综英4课后问答.doc

Unit 1
Q1: Why does the speaker urge people to be patient?
A1: because he understands that the war is long and tough. It’s not to end in months but in years. He tells the people that however long the war lasts; the final victory belongs to Britain. But at the same time, he makes it clear that not every day is an opportunity to take action. They have yet to wait and preserve.
Q2: why does the speaker advise the British people to treat Triumph and Disaster in the same way?
A2: because he thinks that both triumph and disaster are deceptive in that people can make things out far worse than they really are when they have a disaster, and they can loss their vigilance when they are in triumph.
Q3: what’s the change in the widespread mood referred to in paragraph 5?
A3: when Britain came under the heavy air attack of German, many other nations thought that Britain was finished. As the country stood the torture, to their great surprise, those nations changed their view.
Q4: why does the speaker change darker into sterner?
A4: he has a strong conviction of victory. The two terms have different implications. “Darker days” emphasizes the dark and negative side of the event and shows the users positive “Sterner days”, though identical in its reference, suggests optimism and pride in having the chance to rise to the challenge.
Q5: do you think the speaker had achieved his purpose by the end of his speech?
A5: by paying a visit to a school and making a speech, Churchill not only encouraged his audience but the British people in general to continue to fight rather than surrender.
Unit 2
Q1: why does the writer describe his experience at the bank?
A1: because he wants to show the importance of personal space in maintaining public order. If one’s personal space is invaded, he may, in preserving his own space, breaking into other’s personal space. The chain action can cause chaos in public order.
Q2: how is the concept of personal space defined?
A2: the author defines personal space as one’s individual boarder with the self at the centre and a certain distance on its sides. It’s part of one’s privacy, the invasion of which is sure to make one uneasy.
Q3: what is meant be “this tendency” in paragraph 4? How does the author think of its causes?
A3: it refers to the escalation of personal space. The writer used to think this was caused by the “population explosion” via Malthusian logic. Now he starts to suspect that the season is the cause: in summer, dress some people are more attractive. In addition, he suggests, in seriousness or jest, the stimulating effect of caffeine contributes to the escalation of the invasion of personal space, too.
Q4: what is the characteristic of personal space as described in paragraph 5?
A4: the author mainly describes one important characteristic of personal space: personal space is a relative concept; people in different regions have different concept of personal space. The size of personal space varies according to where one lives, where one has a spread, he will have a more spacious concept of personal space than those who do not have a large place of their own.
Q5: why is personal space shrinking in general?
A5: people are more absorbed than before. In other words, they are paying less attention to the outside world, including personal space than before. The fact that people care less about their personal space in effect encourage space invasion.
Unit 3
Q1: what’s the author’s viewpoint about the benefit of the internet? What does he see about its negative side?
A: as the author sees it, the internet is most likely to make our globalization a better place to live in. it provides a miraculous forum for the globalization of ideas, which contributes to the realization of human potential. Furthermore, it’s a powerful tool for the acquisition and application of knowledge. The benefits of the internet, however, may be darkened by its negative consequences. It may deprive the use of his time for necessary interaction with other society members so that the whole world may be further fragmented. In addition, there is a reasonable likelihood that the internet presents too much information, which gives the users a skewed sense of reality by making him cognitively overloaded.
Q2: what happened to the author’s friend as regards the internet? What negative consequences did he see about it?
A: this friend was addicted to the internet. He would spend even over 24 hours non-stop on the internet so that he had to force himself to go offline. As he spent so much time in cyberspace, his sense of reality might have been crooked. Moreover, without any face-to-face verbal communication with other people, he felt lonely and depressed.
Q3: what alienated society members before the internet gained population? What alienates them in the information age?
A: the alienation of society members had begun long before the internet started to be used worldwide. After World War 2, when the soldiers returned from battlefields, they devoted themselves to “progress.” Large quantities of cars were manufactured, which fed the creation of suburbs, and consequently people lived far apart from each other. The internet, however, has added to the problem and internet addicts are far from rare. As illustrated by the example of the author’s nephew, it seems to be an irreversible trend that more and more people, old and young, are becoming addicted to the internet. They will spend many hours non-stop in cyberspace rather than with their families or friends. For lack of communication, they are becoming strangers to other people. Therefore, there is a good reason to believe that society is being further alienated by the internet.
Q4: what’s meant by the cruel irony that appears in paragraph 4？
A4: the “cruel irony” means that the internet provides the user with a convenient means of communicating and making friends with people far apart on the one hand, but on the other, it estranges the user from the people around him by canceling his availability for face-to-face communication even with his families and close friends and for involvement in community activities.
Q5: how, according to the author, can the potential of the internet be realized?
A5: the potential of the internet as a powerful tool for globalizing ideas and for acquiring and applying knowledge can only be realized when the user strikes a balance between reality and the internet. Although the internet makes it possible for the user to debate, shop, travel and have romance in cyberspace without leaving home, the overuse of this tool probably results in a distorted sense of reality. The only way to avoid being penalized by the internet is make moderate use of this tool without losing one’s sense of place in the world.
Unit 4
Q1: why is a view of mountains provided by a picture so significant that it was chosen as the title of the essay?
A1: a view of mountains in the distance rather than the wreckage is meant to remind the viewer of the city that was leveled to the ground by the atomic bomb and of the normal life that would have been going on there. This is where the significance of the picture lies.
Q2 why are Yamahata’s pictures still news?
A2: because it was the first time that Americans had ever seen the pictures since the atomic bombing fifty years ago.
Q3: in what ways is the bombing of Nagasaki the fitter symbol of the nuclear danger?
