21st Century College English: Book III

1. 21st Century College English: Book III Unit 4: Part A College Pressures

2. Unit 4 Part A • Pre-Reading Activities • Text A: Language Points • Exercises • Assignment College Pressure

3. Pre-reading Activities 1. As you listen to the passage, fill in as much information as you can about Annette’s plans. work on history paper at the library Friday evening: During the coming month: Next term: In the fall: Next spring: finish history paper, prepare for economics test, finish reading assignments for government class and start next term’s readings concentrate on sociology and management ??? [unspecified in the passage] have a nervous breakdown

4. Pre-reading Activities Answer the Question 2.How did you feel while you were listening to Annette? What was it like trying to keep up with her? How do students like Annette make you feel? Script

5. Pre-reading Activities Brad: Hi Annette! Some of us are going to see that new play on Friday, and then out for a pizza afterwards. Do you feel like going? Annette: I’d love to, Brad, but I have to finish this paper for history class. I planned to spend Friday evening at the library. Brad: Annette, that paper isn’t due for a month! Annette[talking faster and faster, sounding more and more mindless]: But there’s test in economics that same week. I have to get the history paper out of the way so I can start preparing for that. Plus I have to finish the reading assignments for government class for this term so I can start on the readings for next term. That way I can concentrate on sociology and management next term and hopefully get far enough ahead so that in the fall I won’t have to … Brad: [interrupting]: Whoa, slow down, Annette! You’re just wearing yourself out! You’re going to have a nervous breakdown! Annette [still sounding mindless]: Oh, that’s okay — I’ve scheduled in time for a nervous breakdown during the spring term next year.

6. Language Points Text A College Pressures

7. Language Points College Pressures By William Zinsser 1I am master of Branford College at Yale. I live on the campus and know the students well. (We have 485 of them.) I listen to their hopes and fears — and also to their stereo music and their piercing cries in the dead of night (“Does anybody care?”). They come to me to ask how to get through the rest of their lives.

8. Language Points 2 Mainly I try to remind them that the road ahead is a long one and that it will have more unexpected turns than they think. There will be plenty of time to change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches. They don’t want to hear such news. They want a map — right now — that they can follow directly to career security, financial security, social security and, presumably, a prepaid grave.

9. Language Points 3 What I wish for all students is some release from the grim grip of the future. I wish them a chance to enjoy each segment of their education as an experience in itself and not as a tiresome requirement in preparation for the next step. I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn that defeat is as educational as victory and is not the end of the world.

10. Language Points 4My wish, of course, is naive. One of the few rights that America does not proclaim is the right to fail. Achievement is the national god, worshipped in our media — the million-dollar athlete, the wealthy executive — and glorified in our praise of possessions. In the presence of such a potent state religion, the young are growing up old.

11. Language Points 5I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It’s easy to look around for bad guys — to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no bad guys, only victims.

12. Language Points 6 Today it is not unusual for a student, even one who works part time at college and full time during the summer, to have accumulated $5,000 in loans after four years — loans that the student must start to repay within one year after graduation (and incidentally, not all these loans are low-interest, as many non-students believe). Encouraged at the commencement ceremony to go forth into the world, students are already behind as they go forth. How can they

13. Language Points not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? Women at Yale are under even more pressure than men to justify their expensive education to themselves, their parents, and society. For although they leave college superbly equipped to bring fresh leadership to traditionally male jobs, society hasn’t yet caught up with this fact.

14. Language Points 7Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply intertwined. I see students taking premedical courses with joyless determination. They go off to their labs as if they were going to the dentist. It saddens me because I know them in other corners of their life as cheerful people.

15. Language Points 8 “Do you want to go to medical school?” I ask them. 9 “I guess so,” they say, without conviction, or, “Not really.” 10 “Then why are you going?” 11 “My parents want me to be a doctor. They’re paying all this money and …”

16. Language Points 12Peer pressure and self-induced pressure are also intertwined, and they begin from the very start of freshman year. “I had a freshman student I’ll call Linda,”one instructor told me, “who came in and said she was under terrible pressure because her roommate, Barbara, was much brighter and studied all the time. I couldn’t tell her that Barbara had come in two hours earlier to say the same thing about Linda.”

