全新版大学英语快速阅读第四册课文

2021年1月16日发(作者：耿葆淦)
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Unit 1
Alone in the Arctic Cold
Day had broken exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main
Yukon trail and climbed the slope, where a dim and little-traveled trail led eastward through the
pine forest. The slope was steep, and he paused for breath at the top. There was no sun nor hint
of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed to be a
mist over the face of things, that made the day dark. This fact did not worry the man. He was
used to the lack of sun.
The man looked back along the way he had come. The Yukon River lay a mile wide
and hidden under three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was unbroken
white, save for a dark hairline that was the trail that led south five hundred miles to the Chilcoot
Pass.
But all this—the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail, the absence of sun from the sky,
the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all—made no impression on the
man. He was a newcomer in the land and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that
he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things,
and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such
fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to
think about man 's weakness in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and
cold. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bit of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against
by the use of thick, warm clothing. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty
degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never
entered his head.
As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that
startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle
crackled. He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in
the air. Undoubtedly it was colder than fifty below—how much colder he did not know. But the
temperature did not matter. He was bound for the old mine on the left fork of Henderson Creek
where the boys were already. They had come over the hill from the Indian Creek country, while
he had come the roundabout way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out logs in the
spring from the islands in the Yukon. He would be in to camp by six o'clock; a bit after dark, it
was true, but the boys would be there, a fire would be going, and a hot supper would be ready.
He plunged in among the big pine trees. The trail was faint. He was glad he was
without a sled, traveling light. In fact, he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in the
handkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the cold. It certainly was cold, he concluded, as he
rubbed his numb nose and cheekbones with his gloved hand.



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Memories of Afghanistan
Afghanistan—a country on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, a land filled with
fleeing refugees, starving people, and turbaned terrorists in training camps. TV pictures tell the
story of a country in ruin and poverty, a country brought almost to total destruction by twenty
years of war and struggle. Yet once—though poor—this was a proud nation, and a beautiful
country, and one that had survived many centuries of harsh history. Not too long ago, it was a
country in peace, and one with a rich cultural heritage ...
Apart from the nations of Europe, there are few countries in the world that have never
been under colonial rule—or at least never in recent times: Afghanistan was one of them. Many
centuries ago, Genghis Khan 's troops rode down from Mongolia, mercilessly killing the
mountain tribesmen of Afghanistan who dared to resist the invader; but apart from this
humiliating period in time, the Afghans—who are in fact a mixture of three separate ethnic
groups—have held their heads high in the face of invasion.
The country that is now at the centre of the world 's attention was once one of the world
's proudest nations, and a nation that other countries invaded at their own risk. In the 19th
century the armies of the British Empire knew that Afghanistan was not a country to interfere
with.
A hundred and twenty years ago, in 1881, British soldiers were nonetheless stationed in
the Afghan capital, Kabul. They were there for two reasons, firstly to help stop the Russians
from invading the country, and secondly to ensure the existence of an independent buffer-state
between the Russian Empire to the north, and the British Empire in India (modern Pakistan) to
the south east.
Queen Victoria would have liked to add Afghanistan to her empire, but her soldiers
never succeeded in this mission, though they tried, and failed. In 1879, the whole British
Mission (embassy) in Kabul, including servants, was massacred by a group of rebel Afghan
soldiers, furious because they had not been paid by their own king, Mohammed Yacoub. Yacoub
was friendly to the British, so the British got the blame. The story of the Kabul Massacre was
remembered for a long time by the British in India, and recorded by several Victorian writers
and poets.
Other bloody events also marked the relationship between the British and the Afghans
in the 19th century. In 1842, in the notorious battle of the Khyber Pass, a complete British army
was massacred by Afghans as they returned from a short raid into the country. Just one man, a
doctor, managed to survive the massacre, and make his way back to the safety of India, to tell
the story of the terrible event.
Though the world has changed a lot since Victorian times, Afghanistan has changed
little. In many ways, the Taliban have even moved the country back in time, to a dark age of
ignorance, intolerance and repression; but even without the Taliban, Afghanistan would still,
today, be one of the world's most undeveloped nations. Land-locked, aside from most modern
routes of communication, and broken up by the mighty Hindu Kush mountains and by vast
deserts, Afghanistan, like the territoryof northwest Pakistan, has remained fiercely
independent from outside interference, and strongly attached to its traditional ways.

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For the last twenty-five years, the Afghan people have suffered from war and
destruction: the overthrow of the monarchy, then the invasion by the Soviet Union in 1978, then
the war against the Soviets, then the struggle for control of the country between the Taliban and
the supporters of General Massoud, now the massive departure of a people on the verge of
starvation, driven from their homes as much by fear of the Taliban as by the threat of military
invasion.
Yet in spite of all this, despite the destruction of a large part of their country, the
Afghan people remain kind and hospitable. Older Afghans remember back to a past, when they
lived in peace and relative security; younger Afghans, who have never known an era of peace,
look forward to the day when a new age of peace will come. Hopefully, that new dawn will not
be too far away.


