BR-main

1. BR-main Before Reading 1. Listening Comprehension 2. Discussion 3. Background Information Albert Camus Jean Paul Satre Existential Philosophy Random House Cadillac Las Vegas Theme Park FBI 4. Topic-related Prediction

2. BR1- Listening Comprehension1 ListeningComprehension Directions: Listen to the passage and answer the questions. 1. Why do so many people become gamblers, according to the passage? 2. Who benefited from the increasingly popular gambling? 3. What problems may pathological gamblers bring? ■

3. BR1- Listening Comprehension2 ListeningComprehension Directions: Listen to the passage and answer the questions. Gambling is becoming increasingly popular throughout the world. Many people have friends or family members who have gambling problems. This increase can be attributed to the legalization of gambling in many countries and associated rapid increase in gambling facilities such as casinos and slot machines. It is true that gambling has brought income to some people such as American Indians, but it has brought very serious problems for both individuals and society as a whole. Increasing number of people are becoming addicted to gambling, bringing a whole gamut of problems. Pathological gamblers may develop stress related to medical conditions such as peptic ulcers, depression, and alcoholism. Pathological gamblers may also evidence anti-social behavior, leaving regular employment and even engaging in criminal activities to support their habit. And they often cause harm to their families and friends. 1. Why do so many people become gamblers, according to the passage? 2. Who benefited from the increasingly popular gambling? 3. What problems may pathological gamblers bring?

4. BR1- Discussion Discussion Directions: Look at the pictures. Discuss in groups the following questions. 1. How do the pictures strike you? 2. What makes gambling so appealing to some people? 3. What might be the disastrous consequences of gambling?

5. BR1-Albert Camus1 Albert Camus His philosophical view: There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that. His literary view: A novel is never anything but a philosophy put into images. the French writer and philosopher

6. BR1-Albert CaHis life:mus2 His life: 1913 born in Algeria, into a working-class family received his diploma from the University of Algiers in philosophy; joined the Communist Party 1935 -1939 World War II a member of the French resistance published the novel The Stranger, concerning the absurdity of the human condition 1942 a reader and editor; editted the newspaper Combat 1943 resigned from Combat and published the novel The Plague 1947 1957 won the Nobel Prize for literature 1960 died

7. BR1- Jean Paul Satre1 Jean Paul Satre His philosophical view “existence is prior to essence”: we are responsible for the choices and for our emotional lives. In a godless universe life has no meaning or purpose beyond the goals that each man sets for himself. Only one who chooses to assume responsibility of acting in a particular situation makes effective use of one's freedom. His literary view: The goal of art is to recover this world by giving it to be seen not as it is, but as if it had its source in human freedom. the French novelist, playwright, philosopher, and literary critic

8. BR1- Jean Paul Satre2 His life: June 21,1905 born in Paris World War II imprisoned in Germany, but released in 1941 1943 published Being and Nothingness 1947 published his best-known book of literary criticism: QU'EST CE QUE LA LITTÉRATURE traveled in China 1955 published his philosophic work Critique of Dialectical Reason 1960 was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, but he declined the award in protest of the values of bourgeois society 1964 was arrested because of selling on the streets the forbidden Maoist paper La cause du peuple 1970 died in Paris April 15, 1980

9. BR1- Existential Philosophy Existential philosophy A philosophy that emphasizes the uniqueness and isolation of the individual experience in a hostile or indifferent universe, regards human existence as unexplainable, and stresses freedom of choice and responsibility for the consequences of one's acts.

10. BR1- Random House Random House Random House is one of the world’s largest publishers of the English language and the general-interest books. It is a publishing subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG, a large German media conglomerate. Random House entered reference publishing in 1947 with the American College Dictionary, which was followed in 1966 by its first unabridged dictionary. It publishes today the Random House Webster's Unabridged and Random House Webster's College dictionaries. Random House owns many of the most prestigious and profitable book publishing companies in the United States. Random House has published books by a wide array of 20th century American writers. ■

11. BR1- Cadillac Cadillac A large and US make of car. Owning a Cadillac is seen by Americans as a sign of wealth and success. The Cadillac was first produced in 1903 in Detroit by the Cadillac Motor Car Company and is now made by the General Motors Corporation.