17. Language Points 13 The story is almost funny —except that it’s not. It’s a symptom of all the pressures put together. When every student thinks every other student is working harder and doing better, the only solution is to study harder still. I see students going off to the library every night after dinner and coming back when it closes at midnight. I wish they could sometimes forget about their peers and go to a movie. I hear the rattling of typewriters in the hours before dawn. I see the tension in their eyes when exams are approaching and papers are due: “Will I get everything done?”

18. Language Points 14Probably they won’t. They will get sick. They will sleep. They will oversleep. They will bug out. 15 I’ve painted too grim a portrait of today’s students, making them seem too solemn. That’s only half of their story; the other half is that these students are nice people, and easy to like. They’re quick to laugh and to offer friendship. They’re more considerate of one another than any student generation I’ve ever known. If I’ve described

19. Language Points them primarily as driven creatures who largely ignore the joyful side of life, it’s because that’s where the problem is — not only at Yale but throughout American education. It’s why I think we should all be worried about the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at such an early age.

20. Language Points 16 I tell students that there is no one “right” way to get ahead — that each of them is a different person, starting from a different point and bound for a different destination. I tell them that change is healthy and that people don’t have to fit into pre-arranged slots. One of my ways of telling them is to invite men and women who have achieved success outside the academic world to come and talk informally with my students during the year. I invite heads of companies, editors of magazines,

21. Language Points politicians, Broadway producers, artists, writers, economists, photographers, scientists, historians —a mixed bag of achievers. 17 I ask them to say a few words about how they got started. The students always assume that they started in their present profession and knew all along that it was what they wanted to do. But in fact, most of them got where they are by a circuitous route, after many side

22. Language Points trips. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not preplanned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to lead them down some unforeseen trail.

23. get through — manage to live through (a period of time during which something unpleasant is happening) Translate 他们帮我渡过了那段辛酸的日子。 e.g. How do they ever get through Siberian winters? Key They helped me to get through those miserable days.

24. in itself — in its own nature; intrinsically Translate 问题本身倒并不很重要，但其长远影响可能是重大的。 e.g. 1) The design was not in itself bad. 2) The plan wasn’t illegal in itself, but it would lead to some doubtful practices. Key The problem is unimportant in itself but its long term effects could be very serious.

25. trip vi. — (~ over/up)knock one’s foot against something when walking and lose balance so that one falls or nearly falls Translate 她让猫绊了一跤。 e.g. 1)She tripped over a stone. 2) He tripped and fell, tearing a hole in his trousers. Key She tripped over the cat and fell.

26. day of reckoning — time when a person pays or when he is punished for things that he has done wrong Translate 别看你现在逍遥，将来会遭报应的。 Cf. reckon and calculate Both reckon and calculate mean “determine something mathematically”, but reckon usually connotes simpler mathematical process, especially such as can be carried on in one’s head or aided by the use of a counting device, while calculate is usually preferred when highly advanced, complex processes are followed with precision and care and when the result arrived at is not readily proven by measuring. • e.g. • We tried to put off the day of reckoning. • The day of reckoning has come for him. Key You’re enjoying yourself now, but a day of reckoning will come.

27. catch up with — reach (and sometimes overtake) (sb. Who is ahead); (in competition, trade, standard, etc.) become equal to Translate 他因病一学期未上课，得努力赶上（其他同学）。 • e.g. • Will Western industry ever catch up with Japanese innovations? • They haven’t caught up yet with the latest styles. Key After missing a term through illness he had to work hard to catch up (with the others).

28. go along with — be found together with Translate 事实证明，成功总是和勤奋分不开的。 e.g. 1) Failing health often goes along with old age. 2) Increased unemployment has gone along with rising prices all over the world. Paraphrase: Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Key It is proved that success always goes with diligence. Parental pressure takes place together with economic pressure.

29. except that — (used to introduce a statement which states or implies something contrary to the preceding one) only that, but that e.g. 1) It couldn’t have happened except that it did. 2) She would have protested except that she was afraid. Translate 她 （对他）什么都不记得，只记得他的头发是黑的。 Paraphrase: The story is almost funny — except that it’s not. Key She remembered nothing (about him) except that his hair was black. The story (about Linda and Barbara thinking that each is working harder and doing better than the other) sounds somewhat funny, but in fact it’s not funny.