The Conquest of Mt. Jolmo Lungma
It was 11: 30 a.m. My first sensation was one of relief—relief that the long climb was
over; that the summit had been reached before our oxygen supplies had dropped to a critical
level; and the relief that in the end the mountain had been kind to us in having a pleasantly
rounded cone for its summit instead of a fearsome and unapproachable steep cliff. But mixed
with the relief was a vague sense of astonishment that I should have been the lucky one to attain
the ambition of so many brave and determined climbers. It seemed difficult at first to grasp that
we had got there. I was too tired and too conscious of the long way down to safety really to feel
any great joy. But as the fact of our success thrust itself more clearly into my mind, I felt a quiet
glow of satisfaction spread through my body—a satisfaction more powerful than I had ever felt
on a mountain top before. I turned and looked at my guide, Tenzing. Even beneath his oxygen
mask and the icicles hanging from his hair, I could see his infectious grin of sheer delight. But
this was not enough for Tenzing, and impulsively he threw his arm around my shoulders and we
thumped each other on the back in mutual congratulations.
But we had no time to waste. First I must take some photographs and we would hurry
down. I turned off my oxygen and took the set off my back. I remembered all the warnings I had
had of the possible fatal consequences of this, but for some reason felt quite confident that
nothing serious would result. I took my camera out of the pocket of my windproof jacket and
clumsily opened it with my thickly gloved hands. I clipped on the lens hood and ultra-violet
filter and then shuffled down the ridge a little so that I could get the summit into my viewfinder.
Tenzing had been waiting patiently, but now, at my request, he unfurled the flags wrapped
around his ice-axe and standing on the summit held them above his head. Clad in all his bulky
equipment and with the flags flapping furiously in the wind, he made a dramatic picture, and the
thought drifted through my mind that this photograph should be a good one if it came out at all. I
did not know, he had never taken a photograph before and the summit of Jolmo Lungma was
hardly the place to show him now.
I climbed up to the top again and started taking a photographic record in every direction.
The weather was still extraordinarily fine. From our viewpoint I could see all the northern slopes

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of the mountain and was immediately struck by the possibility of a feasible route to its summit.
With a growing feeling of excitement, I took another photograph to study at leisure on returning
to civilization. Almost under our feet, it seemed, was the famous North Col glacier, where so
many epic deeds of courage and endurance were performed by the earlier British Expeditions. It
was a sobering thought to remember how often these men had reached 9,000m without the
benefits of our modern equipment and reasonably efficient oxygen sets. Inevitably my thoughts
turned to Mallory and Irving, who had lost their lives on the mountain 30 years before.


Buzz-bombs and Doodlebugs
In 1944 I was a schoolboy of 15. I had not been in London during the Blitz of 1940-41,
but I returned to the family home in South London in 1942 and went to school there. It has to be
remembered that for nearly three years, from 1941 to 1944, there was almost no bombing at all.
Then in February 1944 Germany launched what became known as the
on for a few days, but was on nothing like the scale of the bombing of 1940-41, still less the
massive Anglo- American air raids then being directed at Germany.
In June 1944 the first flying bombs fell on London; they were usually called

not dropped from a plane. Then it was understood that they were in effect self-propelled pilotless
aircraft, which when they reached their maximum range would crash with their explosive load.
At first only one or two fell, but soon it became obvious that a regular bombardment was under
way.
The most noticeable aspect of the doodlebugs was their sound, which was quite unlike
any ordinary plane; it had a strange tearing and rasping sound, more like a motorcycle. It soon
acquired a disquieting and disturbing quality, and prompted unbecoming reactions. If the motor
cut out when the weapon was approaching, then it was likely to drop nearby and one tried to
take shelter; if it continued its flight, one could feel relieved: someone else would be the victim.
South London was on their regular flight path, and many of them fell nearby, causing damage
and loss of life. Our house suffered broken glass and a ceiling down but no serious damage.
There was a particularly bad incident on 28th July 1944 when a flying bomb fell in the
main shopping centre of Lewisham; it penetrated an air raid shelter, causing 51 deaths and many
casualties. At about that time I was in a street about a quarter of a mile away, conscious of all the
nearby disturbance; what I remember most clearly was seeing bloodstains on the pavement.
Looking back, I am struck by the very matter-of-fact way in which at that age I responded to all
this.
In August 1944 I went to stay with an uncle who lived in a village near Canterbury in
Kent. This was out of the way of the flying bombs in one sense, as they were directed at London;
but they often passed overhead as the village was situated in what was called Doodlebug Alley.
Sometimes they would fall in the nearby fields, either because they had fallen short, or were shot
down by fighters. The RAF brought the first jet fighters into operation to try to catch them as

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they were much faster than piston-engined fighters. They would fly alongside them and flip their
wing to spill them harmlessly into the open fields below.
I remember sitting on the North Downs with my cousin and his girl-friend, and seeing a
fighter chasing a doodlebug. It crashed somewhere in the distance, which was an exciting
spectacle, either shot down or tipped off course by the pursuing plane. Some of them failed to
explode and one was put on display at a store in Canterbury.
There is no doubt that these things did a great deal of damage in London within the
space of a few weeks. The allied armies were advancing on the launching sites in Northern
France and Belgium, and there was concern that they would not get there in time to prevent
more damage and loss of life.
Soon, however, they were replaced by the far more frightening V2 weapons. These
were rockets proper, much larger and more destructive which gave no notice at all of their
arrival, and they continued to fall on London at intervals during the last winter of the war,
1944-45.


