教材习题
Exercises
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I. Oral Presentation
Make a five-minute presentation in class based on your research and experience.
® Suggested topics:
* 1. Provide information about some of the places in New York City mentioned in the text, such as Manhattan, Central Park, Madison Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Broadway, Wall Street, etc.
2. Acity that I love and hate
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II. Questions
A. Questions on the Content
1. What, according to the writer, do the ad campaigns celebrating the Big Apple and “I love New York” T-shirts show?
In what fields can New York no longer be regarded as the leading American city? What are its deficiencies as a pacesetter?
Why do many Europeans call New York their favorite city?
Why did the writer go and live in New York?
Why do many young people still go to New York?
In what respects is New York still regarded as the leading American city?
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Why is New York called an international metropolis?
- Questions on Structure and Style What is the main theme of this article? Where is it specifically stated? How is the article organized? Comment on the diction of the writer. Pick out terms that you think are peculiarly American. Does the writer really both love and hate New York? Cite examples to back up your analysis. What is the topic sentence of Paragraph 8? How is the paragraph developed? How does the writer describe the different aspects of New York by comparing the different attitudes of outsiders and New Yorkers?
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III. Paraphrase
Explain the following sentences in your own words, bringing out any implied meanings. 1. Nowadays New York is out of phase with American taste... (Para. 2)
2. New York even prides itself on being a holdout from prevailing American trends... (Para. 2)
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...sitcoms cloned and canned in Hollywood, and the Johnny Carson show live,
preempt the airways from California... (Para. 3)
...it is making something of a comeback as a tourist attraction... (Para. 4)
To win in New York is to be uneasy... (Para. 6)
Nature’s pleasures are much qualified in New York. (Para. 8)
...the city’s bright glow arrogantly obscures the heavens. (Para. 8)
But the purity of a bohemian dedication can be exaggerated. (Para. 10)
In both these roles it ratifies more than it creates. (Para. 11)
10. The television generation grew up in the insistent presence of hype... (Para. 13)
11. ...those who are writing ambitious novels sustain themselves on the magazines. (Para. 13)
12. Broadway, which seemed to be succumbing to the tawdriness of its environment, is astir again. (Para. 15)
13. The defeated are not hidden away somewhere else on the wrong side of town. (Para.18)
14. The place constantly exasperates, at times exhilarates. (Para. 22)
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IV. Practice with Words and Expressions
A. Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the italicized words and phrases, ...New York even prides itself on being a holdout... (Para. 2) ...the Johnny Carson show live... (Para. 3)
...the city’s charged, nervous atmosphere... (Para. 5)
...it is also about mockery, the put-down... (Para. 6)
I wasn't even sure how I'd measure up against others... (Para. 9) ... devising the catchy jingles... (Para. 12)
...in Manhattan's expense-account French restaurants. (Para. 12) ...those whose paintings don't sell do illustrations... (Para. 13) ...those who can't get acting jobs do commercials... (Para. 13) This distancing, this uncaring in ordinary encounters... (Para. 14) 11. ...avenues of high-rise luxury in New York... (Para. 21)
12. ...never far from poverty and mean streets. (Para. 21)
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B. Explain what the following proper names symbolize.
Model: the White House—the executive branch of the US government Hollywood
Tin Pan Alley
Madison Avenue
Fifth Avenue
Broadway
Greenwich Village
Disneyland
Wall Street
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C. Point out what figure of speech is used in each of the following sentences.
1. ...while sitcoms cloned and canned in Hollywood, and the Johnny Carson show live, preempt the airways form California... (Para. 3) ( )
2. Tin Pan Alley has moved to Nashville and Hollywood. (Para. 3) ( )
3. New York was never Mecca to me. (Para. 7) ( )
4. Nature constantly yields to man in New York: witness those fragile sidewalk trees gamely struggling against encroaching cement and petrol fumes. (Para. 8) ( )
5. So much of well-to-do America now lives antiseptically in enclaves, tranquil and luxurious, that shut out the world. (Para. 16) ( )
6. The defeated are not hidden away somewhere else on the wrong side of town. (Para. 18)
7. Characteristically, the city swallows up the United Nations and refuses to take it seriously, regarding it as an unworkable mixture of the idealistic, the impractical, and the hypocritical. (Para. 20) ( )
