Ⅰ.Write a short note on the author, J. B. Priestly.
Ⅱ. Questions on content:
1.What role,according to Priestly, does instinctive feeling play in the behavior of an Englishman?
2. How does Priestly come to the conclusion that there are fewer fanatical believers in England?
3. What does the writer mean when he says, "Some cancer in their character has eaten away their Englishness"? Whom is he referring to? (para 2)
4. How, according to the writer, are the real English people different?
5. What is the conflict between Admass and Englishness? What importance does the writer attach to the outcome of this conflict?
6. What force may play a decisive role in this battle between Admass and Englishness? How?
7. Who are those people who have rejected Admass? What important role can they play?
8. What does Priestly think about the young in England?
9. What does he say about the "sloppy people"?
10.Why is there widespread boredom in heavily industrialized societies? How does boredom affect the English?
11.What other elements apart from boredom have brought about dishonesty and vicious criminality in England?
12.Does the writer consider politics important? Why?
Ⅲ.Questions on appreciation:
1.Are there any special characteristics in Priestly' s diction? Pick out some words and idioms that you think are peculiar to English English.
2.What is the dominant intention of this piece of argument? Is the proposition clearly stated?
3. What conflicts or issues are put forward in this argument? Are all the conflicts resolved?
4. Does Priestly provide sufficient evidence to support his position?
5. Is his reasoning sound? Are there any logical fallacies in his argument?
6. How does the writer make use of emotional appeals? Cite some examples.
7. Which paragraph do you like best? Give your reasons.
Ⅳ. Paraphrase:
1. below the noisy arguments, the abuse and the quarrels, there is a reservoir of instinctive fellow-feeling (para2)
2. at heart they would like to take a whip to the whole idle troublesome mob of them (para2)
3. there are not many of these men, either on the board or the shop floor (para2)
4. It demands bigness, and they are suspicious of bigness. (para3 )
5. Against this, at least superficially, Englishness seems a poor shadowy show (para4)
6. while Englishness is not hostile to change, it is deeply suspicious of change for change's sake (para5)
7. To put cars and motorways before houses seems to Englishness a communal imbecility. (para5)
8. I must add that while Englishness can still fight on, Admass could be winning. (para6)
9. It must have some moral capital to draw upon, and soon it may be asking for an overdraft. (para6)
10. They probably believe, as I do, that the Admass‘Good Life' is a fraud on all counts. (para9)
11. They can be found, too -- though not in large numbers because the breed is dying out -- among crusty High Tories who avoid the City and directors' fees. (para9)
12. they are inept, shiftless, slovenly, messy (para11)
13. he will not even find much satisfaction in this scrounging messy existence, which does nothing for a man's self-respect (para11)
14. To them the House of Commons is a remote squabbling- shop. (para14)
15. heavy hands can fall on the shoulders that have been shrugging away politics (para14)
Ⅴ . Translate paras 7 and 8 into Chinese.
Ⅵ. Look up the dictionary and explain the meaning of the italicized words:
1. there is a reservoir of instinctive fellow-feeling (para2)
2. Not everybody can draw on that reservoir. (para2)
3. there are in England some snarling shop stewards (para2)
4. either on the board or the shop floor (para2)
5. but seem altogether out of scale in England (para3)
6. keeping well clear of economics (para4)
7. and soon it may be asking for an overdraft (para6)
8. there may be a catch in it (para 7)
9. the sudden walk-outs and strikes (para8)
11.the Admass 'Good Life' is a fraud on all counts (para9)
12. Even the stuff it produces is mostly junk (para9)
13. They are usually articulate (para9)
14. and may be as busy conforming to Madison Avenue (para10)
15. bowler hats or ungovernable mops of hair (para15)
Ⅶ. Differentiate the meanings of the words or phrases in each group:
1.instinctive feeling, rational thought (para1)
2.rational, reasonable (para3)
3.odd, eccentric (para4)
4.instinct, intuition (para5)
5.hostile to change, deeply suspicious of change (para5)
6.inept, shiftless (para11)
7.slovenly, messy (para11)
8.shop-lifting, robbery, pilfering (paras12,13)
9.refuse, reject (para15)
Ⅲ. Replace the following italicized words with more formal words or expressions:
1. who have inherited Englishness …and cannot feel at home in the contemporary world ( )
2. To begin with, not all the English hold fast to Englishness. ( )
3. Some important and influential men carefully train them, selves out of it，… shrugging off their inheritance. ( )
4. Where's this ‘Good Life' in sweating your guts out ( )
5. I have far more faith in the quieter young, who never swaggered around in the youth racket ( )
6. They, too, might help to :swing the battle. ( )
7. They are no longer facing starvation if they don't work properly or go on strike, no longer told to clear out if they aren't properly respectful ( )
8. he will be just slopping around, accepting no responsibility, skimping the work he is supposed to be doing ( ) ( )
9. Now the English ... can soon feel bored, which largely explains why they gamble and booze so much ( )
10.and all that is real between them is the arrangement by which one set of chaps take their turn at ministerial jobs ( )
Ⅸ. Give 5 — 10 examples of compound words which are derived from phrases or sentences.
