◆ Unit 1 We’ve Been Hit

✧ Mayblum would be one of thousands cast into an extraordinary purgatory that morning.

On that morning, thousands of people in the WTC were thrown all of a sudden, into a condition of extremely terrible suffering that morning, Mayblum was one of them.

✧ The rumbles of the collapsing tower next door seemed to sap the heavyset man of his last gasp of energy.

It seemed that the tremendous sound of the collapse of the south tower destroyed the man’s hope of climbing down the remaining stairs, thus took away his remaining energy.

✧ In flames － burning .

✧ A matter of geography － a situation that was depended on one’s location .

✧ Off and on － in an intermittent manner / not happening continuously or regularly .

✧ Give you a hand － help you

✧ So far , so good － things are satisfactory up to this point

✧ Scoff at

✧ In a dilemma as to whether to marry Paul

✧ Overcome by the heat and collapsed into the nearest chair

✧ A sheer pandemonium in the dance hall

✧ Lay a reassuring hand on Steven’s arm

✧ An echoing rumble

✧ Meet up with

◆ Unit 2 The Virtues of Growing Older

✧ And women, I’m embarrassed to admit , even more than men, have always seemed to be at the mercy of fashion.

I’m embarrassed to admit that women

are less capable than men of resisting to

temptation of fashion.

✧ It means trying on new selves by taking up with different crowds.

It means that you make friends with different (in order) to find a new identity for yourself.

✧ I no longer blame my parents for my every personality quirk or keep a running score of everything they did wrong raising me.

I no longer constantly remind myself of all the wrong thing my parents did in the process of raising me.

✧ Hold out

✧ Be apt to － be likely to

✧ Fall apart －break up

✧ In general － as a while

✧ At the mercy of － completely controlled by

✧ No wonder － not surprising

✧ A way to delay the aging process

✧ Feverishly he set to work

✧ A facade of honesty

✧ Be confronted with

✧ Chair a meeting

✧ On the premise that

✧ Sb. be proved guilty

✧ Dread doing sth.

✧ Resent sb. doing

✧ Automatically

✧ Await of bid <等待决标>/be awaiting a decision

◆ Unit 3 My Stroke of Luck

✧ But that took some doing on my part too.

take some doing = to be hard work

on one’s part = on the part of sb

But I also made some effort to change myself .

✧ …which hasn’t always been easy, given that I’m sometimes an actor wrapped up in his ego.

Because sometimes I’m too proud of myself as an actor.

✧ Tie the knot = get married

✧ Given that = because

✧ Then and there = without any delay

✧ In the midst of = when

✧ Set … apart = distingwish

✧ We were totally wrapped in ourselves and lost touch with a lot of friends.

✧ A sudden shock could be fatal to anyone with a delicate heart condition.

✧ Be fluent with

✧ Undergo a profound change

✧ Stretch out in her favorite armchair

✧ State pensions are financed by the contribution of those still at work.

✧ Unforeseeable consequences

✧ Neighborhood

◆ Unit 4 Cultural Encounters

✧ We live in an age of easy access to the rest of the world.

The age we are living in provides us with convenient ways to reach any part of the world.

✧ Everyone, it seems, provided, of course, they can afford to do so, need never be out of touch.

It seems that everyone is able to keep getting in touch with anyone else /can never be fail to reach ] if he (or she) can afford to.

✧ …lies at the heart of society…

Forms the core of society

✧ This is an essential skill in today’s hybrid world.

This is a basic skill in today’s world where different cultures interact.

✧ Millions of people are discovering how to bridge cultures.

Lots of people are finding ways to get rid of cultural differences/interrelate different cultures.

✧ Provided = as long as/if

✧ Need never be out of touch = can never fail to be reached

✧ Regardless of whether … = no matter whether …

✧ Overlook at one’s peril = fail to notice at great risk

✧ Hover somewhere in and around all those words = may be described by these words to varying degrees

✧ Hit the problem of untranslatability head-on = were directing confronted with the problem that something in one language cannot be rendered into another

✧ An important stepping stone towards …

✧ At one’s peril

✧ Serve the needs of the poor and the disabled

✧ Marvel at the mentality of people

✧ Potatoes, broccoli, cabbages are the staple winter vegetables in the northern part of the country.