V. Translation
A. Translate the following sentences into Chinese.
1. Those ad campaigns celebrating the Big Apple, those T-shirts with a heart design proclaiming “I love New York,’ are signs, pathetic in their desperation, of how the mighty has fallen. (Para. 1)
2. Nowadays New York is out of phase with American taste as often as it is out of step with American politics. (Para. 2)
3. A dozen other cities have buildings more inspired architecturally than any built in New York City in the past twenty years. (Para. 3)
4. New York was never a good convention city—being regarded as unfriendly, unsafe, overcrowded, and expensive—but it is making something of a comeback as a tourist attraction. (Para. 4)
5. They take more readily than do most Americans to its cosmopolitan complexities, its surviving, aloof, European standards, its alien mixtures. (Para. 5)
6. But all in all, I can’t think of many places in the world Id rather live. (Para. 7)
7. It has become less a tranquil park than an untidy carnival. (Para. 8)
8. A testing of oneself, a fear of giving in to the most banal and marketable of one’s talents, still draws many of the young to New York. (Para. 10)
9. In time the newcomers find or form their own worlds; Manhattan is many such worlds, huddled together but rarely interacting. (Para. 14)
10. The newcomers are never fully absorbed, but are added precariously to the undigested many. (Para. 19)
B. Translate Paragraphs 20-22 into Chinese.
Read, Think and Comment
Below is a passage from Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Read it and prepare to discuss: What is the central idea of the paragraph? How does the paragraph begin? What method is used in developing the central idea?
It was amusing to look round the filthy little scullery and think that only a double door was between us and the dining-room. There sat the customers in all their splendour—spotless tablecloths, bowls of flowers, mirrors and gilt cornices and painted cherubim; and here, just a few feet away we in our disgusting filth. For it really was disgusting filth. There was no time to sweep the floor till evening, and we slithered about in a compound of soapy water, lettuce-leaves, torn paper and trampled food. A dozen waiters with their coats off, showing their sweaty armpits, sat at the table mixing salads and sticking their thumbs into the cream pots. The room had a dirty, mixed smell of food and sweat. Everywhere in the cupboards, behind the piles of crockery, were squalid stores of food that the waiters had stolen. There were only two sinks, and no washing basin, and it was nothing unusual for a waiter to wash his face in the water in which clean crockery was rinsing. But the customers saw nothing of this. There were a coconut mat and a mirror outside the dining-room door, and the waiters used to preen themselves up and go in looking the picture of cleanliness.
学习指南参考答案
A.
1. These signs show that New York is no longer the leading city in the United States.
2. New York no longer begets the styles and sets the trends. It is no longer a pacesetter.
3. Other cities have buildings more inspired architecturally. The center of music and sports has also shifted to other cities. As a tourist attraction it is inferior to New Orleans, San Francisco, Washington or Disneyland. Finally, there are many better cities to live in than New York.
4. The Europeans call New York their favorite city because they like its cosmopolitan complexities, its surviving European standards and its alien mixtures. Perhaps some of these are reassured by the international names of jewelers, shoe stores and designer shops. But what most excites Europeans is the city’s charged, nervous atmosphere, its vulgar dynamism.
5. Tim writer went to New York because he likes to live there and he could practice the kind of journalism he wanted in that city.
6. The young people go to New York to test themselves and to avoid giving in to the most banal and marketable of their talents. In New York they also find the company of many other young people similarly fleeing from the constricting atmosphere of smaller cities.
7. New York is still the banking and communications headquarters for America. The networks’ news centres, the largest book publishers, the biggest magazines, the ad agencies are all here, appraising and ratifying the films, the plays, the music, the books that others have created.
8. It is in fact the first truly international metropolis because here one finds a much wider mixture of nationalities Asians, Africans, Latins and all varieties of Europeans.
B.
1. This article is a piece of expository writing. The main theme or thesis is stated by the title “Loving and Hating New York”, or more specifically, by the first sentence of the last paragraph: “Loving and hating New York becomes a matter of alternating moods, often in the same day.”
2. This article is well organized. The first five paragraphs can be a general introduction, pointing out the present status of New York City in the United States and in the eyes of foreigners. To be more specific, the first four paragraphs describe how New York City is no longer a leading city and a pacesetter. Para. 5 presents the status of New York as a favorite city in the eyes of many Europeans. The last sentence of Para. 5 acts as a transition to the actual description of New York City’s charged, nervous atmosphere, and its vulgar dynamism. Paras. 6-21 consists Part Two, which objectively and emotionally describes New York and the life and struggle of New Yorkers and also explains New Yorkers’ love for the city which is stronger than hate in spite of its shortcomings and disadvantages. Para. 22 can be Part Three. It centers on the theme by stating “Loving and hating New York becomes a matter of alternating moods, often in the same day.”
3. This article is full of American English terms, phrases and constructions. Such as T-shirt, hassle, plush, holdout, comeback, putdown, measure up, expense-account, etc.