Unit 2
Atomic Cars
Every motorist dreams of a car of the future that does not have to be refuelled every
few hundred miles, a car that will cost little to run because there is no outlay on petrol.

atomic power in a car, and you'll have no more worries about petrol. The thing will run for years
without a refill.
And, theoretically, he is right. The answer is the atom. If atomic power could be used in
a car, one small piece of uranium would keep the engine running for twenty or more years. Of
course, this would cut the cost of running a car by quite a few hundred pounds, depending upon
how much you spend on petrol.
But is this science-fiction-like picture of the atom exploding peacefully beneath the
bonnet of a car possible? In theory it is, since already the atom has been harnessed to drive
submarines, and an atomic engine is already in existence. But, say the experts, there are many
problems still to be conquered before such an engine can in fact be fixed into a car.
Now what exactly are these problems that stand between you and a car that you will
never have to refuel? Frankly, most of them can be summed up in one word—radiation. An
atomic reactor, the kind of engine that would produce energy by atom- splitting, throws off
radiation, extremely dangerous radiation. These rays are just as dangerous as when they are
released from an atomic bomb. This radiation penetrates anything except the thickest concrete
and lead, with fatal results for anybody in its path. Thus, at the moment, any car carrying an

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atomic engine would also have to carry many tons of lead in order to prevent the radiation from
escaping.
Since a car made up of tons of lead is rather impracticable, the only answer at the
moment seems to be the discovery or invention of a metal that will be strong enough to hold in
the rays, but at the same time light enough for a vehicle to carry, with ease and economy. Most
likely this metal would have to be synthetic, since no natural metal except lead has yet proved fit
for the job. When this light metal is invented, the motoring world will be well on the way to an
atomic car. However, even after the invention of a protective but light metal, two other problems
still remain, those of economics and safety.
It is extremely doubtful whether at the beginning a really economic engine could be
made, that is, one cheap enough to make it worth putting in a car. But it seems safe to say that
eventually, as technology and mass production come in atomic engines, the price will go down.
This is basic economics, and manufacturers should eventually be able to produce something that
will at least be cheaper than having to pay for petrol during the lifetime of the car.
But then this third problem still remains, that of safety. Suppose that there is a road
accident involving one, or perhaps two, atomic cars, and that the atomic reactor or its protective
covering were damaged. Any explosion would be equal to that of a very small atomic bomb. The
effects of such an explosion would be felt for several miles around. As will be realised, this is
perhaps the biggest problem of all to overcome. Is it possible to make an atomic engine that will
be really safe in every circumstance?


Improving Industrial Efficiency Through Robotics
Robots, becoming an increasingly prevalent adjunct in factories and industrial plants
throughout the developed world, are programmed and engineered mechanical manipulators
designed to perform industrial tasks without human intervention.
Most of today 's robots are employed in the automotive industry, where they are
programmed to take over such assembly line operations as welding and spray painting
automobile and truck bodies. They also load and unload hot, heavy metal forms used in
machines casting auto and truck frames. In addition, they install bulbs in instrument panels.
Robots, already taking over human tasks in the automotive field, are beginning to be
seen, although to a lesser degree, in other industries as well. There they build electric motors,
small appliances, pocket calculators, and even watches. The robots used in nuclear power plants
handle the radioactive materials, sparing human personnel exposure to radiation. These are the
robots responsible for the reduction in job-related injuries in this new industry.
What makes a robot a robot and not just another kind of automatic machine? Robots
differ from automatic machines in that after completion of one specific task, they can be
reprogrammed by a computer to do another one. As an example, a robot doing spot welding one
month can be reprogrammed and switched to spray painting the next. Automatic machines, on

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the other hand, are less versatile; they are built to perform only one task. Robots are more
flexible and adaptable and usually more transportable than other machines.
Future Robots Will See, Touch, and Think
The next generation of robots will be able to see objects, will have a sense of touch, and
will make critical decisions. Engineers skilled in microelectronics and computer technology are
developing artificial vision for robots. With the ability to
one specific class of objects out of a stack of different kinds of materials. One robot vision
system uses electronic digital cameras containing many rows of light-sensitive materials. When
light from an object such as a machine part strikes the camera, the sensitive materials measure
the intensity of light and convert the light rays into a range of numbers. The numbers are part of
a gray- scale system in which brightness is measured in a range of values. One scale ranges from
0 to 15, and another from 0 to 255. The 0 is represented by black. The highest number is white.
The numbers in between represent different shades of gray. The computer then makes the
calculations and converts the numbers into a picture that shows an image of the object in
question. It is not yet known whether robots will one day have vision as good as human vision.
Technicians believe they will, but only after years of development.
Engineers working on other advances are designing and experimenting with new types
of articulated metal hands and fingers, giving robots a sense of touch. Other engineers are
writing new programs allowing robots to make decisions such as whether to discard defective
parts in finished products. To do this, the robot will also have to be capable of identifying those
defective parts.
These future robots, assembled with a sense of touch and the ability to see and make
decisions, will have plenty of work to do. They can be used to prospect for minerals on the
ocean floor or in deep areas of mines too dangerous for humans to enter. They will work as gas
station attendants, firefighters, housekeepers, and security personnel. The robot business will
continue to grow also. Anyone wanting to understand the industry of the future will have to
know about robotics.


