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1、Unit 1The idea of becoming a writer had come to me off and on since my childhood in Belleville, but it wasnt until my third year in high school that the possibility took hold. Until then Id been bored by everything associated with English courses. I found English grammar dull and difficult. I hated
2、the assignments to turn out long, lifeless paragraphs that were agony for teachers to read and for me to write.When our class was assignedto Mr. Fleagle for third-year English I anticipated another cheerless year in that most tedious of subjects. Mr. Fleagle had a reputation among students for dulln
3、ess and inability to inspire. He was said to be very formal, rigid and hopelessly out of date. To me he looked to be sixty or seventy and excessively prim. He wore primly severe eyeglasses, his wavy hair was primly cut and primly combed. He wore prim suits with neckties set primly against the collar
4、 buttons of his white shirts. He had a primly pointed jaw, a primly straight nose, and a prim manner of speaking that was so correct, so gentlemanly, that he seemed a comic antique.I prepared for an unfruitful year with Mr. Fleagle and for a long time was not disappointed. Late in the year we tackle
5、d the informal essay. Mr. Fleagle distributed a homework sheet offering us a choice of topics. None was quite so simple-minded as What I Did on My Summer Vacation, but most seemed to be almost as dull. I took the list home and did nothing until the night before the essay was due. Lying on the sofa,
6、I finally faced up to the unwelcome task, took the list out of my notebook, and scanned it. The topic on which my eye stopped was The Art of Eating Spaghetti.This title produced an extraordinary sequenceof mental images. Vivid memories came flooding back of a night in Belleville when all of us were
7、seated around the supper table Uncle Allen, my mother, Uncle Charlie, Doris, Uncle Hal and Aunt Pat served spaghetti for supper. Spaghetti was still a little known foreign dish in those days. Neither Doris nor I had ever eaten spaghetti, and none of the adults had enough experience to be good at it.
8、 All the good humor of Uncle Allens house reawoke in my mind as I recalled the laughing arguments we had that night about the socially respectable method for moving spaghetti from plate to mouth.Suddenly I wanted to write about that, about the warmth and good feeling of it, but I wanted to put it do
9、wn simply for my own joy, not for Mr. Fleagle. It was a moment I wanted to recapture and hold for myself. I wanted to relive the pleasure of that evening. To write it as I wanted, however, would violate all the rules of formal composition Id learned in school, and Mr. Fleagle would surely give it a
10、failing grade. Never mind. I would write something else for Mr. Fleagle after I had written this thing for myself.When I finished it the night was half gone and there was no time left to compose a proper, respectable essay for Mr. Fleagle. There was no choice next morning but to turn in my tale of t
11、he Belleville supper. Two days passed before Mr. Fleagle returned the graded papers, and he returned everyones but mine. I was preparing myself for a command to report to Mr. Fleagle immediately after school for discipline when I saw him lift my paper from his desk and knock for the classs attention
12、.Now, boys, he said. I want to read you an essay. This is titled, The Art of Eating Spaghetti.And he started to read. My words! He was reading my words out loud to the entire class. Whats more, the entire class was listening. Listening attentively. Then somebody laughed, then the entire class was la
13、ughing, and not in contempt and ridicule, but with open-hearted enjoyment. Even Mr. Fleagle stopped two or three times to hold back a small prim smile.I did my best to avoid showing pleasure, but what I was feeling was pure delight at this demonstration that my words had the power to make people lau
14、gh. In the eleventh grade, at the eleventh hour as it were, I had discovered a calling. It was the happiest moment of my entire school career. When Mr. Fleagle finished he put the final seal on my happiness by saying, Now that, boys, is an essay,dont you see. Its dont you see its of the very essence
15、 of the essay, dont you see. Congratulations, Mr. Baker. (797 words)Unit 2He must have been completely lost in something he was reading because I had to tap on the windshield to get his attention.Is your cab available? I asked when he finally looked up at me. He nodded, then said apologetically as I
16、 settled into the back seat, Im sorry, but I was reading a letter. He sounded as if he had a cold or something.Im in no hurry, I told him. Go ahead and finish your letter.He shook his head. Ive read it several times already. I guessI almost know it by heart.Letters from home always mean a lot, I sai
