【正文】 yed the meal.My wife and I were as worried about staying longer as our hosts were that we might not have enjoyed the meal.3 Our generation knows little about cassette recorders and record players. Similarly our parents know little about iPods and MP3 players.Our generation knows as little about cassette recorders and record players as our parents know about iPods and MP3 players.4 We are curious about what he does for a living. Similarly, he is curious about what our pany does.We are as curious about what he does for a living as he is about what our pany does.5 I have very little idea about how to shoe a horse. Similarly, he doesn’t have much idea about how to repair a motorbike.I have as little idea about how to shoe a horse as he has about how to repair a motorbike.collocations6 Read the explanations of the words. Answer the questions.1 margin This word usually means the space at the side of a page where you don’t write anything.(a) Do you have a habit of jotting notes in the margin when reading books?Yes, I do. But other people just take notes on a separate piece of paper because they don’t want to spoil the book.(b) If you win an election by a narrow margin, how big is the victory?The victory is not big。 it is just a narrow or close victory.(c) What sort of problems are faced by people who live on the margins of society?They may face social and economic problems because they have fewer opportunities and may find it difficult to join the mainstream society.(d) If the margin of error in a calculation is very small, what are the chances that the calculation is wrong?The chances are small and any errors are likely to be very small.2 ignorance This word usually means lack of knowledge or facts about something.(a) If an answer that you give betrays your ignorance, how do you feel?You feel embarrassed because your answer has shown people your ignorance and most people do not like to show this in public.(b) Do you think that ignorance of the law can ever be an excuse for breaking it?It’s a human excuse because it means that you didn’t know the law on that point, but it is not a legal excuse.(c) Do you know of any decisions that have been taken but which were based on ignorance?Yes. In the early days of the stock market in China, some people bought shares in the belief that all shares would make money quickly, but later they lost money when the shares lost value. They bought the shares in ignorance about how the market works and they had little idea of the risks.3 sheer This word is usually used for emphasizing the amount or degree of something.(a) If somebody tells you that your pany is sheer delight, how would you feel?I would feel plimented because that’s a nice thing to say to anyone.(b) If you were overe by sheer weight of numbers, was it the quality or quantity of the opposition that defeated you?It would have been the quantity of the opposition, eg the large number of opponents.(c) Do you think it is easy to climb a sheer cliff face?Not at all, because that kind of cliff is nearly vertical and it is very difficult to climb without training.7 Translate the paragraphs into Chinese.1 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 baffled about what a space salesman does at the shop as the average space salesman is about the tools needed to analyze a system.即使是那些從事市場(chǎng)研究工作的成年人也難很想象公關(guān)部的人每天都在做些什么。一名普通的系統(tǒng)分析師肯定不知道空間推銷員在店里都干些什么，就好像空間推銷員對(duì)分析系統(tǒng)的工具也一竅不通一樣。2 So run the clich233。s, anyway. But it is only our obsession with novelty, ignorance of deeper historical patterns and arrogant insistence on our own importance that leads us into this kind of talk. Hoping to prove our superiority over the generations that preceded us, we boast that we live in a period of unprecedented change. Yet there is a good case that we do not, in fact, live in very interesting times at all.不管怎么說，這就是那耳熟能詳?shù)奶自??？墒牵屛覀冇羞@種論調(diào)的正是緣自我們對(duì)新奇事物的過度迷戀，對(duì)深層次歷史模式的無(wú)知，以及我們的狂妄自大。為了證明相比于先輩們的優(yōu)越性，我們夸耀說自己生活在一個(gè)前所未有的變革期。但是，有一個(gè)很好的例子可以用來(lái)證明，實(shí)際上我們并沒有生活在多么有趣的時(shí)代。8 Translate the paragraphs into English.1 我們根本就看不懂他們的計(jì)劃書，因?yàn)樗麄兊挠^點(diǎn)不太容易把握。這很可能是因?yàn)槲覀冸p方對(duì)于另一方的思維方式都感到同樣的困惑。我認(rèn)為應(yīng)該安排一次面談，讓大家消除誤會(huì)，掃除溝通的障礙。(make of。 e to grips with。 it’s a safe bet that。 as baffled … as)We couldn’t make of their proposal at all, because it was no easy job for us to e to grips with their perspective. It was a safe bet that we were as much baffled about their way of thinking as they were about ours. I think we need to arrange a meeting to clear up misunderstandings and to remove munication barriers.2 從與他共事二十多年的一位同事所寫的傳記中不難得出這樣的結(jié)論：他所代表的絕對(duì)是該國(guó)二戰(zhàn)之后的精英階層，他們?cè)谧诮毯驼畏矫娴挠^念較為保守。(nothing if not。 in the wake of。 in terms of)From a biography written by one of his former colleagues who had worked with him for more than two decades, it is not difficult to conclude that what he represented was nothing if not the elite class of the country in the wake of World War II, who were rather conservative in terms of religious and political views.