After Reading

1. Vocabulary

Useful Expressions

1. 吞噬                       eat into

2. 困于交通堵塞               stuck in traffic jams

3. 越洋购物旅行               the transatlantic shopping expedition

4. 在大多数情况下             in most cases

5. 使…摆脱                   free sb. from

6. 个人的穿着打扮             personal grooming

7. 处理软件故障               fix software glitches

8. 除去技术发展               technology apart

9. 信息爆炸                   the information explosion

10. 感到时间紧迫                       feel time-pressed

11. 从世界各个角落            from every corner of the world

12. 在整个世界学术界          in the whole world of scholarship

13. 在…的推动下              driven on by

14. 无休止的选择                        endless choice

15. 适用于                    apply to

16. 预测小组                  forecasting group

17. 分配不均匀                be unevenly distributed

18. 抚养子女                  nurture offspring

19. 做有报酬的工作            take paying jobs

20. 家务杂活                  household chores

21. 越做越大的市场            a growth market

22. 家政服务                  concierge services

23. 更充分的利用              make better use of

24. 工业革命                  industrial revolution

25. 注定                      be doomed to

Scanning

1. (Directions:) Scan the text, circle all phrases containing a hyphen, and then explain their meanings and how they are formed.

1. ever-increasing quantities of time (Para. 1)  the quantities of time increasing all the time

  2. horse-drawn carriage (Para. 3)  the carriage drawn by the horse

3. time-consuming journeys (Para. 4)  journeys consuming time

  4. the laptop-on-the-beach syndrome (Para. 6)  the syndrome caused by going to the beach with a laptop

  5. feel time-pressed (Para. 7)  feel the press caused by the lack of time

6. ever-larger quantities of goods and services (Para. 11)  the quantities of goods and services that become larger and larger

  7. be time-starved (Para. 12)  be lack of time

  8. the London-based Henley Center (Para. 14)  the Henley Center with its headquarter located in London

9. be self-imposed (Para. 14) be imposed by one’s own

10. hour-by-hour logs (Para. 15) logs written at different hours

  11. the mid-1960s (Para. 16) the middle of the 1960s

  12. empty-nesters (Para. 17) people without offsprings

  13. pre-school children (Para. 17) children before entering the schools

  14. on-line retailers (Para. 21) retailers shopping on line

  15. work-life debate(Para. 22) debate on “which to choose, work or life”

16. long-hours culture (Para. 22)  the tradition to increase the working hours

  17. family-friendly working policies (Para. 22) the policies used in the working places to treat employees in a friendly way like members in a family

  18. the cell-phone (Para. 28) the mobile phone

2. (Directions:) make words with the following prefixes or patterns.

1. ever-  (=ever-green, ever-lasting, ever-more…)

2. self-  (=self-control, self-made, self-educated…)

3. pre-  (=pre-history, pre-mature, pre-recorded…)

4. adj. n -ed  ( blue-eyed, simple-mined, left-handed…)

5. adv. v -ed  (well-informed, much-used, poorly-dressed…)

Sentence Translation

1.    And as each invention arrives, it eats further into our time.

(=而每一项新发明问世，就进一步吞噬我们的光阴。)

2.    Instantaneity rules. Pollsters use electronic devices during political speeches to measure opinions on the wing, before they have been fully formed; fast-food restaurants add express lanes.

(=即时行为主宰着一切。人们发表政治演说时，听众尚未形成看法，民意调查人员就利用电子装置进行当场测定；快餐店增设了快速通道。)

3.    In so many households the TV just stays on, like a noisy light bulb, while the life of the family passes back and forth in its shimmering glow.

(=在许多家庭里，电视机就一直开着，如同一个发出噪声的灯泡，人们在其微弱的闪光里来回忙碌着。)

4.    A sense of well-being comes with this saturation of parallel pathways in the brain. We choose mania over boredom every time. "Humans have never, ever, opted for slower,” points out the historian Stephen Kern.

(=随着脑海中充斥着的这种多路并进状态而来的是一种幸福感。我们总是宁要狂热地工作也不要无聊乏味地生活。“人类从未，也永远不会选择放慢速度，” 历史学家斯蒂芬 · 克恩说。)

5.    如今，这些大脑休想容纳下一天中产生的新信息中的小小一部分。

(=Today, those heads could not hope to accommodate more than a tiny fraction of the information generated in a single day.)

6.    除不平等外，时间不够用的感觉也普遍存在，并引起了各种反应。

(=Inequalities apart, the perception of the time famine is widespread, and has provoked a variety of reactions.)

7.    你比过去更常听到人们早早退休，放弃压力大的工作去从事工作时间短的工作。

(=You hear more about people taking early retirement or giving up high pressure jobs in favour of occupations with shorter working hours.)

8.    更有效的解决方式或许在于去理解这一问题，而不是回避这一问题。

(=A more successful remedy may lie in understanding the problem rather than evading it.)

Dictation

Students Offer Insight into Exam-time Stress

______ (1) week means different things to different students. For some students, exams are no sweat (不费力地). First-year business student Joe Tirpak said, "I don't let exams stress me out because I'm ______ (2) I'm as ______ (3) as I can be."
   For others, ______(4) is the key to ______(5) their exam jitters(神经过敏). Second-year marine science student Zac Duval said, "Having a year of experience has helped me know how to ______ (6) my time and be well-prepared."
   Then there's the ______(7) of students on ______(8) who acquire that sweaty, wild-eyed look from spending ______(9) hours hunched (弓起背部) over a book under a hot desk lamp. First-year sports management student Steve McMenamin said he's usually one of those ______ (10) students. "I'm thinking I'll be spending a lot of time on my porch(走廊) studying," he said.
   The problem of stress is not a new one.

