新视角大学英语4读写教学教程第三版课本教学材料整编.doc

,Unit 1 Text ALove and logic: The story of a fallacy1 I had my first date with Polly after I made the trade with my roommate Rob. That year every guy on campus had a leather jacket, and Rob couldnt stand the idea of being the only football player who didnt, so he made a pact that hed give me his girl in exchange for my jacket. He wasnt the brightest guy. Polly wasnt too shrewd, either.2 But she was pretty, well-off, didnt dye her hair strange colors or wear too much makeup. She had the right background to be the girlfriend of a dogged, brilliant lawyer. If I could show the elite law firms I applied to that I had a radiant, well-spoken counterpart by my side, I just might edge past the competition.3 "Radiant" she was already. I could dispense her enough pearls of wisdom to make her "well-spoken".4 After a banner day out, I drove until we were situated under a big old oak tree on a hill off the expressway. What I had in mind was a little eccentric. I thought the venue with a perfect view of the luminous city would lighten the mood. We stayed in the car, and I turned down the stereo and took my foot off the brake pedal. "What are we going to talk about?" she asked.5 "Logic."6 "Cool," she said over her gum.7 "The doctrine of logic," I said, "is a staple of clear thinking. Failures in logic distort the truth, and some of them are well known. First lets look at the fallacy Dicto Simpliciter."8 "Great," she agreed.9 "Dicto Simpliciter means an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good. Therefore, everybody should exercise."10 She nodded in agreement.11 I could see she was stumped. "Polly," I explained, "its too simple a generalization. If you have, say, heart disease or extreme obesity, exercise is bad, not good. Therefore, you must say exercise is good for most people."12 "Next is Hasty Generalization. Self-explanatory, right? Listen carefully: You cant speak French. Rob cant speak French. Looks like nobody at this school can speak French."13 "Really?" said Polly, amazed. "Nobody?"14 "This is also a fallacy," I said. "The generalization is reached too hastily. Too few instances support such a conclusion."15 She seemed to have a good time. I could safely say my plan was underway. I took her home and set a date for another conversation.16 Seated under the oak the next evening I said, "Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam."17 She nodded with delight.18 "Listen closely," I said. "A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he says he has six children to feed."19 "Oh, this is awful, awful," she whispered in a choked voice.20 "Yes, its awful," I agreed, "but its no argument. The man never answered the bosss question. Instead he appealed to the bosss sympathy Ad Misericordiam."21 She blinked, still trying hard to keep back her tears.22 "Next," I said carefully, "we will discuss False Analogy. An example, students should be allowed to look at their textbooks during exams, because surgeons have X-rays to guide them during surgery."23 "I like that idea," she said.24 "Polly," I groaned, "dont derail the discussion. The inference is wrong. Doctors arent taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different. You cant make an analogy between them."25 "I still think its a good idea," said Polly.26 With five nights of diligent work, I actually made a logician out of Polly. She was an analytical thinker at last. The time had come for the conversion of our relationship from academic to romantic.27 "Polly," I said when next we sat under our oak, "tonight we wont discuss fallacies."28 "Oh?" she said, a little disappointed.29 Favoring her with a grin, I said, "We have now spent five evenings together. We get along pretty well. We make a pretty good couple."30 "Hasty Generalization," said Polly brightly. "Or as a normal person might say, thats a little premature, dont you think?"31 I laughed with amusement. Shed learned her lessons well, far surpassing my expectations. "Sweetheart," I said, patting her hand in a tolerant manner, "five dates is plenty. After all, you dont have to eat a whole cake to know its good."32 "False Analogy," said Polly promptly. "Your premise is that dating is like eating. But youre not a cake. Youre a boy."33 I laughed with somewhat less amusement, hiding my dread that shed learned her lessons too well. A few more false steps would be my doom. I decided to change tactics and try flattery instead.34 "Polly, I love you. Please say youll go out with me. Im nothing without you."35 "Ad Misericordiam," she said.36 "You certainly can discern a fallacy when you see it," I said, my hopes starting to crumble. "But dont take them so literally. I mean this is all academic. You know the things you learn in school dont have anything to do with real life."37 "Dicto Simpliciter," she said. "Besides, you really should practice what you preach."38 I leaped to my