Maglev: A New Generation in Railroad Technology
The Japanese have one of the most advanced mass railroad systems in the world. The
Shinkansen, referred to as the Bullet Train, covers thousands of kilometers of tracks at speeds in
excess of 200 kilometers per hour. Each day the more than 270 bullet-nosed trains convey
340,000 passengers throughout Japan. Since the Japanese system went into service in 1964, the
trains have carried more than 1.8 billion travelers without an injury or a fatality. The
well-maintained system is not only safe and fast, but it is not petroleum dependent.
The Japanese National Railways made a huge investment in time, money, and technical
personnel in building the Shinkansen. Now, as always, on the cutting edge, they are working on
developing the next generation of high-speed supertrains.

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Technical specialists working at the Japanese National Railways have been
experimenting with a prototype magnetic levitation train. The maglev (an acronym for magnetic
levitation) will actually race along a guideway at almost 500 kilometers per hour, floating on a
magnetic field. The maglev will operate on the basic principles of electromagnetism.
The train depends on magnetism for propulsion, suspension, and braking. Specialized
sets of magnetic coils are built into the body framework of the train. Other sets of magnetic coils
are installed in the bottom and sides of a U-shaped guideway that cradles the train. When
electric power is switched on, the coils on the train and in the guideway produce a magnetic field
with north and south poles. The magnetic forces between the coils on the train and the coils in
the guideway can be made to attract or repel each other by changing their polarity. The train is
propelled by magnetic attraction between the magnets aboard the train and those on the
guideway. As the successive and rapid bursts of magnetism move from coil to coil with
lightning speed, the train accelerates after them, resulting in the forward movement of the train.
In summary, then, the magnetic coils on the train are attracted by the opposing polarity of the
guideway coils immediately ahead of them.
Magnetism is also used to lift the train off the guideway to reduce friction, diminishing
wear and tear where the train meets the guideway. The special coils aboard the train and on the
guideway repel each other, making the train float. This repulsion force is so strong that it can lift
a moving 10,000-kilogram train 10 centimeters off the guideway. The braking action is
accomplished by changing the polarity of the train coils relative to those of the guideway coils,
reversing their relationship from one of attraction between two unlike poles to one of repulsion
between two like poles.
Japanese National Railway System engineers believe the new maglev trains will be an
improvement over the Shinkansen. Not only will the maglev be faster than the Bullet, it will be
more comfortable and more reliable as well. Since the maglev rides on a magnetic wave, it has a
low noise level and a diminished vibration level. This is an important consideration for the
people living in neighboring areas, particularly in a country with such high population density.
Low maintenance is another advantage of the maglev train because of the fact that the maglev
has no moving motor parts or steel wheels as conventional trains do. This factor virtually
eliminates guideway wear and tear and prevents costly breakdowns. In addition, much less time
will be spent on equipment inspection, track repair, and parts replacement.
The Japanese are still conducting test runs of the new prototype maglev train and have
been running unmanned maglev prototypes since 1972. In 1997, a remote-controlled maglev in
Miyazaki, Japan, set a world speed record of 341 miles per hour.


Letters: Obsolete Technology
Readers' complaints that our young people are helpless when thrown back on obsolete
technology, such as the dial telephone and simple addition, have aroused a protest.

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You may remember reading here about the fifth-grade pupil who wanted to call home
from school but didn't know how to use the dial phone, and the ice cream parlor that had to close
because the computerized cash register broke down.
These stories suggested that young people are almost wholly dependent on state of the
art technology, and also that we older people are becoming obsolete or outdated along with the
machines of our era.
Perhaps it is the latter that hurts.
John A. Junot wants to know whether, if my car broke down, I would know how to ride
a horse. I might be willing to try. But the problem is—where could I ride one?
Junot suggests that I would either get the car repaired or replace it. That is what today 's
young engineers do when their computers break down, he points out.
In that respect I am as dependent on modern technology as the young. I have allowed
myself to become wholly dependent on my computer, and when it breaks down I am like a man
cast adrift at sea in a small boat.

by slide rule is in exactly the same class as archery, blacksmithing, sailing, hand-weaving and
drawing. To the extent that those things are done, they are done by hobbyists, historians and
cultural anthropologists and are preserved mainly by librarians.
Junot points out that certain ancient skills, such as archery and sailing, are themselves
improved by modern technology.
epoxy compound bows.
He says:
you imply that the boy was somehow culturally deprived, and that it would 'come in handy' if he
learned.

uncommon now and doomed to extinction simply because you can't talk to computers with a
rotary-type phone.
Junot points out that the first computers are already obsolete. I know what he means. I
bought the first IBM Personal Computer on the market. Recently I blew what is known as the

with my machine. I have had little but misery with it ever since.
Junot says it would have been impossible for the ice cream clerks to go on doing
business, making their calculations by hand, when their computerized register failed.

stole because it was easy. Cash registers were invented precisely to keep employees honest, and
to protect them from charges of dishonesty ...

for people buying on expense accounts. Are you suggesting that the kids give the businessman
and the tax man numbers scribbled on the backs of paper sacks? The manager was probably only
following the company policy when he closed the store.