4. The writer states that he both loves and hates New York, but the reader fails to see where or why he hates New York. It is clear that Griffith loves New York and feels exhilarated living there. He may sometimes feel exasperated but this feeling is never strong enough to turn to hate. The writer shows his love for New York with the words such as energy, contention striving, etc.
5. The topic sentence of paragraph 8 is the first sentence. “Nature’s pleasures are much qualified in New York.” The writer uses many examples to develop this paragraph and to back up the statement made in the topic sentence.
6. By comparing their different attitudes or feelings of love and hate towards New York City, the writer describes both positive and negative aspects or advantages and disadvantages of New York. To New Yorkers who love this city so much, New York is a place of opportunity, energy, bracing competitiveness, etc. But outsiders find New York oppressive and disgusting. Their different attitudes present a complete picture of New York.
1. Nowadays New York cannot understand nor follow the taste of the American people.
2. New York boasts that it is a city that resists the prevailing trends (styles, fashion) of America.
3. Situation comedies made in Hollywood and the actual performance of Johnny Carson now replace the scheduled radio and TV programs for California.
4. New York is regaining somewhat its status as a city that attracts tourists.
5. A person who wins in New York is constantly disturbed by fear and anxiety (because he is afraid of losing what he has won in the fierce competition).
6. The chance to enjoy the pleasures of nature is very limited.
7. At night the city of New York is aglow with lights and seems proudly and haughtily to darken the night sky.
8. But a pure and wholehearted devotion to a Bohemian life style can be exaggerated.
9. In both these roles of banking and communications headquarters, New York starts or originates very few things but gives its stamp of approval to many things created by people in other parts of the country.
10. The television generation was constantly and strongly influenced by extravagant promotional advertising.
11. Authors writing long serious novels earn their living in the meantime by also writing articles for popular magazines.
12. Broadway, which seemed unable to resist the cheap, gaudy shows put on in the surrounding areas, is once again busy and active.
13. Those who failed in the struggle of life, the down-and-outs, are not hidden away in slums or ghettoes where other people can’t see them.
14. New York constantly irritates and annoys very much but at times it also invigorates and stimulates.
A.
1. holdout: (Americanism) a place that holds out;
hold out: continue resistance; stand firm; not yield
2. live: transmitted during the actual performance
3. charged: tense; intense
4. put-down: (American slang) a belittling remark or crushing retort
5. measure up: (Americanism) prove to be competent or qualified
6. jingle: a verse that jingles; jingling arrangement of words or syllables
7. expense-account: (Americanism) an arrangement whereby certain expenses of an employee in connection with his work are paid for by his employer
8. illustration: a picture, design, diagram, etc. used to decorate or explain something
9. commercial: (radio and TV) a paid advertisement
10. distancing: be reserved or cool toward; treat aloofly
11. high-rise: (Americanism) designating or of a tall apartment house, office building, etc., of many stories /(noun) a high-rise building
12. mean: poor in appearance; shabby
B.
1. Hollywood: U.S. motion picture industry or its life, world, etc.
2. Tin Pan Alley: the publishers, writers, and promoters of popular music; center of popular music
3. Madison Avenue: the advertising industry, its practices, influence, etc.
4. Fifth Avenue: fashionable shopping center
5. Broadway: the New York commercial theatre or entertainment industry
6. Greenwich Village: center for artists, writers, etc., in New York
7. Disneyland: (after an amusement center near Los Angeles, created by Walt Disney) a place or condition of unreality, fantasy, incongruity, etc.
8. Wall street: the U.S. money market or the U.S. financiers and their power, influence, policies, etc.
C.
1. alliteration, metaphor
2. metonymy
3. metaphor, metonymy
4. personification
5. metaphor, synecdoche
6. euphemism
7. personification
V. See the translation of the text.
1. This paragraph is taken from Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. In this paragraph he draws the difference between “the filthy little scullery” and the dining room of a Parisian restaurant. He develops his paragraph mainly by abundant
descriptive details and the use of concrete words.
2. This paragraph is taken from The Crisis in Man’s Destiny by Sir Julian Huxley. The main idea is expressed in the topic sentence “Science is exploding even more violently than population.”, which is developed by a combination of facts, judgments, and semifactual statements. The semifactual topic sentence is supported by statistical evidence (physical fact) in sentences 2, 3 and 4. In sentence 5 he makes three judgments based on the factual evidence in the paragraph.
3. This paragraph is taken from The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch. The main idea is expressed in the opening topic sentence: “Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.” The writer uses multiple examples to develop and illustrate this view.