17、d. At least they do with me because Im on the road so much. Then, estimating that he was 60 or 70 years old, I guessed:From a child or maybe a grandchild?This isnt family, he replied. Although, he went on, come to think of it, it might just as well have been family. Old Ed was my oldest friend. In f
18、act, we used to call each other Old Friend when wed meet, that is. Im not much of a hand at writing. I dont think any of us keep up our correspondence too well, I said. I know I dont. But I take it hes someone youve known quite a while?All my life, practically. We were kids together, so we go way ba
19、ck.Went to school together?All the way through high school. We were in the same class, in fact, through both grade and high school.There are not too many people whove had such a long friendship, I said.Actually, the driver went on, I hadnt seen him more than once or twice a year over the past 25 or
20、30 years because I moved away from the old neighborhood and you kind of lose touch even though you never forget. He was a great guy.You said was. Does that mean ?He nodded. Died a couple of weeks ago.Im sorry, I said. Its no fun to lose any friend and losing a real old one is even tougher.He didnt r
21、eply to that, and we rode on in silence for a few minutes. But I realized that Old Ed was still on his mind when he spoke again, almost more to himself than to me: I should have kept in touch. Yes, he repeated, I should have kept in touch.Well, I agreed, we should all keep in touch with old friends
22、more than we do. But things come up and we just dont seem to find the time.He shrugged. We used to find the time, he said. Thats even mentioned in the letter. He handed it over to me. Take a look. Thanks, I said, but I dont want to read your mail. Thats pretty personal.The driver shrugged. Old Eds d
23、ead. Theres nothing personal now. Go ahead, he urged me.The letter was written in pencil. It began with the greeting Old Friend, and the first sentence reminded me of myself. Ive been meaning to write for some time, but Ive always postponed it. It then went on to say that he often thought about the
24、good times they had had together when they both lived in the same neighborhood. It had references to things that probably meant something to the driver, such as the time Tim Shea broke the window, the Halloween that we tied Old Mr. Parkers gate, and when Mrs. Culver used to keep us after school.You
25、must have spent a lot of time together, I said to him.Like it says there, he answered, about all we had to spend in those days was time. He shook his head: Time.I thought the next paragraph of the letter was a little sad: I began the letter with Old Friend becausethats what weve become over the year
26、sold friends. And there arent many of us left.You know, I said to him, when it says here that there arent many of us left, thats absolutely right. Every time I go to a class reunion, for example, there are fewer and fewer still around. Time goes by, the driver said.Did you two work at the same place
27、? I asked him.No, but we hung out on the same corner when we were single. And then, when we were married, we used to go to each others house every now and then. But for the last 20 or 30 years its been mostly just Christmas cards. Of course thered be always a note wed each add to the cards usually s
28、ome news about our families, you know, what the kids were doing, who moved where, a new grandchild, things like that but never a real letter or anything like that.This is a good part here, I said. Where it says Your friendship over the years has meant an awful lot to me, more than I can say because
29、Im not good at saying things like that. I found myself nodding in agreement. That must have made you feel good, didnt it?The driver said something that I couldnt understand because he seemed to be all choked up, so I continued: I know Id like to receive a letter like that from my oldest friend.We we
30、re getting close to our destination so I skipped to the last paragraph. So I thought youd like to know that I was thinking of you. And it was signed， Your Old Friend, Tom.I handed back the letter as we stopped at my hotel. Enjoyed talking with you, I said as I took my suitcase out of the cab. Tom? T
31、he letter was signed Tom?I thought your friends name was Ed, I said. Why did he sign it Tom?The letter was not from Ed to me, he explained. Im Tom. Its a letter I wrote to him before I knew hed died. So I never mailed it. He looked sort of sorrowful, or as if he were trying to see something in the d
32、istance. I guess I should have written it sooner.When I got to my hotel room I didnt unpack right away. First I had to write a letter and mail it.(1093 words)Unit 3Whether we like it or not, the world we live in has changed a great deal in the last hundred years, and it is likely to change even more
33、 in the next hundred. Some people would like to stop these changes and go back to what they see as a purer and simpler age. But as history shows, the past was not that wonderful. It was not so bad for a privileged minority, though even they had to do without modern medicine, and childbirth was highl