✧ An intention of facilitating the teaching of self-protection among the young

✧ The newly released software is believed to be able to make electronic mail and video messaging more powerful on the Internet.

✧ It can be said that the Internet is a hybrid system of art and technology.

◆ Unit 5 Fourteen Steps

✧ Here hobbled a bitterly disillusioned cripple, a man who held on to his sanity and his wife and his home and his job because of 14 miserable steps…

Here walks lamely a sad cripple with little hope for his future, and everything he owned at that time, his sanity, his wife, his home and his job depended on his painful effort to climb these 14 steps.

✧ In the next few frozen seconds the shame and horror of that moment penetrated and I was sick with an intensity I had never felt before.

In the next seconds I was filled with such shame and horror that I was speechless and unable to move. I had never been so sick about what I had done before.

✧ A slowly progressive disease = a disease that gradually became more and more serious

✧ With the aid of = with the help of

✧ Peer at = look very carefully and hard at

✧ Be all set = be ready, be prepared

✧ Indifference to = not caring about

✧ Tilt

✧ Lead up to

✧ Hold on to

✧ Care for

✧ Be inclined to

✧ Make a living

✧ Follow one’s example

✧ Golding’s novel is to a degree experimental in style

◆ Unit 6 The Diary of The Unknown Soldier

✧ While that might not provide much to help them cope with their loss, it will make the children feel like their fathers make a difference.

Although my stories about their fathers’ death could not relieve their pain, they would enable the children to realize the extraordinary significance of their fathers’ contribution.

✧ A saying I once heard strikes a painful note in my head, “Even one war is too many.”

I suddenly recalled a saying I once heard which makes me very painful, “Even one war is too many.”

✧ No more than = only

✧ Strike a painful note in my head = makes me feel very painful

✧ More blood has been shed = more people have been injured or killed

✧ Word has it that = it is said that

✧ With an air of = appearing full of/ seeming to have

✧ Several people shouted at the chairman; feelings were running high.

✧ Tucked the children up in bed

✧ The building is regularly inspected by a fire-safety officer.

✧ Taken precautions

✧ Sally announced with an air of finality

✧ Appeal to his adventurous spirit

✧ He raced back towards the forest with the enraged dogs at his heel.

✧ I hadn’t rehearsed it properly and I panicked, stepping onto the stage.

◆ Unit 7 Letter to a B Student

✧ To lose, to fail, to go under, to go broke — these are deadly sins in a world where prosperity in the present is seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future.

Being unsuccessful in one’s life and career and financially disadvantaged is regarded as shameful or even sinful, because in this world people tend to think that only those who are successful now can be saved from evil in the future.

✧ I’m certain that nothing I can say will remove that feeling of disappointment, particularly in a climate where grades determine eligibility for graduate school and special program.

✧ It is important to recognize that human beings, despite differences in class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit together by common bonds of fear and joy, suffering and achievement. Warfare, sickness, disasters public and private － these are the larger coordinates of life.

Although they differ in their class status and educational background, human beings are essentially the same. First of all, they are biologically speaking constructed in the same way; and then, they all share the feelings of fear and joy and also the common experience of suffering and achieving. This commonality has bound them together. All of them will regard wars, disease, and disasters, both public and private as unfortunate big events in their lifetime.

✧ Essence = most important part

✧ Deadly sins = sins leading to damnation

✧ Misleading = make sb. think or act wrongly

✧ Conventional tasks = traditionally required of students

✧ In short supply = far from enough

✧ Define an extrovert personality

✧ Leave out the sentences that are irrelevant to the thesis

✧ Correspond to the descriptions

✧ Every semester he flunked at least two courses

✧ Carnegie considered that the distribution of wealth for the benefit of society must never be in the form of free charity but rather must be as a support to the community’s responsibility for its own people.

✧ Make a point of

✧ Be apt to

✧ Some of us had to eat beef noodles as there was not enough chicken rice to go round.

综合教程2