12. BR1- Las Vegas Las Vegas Las Vegas is the largest city in Nevada and the center of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. Revenue from hotels, gambling, entertainment, theme parks, resorts, and other tourist-oriented industries forms the backbone of the economy. The nightclubs, casinos, and championship boxing matches are world famous, and entertainment enterprises have led to an increasing array of music, sports, gambling, and amusement centers up and down the main "strip,“ as the city succeeded in the 1990s in redefining itself as a family resort, complete with monorail (opened in 2004). The city is also the commercial hub of a ranching and mining area and has diverse manufacturing, including gaming equipment. ■

13. BR1- Theme Park Theme Park A theme park is an amusement park in which all the settings and attractions have a central theme, such as the world of the future. Typical examples are the Disneyland theme parks in California and Florida.

14. BR1- FBI FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), division of the U.S. Dept. of Justice, is in charge of investigating all violations of federal laws except those assigned to some other federal agency. The FBI has jurisdiction over some 185 investigative matters, among which are espionage, sabotage, and other subversive activities; kidnapping; extortion; bank robbery; interstate transportation of stolen property; civil-rights matters; interstate gambling violations; and fraud against the government. Created (1908) as the Bureau of Investigation, it originally conducted investigations only for the Justice Department. In 1935 it was designated the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI played an important role in raising the standards of local police units through its FBI Academy. ■

15. BR4- Theme Park Topic-related Prediction Text A is entitled “Going for Broke”. How do you understand the word “broke”? What will the passage be about, judging from the title?

16. GR-MAIN Global Reading 1. Part Division of the Text 2. Further Understanding For Part 1 Questions and Answers For Part 2 Blank-Filling For Part 3 True or False 3. Text analysis

17. GR-Part Division of the Text Part Division of the Text The authors give a brief account of the life experience of a hard-core gambler named Rex Coile. The authors expound the problem of gambling addiction, its causes and its attendant steep social price. Through further discussion of the example of Rex, the authors reinforce the essay's thesis that the life of compulsive gamblers is a narrow box. Once trapped inside, they will never get out.

18. GR- For Part1 Questions and Answers 1. How do the authors begin the passage? 2. What did Rex use to be? How long has he been addicted to gambling? 3. What changes have occurred in Rex’s life since he became addicted to gambling? 4. Why is Rex Coile nicknamed “Rex Trivia”? 5. If he had not been addicted to gambling, what would Rex’s life be like now?

19. GR- For Part2.1 Blank-Filling 1. The prevalence of gambling in America: 2. The estimated number of gambling addicts: 3. The causes for the prevalence: _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ ______________________________ all over the country; nearly every state; from Las Vegas to Indian reservations, from the riverboats along the Mississippi to corner mini-marts _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ 4.4 million compulsive gamblers; another 11 million problem gamblers; still soaring _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ government’s sanction of some form of legalized gambling to raise revenues; loss of self-control of the gamblers; no remedy

20. GR- For Part2.2 4. The bad consequences of gambling: 1) money losses: 2) family problems: 3) social harm: 50.9 billion dollars a year; money vanishing _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ child abuse; murder; suicide; domestic violence; suffocating debts; exasperated, overwhelmed and humiliated spouses who fight the family problem alone, bleeding inside and even thinking of killing their husbands _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ society paying a steep price; embezzlement, bogus insurance, bankruptcies, welfare fraud, other social and criminal ills; higher suicide rates

21. GR-True or False1.1 True or False Rex Coile has no alternative but to kill himself since he is heavily indebted. 1. ( ) F He is not about to kill himself, but occasionally thinks about it. 2. Lost in gambling, Rex has come down in the world. Otherwise, he would have become successful in his career. ( ) T 3. Rex was arrested and put in prison for domestic violence and child abuse. ( ) F He was arrested and imprisoned for a short stint because he aided another gambler to rob a bank.

