Unit2 College – The ladder to success?

Text  A

Reading Comprehension

1. because English or history majors are considered less competitive when the job market is shrinking, and they have to study something that can help them more easily locate their future jobs.

2. because as the tuition is climbing higher and higher, many students have run away from studying the humanities and toward “hard” skills that they think will lead to employment.

3. since more students are now taking job-oriented courses, libraries, where students of liberal arts used to study, are getting less popular than before; in contrast, labs are getting more eye-catching because students of science and engineering do experiments and research there.

4. because this inner drive that can be either constructive or destructive is so mysterious and powerful that it has attracted many people to speculate on it. From ancient times, these men and women developed artistic “languages” in the form of story, music, myth, painting, architecture, sculpture, landscape and traditions, which from the very foundation of civilization.

5. Studying the humanities improves your ability to read and write, makes you familiar with the language of emotion and the creative process, and, more importantly, provides you with a wide scope of possibilities that are open to you.

6. Because in modern life, an ideal capacity for establishing one’s career is to have both technical knowledge and inner insight, not just one without the other.

7. “Well-rounded human beings” are those who have insight and understand the passions, hopes and dreams common to all humanity.

8. Since many people who once studied the humanities became famous in their career, the author implies that if students spend more time studying the humanities, they could surely become successful in the future as well.

Language focus

3

1. promotes  2. accelerate    3. mystery      4. insight     5. boost    6. analysis

7. calculate    8. barriers    9. destruction    10. prospect

4

Promising      Bearing        Housing      Objective

Offend        Exclude         Excess        Execute

Intensify      Identity

5

1. excess     2. bearing     3. objective        4. intensify         5. execute   

6. promising    7. exclude      8. identity       9 offend           10. housing

6.

1-5 CHDJB       6-10  LMGFA

7

1. are liable to              2. in favor of                    3. is bound to

4. speculate about           5. invested…with                6. stand up for

7. in the form of            8. prepared for                  9. in the company of

10 in succession

9

幕课是一种网络课程，它旨在通过网络实现广泛参与和开放接入。幕课是远程教育迈出的最新一步，现已在高等教育领域迅速引领潮流。通过这些课程，大学可以扩大影响的范围，从影响成千上万住在城里付学费的学生，扩展到惠及全球上百万的学生。除了拥有传统的课程资料，幕课还给使用者提供互动论坛，支持学生和讲师之间的交流。幕课能促进参与者之间的交流，使得多种观点、知识和技能涌现到课堂上来；它鼓励人们尝试之前不可能尝试的课程，甚至是尝试新的教育方式；它提供多种学习课程资料的方式，鼓励多模式学习，以各种学习风格满足学习者的需求；另外，幕课促进教学的改善，使技术在面对面授课中得以更好地应用。

10

In recent years, with the development of Internet technology, the construction of digital education resources of our country has made great achievements. Many universities have set up their own digital learning platforms, and digital teaching is playing an increasingly important role in education. Compared with the traditional way of teaching, the digital way has a lot of advantages. On one hand, digital teaching makes global sharing of teaching resources possible; on the other hand, it expands the learner’s study time and space to learn, allowing people to get access to the digital virtual schools through the Internet anytime and anywhere. These advantages make it possible for people to shift from one-time learning to lifelong learning.  

Section B  What college brings us?

Ex 1

1. Main idea: College has never been magical for everyone.

Major detail: More high school graduates don’t fit the pattern of college.

2. Main idea： We need to revise our attitudes and reform the system. Major detail: we only judge things based on our own college experiences.

3. Main idea: College education seems to have wasted time and accumulated debt.

 Major detail: Close to 80 percent of new jobs can be performed by someone without a college degree.

Ex.2

1C 2D 3C 4A 5D 6B 7B 8A

Ex.3

1. It’s very true because the job market is becoming more competitive.

Yes, without a college degree, one can end up with nothing to do.

Sure, college brings students knowledge and personal growth.

No, it’s not necessary to get a college degree to have a better career.

Disagree, college is too expensive now for students and family to afford.

2. More competitive.

More knowledgeable.

More confident.

More opportunities.

3. Traditional ideology.

More promising future.

High expectations of their children.

4. Worth their money because it’s an investment that will pay off later.

A waste of their money because the tuition is too high.

Not sure if they’ll profit from the large sum they invested.

5. Analytical ability.

Critical thing skills.

Broad knowledge.

Ex.4

1. enroll  2 revise   3accumulate  4 accorded  5 evaluate

6. prime  7 confirm  8 shrinking   9 sufficient  10 recruit

Ex.5

1. bother to  2.is available to  3. been compelled to  4.described…as

4. exposed…to  6.than  rather 7 have something to do with

8 for its own sake

Ex.6

1. A teacher, no matter how knowledgeable he is, cannot teach his students everything they want to know.

2. No matter where you travel, you can always find someone to communicate with in English since English is an important language.

3. No matter what work a person is doing, if he gives it his best each day, he creates lots of happiness for himself.

Ex.7

1. Although the number of applications is small, there is little doubt that the program will help the students who really need financial aid.

2. There is no doubt that computer crime is a very serious problem, so people think that all hackers need to be punished for their actions.

3. Though the boy worked very hard and finally successfully passed the exam, there is no doubt that overwork and too much worry caused his illness.

Ex.8

1 promising  2 worsens  3 shrinking  4 dominant  5 land  6 great

7 well-rounded 8 creative 9 elegant 10 constructive 11 skills 12 make