands to record what they s
45、ay. Meanwhile, a technically good colleague will assist her in taking photographs. Second, she assesses whether they are deliberately hiding the truth. If she is skeptical about their words, she will look into the case herself. Third, she writes thorough stories ahead of the deadline and submits it
46、to the senior chief editor, who polishes and approves every section. Finally, her stories will be published in different editions of their magazine.简是一名家庭主妇,但却非常乐意做一名业余记者。在家和工作之间奔波总是使她左右为难,而且对于新闻部来说,依靠一名业余人员来报道罪案也是不同寻常的,但是简真的很有天赋,让人钦佩的是她极少因为犯错而受到责备。因为渴望做得更加专业,她全神贯注于工作,且时不时地就提升自身的业务水平。一旦接到新案子的通知,她通常的
47、工作程序如下:首先,她和有罪的人约了作采访。为了获得准确的新闻,她通常要求做录音,同时,一位技术上好的同事会协助她拍照;接着,她对受采访的人是否有故意隐瞒真相作出评估。如果她怀疑他们的话,就会亲自调查案件;然后,她在截稿期限前写出详尽的报道,呈交给高级主;9.Wildlife Protection 野生动物保护Dinosaurs died out because of an unexpected incident. But wildlife today disappears or is in danger just because humans do harm to it. For examp
48、le, tigers are hunted for fur to make carpets so that they can only live in secure reserves; grassland is destroyed without mercy so that dust storms come into being affecting distant cities.Last year, scientists saw some monkeys rubbing themselves with a certain kind of insects to protect themselve
49、s from fierce mosquitoes biting. According to the result of the inspection, they found that the insect contains a powerful drug, so local farmers were employed to catch the insects. The ending was that the insects disappeared from the whole zone. When told that it was a loss to humans, the farmers burst into laughter and responded, “Our real loss is our decreasing income.” We should appreciate the natural balance and pay more attention to the importance of wildlife