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then, we have seen the end of mental calculations. Those fast-food
computers even note the amount of money the customer pays and also the exact amount of
change due. The clerk doesn't even have to figure out how much change is due from a $$ 10 bill,
nor does the customer, since he can assume that the computer doesn't err.
It's OK with me. I never was any good at arithmetic, anyway, and I 'm glad I have lived
long enough to see it become obsolete.
Meanwhile, Barbara Jones of Santa Barbara wonders how children can ever learn how
to tell time when all they see are digital watches.
And Sally Wade wonders,
wrench, spigot, tap, screw or the like when the directions tell him/ her to turn it 'clockwise' or
'counterclockwise' in this age of digital clocks?
Why would tomorrow 's adult ever have to use a wrench or a screwdriver?
Anyway, I think schoolroom clocks still have hands.
I will give the last word to Barbara L. Sigman of Simi Valley:

are not all a bunch of mindless, although charming, beautiful and healthy people, as you imply ...
Some of us read Shakespeare, Flaubert, and even Voltaire! Better yet, we can dial telephones
and we can make change. And a few of us know a tiny bit about history, too.
Thank you, Ms. Sigman.
I 'm glad to know that all is not lost.


Unit 3
How to Prepare for an Interview
Being interviewed is a situation that nearly everyone faces at some time in life, whether
for college or for a job. Most people face this ordeal with anxiety and even fear. However,
people who prepare for an interview avoid much of this anxiety. Preparing for an interview
involves doing advance research, choosing the right outfit, and planning appropriate
communication with the interviewer.
Doing research before the actual interview will increase the chances for a successful
interview. Find out the location of the interview site and decide how to travel there to arrive on
time. Nothing makes as poor an impression on an interviewer as arriving late. In addition, learn
about the company or institution where you are being interviewed. This will help you ask
intelligent questions. If your interview is for admission to a school, find out what courses the
school offers in your field of interest. For a job interview, find out about the kind of work the
company does. If you already work at the company and are being interviewed for a promotion,

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research the duties of the job for which you are applying. Such research will show the
interviewer that you are interested in obtaining the job or being admitted to the school.
Dressing appropriately for the interview is important because your appearance will be
the first thing the interviewer notices about you. This means wearing clean, neatly pressed
clothing and subdued color combinations such as brown or navy with white. You want to make a
good impression, but at the same time you do not want to attract attention to your clothing. Also,
you want to show that you can use good judgment. If you wear loud colors or overly noticeable
clothes, the interviewer might question your judgment about what's acceptable behavior for a
school or office setting.
Preparing what you might say to the interviewer will help you feel more in control of
the situation. From your research, prepare a list of questions that you would like to ask the
interviewer. As you prepare what you might say, remind yourself of what not to say. For
instance, you won't want to ask questions that are too personal. Also, remind yourself not to talk
too much. Make a mental note to let the interviewer guide and control the course, of the meeting.
Also plan to answer the interviewer 's questions fully, explaining your answers rather than
replying by saying only yes or no. Remember, the interviewer is trying to form an impression of
you and how you would fit in at the school or company.
By following these steps, you will be prepared for your interview and feel more
confident about the results. You will also increase your chances of making the good impression
that is important for getting accepted into the school of your choice or landing the job you want.


Needing and Wanting Are Different

time. In return, I heard,
your own money and gain a bit more responsibility.
Ward 's photo studio, working about 25 hours a week. For $$ 5 an hour, I was a telephone
salesman, trying to persuade people to come in for a free photograph.
All this was during football season and I was on the team as a kicker. To do football
and homework and my job at the same time became really hard. I was burning out, falling asleep
at school, not able to concentrate. My first class was physics and I hated it. I 'd just sit there with
my hand on my cheek and my elbow on the desk, and start dozing. One day, the teacher asked
my partner what I was doing and she said,
the class and stared at me. The whole class looked at me for about two minutes and laughed.
My third-period history teacher was really concerned. She was cool. A lot of times, I 'd
fall asleep in her class. She 'd scream,
eyes for about two minutes, pay attention and go back to sleep. She asked me if I could handle
school, football and work. I said,
I told her it was for the things I need, when actually it was for the things I wanted.
Needing and wanting are different. Needing something is like your only shoes have holes in

