what, in the 21st century, it means to be an educated person?
Vocabulary
III. Complete the following explanations or definitions with an appropriate word
from the box. Change the form where necessary.
collective region
1. Someone’s ________ is the way that they think about things in general or about one thing in particular.
2. ________ is the state you are in when you feel you want to do something or have something which you know you really ought to avoid.
3. ________ means shared by or involving every member of a group of people.
4. If you ________ an opportunity, you quickly take advantage of it, and do something that you want to do.
5. If something ______ a person or object, it is a lot bigger than them and makes them look very small.
6. A ________ is a particular area or part or any of large official areas into which a country is divided.
7. ________ means allowing and encouraging people to study a lot of different academic subjects, especially arts subjects.
8. If you have the ________ to do something, you have the opportunity to think or act freely and to use your abilities as well as you can.
9. ________means shared by or belonging to two or more people.
10. Something that is a ________ must be done, dealt with, or provided as soon as possible.
dwarf scope joint seize liberal temptation priority viewpoint IV. Fill in each of the blanks in the following sentences with a word from the box. Change the form where necessary.
bid joint temptation burst liberate viewpoint consensus priority dwarf scope improvement seize
1. People thought technology had the power to ________ them from hard work.
2. U.S. companies are getting bigger — current corporate giants with some $1,000,000,000 of assets ________ the giants of the late 19th century.
3. A committee was set up and given ________ to make instant decisions.
4. There is a general ________ among teachers about the need for greater security in schools.
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5. The school is performing well, but we recognize the need for further ________. 6. I try to make sense of what’s happening from my particular ________ as a teacher. 7. I ________ farewell to all the friends I had made in Paris.
8. I knew they were ________ with curiosity but I said nothing about it. 9. If you can’t resist buying things, shop by telephone to avoid ________.
10. If you get the opportunity to work abroad, you should ________ it with both hands.
11. The police and social workers are conducting a(n) ________ investigation into teenage crime in the area.
12. The management did not seem to consider office safety to be a(n) ________.
V. Fill in each of the blanks in the following sentences with an appropriate preposition or adverb.
1. I felt as if my heart would burst ________ grief on hearing the sad news. 2. He came in tired and hungry and badly in need ________ a bath.
3. The big firms are trying to crowd our small business ________ of the market. 4. It stands ________ in my mind as the most exciting day of my career. 5. There is no cure ________ this disease but the symptoms can be managed.
6. They have made the decision to embark ________ a new translation of the Bible.
7. She’s been ________ the verge of having a nervous breakdown ever since she lost the baby. 8. Support for environmental issues cuts ________ traditional party lines.
Word Building
VI. The prefixes inter- and trans- are added to adjectives, nouns and verbs to form new adjectives, nouns and verbs, meaning “between, among” and “across; between; changing” respectively. Study the examples below.
Adjective/Noun/Verb Prefix Adjective/Noun/Verb
national course act Atlantic formation plant
inter- inter- inter- trans- trans- trans-
international intercourse interact transatlantic transformation transplant
Change each of the words in the box into an adjective, noun or verb form and fill in the blanks in the following sentences. Change the form where necessary. personal ________ change ________ form ________ 12
continental ________ action ________ pose ________
1. The ________ railway goes from New York in the east to San Francisco in the west. 2. Our English teacher sometimes uses language games to encourage ________ between us.
3. Harmonious ________ relationships are very important in creating a good working atmosphere. 4. The confusion was caused when the numbers in the price ―$81‖ were accidentally ________ by a clerk. As a result, some customers got the item with only $18.
5. There was a(n) _________ of ideas after the lecture which was very informative. 6. The sale of goods is the most common form of commercial ________.
7. Nowadays directors of international companies often take ________ flights to do business in different parts of the globe.
8. A few mirrors can ________ a dark room, making it look larger and lighter instantly.
Usage
all but / anything but / nothing but The phrase all but has two meanings: Sometimes, all but can mean everything, everyone, or every way except for the one mentioned. For example, All but one of the plates were damaged. In other cases, all but is used to say that something is almost the case. For example, The party was all but over when we arrived. Anything but means ―not at all‖. It is used for emphasizing that a particular word does not describe someone or something, because the opposite is true about them. For example, Unfortunately, our hosts were anything but friendly. / Jake’s no fool — anything but! Nothing but is used in front of a noun, an infinitive without ―to‖ if following the word ―do‖, or an ―-ing‖ form to mean ―only‖. For example, Nothing but a miracle can save her now. / It did nothing but make us ridiculous. / They care for nothing but fighting.
VII. Fill in each of the blanks in the following sentences with “all but”, “anything
but” or “nothing but”.
