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Unit 10 The Idiocy of Urban Life
Key to the Exercises
Text
comprehension
I . Decide
which of the following best states the author's
purpose of writing.
II. Judge,
according
to
the
text,
whether
the
following
statements
are
true
or
false.
1. F
(Refer to Paragraph 2. It is human beings who
bring the rat race into human
society.)
2. F
(Refer
to
Paragraph
2.
It
tells
us
that
the
opposite
is
true.
Urban
life
today
is
aggressively individualistic and atomized. Cities
are not social places.)
3.
T (Refer to Paragraph 4.
around the
Hamptons, spreading over the Long Island potato
fields whose earlier
solitude was
presumably the reason why they first went
there.
4. T
(Refer
to
Paragraph
4.
main
streets
of
America's
small
towns
are
now
strips
of
boutiques. Old-fashioned barbers become unisex
hairdressing salons.
5. F
(Refer
to
Paragraphs
5
and
6.
According
to
the
author,
work
in
the
rural
areas
is
meaningful
whereas
the
frenzy
of
the
urban
work
hours
is
pointless.
When
the
farmer
walks
to his farm in the morning, he is doing something
significant. By contrast,
the city
worker is starting the first idiocy of his day
when he is getting ready
for his
journey to work at this time of the
day.)
6. T
(Refer
to
Paragraph
7.
The
windows
in
the
modern
office
buildings
are
perhaps
the
most
symbolic
lunacy
of
all.
Even
on
the
fairest
spring
or
fall
day
the
workers
cannot put their heads outside.)
III.
Answer the following
questions.
1. Refer to
Paragraph 1. The author mentions rats at the
beginning of the article
for the
purpose of contrasting rats with human beings. In
a sense, both rats and
human beings are
city dwellers, but there are differences between
them in terms of
life
in
the
city.
As
natural
inhabitants
of
the
city,
rats
are
social
creatures
and
lead a stable urban life. By contrast,
most human dwellers do not enjoy the urban
life but try to live outside the city
boundaries; and they live an individualistic
and
atomized
rather
than
gregarious
life.
Therefore,
relatively
speaking,
rats
are
true city
dwellers.
2. Refer to
Paragraph 3. The idiocy of the practice lies in
the pretence of the
city dwellers. For
one thing, they disdain rural life on the one
hand, and on the
other hand they try to
simulate it by creating large or small patches of
greenery
B
around
their suburb, exurb or rururb residences. For
another,
while
they intend
to
live a rural life by going to the
country, they have in fact spoiled the natural
features of the rural areas
and created urban surroundings where
they
have settled
down. As a
result their purpose fails in the end.
3. Refer
to
Paragraph
6.
The
author's
saying
so
reflects
his
attitude
towards
office
work
in
the
city.
Unlike
farming
which
is
part
of
the
rural
home
life,
joyless
work
in
the city is separated, both physically and
emotionally, from home life and
consequently causes unnecessary frenzy.
The worker's going to and returning from
work wastes a lot of time and thus is
pointless, yet the worker
but even
seeks
4. Refer to Paragraph 8. The
quoted statement describes in what environment the
city dweller lives and works. With the
windows that never open, the modern office,
artificially cooled in summer and
heated in winter, alienates the worker from the
true natural world. The home
surroundings are no better. They provide the
dweller
with no true sense of the
seasons either. In general, the city dweller is
removed
from nature and submerged in a
man-made environment every day.
5. Refer
to
Paragraph
9.
This
phenomenon
is
caused
by
the
demerits
of
office
work.
Compared
with
physical
labor
in
rural
life,
office
work
in
the
city
needs
very
little
physical exertion, but it requires
long-time sitting with the same posture every
day. Even the after-work exercises
cannot compensate for the damage done to the
physical
constitution
of
the
worker
during
work
hours.
This
accounts
for
the
round-shoulderedness of
Americans.
IV.
night.
2. City
dwellers
create
all
kinds
of
city
vogues
in
the
country,
for
they
will
not
live without these fashionable things.