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them. But when a new pair of sneakers came out and I liked them, I 'd get them. My parents
didn't feel it was right, but they said,
years I had bought 30 pairs. My parents would laugh. got your job, you got your
money—but where's your money now?
schoolwork.
My priorities were all screwed up. On a typical night I did about an hour of homework.
A lot of times it was hard for me to make decisions: do I want to be at work or do I want to be at
practice? Do I want to worry about what I'll have today or what I'll have in the future?
Sometimes I felt there was no right choice. One week in the winter I had to work extra days, so I
missed a basketball game and two practices. (I 'm on that team, too.) When a substitution
opportunity came at the next game, the coach looked at me and said,
new play they had developed during the practices I had missed. I told him I didn't know it, so he
told me to sit back down. I felt really bad, because there was my chance to play and I couldn't.
I really did resent work. If I hadn't been so greedy, I could have been at practice. But I
kept working, and the job did help me in some ways. When you have a lot of responsibilities,
you have to learn how to balance everything. You just grow up faster. At home, your parents
always say, pay the bills so while you 're here you 're under my now with my
money I say,
Slowly, I 've come to deal with managing money a lot better. At first, as soon as I had
money, it was gone. Now it goes straight into my bank account. This year I decided not to work
at all during football season. I have a lot more time to spend with other players after the game
and feel more a part of the team. I 've only fallen asleep in class once so far. I 'm more confident
and more involved in the classes. My marks are A 's and B 's, a full grade better than this time
last year. I 'm hoping that will help me get into a better college. I don't go shopping as much. I
look at all the sneakers in school and think,
I thought that being mature meant doing everything. But I 'm learning that part of growing up is
limiting yourself, knowing how to decide what's important, and what isn't


What Makes a Good Job?
When I was in high school, the only important considerations I looked for in a job were
which job paid the most and which job had the best schedule. Now that I 've had more
experience, however, I 've found that job satisfaction is an even more important consideration.
As I headed into my first
my job could be. Then, after my freshman year at college, I got a job in the office of a vocational
center for women. Since I did not have a social work degree or counseling experience, I was not
allowed to work with clients. Instead, my duties involved handling the office 's paperwork. I
keyboarded and filed correspondence and filled out countless forms. I soon found myself bored.
I wanted to work with people, not paper, but this job kept me sitting quietly at my desk all day.
The time seemed to creep by.

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Because of my disappointment with the office job, during my second year in college, I
looked for a job that would have more people contact. Luckily, I found what I had been looking
for in a job waiting on tables at the local coffee shop. People skills are very important for
waiting on tables. To be a successful waitress, you need to develop a good rapport with your
co-workers. Even more important, you must deal with customers in a friendly way. Waiting on
tables took advantage of my ability to work well with people. Although I worked hard, the days
passed very quickly. I was never bored.
The pay for both the office job and waiting on tables job was adequate, though the
salary I earned at the office job was far steadier. In the office job, I received a regular paycheck.
As a waitress, I received a small paycheck. The bulk of my pay came as tips, and those tips
varied greatly depending on what shift I worked, which tables I was assigned, and how busy the
restaurant was. Though my overall waitress pay was roughly equal to what I received for office
work, at the end of some days I found myself with less pay than I would have liked.
The schedule of my office job was regular and predictable. I never had to arrive earlier
than 9 a.m. or leave later than 5 p.m. On the other hand, waiting on tables was never regular.
One week I might work from noon to nine in the evening, and the next I might work from six in
the evening to three in the morning. Moreover, the tasks were more physically demanding and
less predictable than those of an office job. One minute I was carrying two heavy trays of food,
and the next minute I was keeping track of multiple orders at different tables. Although the work
was chaotic, I thrived at waiting on tables.
Now when I look for jobs, I consider job satisfaction as well as pay and schedule.
When I worked in an office, the pay and schedule were good, but the job didn't make use of my
skills with people and left me dissatisfied. By contrast, although waiting on tables paid less
dependably and had a more demanding schedule, I found the job much more satisfying because I
worked directly with people. Working at these two jobs has taught me that job satisfaction is
much more important to me than the pay and schedule.


The Kind of Work Daddy Does
It is not surprising that modern children tend to look blank and dispirited when
informed that they will someday have to
visualize what work is in corporate America.
Not so long ago, when a parent said he was off to work, the child knew very well what
was about to happen. His parent was going to make something or fix something. The parent
could take his offspring to his place of business and let him watch while he repaired a car or
built a table.
When a child asked,
terms that a child could come to grips with.
Well, a few fathers still fix engines and build things, but most do not. Nowadays, most
fathers sit in glass buildings performing tasks that are absolutely incomprehensible to children.

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The answers they gave when asked,
very puzzling to the child.
sell market a data in public
relations.
he possibly imagine anyone analyzing a system or researching a market?
Even grown men who do market research have trouble visualizing what a public
relations man does with his day, and it is a safe bet that the average systems analyst is as puzzled
about what a space salesman does at the shop as the average space salesman is about the tools
needed to analyze a system.
In the common everyday job, nothing is made any more. Things are now made by
machines. Very little is repaired. The machines that make things make them in such a fashion
that they will quickly fall apart in such a way that repairs will be too expensive. Thus the buyer
is encouraged to throw the thing away and buy a new one. In effect, the machines are making
junk.
The handful of people remotely associated with these machines can, of course, tell their
inquisitive children
junk production to sense any contribution to the industry. What do these people do?
Consider the typical twelve-story glass building in the typical American city. Nothing is
being made in this building and nothing is being repaired, including the building itself.
Constructed as a piece of junk, the building will be discarded when it wears out, and another
piece of junk will be set in its place.
Still, the building is filled with people who think of themselves as working. At any
given moment during the day perhaps one-third of them will be talking into telephones. Most of
these conversations will be about paper for paper is what occupies nearly everyone in this
building.
Some jobs in the building require men to fill paper with words. There are persons who
type neatly on paper and persons who read paper and jot notes in the margins. Some persons
make copies of paper and other persons deliver paper. There are persons who file paper and
persons who unfile paper.
Some persons mail paper. Some persons telephone other persons and ask that paper be
sent to them. Others telephone to ascertain the whereabouts of paper. Some persons confer about
paper. In the grandest offices, men approve of some paper and disapprove of other paper.
The elevators are filled throughout the day with young men carrying paper from floor to
floor and with vital men carrying paper to be discussed with other vital men.
What is a child to make of all this? His father may be so important that he lunches with
other men about paper. Suppose he brings his son to work to give the boy some idea of what
work is all about. What does the boy see happening?
His father calls for paper. He reads paper. Perhaps he makes an angry red mark on
paper. He telephones another man and says they had better lunch over paper.