feet, my temper flaring up. "Will you or will you not go out with me?"39 "No to your proposition," she replied.40 "Why?"I demanded.41 "Im more interested in a different petitioner Rob and I are back together."42 With great effort, I said calmly, "How could you give me the axe over Rob? Look at me, an ingenious student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an assured future. Look at Rob, a muscular idiot, a guy wholl never know where his next meal is coming from. Can you give me one good reason why you should be with him?"43 "Wow, what presumption! Ill put it in a way someone as brilliant as you can understand," retorted Polly, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Full disclosure I like Rob in leather. I told him to say yes to you so he could have your jacket!"Unit 2 Text AThe confusing pursuit of beauty1 If youre a man, at some point a woman will ask you how she looks.2 You must be careful how you answer this question. The best technique is to form an honest yet sensitive response, then promptly excuse yourself for some kind of emergency. Trust me, this is the easiest way out. No amount of rehearsal will help you come up with the right answer.3 The problem is that men do not think of their looks in the same way women do. Most men form an opinion of themselves in seventh grade and stick to it for the rest of their lives. Some men think theyre irresistibly desirable, and they refuse to change this opinion even when they grow bald and their faces visibly wrinkle as they age.4 Most men, I believe, are not arrogant about their looks. If the transient thought passes through their minds at all, they like to think of themselves as average-looking. Being average doesnt bother them; average is fine. They dont affix much value to their looks, or think of them in terms of aesthetics. Their primary form of beauty care is to shave themselves, which is essentially the same care they give to their lawns. If, at the end of his four-minute allotment of time for grooming, a man has managed to wipe most of the shaving cream out of the strands of his hair and isnt bleeding too badly, he feels hes done all he can.5 Women do not look at themselves this way. If I had to guess what most women think about their appearance, it would be: "Not good enough." No matter how attractive a woman may be, her perception of herself is eclipsed by the beauty industry. She has trouble thinking "Im beautiful." She magnifies the smallest imperfections in her body and imagines them as glaring flaws the whole world will notice and ridicule.6 Why do women consider their looks so deficient? This chronic insecurity isnt inborn, but created through the interaction of many complex psychological and societal factors, beginning with the dolls we give them as children. Girls grow up playing with dolls proportioned so that, if they were human, they would be seven feet tall and weigh 61 pounds, with tiny thighs and a large upper body. This is an absurd standard to live up to, especially when you consider the size of the dolls waist, a relative measurement physically impossible for a living human to achieve. Contrast this absurd standard with that presented to little boys with their "action figures". Most of the toys that young boys have played with were weird-looking, like the one called Buzz-Off that was part human, part flying insect. This guy was not a looker, but he was still extremely self-confident. You could not imagine him saying to the others, "Is this accessory the right shade of violet for this outfit?"7 But women grow up thinking they need to look like Barbie dolls or girls on magazine covers, which for most women is impossible. Nonetheless, the multibillion-dollar beauty industry, complete with its own aisle in the grocery store, is devoted to constant warfare on female self-esteem, convincing women that they must buy all the newest moisturizing creams, bronzing powders and appliances that promise to "stimulate and restore" their skin. I once saw an Oprah Show in which supermodel Cindy Crawford dispensed makeup tips to the studio audience. Cindy had all these middle-aged women apply clay masks and other "wrinkle-removing" products to their faces; she stressed how important it was to adhere to the guidelines, like applying products via the tips of their fingers to protect elasticity. All the women dutifully did this, even though it was obvious to any rational observer that, no matter how carefully they applied these products, they would never have Cindy Crawfords face or complexion.8 Im not saying that men are superior. Im just saying that youre not going to get a group of middle-aged men to plaster cosmetics to themselves under the instruction of Brad Pitt in hopes of looking more like him. Men dont face the same societal focus purely on physical beauty, and theyre encouraged to reach out to other characteristics to promote their