GRE作文背诵范文选 [新概念四的文章]
Adolescence 青春期
What do adolescents respect in parents?
Parents are often upset when their children praise the homes of their friends and regard it as a slur on their own cooking, or cleaning, or furniture, and often are foolish enough to let the adolescents see that they are annoyed. They may even accuse them of disloyalty, or make some spiteful remark about the friends' parents. Such loss of dignity and descent into childish behaviour on the part to their parents about the place or people they visit. Before very long the parents will be complaining that the child is so secretive and never tells them anything, but they seldom realize that they have brought this on themselves.
Disillusionment with the parents, however good and adequate they may be both as parents and as individuals, is to some degree inevitable. Most children have such a high ideal of their parents, unless the parents themselves have been unsatisfactory, that it can hardly hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation. Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they hope to stand up to a realistic evaluation. Parents would be greatly surprised and deeply touched if they realized how much belief their children usually have in their character and infallibility, and how much this faith means to a child. If parents were prepared for this adolescent reaction, and realized that it was a sign that the child was growing up and developing valuable powers of observation and independent judgment, they would not be so hurt, and therefore would not drive the child into opposition by resenting and resisting it.
The adolescent, with his passion for sincerity, always respects a parent who admits that he is wrong, or ignorant, or even that he has been unfair or unjust. What the child cannot forgive is the parent's refusal to admit these charges if the child knows them to be true.
Victorian parents believed that they kept their dignity by retreating behind an unreasoning authoritarian attitude; in fact they did nothing of the kind, but children were then too cowed to let them know how they really felt. Today we tend to go to the other extreme, but on the whole this is a healthier attitude both for the child and the parent. It is always wiser and safer to face up to reality, however painful it may be at the moment.
DOTID OFLUM Journey Through Adolescence
New words and expressions 生词和短语
adolescence n.
slur
n. 青春期
adolescent
n. 底毁
disloyalty
n. 青少年（12-18岁）
spiteful
adj. 恶意的，怀恨的
disillusionment
n. 幻灭感
evaluation
n. 评价
infallibility
n. 一贯正确
resent
v. 怨恨
sincerity
n. 诚挚
victorian
adj. 维多利亚式的
retreat
v. 后退
unreasoning
adj. 不凭理智的
authoritarian
adj. 专制的
cow
v. 吓唬
参考译文
当家长听到孩子赞扬自己朋友的家时，总感到不安，认为孩子在嫌弃自家的饭菜、卫生、或家具，而且愚蠢地让孩子看出自己的烦恼。他们甚至责备孩子不忠，或者讲些小朋友家长的坏话。家长这种有失身份和孩子气的作法使青春期的孩子大为震惊，决心以后不再向父母讲述去过的地方和见过的人。不要很久,家长就会抱怨孩子守口如瓶，什么事也不告诉他们，殊不知这是他们自找的。
不管家长的人品有多么好，作为父母有多么合格，孩子们对家长幻想的破灭在某种程度上是不可避免的。除非父母自身不能令人满意，大多数孩子对父母估价过高，以致这种估价很难指望经受住现实的考验。如果家长意识到孩子们通常是多么相信家长的品行和绝对正确，意识到孩子们的这种信念会对孩子产生多么大的影响，那么家长会大为吃惊和深受感动的。如果家长对青少年的这种反应有思想准备，并且意识到这象征着孩子们正在成熟和正在发展宝贵的观察力、独立判断力，那么他们就不会那样伤心，也就不会由于怨恨和抵触这种反应，而把孩子推到自己的对立面去。
青少年酷爱真诚，对于能够承认错误或无知、甚至承认自己做得不分平或不公正的父母，他们总是尊敬的，孩子们所不能原谅的是：父母错了，孩子们也看出来了，可是做父母的还不肯承认。
维多利亚时代的父母认为，他们可靠无理的权威气派来维护自己的尊严，实际上那是根本不行的。孩子们只不过被吓得不敢让父母知道自己的想法罢了。虽然现在我们倾向于走向另一个极端，但总地来看，孩子和家长双方态度都比较端正。遇事采取面对现实的态度总是比较明智和稳妥的，尽管会有暂时的痛苦。 *************************************
Education 教育
Why is education democratic in bookless, tribal societies?
Education is one of the key words of our time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of adverse circumstances, deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states 'invest' in institutions of learning to get back 'interest' in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by textbooks -- those purchasable wells of wisdom-what would civilization be like without its benefits?
So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births -- but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on 'facts and figures' and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of 'college' imaginable. Among tribal people all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is equally equipped for life.
It is the ideal condition of the 'equal start' which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all. There are no 'illiterates' -- if the term can be applied to peoples without a script -- while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a number of 'civilized' nations. This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the 'happy few' during the past centuries.
Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parent; therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no 'juvenile delinquency'. No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and no father is confronted with his inability to 'buy' an education for his child.
JULIUS E. LIPS The Origin of Things
New words and expressions 生词和短语
adverse adj.
purchasable
adj.可买到的
preacher
n. 传教士
defendant
n. 被告
outlook
n. 视野
capacity
n. 能力
democratic
adj. 民主的
tribal
n. 部落的
tribe
n. 部落
illiterate
n. 文盲
compulsory
adj. 义务的