Model: on a do-it-yourself basis
Ⅹ. Write out the full words for the following shortenings:
Models: 1) pop—popular
2) advert—advertisement
1. auto 8. kilo
2. co-ed 9. porn(o)
3. exam 10. expo
4. demo 11. pram
5. gent 12. prom
6. homo 13. tram
7. hydro 14. trolley
Ⅵ. Explain the meaning of the following sentences in plain, nonfigurative language:
1. Some cancer in their character has eaten away their Englishness.
2. Against this, at least superficially, Englishness seems a poor shadowy show-- a faint pencil sketch beside a poster in full colour
3. It must have some moral capital to draw upon, and soon it may be asking for an overdraft.
4. As it is they are like a hippopotamus blundering in and out of a pets' tea party.
5. Bewildered, they grope and mess around because they have fallen between two stools, the old harsh discipline having vanished and the essential new self-discipline either not understood or thought to be out of reach.
6. Yes, Englishness is still with us. But it needs reinforcement, extra nourishment , especially now when our public life seems ready to starve it.
7. There are English people of all ages, though far more under thirty than over sixty, who seem to regard politics as a game but not one of their games -- polo, let us say.
8. Otherwise they could soon learn, in the worst way, that heavy hands can fall on the shoulders that have been shrugging away politics.
9. Englishness cannot be fed with the east wind of a narrow rationality, the latest figures of profit and loss, a constant appeal to self-interest.
10.But we do not have to go on like that, to enter a Common Market of national character.
Ⅻ. Make sentences with the following words, using them metaphorically:
1. reservoir 4. nourishment
2. cancer 5. to feed
3. roots 6. to starve
ⅩⅢ. Read the following paragraphs and explain what method is used to develop the central idea.
1. They made a robot in the shape of a dragonfly and named it Ranger Ⅶ, thereby expressing their hope that it would range the face of the moon. For eyes, they gave it camera lenses, and taught it how to photograph by blinking the shutters. Near the place where its nose should have been, they put a radio antenna like a saucer, and taught the robot how to send pictures back through the saucer to the earth. When all this was done, they folded the dragonfly's wings, set the mechanical insect on top of a rocket, and fired the rocket into orbit around the earth. Finally they shot the robot out of the orbit, told it to unfold its wings, and pointed it onto a curving path across 243,665 miles of sky. The path ended in a dry lunar lake-bed that hadn' t been thought important enough to be named.
2. Pot smokers nowadays comprise three broad groups. First there are the prisoners of the ghetto, who turn to marijuana to escape the grinding despair of their circumstances. Since they live in neighborhoods where narcotics are also available, these are the pot users most likely to graduate to heroin, the most pervasive eradicator of consciousness. Then there are the samplers and the chronic potheads. The sampler is usually a middle-class youngster who tries an occasional marijuana joint to see if the drug really does heighten his awareness and appreciation of music, philosophy, art -- and people. The chronic pothead may come from the same background; he feels empty and alienated from the world around him. The pothead, says Columbia's Liebert, "takes marijuana regularly and compulsively. It fills a definite need to relieve an intolerable tension and depression. " And Rand' s McGlothlin says persistent users "will be less achievement-oriented, less competitive. "
3. According to Ruth Benedict in The Patterns of Culture, the Pueblo Indians are different from the Dobus in three important ways. Take the Pueblos first. The Pueblos have a cooperative, peaceful society. They are not jealous about sexual rights and they do not punish infidelity. Moreover, they make no display of political or economic power. The Dobus are different in every way. To begin with, they are violent, aggressive people. Unlike the Pueblos, they are intensely jealous: the inlaws spy on married people constantly, and any infidelity is met with swift, brutal punishment. Also,the Dobus are fiercely proud of political and economic success: like the old-time Captains of American Industry, they worship property and will go to any extreme -- including fraud and murder -- to get what they want. In short, the Pueblos are peaceful, passive, quiet, while the Dobus are aggressive, vengeful, and acquisitive.
ⅩⅣ.Topics for oral work:
1. Are the English really different from other people? In what ways are they different?
2. Are the Chinese different from other people? In what ways are they different?
ⅩⅤ. Write a short composition describing some of the special traits of people from your city or province.
The Future of the English 课后练习题/EXERCISES 11
»