22. GR-True or False1.2 At a poker table in Gardena, Rex lost some money first but later he began to win. 4. ( ) T Rex finally decided to leave the poker table at 2 A.M. and quit gambling. 5. ( ) F He hesitated for some time, but finally decided to continue with his gambling.

23. GR- Text analysis Text analysis Cohesive devices are important to achieve unity of the whole text. Analyze the text and find out how the three parts of the text are connected. In the text, restatement or partial repetition is used as cohesive tie to hold the three parts together an integral whole. It can be illustrated as following: • Part II coheres with Part I by the first sentence of Paragraph 5: “And their numbers are soaring as gambling explodes across in America”, which corresponds with the last sentence of Paragraph 4 “There’s a lot of Rexes around these card rooms”. • 2) In the same way, Part III coheres with Part II by the first sentence of Paragraph 16: “Rex Trivia is not about to kill himself…”, which corresponds with the ending part of Paragraph 15: “… showed significantly higher suicide rates than people …

24. TEXT The following article is based on a seven-month nationwide investigation of gambling in America. The stories it tells offer a grim picture of what can happen to those who become addicted to gambling.

25. TEXT-S-1 Going for Broke Matea Gold and David Ferrell Rex Coile's life is a narrow box, so dark and confining he wonders how he got trapped inside, whether he'll ever get out. He never goes to the movies, never sees concerts, never lies on a sunny beach, never travels on vacation, never spends Christmas with his family. Instead, Rex shares floor space in cheap motels with other compulsive gamblers, comforting himself with delusional dreams of jackpots that will magically wipe away three decades of wreckage. He has lost his marriage, his home, his Cadillac, his clothes, his diamond ring. Not least of all, in the card clubs of Southern California, he has lost his pride.

26. TEXT-S-2 Rex no longer feels sorry for himself, not after a 29-year losing streak that has left him scrounging for table scraps to feed his habit. Still, he agonizes over what he has become at 54 and what he might have been. Articulate, intellectual, he talks about existential philosophy, the writings of Camus and Sartre. He was once an editor at Random House. His mind is so jam packed with tidbits about movies, television, baseball and history that card room regulars call him "Rex Trivia," a name he cherishes for the remnant of self-respect it gives him. "There's a lot of Rexes around these card rooms," he says in a whisper of resignation and sadness.

27. TEXT-S-3 And their numbers are soaring as gambling explodes across America, from the mega-resorts of Las Vegas to the gaming parlors of Indian reservations, from the riverboats along the Mississippi to the corner mini-marts selling lottery tickets. With nearly every state in the union now sanctioning some form of legalized gambling to raise revenues, evidence is mounting that society is paying a steep price, one that some researchers say must be confronted, if not reversed. Never before have bettors blown so much money — a whopping $50.9 billion last year — five times the amount lost in 1980. That's more than the public spent on movies, theme parks, recorded music and sporting events combined. A substantial share of those gambling losses — an estimated 30% to 40% — pours from the pockets and purses of chronic losers hooked on the adrenaline rush of risking their money, intoxicated by the fast action of gambling's incandescent world.

28. TEXT-S-4 Studies place the total number of compulsive gamblers at about 4.4 million, about equal to the nation's ranks of hard-core drug addicts. Another 11 million, known as problem gamblers, teeter on the verge. Since 1990, the number of Gamblers Anonymous groups nationwide has doubled from about 600 to more than 1,200. Compulsive gambling has been linked to child abuse, domestic violence, embezzlement, bogus insurance claims, bankruptcies, welfare fraud and a host of other social and criminal ills. The advent of Internet gambling could lure new legions into wagering beyond their means.

