doesn’t necessarily result in more happiness‖. Then what is the author’s proposition concerning money and happiness? From the two words ―wrong‖ and ―problematic‖ in the second line in Paragraph 2, we can see that the author holds the view that ―more money brings about a tremendous amount of human happiness‖.
Exercise 1
Read the following paragraphs carefully, and then answer the questions.
And yet, we are still short of realizing the truly great curriculum our students are waiting for. I believe that to realize this curriculum, the faculty of the college will need to put individual preferences behind larger priorities and to embrace new structures and norms of teaching and learning. To provide the closer student-faculty contact our students deserve, faculty will need to take a greater role in leading discussions, in responding to student writing, in advising student concentrators.
They will need to provide the broad introductions to large bodies of knowledge the students are right to demand. They will need to think with vision, and with generosity, across disciplinary borders and their particular fields to craft a compelling description of just what, in the 21st century, it means to be an educated person. I look forward to the day when Harvard is not just the greatest research university in the world, but is also recognized for providing the best undergraduate education in the world — the day when once again what we do here in this yard defines the ideal of liberal education. (Unit 1 A)
Questions:
1．Who are the expected audience of the two paragraphs?
A. The students.
B. The teaching or research staff. C. The administrative staff.
2．What is the author’s point of view?
A. If the administrative staff wants to ensure the students the great curriculum, they should provide a closer student-faculty contact.
B. If the students want to have the great curriculum, they should think with vision and generosity, across disciplinary borders and their particular purviews.
C. The teachers should take new teaching structures and norms in order to realize the great curriculum the students need.
Exercise 2
Read the following paragraph carefully, and then write the answers on the lines provided.
For years it was commonly believed that if you had smoked for many years, it was pointless to try to quit; the damage to one’s health could never be reversed. However, the American Heart Association now indicates that by quitting smoking, regardless of how long or how much you have smoked, your risk of heart disease declines rapidly. For people who have smoked a pack or less of cigarettes per day, within three years after quitting smoking their heart disease risk is virtually the same as those who never smoked. Since the damage from smoking can be reversed, people who
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smoke should consider quitting, regardless of how long they have smoked. Of course, if you have just started to smoke, the healthy approach would be to quit now before the nicotine controls your life and damages your heart.
1. What is the main idea of the paragraph?
______________________________________________________________________ 2. What is the author’s point of view? Underline the clues that support your answer.
______________________________________________________________________
Book 4
Unit One
Powerful Words
Section C
NBC Interview with Condoleezza Rice
1 QUESTION: Secretary Rice, good to see you. Thanks for joining us this morning.
2 SECRETARY RICE: Nice to be with you.
3 QUESTION: Let me ask you first of all about that New York Times story. Let me read the first paragraph so that people listening will understand this: ―Months after the September 11th attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the U.S. to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.‖
4 Why did the Bush Administration feel this step was necessary?
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5 SECRETARY RICE: Well, I’m not going to comment on intelligence matters and certainly not on a newspaper story about intelligence matters. I can tell you that the President has always lived within the law. He has always said that he will do everything that he can to protect the American people from the kind of attack that we experienced on September 11th, but within the law and with due regard for the civil liberties of Americans. Because he takes absolutely seriously his constitutional responsibility both to defend Americans and to do it within the law.
6 QUESTION: And I think most people realize that that is a fine line, but The Washington Post quotes a woman named Kate Martin. She’s Director of the Center for National Security Studies at George Washington University. She said the secret order may amount to the President authorizing criminal activity. She says: ―This is as shocking a revelation as we have ever seen from the Bush Administration,‖ said Martin, who has been sharply critical of the Administration’s surveillance and detention policies. ―It is, I believe, the first time a President has authorized government agencies to violate a specific criminal prohibition and eavesdrop on Americans.‖ 7 Can you comment on that?
8 SECRETARY RICE: I can only comment to say that the President has been very clear that he would not order people to do things that are illegal. The President has a constitutional responsibility. His constitutional responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution. That is an Oath of Office that he took and it’s one that he takes absolutely seriously. That means to protect and defend Americans’ civil liberties. It also means to
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protect and defend Americans. And the kind of attack that we experienced on September 11th, that means that the President has a heavy responsibility to do that. But he did it always — anything that he did — legally and within his constitutional responsibility.
9 QUESTION: Madame Secretary, the New York Times says it waited a year to report this because it was asked by the White House not to publish this article because it would be a threat to national security. How would it be a threat, and can you confirm that?
10 SECRETARY RICE: Well, I’m, again, not going to comment on intelligence activities because intelligence activities, by their very nature, are activities that are sensitive and that should not be compromised. 11 I just want to reassure the American people that whatever is written here, that the President of the United States acted lawfully in every step that he has taken to defend the American people and to defend them within his constitutional responsibility. But he absolutely wants to defend the American people.
12 QUESTION: All right. Let’s move on to the elections in Iraq. As you well know, millions of Iraqis turned out. Election officials believe at least 67 percent of Iraqis voted. It was mostly peaceful. In your opinion, does yesterday’s election set the stage for a more independent Iraq that will allow U.S. troops to come home soon?
13 SECRETARY RICE: Well, it’s an extraordinary victory for the Iraqi people — what they did yesterday — to go out in huge numbers. And I want to just draw attention especially to the large turnout in Sunni areas. The Sunnis boycotted the January election. Many Sunnis were not
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favorably disposed to the constitution that was passed in October, but they went out in ever larger numbers because they see their future as with the political process. They don’t see their future with the violent people who are blowing up innocent people.
14 And that means that they are taking responsibility for their future. If you looked also, you saw a lot of pictures of their security forces protecting polling sites, protecting people. That means that the security forces are taking greater responsibility. And as the President has said, we have no intention of being there longer than we are needed. Right now, the coalition forces are needed. But our principal goal is to prepare Iraqis to defend their future, and yesterday they showed that they’re going to have a future that’s well worth defending.
15 QUESTION: What if this new coalition government asks for U.S. troops to leave Iraq or a timetable? You have to balance respecting the sovereignty of an independent Iraq and yet not leaving that country in more disarray.
16 SECRETARY RICE: Well, all of the evidence thus far, is that most of the leaders in Iraq understand the importance of a coalition presence to help them against the terrorist threat that they face. They don’t want to leave their people undefended. That’s why Iraqi governments have gone to the United Nations to ask for a mandate for coalition forces. And I have to, I should remind people we are there under a UN mandate.
17 Now, in time, they will be capable of doing this on their own and that will be a very happy day for everyone. But I think they have no desire to
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