Unit-4-Matriculation-Fixation-练习答案.doc

Unit 4
Matriculation Fixation

Consolidation Activities
I. Text Comprehension

1. Decide which of the following best states the author's purpose.
A. To tell his personal experience in college selection procedures.
B. To offer his philosophy about college selection and one’s future career or success in life.
C. To describe the importance of parents’ role in children’s college education.
Key: [ B ]

2. Judge, according to the text, whether the following statements are true or false.
1). The primary reason for the father to choose a local, second-echelon university for his daughter is based on economic considerations. [T]
2). The author’s success as a freelance writer is largely due to his education in a prestigious university. [F]
3). It is implied, though not stated, that all parents (including the author himself) undergo a critical time when their children are going to college. [T]
4). Ensuring that their children enter one of the top universities is the ultimate objective of some parents. [T]
5). The parents who recognize their children’s incapability to make the cut have never expected their children to go to prestigious universities. [F]
6). The campus tour of MIT enabled the author to change his attitude about college selection. [F]

4. Explain in your own words the following sentences taken from the text.
1) Such people believe that if a child succeeds in getting admission to a first-rate university, then he or she will be guaranteed successful future.
2) Some parents think more of the fame of a university than the university itself. However, their fame has more weight than the institutions themselves.

II. Writing Strategies

Written in a personal and informal style, this essay has a number of subtopics that are carefully introduced. What are these subtopics? The essay begins with the author’s unexpected encounter with a stranger in a hospital, and ends with his tour of MIT campus. How do these two incidents help to connect all the subtopics to the theme of the essay?
The essay has the following subtopics as main components:
1) the author’s own situation and experiences in college education and college selection (Paragraphs 3–8);
2) his probe into and comments on the two classes of college selection obsessives (Paragraphs 9–12).

The two incidents are respectively related with the first and the second subtopics: the encounter puts the author and the man in a similar situation (both the man and the author have kids who are going to attend college); the campus tour provides support to the author’s comments on the matter.
The two incidents help to clarify the subtopics by means of full and progressive explanation of the author’s attitude towards the matter (the author’s college days, his high school chums, examples of failures and successes, etc.)

III. Language Work

1. Explain the underlined part(s) in each sentence in your own words.
1). Money being tight, with other college-bound children in the family queue, the man had persuaded his daughter to accept the second university’s offer.
à Not having much money; children who are going to college

2). Now he was worried that she would one day rue this decision
à regret not having studied in the first-class university

3). I ... had managed to carve out a nice little niche for myself.
à find a job which was very suitable

4). Three years later my son will follow suit.
à go to college too

5). Some of those boys and girls most likely to succeed are going to end up on welfare or skid row.
à are going to be poor, living on welfare, without a job or a place to live, and often drinking too much alcohol

6). A second, far more numerous class of obsessives consists of people who suddenly realize that their Brand X children aren’t going to make the cut.
à measure up to a certain standard

7). Seventeen years of unread textbooks, unvisited museums, and untaken AP courses are now finally taking their toll ...
à having a bad effect

8). During a recent visit to MIT, I watched the first thirty seconds of an admissions office video poking fun at the university’s reputation as a nerd factory.
à making jokes about; a place where boring personalities are fostered

9). At one juncture, she pointed out a restaurant where students could grab a fast, inexpensive meal.
à At one point

10). ...sedulous monitoring of on-campus restaurant prices should be a vital component of the winnowing procedure, particularly vis-a-vis panini.
à the process of reducing a large number of universities to a much smaller number; with regard to

2. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate forms of the given words.
1). The only illumination (illuminate) was from a skylight.
2). The golden autumn light provided the inspiration (inspire) for the painting.
3). There was a biographical (biography) note about the author on the back of the book.
4). She was utterly devastated (devastate) when her husband died.
5). She’s neurotic (neurosis) about her weight — she weighs herself three times a day.
6). It’s infuriating (infuriate) when people keep spelling your name wrong, isn’t it?
7). He’s obsessive (obsess) about punctuality
8). Liz has a fixation (fixate) with food.
9). The medical examination before you start work is obligatory (oblige).
10). Her controversial speech was punctuated with noisy interjections (interject) from the audience.

3. Fill in the blank(s) in each sentence with a phrase taken from the box in its appropriate form.
in jeopardy | screw up | in question | flat out
tick off | take a toll | sotto voce | winnow down
dragoon into | follow suit | fork over | stem from

1). I’ve been dragooned into giving the after-dinner speech.
2). I stayed at home on the night in question.
3). The lives of thousands of birds are in jeopardy as a result of the oil spillage.
4). When one airline reduces its prices, the rest soon follow suit .
5). I screwed up my exams last year.
6). The problems of the past few months have taken a toll on her health and there are shadows beneath her eyes.
7). Their disagreement stemmed from a misunderstanding.
8). The remark was uttered sotto voce.
9). We had to fork over ten bucks to park near the stadium.
10). Tick off each item on the list as you complete it.
11). A list of 12 candidates has been winnowed down to a shortlist of three.
12). She told him flat out that she would not go to the show.