29. TEXT-S-5 Every once in a while, a case is so egregious it makes headlines: A 10-day-old baby girl in South Carolina dies after being left for nearly seven hours in a hot car while her mother plays video poker. A suburban Chicago woman is so desperate for a bankroll to gamble that she allegedly suffocates her 7-week-old daughter 11 days after obtaining a $200,000 life-insurance policy on the baby. Science has begun to uncover clues to compulsive gambling — genetic predispositions that involve chemical receptors in the brain, the same pleasure pathways implicated in drug and alcohol addiction. But no amount of knowledge, no amount of enlightenment, makes the illness any less confounding, any less destructive. What the gamblers cannot understand about themselves is also well beyond the comprehension of family members, who struggle for normality in a world of deceit and madness.

30. TEXT-S-6 Money starts vanishing: $500 here, $200 there, $800 a couple of weeks later. Where is it? The answers come back vague, nonsensical. It's in the desk at work. A friend borrowed it. It got spent on family dinners, car repairs, loans to in-laws. Exasperated spouses play the sleuth, combing through pockets, wallets, purses, searching the car. Sometimes the incriminating evidence turns up — a racing form, lottery scratchers, a map to an Indian casino. Once the secret is uncovered, spouses usually fight the problem alone, bleeding inside, because the stories are too humiliating to share.

31. TEXT-S-7 "Anybody who is living with a compulsive gambler is totally overwhelmed," says Tom Tucker, president of the California Council on Problem Gambling. "They're steeped in anger, resentment, depression, confusion. None of their personal efforts will ever stop a person from their addiction. And they don't really see any hope because compulsive gambling in general is such an under-recognized illness." One Los Angeles woman, whose husband's gambling was tearing at her sanity, says she slept with her fists so tightly clenched that her nails sliced into her palms. She had fantasies of death — first her own, thinking he'd feel sorry for her and stop gambling. Later, she harbored thoughts of turning her rage on her husband. She imagined getting a gun, hiding in the closet and blasting him out of her life.

32. TEXT-S-8 "The hurt was so bad I think I would have pulled the trigger," she says. "There were times the pain was so much I thought being in jail, or being in the electric chair, would be less than this." With drug or alcohol abusers, there is the hope of sobering up, an accomplishment in itself, no matter what problems may have accompanied their addictions. Compulsive gamblers often see no way to purge their urges when suffocating debts suggest only one answer: a hot streak (suicide?). David Phillips, a UC San Diego sociology professor, studied death records from 1982 to 1988 — before legalized gambling exploded across America — and found that people in Vegas, Atlantic City and other gambling meccas showed significantly higher suicide rates than people in non-gambling cities.

33. TEXT-S-9 Rex Trivia is not about to kill himself, but like most compulsive gamblers, he occasionally thinks about it. Looking at him, it's hard to imagine he once had a promising future as a smart young New York book editor. His pale eyes are expressionless, his hair yellowish and brittle. In his fifties, his health is failing: emphysema, three lung collapses, a bad aorta, rotting teeth. His plunge has been so dizzying that at one point he agreed to aid another desperate gambler in a run of bank robberies — nine in all, throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. When the FBI busted him in 1980, he had $50,000 in cash in a dresser drawer and $100,000 in traveler's checks in his refrigerator's vegetable crisper. Rex, who ended up doing a short stint in prison, hasn't seen that kind of money since.

34. TEXT-S-10 At 11 P. M. on a Tuesday night, with a bankroll of $55 — all he has — he is at a poker table in Gardena. With quick, nervous hands he stacks and unstacks his $1 chips. The stack dwindles. Down $30, he talks about leaving, getting some sleep. Midnight comes and goes. Rex starts winning. Three aces. Four threes. Chips pile up — $60, $70. "A shame to go when the cards are falling my way." He checks the time: "I'll go at 2. Win, lose or draw." Fate, kismet, luck — the cards keep falling. At 2 A. M., Rex is up $97. He stands, leaves his chips on the table and goes out for a smoke. In the darkness at the edge of the parking lot, he loiters with other regulars, debating with himself whether to grab a bus and quit.

35. TEXT-S-11 "I should go back in there and cash in and get out of here," he says. "That's what I should do." A long pause. Crushing out his cigarette, Rex turns and heads back inside. He has made his decision. "A few more hands."