3. These windows are
disgraceful because they put the lives of office
workers in
danger if a fire should
occur.
4. A lawn in the
backyard and a few spindle-shaped trees struggling
for life are
not enough to give the
dweller any true sense of the season
changes.
Structural analysis of the
text
The text can be divided
into the following three parts:
Part
1,
Paragraphs
1:
the
author
presents
the
thesis
of
his
argument,
.
aggressively
individualistic
and atomized urban life goes against both the
purpose of the city
and human nature,
and thus is foolish.
Part
2, Paragraphs 3: the author provides evidence for
the idiocy of urban life.
Explain in your own words the following
sentences.
1. Rats make
city life courteous and refined when they dominate
the city deep at
Part 3, Paragraph 10:
the author reiterates his thesis, . urban life is
idiotic.
Rhetorical features of the
text
The following
italicized words and expressions are used to
express the author's
attitude towards
city life:
The Idiocy of
Urban Life / aggressively individualistic and
atomized / not social
places
/
lunacy
of
modern
city
life
/
create
simulations
of
it
/
a
pretense
to
bosky
woodlands
/
take
their
filth
with
them
/
maintain
the
pointless
frenzy
of
their
work
hours in their hours
off / work
at their play
with the same
joylessness
/ a scandal
/ has no
knowledge of the seasons / fetid central heating /
no true sense of the
rhythms
of
the
seasons
/
reels
from
unreality
to
unreality
/
don't
know
it
once
had
roots.
Vocabulary
exercises
I.
Explain the underlined part in each
sentence in your own words.
1. doing propaganda work/printing lies
on paper
2. fierce
competition among people
3.
foolishness/stupidity
4.
senseless turmoil
5.
something disgraceful
6.
people with bent shoulders
II.
Fill in the blank in
each sentence with a word or phrase from the box
in
its appropriate form.
1.
knowledge
2.
simulation
3.
insolence
4.
urban
5.
scurry
6.
congregation
7.
compensate 8.
rat race
III.
Fill in the blanks
with the appropriate forms of the given
words.
1. idiotic
2. urbanity
3. solitary 4. exerted
5. insolent 6. grieved
7. lunatic
8.
habitat
IV.
Choose the word that can replace the underlined
part in each sentence without
changing
its original meaning.
1. B
2. C 3. C 4. A
5. B 6. A
7. A 8. B
V.
Give
a
synonym
or
an
antonym
of
the
word
underlined
in
each
sentence
in
the
sense
it is
used.
1. Synonym: bearing
(stance)
2.
Antonym: impolite (rude, ill-
mannered)
3. Synonym:
friendly (social, sociable)
4. Antonym: modestly (timidly,
gently)
5. Synonym: smelly
(stinking, foul, malodorous)
6. Synonym: thin (lanky)
7. Antonym: accept
(respect)
8. Synonym:
strangely
VI.
Explain the meaning of the underlined
part in each sentence.
1.
somewhere
away
from
a
studio,
office,
library
or
laboratory
where
practical
work
is
done or data is collected
2. support
3.
seemingly
4. unconscious
5. very happy
6. ask for
Grammar exercises
I.
Highlight the parts of
the following sentences as required, using
that/who.
1.
It was Harry who told the police.
2.
It was I who
told him the news.
3.
Subject: It was Susan who would like to
read some detective stories.
Object: It was some
detective stories that Susan would like to read.
4.
It is only
when one is ill that one realizes the value of
health.
5.
Subject: It was John who painted a
lovely picture.
Object: It was a lovely picture that
John painted.
Object: It was
the telescope that Galileo invented.
Object: It was an egg that Tom's mother
threw at the minister yesterday.
Adverbial of place: It was at the
minister that Tom's mother threw an egg
Adverbial of time: It was yesterday
that Tom's mother threw an egg at the
6.
Subject: It was Galileo
who invented the telescope.
7.
Subject: It was Tom's
mother who threw an egg at the minister yesterday.
yesterday.
minister.
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