(=1. Finals 2. confident 3. well-prepared 4. experience 5. getting over 6. schedule 7. majority 8. campus 9. sleepless 10. stressed-out

Discussion

(Directions:) Read the short passage and discuss the following questions in small groups.

Suffering by Desire

Few of us would like to agree that we desire to suffer. Yet, it is clear that if we had no desires, there would be little or no suffering (excluding the suffering due to unfulfilled true needs).

Whenever we desire something, and circumstances make it difficult or impossible to fulfill that desire, we get frustrated and suffer. That is called stress.

What motivates us to desire?

We are motivated to desire by the elusion (逃避) or the delusion (错觉) that the grass is greener on the other side of our dream.
    As the old sages say: By Greed, Fear, Anger, Envy, and Ignorance.

We all want to improve the Quality of our Life, that means for most of us: More material wealth, more security, keeping up with the Joneses, and whatever we “think” will help us. Unfortunately, our thinking is not always clear. What we think will improve our life, may turn out worse than we had it before, because we did not “think” through the implications of having our wish fulfilled. The consequences of our actions usually come and hit us when we don't expect it. Again, we suffer due to our own ignorance, and inability to plan ahead and to foresee what will happen.

1. What is your attitude toward desire?

2. What motivates us to desire?

3. Put forward your opinion about heat of cars and houses purchase among young people.

Talk about the Pictures

Writing Practice

1. A brief introduction

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, and a paragraph no unnecessary sentences. Here are some tips for deleting wordiness and achieving conciseness of your writing.

1.       Delete all-purpose nouns such as “case”, “fact”, “field”, “instance”;

2.       Revise roundabout expressions such as “the question as to whether”, “there is no doubt but that”, “this is a matter that”, “at the same time that”;

3.       Cut redundant expression – expression that repeat the meaning of another;

4.       Remove deadwood – needless words, phrases, and sentences that impede the smooth flow of language – to create a straightforward style;

5.       Put statements in positive form. Use the word “not” as a means of denial or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion;

6.       Avoid the passive voice which often “hides” the real subject of the sentence and creates unnecessary wordiness;

7.       Avoid a succession of loose sentences, especially the sentences consisting of two co-ordinate clauses, the second introduced by a conjunction or relative.

2. An example

              Railroad travel in Spain is a nightmare which tourists should know about before embarking on a voyage. Each compartment holds eight people, which usually results in a conglomeration of soldiers, tourists, famers, and villagers. Within minutes after the train pulls out of the station, the compartments become saturated with the mixed odor of wine, various foods, and sweat. Chicken and dogs casually stroll the narrow passageways. Drunkards and perverts roam through te cars shouting obscenities and pinching the oversized rear ends of standing or passing females. Travelers suffer silently, passing the dreary hours by playing tic-tac-toe and poker.

3. Homework

(Directions:) For this part, you are required to write a composition entitled Technology: Blessing Or Curse in no less than 120 words. Try to follow the 7 tips to make your composition concise and impressive.

Technology: Blessing Or Curse

We live in a technologically advanced world, where more and more electronic gadgets are going wireless. We have mobile phones, wireless computers and even mobile television. Is technological development more of a blessing or a curse to mankind?

It is obvious to know how much technology has helped us in our daily lives. Last time, people had to walk miles just to go to school or work. Thanks to the advancement of technology, people now can either take buses or drive cars to reach their destination.If you look around, technology is almost everywhere! We can send email to our friends rather than the old fashioned letters which take so long to reach the receivers. We can easily message to our parents to reassure them of our safety or search for information needed for our school projects with just a click on the button.

Despite the benefits, there are many problems caused by technology. People nowadays have relied on technology too much. Teenagers complain when they could not use a computer for a day. Parents complain when the computers crash and that they did not save the file they were working on.

In conclusion, technology is more of a blessing than a curse. It gives us choices which we do not have before and has improved the human living conditions. Technology may bring us harm but that should not deter us from improving it.

Proverbs and Quotations

1. The greater wealth is contentment with a little.

  人生最大的财富是知足。

2. Too much curiosity lost paradise.

  太多好奇心，逐出天堂门。

3. Better a little fire to warm us, than a great fire to burn us.

  宁要小火烘烤，不要大火烧焦。/凡事过则比伤。

4. We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet

  只要我们能善用时间，就永远不愁时间不够用。

                                                         —德国诗人  J. W. 歌德

5. We must deal with pleasure as we do with honey, only touch them with the tip of the finger, and not with the whole hand for fear of surfeit.

                                                      —Saint Bede, British bishop

  我们应该像吃蜂蜜那样对待享受，只用指尖蘸，而不是用整只手去抓，以免吃得太多。

                                                           —英国主教  S. 比德

6. Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify it, simplify it.

                                          —David Thoreau Henry, American writer

   我们的生活都被琐事浪费掉了，简单点，简单点。

                                                        —美国作家  D. T. 亨利