36. TEXT-W-1 Going for Broke Matea Gold and David Ferrell Rex Coile's life is a narrow box, so dark and confining he wonders how he got trapped inside, whether he'll ever get out. He never goes to the movies, never sees concerts, never lies on a sunny beach, never travels on vacation, never spends Christmas with his family. Instead, Rex shares floor space in cheap motels with other compulsive gamblers, comforting himself with delusional dreams of jackpots that will magically wipe away three decades of wreckage. He has lost his marriage, his home, his Cadillac, his clothes, his diamond ring. Not least of all, in the card clubs of Southern California, he has lost his pride.

37. TEXT-W-2 Rex no longer feels sorry for himself, not after a 29-year losing streak that has left him scrounging for table scraps to feed his habit. Still, he agonizes over what he has become at 54 and what he might have been. Articulate, intellectual, he talks about existential philosophy, the writings of Camus and Sartre. He was once an editor at Random House. His mind is so jam packed with tidbits about movies, television, baseball and history that card room regulars call him "Rex Trivia," a name he cherishes for the remnant of self-respect it gives him. "There's a lot of Rexes around these card rooms," he says in a whisper of resignation and sadness.

38. TEXT-W-3 And their numbers are soaring as gambling explodes across America, from the mega-resorts of Las Vegas to the gaming parlors of Indian reservations, from the riverboats along the Mississippi to the corner mini-marts selling lottery tickets. With nearly every state in the union now sanctioning some form of legalized gambling to raise revenues, evidence is mounting that society is paying a steep price, one that some researchers say must be confronted, if not reversed. Never before have bettors blown so much money — a whopping $50.9 billion last year — five times the amount lost in 1980. That's more than the public spent on movies, theme parks, recorded music and sporting events combined. A substantial share of those gambling losses — an estimated 30% to 40% — pours from the pockets and purses of chronic losers hooked on the adrenaline rush of risking their money, intoxicated by the fast action of gambling's incandescent world.

39. TEXT-W-4 Studies place the total number of compulsive gamblers at about 4.4 million, about equal to the nation's ranks of hard-core drug addicts. Another 11 million, known as problem gamblers, teeter on the verge. Since 1990, the number of Gamblers Anonymous groups nationwide has doubled from about 600 to more than 1,200. Compulsive gambling has been linked to child abuse, domestic violence, embezzlement, bogus insurance claims, bankruptcies, welfare fraud and a host of other social and criminal ills. The advent of Internet gambling could lure new legions into wagering beyond their means.

40. TEXT-W-5 Every once in a while, a case is so egregious it makes headlines: A 10-day-old baby girl in South Carolina dies after being left for nearly seven hours in a hot car while her mother plays video poker. A suburban Chicago woman is so desperate for a bankroll to gamble that she allegedly suffocates her 7-week-old daughter 11 days after obtaining a $200,000 life-insurance policy on the baby. Science has begun to uncover clues to compulsive gambling — genetic predispositions that involve chemical receptors in the brain, the same pleasure pathways implicated in drug and alcohol addiction. But no amount of knowledge, no amount of enlightenment, makes the illness any less confounding, any less destructive. What the gamblers cannot understand about themselves is also well beyond the comprehension of family members, who struggle for normality in a world of deceit and madness.

41. TEXT-W-6 Money starts vanishing: $500 here, $200 there, $800 a couple of weeks later. Where is it? The answers come back vague, nonsensical. It's in the desk at work. A friend borrowed it. It got spent on family dinners, car repairs, loans to in-laws. Exasperated spouses play the sleuth, combing through pockets, wallets, purses, searching the car. Sometimes the incriminating evidence turns up — a racing form, lottery scratchers, a map to an Indian casino. Once the secret is uncovered, spouses usually fight the problem alone, bleeding inside, because the stories are too humiliating to share.