self-esteem. They might say to Brad: "Oh yeah? Well, what do you know about lawn care, pretty boy?"9 Of course women argue that they become obsessed with appearance as a reaction to pressure from men. The truth is that most men think beauty is more than just lipstick and perfume and take no notice of these extra details. I have never once, in more than 40 years of listening to men talk about women, heard a man say, "She had gorgeous fingernails!" To most men, little things like fingernails are all homogeneous anyway, and one womans flawless pink polish is exactly as invisible as anothers bare nails.10 By participating in this system of extreme conformity, women are actually opening themselves up to the scrutiny of other women, the only ones qualified to judge their efforts. What is the real benefit of working this hard to appease men who dont notice when it only exposes women to prosecution from other women?11 Anyway, to get back to my original point: If youre a man, and a woman asks you how she looks, you cant say she looks bad without receiving immediate and well-deserved outrage. But you also cant shower her with empty compliments about how her shoes complement her dress nicely because shell know youre lying. She has spent countless hours worrying about the differences between her looks and Cindy Crawfords. Also, she suspects that youre not qualified to voice a subjective opinion on anybodys appearance. This may be because you have shaving cream in your hair and inside the folds of your ears.Unit 3 Text AFred Smith and FedEx: The vision that changed the world1 Every night several hundred planes bearing a purple, white, and orange design touch down at Memphis Airport, in Tennessee. What precedes this landing are package pick-ups from locations all over the United States earlier in the day. Crews unload the planes cargo of more than half a million parcels and letters. The rectangular packages and envelopes are rapidly reshuffled and sorted according to address, then loaded onto other aircraft, and flown to their destinations to be dispersed by hand many within 24 hours of leaving their senders. This is the culmination of a dream of Frederick W. Smith, the founder, president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of the FedEx Corp. known originally as Federal Express the largest and most successful overnight delivery service in the world. Conceived when he was in college and now in its 28th year of operation, Smiths exquisite brainchild has become the standard for door-to-door package delivery.2 Recognized as an outstanding entrepreneur with an agreeable and winning personality, Smith is held in high regard by his competitors as well as his employees and stockholders. Fred Smith was just 27 when he founded FedEx. Now, so many years later, hes still the "captain of the ship". He attributes the success of the company simply to leadership, something he deduced from his years in the military, and from his family.3 Frederick Wallace Smith was born into a wealthy family clan on August 11, 1944 in Mississippi. His father died when he was just four years old. As a juvenile, Smith was an invalid, suffering from a disease that left him unable to walk normally. He was picked on by bullies, and he learned to defend himself by swinging at them with his alloy walking stick. Cured of the disease by the age of l0, he became a star athlete in high school, playing football, basketball, and baseball.4 Smiths passion was flying. At 15, he was operating a crop-duster over the skyline of the Mississippi Delta, a terrain so flat that there was little need for radar navigation. As a student at Yale University, he helped revive the Yale flying club; its alumni had populated naval aviation history, including the famous "Millionaires Unit" in World War I. Smith administrated the clubs business end and ran a small charter operation in New Haven.5 With his study time disrupted by flying, his academic performance suffered, but Smith never stopped looking for his own "big idea". He thought he had found it when he wrote a term paper for an economics class. He drafted a prototype for a transportation company that would guarantee overnight delivery of small, time-sensitive goods, such as replacement parts and medical supplies, to major US regions. The professor wasnt impressed and told Smith he couldnt quantify the idea and clearly it wasnt feasible.6 However, Smith was certain he was onto something, even though several more years elapsed before he could turn his idea into reality. In the interim, he graduated from Yale in 1966, just as Americas involvement in the Vietnam War was deepening. Since he was a patriot and had attended officers training classes, he joined the Marines.7 Smith completed two tours in Vietnam, eventually flying more than 200 missions. "In the military, leadership means getting a group of people to subordinate their individual desires