4. Explain the meaning of the underlined part in each sentence.
1). Spending time with one’s family is never an unalloyed pleasure.
à a one-hundred-percent pleasant experience
2). I can’t stand his belligerence.
à his wish to argue with people all the time
3). She gave a bashful smile as he complimented her on her work.
à embarrassed
4). When his parents died, he found himself $100,000 better off.
à had $100, 000 more than he had in the past
5). The CIA was monitoring his phone calls.
à secretly listening to
6). Northbound traffic is moving very slowly because of the accident.
à Traffic which is traveling north
7). She had a look of utter devastation on her face.
à extreme shock and sadness
8). In his closing remarks, the chairman thanked everyone who had helped.
à concluding
9). If you have not signed a contract, you are under no obligation to pay them any money.
à it is not necessary for you to
10). There was a screech of brakes and the bus shuddered to a halt.
à shook violently and stopped

5. Correct the errors in the following passage. The passage contains ten errors, one in each indicated line. In each case, only one word is involved.
Corrections should be done as follows:
Wrong word: underline the wrong word and write the correct word in the blank.
Extra word: delete the extra word with an “×.”
Missing word: mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” and write the missing word in the blank.
Ivy Retardation
It didn’t down on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his value, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes’ of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry out conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.
It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the latest thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy.
The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who don’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect in class, these schools are largely homogeneous.
At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it.
The second disadvantage is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college — all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. You learn to think for yourself in terms of those numbers. They come to signify not only your fate, but your identity; not only your identity, but your value. There is nothing wrong with taking pride in one’s intellect or knowledge. There is something wrong with the smugness and self-congratulation that elite schools connive at from the moment the fat envelopes come in the mail. From orientation to graduation, the message is clear: You deserve everything your presence here is going to enable you to get. When people say that students at elite schools have a strong sense of entitlement, they mean that those students think they deserve more than other people because their SAT scores are high. But they don’t. Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more.

(1) dawn

2) values
(3) minutes

(4) on

(5) last

(6) aren’t

(7) to

(8) of

(9) something

(10) higher

6. Fill in each blank in the passage below with ONE appropriate word.

Confucius and Socrates
Kong Zi, also called Confucius (551–479 B.C.) and Socrates (469–399 B.C.) lived only a hundred years apart, and during their (1) lifetimes there was no contact between China and Greece, but it is interesting to look at how the world that each of these great philosophers came from shaped their ideas, and how these ideas in (2) turn shaped their societies.
Both philosophers lived in (3) times of conflict, though there was more warfare in Greece than in (4) China. The Chinese states were very large and feudal, while the (5) Greek city-states were small and urban.
The (6) urban environment in which Socrates lived allowed him to be more radical than Kong Zi. (7) Unlike Kong Zi, Socrates was not asked by rulers how to govern effectively. Thus, Socrates was able to be more idealistic, focusing on issues (8) like freedom, and knowledge for its own sake. Kong Zi, on the other hand, advised those in government service, and many of his students went on to (9) government.
Kong Zi suggested the Golden Rule as a principle for the (10) conduct of life: “Do not do to others what you would not want others to do to you.” He assumed that all men were equal at (11) birth, though some had more potential than others, and that it was knowledge that set men (12) apart.
Socrates (13) focused on the individual, and thought that the greatest purpose of man was to seek wisdom. He believed that some people had more (14) potential to develop their reason than others (15) did. Like Kong Zi, he believed that the superior class should rule the (16) inferior classes.
For Socrates, the family was (17) of no importance, and the community of (18) little concern. For Kong Zi, however, the family was the center of society, with family relations (19) considered much more important than political relations. (20) Both men are respected much more today than they were in their lifetimes.

IV. Translation

1. Translate the following sentences into English.

1). 他是家里的长子, 所以也是唯一得到过父母全身心照顾的孩子。(undivided attention)
à Being the eldest son in the family, he was the only one to have gained the undivided attention of his parents.

2) 他不具备干这项工作所需要的技能。(requisite)
à He lacked the requisite skills for the job.

3). 在那场危机中, 联合国在当地政府和叛军之间进行了斡旋。(mediate)
à The United Nations mediated between the local government and the rebels during the crisis.

4). 他用杰出的成就为自己在学术界谋得了一个顶尖科学家的席位。(carve out a niche)
à He has carved out a niche for himself as a leading researcher in his field of study.

5). 当我告诉别人我有多大岁数时，每个人都故作惊讶。(feign)
à Everyone feigned surprise when I told them how old I was.

6). 数据被输入电脑以后，电脑会自动使其生效。(be validated by)
à The data is validated automatically by the computer after it has been entered.

7). 当成年人做一件事的时候，大多数小孩子会跟着做， 因为他们并不知道这样做对不对。(follow suit)
à When an adult does something, most small children will follow suit, because they have no sense of right and wrong.

8). 这部小说以上世纪为背景，讲述了一个因和外国人结婚，父母与之断绝关系的姑娘的故事。(disown)
à Set in the last century, the novel tells a story about a girl who was disowned by her parents when she married a foreigner.

9). 我必须面对面地和詹姆斯谈谈星期四的安排。(vis-à-vis)
à I’ve got to speak to James vis-à-vis the arrangements for Thursday.

10). 此时还说不准她是否能彻底痊愈。(at this juncture)
à At this juncture, it is impossible to say whether she will make a full recovery.

2. Translate the following passage into English.

对于成千上万的美国大学生来说，夏季意味着实习(internship)的大好时机。他们干着他们将来可能想干的工作。据专家统计，美国大学生中至少有1/3在毕业前都曾做过实习工作。这些学生有的为大公司服务，有的在小机构里干活，有的则在美国政府部门做事。
对许多实习生(intern)来说，夏日工作并不挣钱。有的大学生实习是为了获得他们毕业后希望从事的工作的经验，有的则是由于还不明确自己毕业后到底想长久地从事何种工作，便在不同的公司和机构内实习，以确定自己最喜欢的工作是什么。实习工作为什么如此受学生青睐呢？学生们可以借此了解各种工作，他们可以做有趣的工作，可以学习技巧，获得有价值的经验，还可以接触到重要人物。因此学生们常把实习描述为千载难逢的机会。

参考译文

Summer means internships for thousands of American college students. They work in the kinds of jobs they might want to have some day. Experts say at least one-third of all American college students complete an