42. TEXT-W-7 "Anybody who is living with a compulsive gambler is totally overwhelmed," says Tom Tucker, president of the California Council on Problem Gambling. "They're steeped in anger, resentment, depression, confusion. None of their personal efforts will ever stop a person from their addiction. And they don't really see any hope because compulsive gambling in general is such an under-recognized illness." One Los Angeles woman, whose husband's gambling was tearing at her sanity, says she slept with her fists so tightly clenched that her nails sliced into her palms. She had fantasies of death — first her own, thinking he'd feel sorry for her and stop gambling. Later, she harbored thoughts of turning her rage on her husband. She imagined getting a gun, hiding in the closet and blasting him out of her life.

43. TEXT-W-8 "The hurt was so bad I think I would have pulled the trigger," she says. "There were times the pain was so much I thought being in jail, or being in the electric chair, would be less than this." With drug or alcohol abusers, there is the hope of sobering up, an accomplishment in itself, no matter what problems may have accompanied their addictions. Compulsive gamblers often see no way to purge their urges when suffocating debts suggest only one answer: a hot streak (suicide?). David Phillips, a UC San Diego sociology professor, studied death records from 1982 to 1988 — before legalized gambling exploded across America — and found that people in Vegas, Atlantic City and other gambling meccas showed significantly higher suicide rates than people in non-gambling cities.

44. TEXT-W-9 Rex Trivia is not about to kill himself, but like most compulsive gamblers, he occasionally thinks about it. Looking at him, it's hard to imagine he once had a promising future as a smart young New York book editor. His pale eyes are expressionless, his hair yellowish and brittle. In his fifties, his health is failing: emphysema, three lung collapses, a bad aorta, rotting teeth. His plunge has been so dizzying that at one point he agreed to aid another desperate gambler in a run of bank robberies — nine in all, throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. When the FBI busted him in 1980, he had $50,000 in cash in a dresser drawer and $100,000 in traveler's checks in his refrigerator's vegetable crisper. Rex, who ended up doing a short stint in prison, hasn't seen that kind of money since.

45. TEXT-W-10 At 11 P. M. on a Tuesday night, with a bankroll of $55 — all he has — he is at a poker table in Gardena. With quick, nervous hands he stacks and unstacks his $1 chips. The stack dwindles. Down $30, he talks about leaving, getting some sleep. Midnight comes and goes. Rex starts winning. Three aces. Four threes. Chips pile up — $60, $70. "A shame to go when the cards are falling my way." He checks the time: "I'll go at 2. Win, lose or draw." Fate, kismet, luck — the cards keep falling. At 2 A. M., Rex is up $97. He stands, leaves his chips on the table and goes out for a smoke. In the darkness at the edge of the parking lot, he loiters with other regulars, debating with himself whether to grab a bus and quit.

46. TEXT-S-1.1 Going for broke Matea Gold and David Ferrell Rex Coile's life is a narrow box, so dark and confining he wonders how he got trapped inside, whether he'll ever get out. He never goes to the movies, never sees concerts, never lies on a sunny beach, never travels on vacation, never spends Christmas with his family. Instead, Rex shares floor space in cheap motels with other compulsive gamblers, comforting himself with delusional dreams of jackpots that will magically wipe away three decades of wreckage. He has lost his marriage, his home, his Cadillac, his clothes, his diamond ring. Not least of all, in the card clubs of Southern California, he has lost his pride. 1. What can we learn from the sentence? We can learn from the sentence that Rex Coile seems to live in a very small area, as if being trapped in it, with no freedom, and with no hope of getting out. 2. How is the language used here? In this sentence, the author uses metaphor. Words are used figuratively. Since Rex is addicted to gambling, his life seems to be confined in a box with no signs of life. He slipped into gambling, as if being trapped without any hope for freedom. From this sentence we can learn that gambling does great harm to people’s life.

47. TEXT-S-2.1 Rex no longer feels sorry for himself, not after a 29-year losing streak that has left him scrounging for table scraps to feed his habit. Still, he agonizes over what he has become at 54 and what he might have been. Articulate, intellectual, he talks about existential philosophy, the writings of Camus and Sartre. He was once an editor at Random House. His mind is so jam packed with tidbits about movies, television, baseball and history that card room regulars call him "Rex Trivia," a name he cherishes for the remnant of self-respect it gives him. "There's a lot of Rexes around these card rooms," he says in a whisper of resignation and sadness. Paraphrase the sentence. He might have been a very promising editor, but because of his addiction to gambling for 29 years, he has achieved nothing in his life. Thinking of this, he felt painful.