30. that’s only half of their story — That’s only part of the situation with the students. • e.g. • What he told us yesterday is only half the story; there are more people concerned in this affair than he knows about. • 2) These figures gave only part of the story. If you say something is only half of the story, or part of the story or not the whole story you mean that there are more details that need to be known in order to understand the situation.

31. obsess vt. — fill the mind of (sb.) continually and make thinking about anything else difficult Paraphrase: the values that are nurturing a generation so fearful of risk and so goal-obsessed at an early age • e.g. • The fear of death obsessed her throughout her old age. • She was obsessed with the idea that she was going to die. Translate 她总觉得受人监视而心神不宁。 Key She was obsessed with the idea that she was being watched. the social principles that are bringing up a generation so afraid of taking risks and so excessively concerned about their future career when so young

32. a mixed bag — a thoroughly varied mixture (of people or things) • e.g. • Jane invited a mixed bag of people to her party. • The songs on this record are (quite) a mixed bag.

33. get started — begin • e.g. • When can we get started? • It’s time we got started on the washing up.

34. Text-related information Brandford College at Yale Brandford College is one of the oldest of Yale university’s twelve residential colleges. It opened its doors in the start of the academic year in 1933.

35. Text-related information Social Security Social security generally refers to all measures established by legislation to maintain individual to family income at certain levels, to assure income ifemployment is lost, and to provide agreat number of benefits covered by other programs. These benefits may include maternity payments, cash for medical needs, legal aid, compensation for crop failure, andfuneral expenses.

36. Text-related information Broadway Broadway is one of the principal business thoroughfares of New York City, extending in a generally north-south direction. Laid out in the early 17th century by the Dutch, Broadway grew in length as the city developed from a small settlement on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. It now extends 27 km (17 mi) to the city’s northern boundary in the Bronx. Broadway forms the central thoroughfare of More to learn

37. Text-related information New York City’s theater district. This stretch is one of the most highly concentrated entertainment centers in the United Stats, and includes official Broadway theaters, smaller off-Broadway playhouses, movie theaters, restaurants, and bars. Also located on Broadway are Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Columbia University (1754). More to learn

38. Text-related information Women enter the Broadway Theater in Denver, Colorado. One woman wears a short fur coat, hat and evening dress. The Broadway Theater opened in 1890 on 18th and Broadway Avenues. It was demolished in 1955. More to learn

39. Text-related information A book: Broadway Theatres, an introduction of the history of Broadway.

40. Comprehension change jobs, change careers, change whole attitudes and approaches Do you know the difference between “change jobs” and “change careers”? Paraphrase: take another job, begin a new career, adopt an entirely different attitude and approach Someone’s career is the series of jobs that they have in their life, esp. in the same area of work. So, if a teacher quits teaching in one school and starts teaching in another, he changes his jobs, but if he quits teaching at all and starts running a business, he changes his career.

41. Comprehension Achievement is the national god, worshipped in our media … and glorified in our praise of possessions. Success is greatly admired by the whole country, highly respected in newspapers, on radio and television … and strongly praised in our approval of wealth.

42. Comprehension to justify their expensive education to … to prove to … that it is right for them to receive such an expensive education; to show to … that they can perform as well as or even better than men for the expensive education they’ve received

43. Comprehension as if they were going to the dentist as if they were going to suffer Having one’s teeth treated often causes a lot of pain, and going to the dentist is never a pleasant experience. So students who study medicine under parental pressure feel as if they were going to the dentist when they have to go to their labs.

44. Comprehension when … papers are due when … it is time to hand in papers

45. Comprehension easy to like = easy to be liked

46. Comprehension they … knew all along that it was what they wanted to do they … knew from the very beginning that it (their present profession) was the profession they wanted to follow

47. self-induced — caused or brought about by oneself self-imposed decided by yourself allowing yourself to have or do anything that you enjoy self-indulgent self-inflicted (of something bad) done to yourself

48. go force (into) — set out Could you make a sentence by yourself?

49. be bound for — intending to go to; going to e.g. These two young musicians are bound for international success.

50. conceive of — think of e.g. He couldn’t conceive of a time when he would have no job. I find it hard to conceive of such cruelty.