34、y risky for women. But for the vast majority of the population, life was nasty, brutish, and short.Anyway, even if one wanted to, one couldnt put the clock back to an earlier age. Knowledge and techniques cant just be forgotten. Nor can one prevent further advancesin the future. Even if all governme
35、nt money for research were cut off (and the present government is doing its best), the force of competition would still bring about advancesin technology. Moreover, one cannot stop inquiring minds from thinking about basic science, whether or not they are paid for it. The only way to prevent further
36、 developments would be a global state that suppressed anything new, and human initiative and inventiveness are such that even this wouldnt succeed. All it would do is slow down the rate of change.If we accept that we cannot prevent science and technology from changing our world, we can at least try
37、to ensure that the changes they make are in the right directions. In a democratic society, this means that the public needs to have a basic understanding of science, so that it can make informed decisions and not leave them in the hands of experts. At the moment, the public is in two minds about sci
38、ence. It has come to expect the steady increase in the standard of living that new developments in science and technology have brought to continue, but it also distrusts science becauseit doesnt understand it. This distrust is evident in the cartoon figure of the mad scientist working in his laborat
39、ory to produce a Frankenstein. It is also an important element behind support for the Green parties. But the public also has a great interest in science, particularly astronomy, as is shown by the large audiences for television series such as The Sky at Night and for science fiction.What can be done
40、 to harness this interest and give the public the scientific background it needs to make informed decisions on subjects like acid rain, the greenhouse effect, nuclear weapons, and genetic engineering? Clearly, the basis must lie in what is taught in schools. But in schools science is often presented
41、 in a dry and uninteresting manner. Children learn it by rote to pass examinations, and they dont see its relevance to the world around them. Moreover, science is often taught in terms of equations. Although equations are a brief and accurate way of describing mathematical ideas, they frighten most
42、people. When I wrote a popular book recently, I was advised that each equation I included would halve the sales. I included one equation, Einsteins famous equation, E=mc2. Maybe I would have sold twice as many copies without it.Scientists and engineers tend to express their ideas in the form of equa
43、tions because they need to know the precise values of quantities. But for the rest of us, a qualitative grasp of scientific concepts is sufficient, and this can be conveyed by words and diagrams, without the use of equations.The science people learn in school can provide the basic framework. But the
44、 rate of scientific progress is now so rapid that there are always new developments that have occurred since one was at school or university. I never learned about molecular biology or transistors at school, but genetic engineering and computers are two of the developments most likely to change the
45、way we live in the future. Popular books and magazine articles about science can help to put across new developments, but even the most successful popular book is read by only a small proportion of the population. Only television can reach a truly mass audience. There are some very good science prog
46、rammes on TV, but others present scientific wonders simply as magic, without explaining them or showing how they fit into the framework of scientific ideas. Producers of television science programmes should realize that they have a responsibility to educate the public, not just entertain it.The worl
47、d today is filled with dangers, hence the sick joke that the reason we have not been contacted by an alien civilization is that civilizations tend to destroy themselves when they reach our stage. But I have sufficient faith in the good sense of the public to believe that we might prove this wrong.(8
48、12 words)Unit 4He came from a rocky farm in Italy, somewhere south of Rome. How or when he got to America, I dont know. But one evening I found him standing in the driveway, behind my garage.He was about five-foot-seven or eight, and thin.I mow your lawn, he said. It was hard to comprehend his broken English.I asked him his name. Tony Trivisonno, he replied. I mow your lawn. I told Tony that I couldnt afford a gardener.I mow your lawn, he said again, then walked away. I went intomy house unhappy. Yes, these Depression days were difficult, but how could I to t