48. TEXT-S-3.1 And their numbers are soaring as gambling explodes across America, from the mega-resorts of Las Vegas to the gaming parlors of Indian reservations, from the riverboats along the Mississippi to the corner mini-marts selling lottery tickets. With nearly every state in the union now sanctioning some form of legalized gambling to raise revenues, evidence is mounting that society is paying a steep price, one that some researchers say must be confronted, if not reversed. Never before have bettors blown so much money — a whopping $50.9 billion last year — five times the amount lost in 1980. That's more than the public spent on movies, theme parks, recorded music and sporting events combined. A substantial share of those gambling losses — an estimated 30% to 40% — pours from the pockets and purses of chronic losers hooked on the adrenaline rush of risking their money, intoxicated by the fast action of gambling's incandescent world. 1. What does “society is paying a steep price” imply? It implies that gambling is doing great harm to the society. 2. Translate the sentence into Chinese. 由于全国几乎每个州都批准某种合法化的赌博形式以增加税收，越来越多的事实表明，整个社会正在付出巨大的代价，不少研究者指出，对此现象如果不能彻底改变，那就必须严肃面对。

49. TEXT-S-2.2 Rex no longer feels sorry for himself, not after a 29-year losing streak that has left him scrounging for table scraps to feed his habit. Still, he agonizes over what he has become at 54 and what he might have been. Articulate, intellectual, he talks about existential philosophy, the writings of Camus and Sartre. He was once an editor at Random House. His mind is so jam packed with tidbits about movies, television, baseball and history that card room regulars call him "Rex Trivia," a name he cherishes for the remnant of self-respect it gives him. "There's a lot of Rexes around these card rooms," he says in a whisper of resignation and sadness. 1. What does “Rex Trivia” imply? “Trivia” means something unimportant. Here it means anecdotes, odd or obscure facts about the subject matters enumerated. The nickname “Rex Trivia” implies that Rex Coile knows many anecdotes and interesting stories about movies, television, etc., which indicates that he is quite knowledgeable and intelligent. 2. What does “it” refer to? The name “Rex Trivia”. 3. Translate the sentence into Chinese. 他脑子里装满有关电影、电视、棒球和历史的趣闻，因此那些纸牌室的常客都叫他“趣闻大王雷克斯”，他珍惜这个带给自己些许自尊的名字。

50. TEXT-S-3.2 And their numbers are soaring as gambling explodes across America, from the mega-resorts of Las Vegas to the gaming parlors of Indian reservations, from the riverboats along the Mississippi to the corner mini-marts selling lottery tickets. With nearly every state in the union now sanctioning some form of legalized gambling to raise revenues, evidence is mounting that society is paying a steep price, one that some researchers say must be confronted, if not reversed. Never before have bettors blown so much money — a whopping $50.9 billion last year — five times the amount lost in 1980. That's more than the public spent on movies, theme parks, recorded music and sporting events combined. A substantial share of those gambling losses — an estimated 30% to 40% — pours from the pockets and purses of chronic losers hooked on the adrenaline rush of risking their money, intoxicated by the fast action of gambling's incandescent world. 1. Analyze the structure of the sentence. The subject of the sentence is “share”, and the predicate is “pours”. The phrase between the dashes “an estimated 30% to 40%” is an inserted noun phrase to explain how much the share of the losses is. The two past participle phrases “hooked on … money” and “intoxicated by … world” modify “chronic losers”. 2. Translate the sentence into Chinese. 输掉的赌金中有相当一部分—— 约占30%－40%—— 是从那些常输的赌徒的钱包里掏出来的，赌博带来的兴奋令他们入迷，瞬息万变的赌博世界令他们如痴如醉。