A3: the bombing of Nagasaki is regarded as the fitter symbol of the nuclear peril in two aspects. First, it’s evidence that nuclear weapons can be used again to destroy human civilization. Second, the fact that Nagasaki had not been the originally chosen target of the nuclear attack shows the unpredictability of the possible nuclear attack in the future. That is, every city in the world is liable to nuclear destruction.
Q4: what is the universal meaning of yamahata’s photos?
A4: they were intended to demonstrate that devastating power of nuclear weapons and express an apprehension of the nuclear peril menacing the world.
Q5: do yamahata’s pictures fully express the author’s intention of writing? Why or why not?
A5: no, it only expresses part of it, because the writer intends not only to express his apprehension of the nuclear threat but, more importantly, to call on the people to take actions to banish forever nuclear weaponry from the earth.
Unit 5
Q1: what did the woman think of the movie girlfriend?
A1: she thought it was a trivial movie particularly with regard to its dull plot. At the same time she found it gentle and affecting on the grounds that the movie described in detail the characteristics of the friendship between two women.
Q2: why did the woman say that the movie camera had shifted its focus?
A2: because in the past men were the exclusive images of friendship depicted in movies and they were presented as the only inheritors of a primitive capacity for friendship. Women, on the other hand, were portrayed as incapable of friendship, taking their pleasure in making critical remarks about each other. Nowadays, however, female friendship was becoming a fashionable theme of movies, taking the place of male friendship.
Q3: what, according to the woman, is the subtle distinction between male and female friendship?
A3: male friendship, i.e. the bonding relationship between buddies, is established on the need for cooperation in the activities that men are engaged in or in the adverse situations they are confronted with. In other words, without the need to do things together, there would probably be no buddies at all. In contrast, female friendship borders on love, the need for mutual emotional support. Women friends desire to be together as a result of spiritual attachment, regardless of whether they are involved in the same act or not.
Q4: what does it show about how men and women establish their own forms of friendship following different course?
A4: men become buddies only when they have undergone together competitive, adverse or dangerous situations like sports games and wars, but women are not real friends unless they have exchanged three loathsome secrets. This face shows again that male friendship is activity-oriented while female friendship is emotion-rooted.
Q5: why was the woman shocked at men’s description of friendship?
A5: because what men described as friendship was nothing of the kind at all to the woman. As she saw it, when two women see each other only once a year, they cannot count as best friends; when two women do not call each other long distance without a real reason, they don’t count as intimates; and when two women don’t have dinner together alone without the company of their spouses, they don’t count as chums. But in such situations, men can still describe themselves as bosom friends.
Unit 6
Q1: why does the writer hang out the American national flag on July 4 though he knows it attracts little attention in Paris?
A1: for one thing, hanging out the American flag is the only thing he can do in paris to celebrate the independence day, which is part of his national heritage. For another, he wants to use this opportunity to teach his children about American history and as a reminder of their American identity.
Q2: why do the children seldom mix languages up?
Q2: the children seldom mix languages up because they have acquired French at school and English through communication with their English-speaking parents. And they seem to know when to use which.
Q3: what does the writer think is the benefit of raising children in a foreign culture?
A3: the benefits of raising children in a foreign culture, as the writer suggests, include acquiring a foreign language and culture and staying away from the follies of the native culture.
Q4: what impact does globalization have upon the growth of children in a foreign culture?
A4: globalization is like a double-edged sword to the growth of children in a foreign culture. On the other hand, it helps to reduce the differences between the foreign culture and the native culture, and facilitates the physical and spiritual re-entry into the native culture. On the other hand, it unfortunates makes it more difficult than ever for children to be fully immersed in the foreign culture.
Unit 7
Q1: In what ways was Wagner physically odd?
A1: he had a short stature with a disproportionally large head, and he had skin disease.
Q2: why did he always take himself to be the center of his conversation？
A2: he believed he was one of the greatest men in the world, a great composer, a great thinker and a great dramatist combined into one. A man of such arrogance cannot help but take himself to be the center of conversations.
Q3: how would he respond to disagreement?
A3: if anyone showed slight disagreement with him, he would make a lengthy and aggressive speech for hours to prove himself to be in the right. This would force his dazed and deafened hearer to surrender.
Q4: what emotional features did he possess?
A4: he was emotionally capricious like a child. Rapture in him could easily turn into extreme melancholy. He was heartless and callous to a frightening degree on some occasions. Moreover, his emotional states always found outward expression.
Q5: how does the author justify Wagner’s arrogance and extravagance?
A5: the author says that Wagner was among the greatest dramatists, the greatest thinkers and the most tremendous musical geniuses in our world. His immortal works for exceeded in value the tortures his arrogance inflicted upon others and the debts he owed.
Q6: in what sense may Wagner be said to be a monster?
A6: the tremendous creative power, which propelled him to produce so many memorable works in his lifetime, could have crushed his accomplishments. In this sense he was a monster rather than a human being.
Unit 8
Q1. Does the doctor feel guilty of spying on his patients? Why or why not?
A1: No. he finds the activity is well-meant, i.e. he wants to collect more pathological evidence in order to give the patients more effective treatment For another, his activity is not spying in the true sense, for the act is far from furtive.
Q2: How would you account for the possessions in room 542?
A2: the fact that there are no get -well cards, no small, private caches of food and day-old flowers shows that he has been abandoned by his family and friends.
Q3: why does the patient ask for shoes time and again?
A3: as a blind man, he is restrained in activity. Now without legs, he is completely confined to bed. Like a caged bird, he longs for freedom and dreams of going back to his career. Thus it is understandable why he repeatedly asks for shoes.
Q4: why does the patient throw his plate?
A4: this is the way he expresses his wrath with the unfair fate. He is deprived of sight and now his legs. Deserted by society, he is left with very little. Indignant as he is, he can avenge himself upon nobody. What he can do is only to cra