1. There is evidence that what he told us is not the truth — ________.
2. Unfortunately, all the money brought ________ sadness and misery and tragedy to us. 3. The general was an unattractive man to ________ his most ardent admirers. 4. Don’t go that way — that old bridge is ________ safe.
5. The football game was ________ over by the time we turned the TV on.
VIII. Correct the mistakes in each of the following sentences.
1. She’s meant to be a very nice person but she was all but nice the only time I’ve ever met her. 2. The judge cleared the court of anybody but herself and the witness. 3. She is one of those guests who does nothing but to complain.
4. That night, when he finally proposed to her, her heart all at once stopped.
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5. This car has been anything but trouble — it’s always breaking down!
Structure
IX. Study the model and then combine the following sentences, using an “A is to B
what C is to D” structure.
Model: Boston is important to this century. Florence was important to the 15th century.
Boston is to this century what Florence was to the 15th.
1. Water is important to fish. Air is important to man.
2. A good book is beneficial to the mind. Nourishing food is beneficial to the body. 3. Parks are providing fresh air to the city. Lungs are providing fresh air to the body.
4. Wit and humour are necessary to conversation and literature. Salt is necessary to the food.
5. The man who cannot be trusted is useless to society. A bit of rotten timber is useless to a house.
X. Study the model and then rewrite each of the following sentences with a present participle.
Model: The number of Harvard College students who are studying or working abroad has sharply
increased over the past few years …
The number of Harvard College students studying or working abroad has sharply increased over the past few years …
1. The men who are working here are all from the rural areas.
2. Houseplants that require constant attention are not suitable for working couples with little spare time.
3. The man who spoke to us the other day has gone to Japan. 4. The students who are going on a trip will be back next week. 5. Those of you who wish to join us please stay for a few minutes.
Translation
XI. Translate the following paragraph into English.
社会不断转变，客观世界时刻带来新的挑战，所以我们必须抓住时机，应社会的变化而改变自己，并以正确方法来克服困难，迎接挑战。与此同时，我们也要保持自身的道德价值和心中的理想，不能随着环境而改变。如今的大学很重视学生的知识培养和教师的科研成果。但在追求专业知识和社会地位等“硬实力”提高的同时，也要让品德、智慧和同情心这些“软实力”同步发展；“硬实力”和“软实力”的共同发展对改进大学教育至关重要。
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Guided Writing
Types of Writing Tasks (1) — Cause-and-effect Essays
Cause-and-effect essays serve a purpose of informing the audience about the answers to questions in the order of what–why–what. You need to show what has happened, why it has happened and what has resulted from it. It is the most interesting and challenging type of academic assignment. You have to demonstrate your ability to give a clear presentation of the factual material.
Establish What Has Happened
In actual assignments, most of the issues you need to explore are given in an outline; sometimes the information is illustrated by a picture, graph or table. In the introduction, you need to describe the phenomenon or trend, prove its existence by a sound presentation of proof, and formulate your thesis statement. Be sure that it clarifies the relationships among the specific causes or effects you will discuss. It should tell your readers three things: the points you plan to consider, the position you will take, and whether your emphasis is on causes, effects, or both. Your thesis statement may also indicate explicitly or implicitly the cause or effect you consider most important and the order in which you will treat your points.
Present the Causes and Effects
The body of a cause-and-effect essay is all about building cause-and-effect relationships and providing supportive arguments and evidence. You should first establish a relationship between a variety of possible causes and (potential) effects by considering both immediate causes and effects and those remote ones. An immediate cause takes place just before a result emerges and is directly responsible; a remote cause is less obvious, perhaps because it takes place further in the past or farther away. An immediate effect follows directly after an event; a remote effect occurs long after its cause and any immediate effects. If you did not consider the remote as well as the immediate, you would reach an oversimplified and illogical conclusion.
You have several options when deciding on the sequence in which you will present causes or effects, e.g. the order of presence (chronological or reverse), familiarity (obvious to less obvious), interest (less interesting to more interesting), importance (the least to the most), or relevance (from the immediate to the remote). After presenting your causes, give supporting evidence to strengthen your points. They may be statistics, facts, anecdotes, or your personal observations.
As you write, be careful not to overstate your case. Because many causal relationships cannot be proven conclusively, you may want to qualify or limit your statements with phrases such as ―it appears that the cause was‖ or ―it seems likely‖ or ―the evidence may indicate‖ or ―available evidence suggests‖. Avoid such insulting or absolutist expressions as ―it is obvious‖ or ―it is the fact of common knowledge‖. It is also necessary to avoid expressions that make an essay sound uncertain or superficial.
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