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At lunch they talk about paper. Back at the office, the father orders the paper retyped
and reproduced in quintuplicate, and then sent to another man for comparison with paper that
was reproduced in triplicate last year.
Imagine his poor son afterwards thinking about the mysteries of work with a friend,
who asks him,
is not very observant. Or if he is,
everybody else.


Unit 4
The Suburban Century
The United States is a nation of suburbs. The 1990 census makes it official. Nearly half
the country 's population now lives in suburbs, up from a quarter in 1950 and a third in 1960.
The third century of American history is shaping up as the suburban century. Until
1920 most Americans lived in rural areas. By 1960 the country was a third urban, a third rural,
and a third suburban. That balance didn't last long, however. By 1990 the urban population had
slipped to 31 percent and the rural population was down to less than a quarter. We are now a
suburban nation with an urban fringe and a rural fringe.
The first century of American life was dominated by the rural myth: the sturdy and
self-reliant Jeffersonian farmer. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Americans were
getting off the farms as fast as they could, to escape the hardship and brutality of rural life.
Most of the twentieth century has been dominated by the urban myth: the melting pot;
New York, New York; the cities as the nation 's great engines of prosperity and culture. All the
while, however, Americans have been getting out of the cities as soon as they can afford to buy a
house and a car. They want to escape the crowding and dangers of urban life. But there is more
to it than escape. As Kenneth T. Jackson argues in Crabgrass Frontier, a history of
suburbanization in the United States, the pull factors (cheap housing and the ideal of a suburban
househave been as important as the push factors (population growth and racial
prejudice).
The 1990 Census tells the story of the explosive growth of suburbs. That year fourteen
states had a majority suburban population, including six of the ten most populous states
(California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and New Jersey).
Suburban growth is not likely to end anytime soon. According to the polls, 43 percent
of Boston residents, 48 percent of people who live in Los Angeles, and 60 percent of those who
live in New York City say they would leave the city if they could. When the Gallup Poll asked
Americans in 1989 what kind of place they would like to live in, only 19 percent said a city.

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Is there a suburban myth? Sure there is. It has been a staple of American popular
culture since the 1950s, from television shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and
Leave It to Beaver to movies like E.T. The debunking of the suburban myth has now reached
American popular culture, where television comedies about lower middle-class families like
Roseanne and the Simpsons portray the harsh realities of suburban life—unemployment,
troubled families, and, above all, stress.


Adapting to the New World
Originally, I was born in South Korea and lived there all my life until I married and
moved to America. While living in America for five years now, I have tried to adapt to the rapid
pace of change in my life. Although I felt worried at first, I doubted that I would find many
differences between our two countries. After all, we are much alike even though we speak
different languages, and have different traditions and cultures. People in both countries wear
blue jeans, love children, and seek freedom. Despite these similarities, I found it difficult to
adjust, for so much was alien to me.
Most difficult for me was learning a new language. I discovered that American English
combines the influence of many other languages, mostly European but many of them global. The
language is basically English, of course, for the English, who came over on the Mayflower,
settled here early, and in the largest numbers. On the other hand, the Korean language was
heavily influenced by Chinese until about 400 years ago. For Korean learners of English, the
different uses of noun and verb are hard to grasp, at first. For example, an English speaker would
ask a question by reversing the noun and verb, and often separating the verb, as in
you going?
was hard for me, but an essential part of beginning life in this wondrous land.
Next, I needed to adjust to American food, which is relatively mild, with the exception
of Cajun dishes. Generally, Korean food is very spicy, like Kimchi, which covers many types of
pickled cabbage and other vegetables; Koreans cannot live without it, and often make their own
from old family recipes. In addition, Koreans enjoy low fat, mostly vegetarian diets. The
American diet, on the other hand, consists of high-fat, very salty items, like the fast food and
instant TV dinners which are so popular. These foods may account for the high rates of heart
attacks and strokes, cholesterol-clogged veins, and fatness among Americans.
Finally, Koreans and Americans treat marriage very differently. Even though we have
entered the twenty-first century, many Korean marriages are arranged by matchmakers hired by
parents. Or, parents of marriageable children will get together and arrange their marriages. Of
course, some marriages come about through dating just as in America—young people meet, fall
in love, and decide to marry. Yet, despite or because of arranged marriages, the Korean divorce
rate is very low compared with American divorces. This may be due largely to the strong family
bonds in Korea.
On the other hand, young people in America are allowed the greatest freedom in
choosing their partners; they base marriages almost entirely on love, never through matchmakers.

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And a very strong trend, nowadays, is for two persons to live together for a while before getting
married, though many never formally marry.
Despite these differences between our cultures, I 've realized that Koreans and
Americans have much in common. We tend to seek freedom, share the same excitement at a new
birth, and want to make good friends. Also, we place a high value on hard work, often spending
long hours at our own businesses in order to send our children to good colleges; we want to give
them opportunities earlier generations could only dream of. If we can learn to accept cultural
differences as unique values, the world may be more peaceful. We need to put aside our often
unfounded attitudes of superiority and prejudice against other cultures.


The Jeaning of America and the World
This is the story of a sturdy American symbol which has now spread throughout most
of the world. The symbol is not the dollar. It is not even Coca- Cola. It is a simple pair of pants
called blue jeans, and what the pants symbolize is what Alexis de Tocqueville called
and legitimate passion for equality ... Blue jeans are favored equally by bureaucrats and
cowboys; bankers and deadbeats; fashion designers and beer drinkers. They draw no distinctions
and recognize no classes; they are merely American. Yet they are sought after almost
everywhere in the world. They have been around for a long time, and it seems likely that they
will outlive even the necktie.
This ubiquitous American symbol was the invention of a Bavarian-born Jew. His name
was Levi Strauss.
He was born in Bad Ocheim, Germany, in 1829, and during the European political
disorder of 1848 decided to take his chances in New York, to which his two brothers already had
emigrated. For two years he was a lowly peddler, hauling sundries door-to-door to eke out a
hand-to-mouth living. When a married sister in San Francisco offered to pay his way West in
1850, he jumped at the opportunity, taking with him bolts of canvas he hoped to sell for making
tents.
It was the wrong kind of canvas for that purpose, but while talking with a miner, he
learned that pants—sturdy pants that would stand up to the rigors of the diggings—were almost
impossible to find. Opportunity beckoned. On the spot, Strauss measured the man 's waist and
inseam with a piece of string and, for six dollars in gold dust, had the canvas tailored into a pair
of stiff but rugged pants. The miner was delighted with the result, word got around about
pants of Levi 's,
When Strauss ran out of canvas, he wrote his two brothers to send more. He received
instead a rough, brown cotton cloth made in Nimes, France—called serge de Nimes and swiftly
shortened to nes, the French word for Genoa, where
a similar cloth was produced). Almost from the first, Strauss had his cloth dyed the distinctive
indigo that gave blue jeans their name, but it was not until the 1870s that he added the copper
rivets which have long since become a company trademark.

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Over the following years the company prospered locally and by the time of his death in
1902, Strauss had become a man of prominence in California. For three decades thereafter the
business remained profitable though small. From a company with fifteen salespeople, two plants,
and almost no business east of the Mississippi in 1946, the organization grew in thirty years to
include a sales force of more than twenty-two thousand, with fifty plants and offices in
thirty-five countries. Each year, more than 250,000,000 items of Levi 's clothing are
sold—including more than 83,000,000 pairs of riveted blue jeans. They have become, through
marketing, word of mouth, and demonstrable reliability, the common pants of America. They
can be purchased pre-washed, pre-faded, and pre-shrunk for the suitably proletarian look.
The pants have become a tradition, and along the way have acquired a history of their
own. There was, for example, the Wyoming man who used his jeans as a tow-rope to haul his
car out of a ditch. And then there is the particularly terrifying story of the careless construction
worker who dangled fifty-two stories above the street until rescued, his sole support the Levi 's
belt loop through which his rope was hooked.


Americans and Food
An unusual but timely cartoon recently appeared in the local newspaper. The single
panel showed a gravel- pit operation with piles of raw earth and large cranes. Next to one of the
cranes stood the owner of the gravel pit—a grizzled, tough-looking character, hammer in hand,
pointing proudly to the new sign he had just tacked up. The sign read, 's Fill Dirt and
cartoon illustrates an interesting phenomenon: the changing food habits of
Americans. Our meals used to consist of something like home-cooked pot roast, mashed
potatoes laced with butter and salt, a thick slice of apple pie topped with a healthy scoop of
vanilla ice cream—plain, heavy meals, cooked from scratch, and eaten leisurely at home. But
America has changed, and as it has, so have what we Americans eat and how we eat it.
We used to have simple, unsophisticated tastes and looked with suspicion at anything
more exotic than a hamburger. Admittedly, we did adopt some foods from the various immigrant
groups who flocked to our shores. We learned to eat croissants, those small, sweet French bread
rolls, and also Chinese food and pizza, but in the last few years, the international character of our
diet has grown tremendously. We can walk into any mall in Middle America and buy Mexican
food like pita bread and tacos. Such foods are often changed on their journey from exotic
imports to ordinary
bun.
Why have we become more worldly in our tastes? For one thing, television blankets the
country with information about new food products and trends. Viewers in rural Montana know
that the latest craving in Washington, D.C. is Cajun cooking and that something called tofu is
now available in the local supermarket. Another reason for the growing international flavor of
our food is that many young Americans have traveled abroad and gotten hooked on new tastes
and flavors. Backpacking students and young professionals vacationing in Europe come home
with a taste for authentic French bread or German beer. Finally, continuing waves of immigrants