【正文】 may interrupt their host’s personal time. Thus, calling friends on the telephone before visiting them is generally preferred to visitors’ dropping by. Useful words and expressions: 1. tangible 切實(shí)的 2. kill time 消磨時(shí)間 3. reveal 顯示，揭示 4. scheduling 行程安排 5. slot 縫隙 6. drop by 隨便訪問 7. preferred 首選的30 Cartoonists In a good cartoon, the artist can tell in a few lines as much as a writer can tell in half a dozen paragraphs. The cartoonist not only tells a story but he also tries to persuade the reader to his way of thinking. He has great influence on public opinion. In a political campaign, he plays an important part. Controversial issues in Congress or at meetings of the United Nations may keep the cartoonist wellsupplied with current materials. A clever cartoonist may cause laughter because he often uses humor in his drawings. If he is sketching a famous person, he takes a prominent feature and exaggerates it. Cartoonists, for instance, like to lengthen an already long nose and to widen an already broad grin. This exaggeration of a person’s characteristics is called caricature. The artist uses such exaggeration to put his message across. Useful Words and Expressions: 1. cartoonist 漫畫家 2. campaign 活動(dòng) 3. controversial 爭論的，爭議的 4. sketch 素描 5. prominent 卓越的 6. exaggerate 夸張 7. lengthen 延長 8. grin 露齒笑 31 Water PollutionWater is very important to us. Factories and plants need water for industrial uses and large pieces of farmland need it for irrigation. Without water to drink, people die in a short time. Today most water sources are so dirty that people must purify water before drinking. Water bees dirty in many ways: industrial pollution is one of them. With the development of industry, plants and factories pour tons of industrial wasters into rivers every day. The rivers have bee seriously polluted, and the water is being unfit for drinking or irrigation. The same thing has also happened to our seas and oceans. So, the problem of water pollution is almost worldwide. Scientists of many countries have done a lot of work to stop pollution. The polluted water in some places has bee clean and drinkable again. Perhaps one day the people in all towns and cities will be drinking clean water. That day, we believe, is not very far off. 32 Making a Complaint Complaining about faulty goods or bad services is never easy. But if something you have brought is faulty or does not do what was claimed for it, you are not asking for a favor to get it put right. Complaints should be made to a responsible person. Go back to the shop where you bought the goods, taking with you any receipt you may have. In a small store the assistant may also be the owner so you can plain direct. In a chain store, ask the manager. If you telephone, ask the name of the person who handles your enquiry, otherwise you may never find out who dealt with the plaint later. If you do not want to do it in person, write a letter. Stick to the facts and keep a copy of what you write. At this stage you should give any receipt numbers, but you should not need to give receipts or other papers to prove you bought the article. 33 Where Do the British Live Nearly everyone in Britain would like to own their own home and, whether they do or not, they are prepared to put time and money into decorating and furnishing it or even making structural alterations to it. Because of the climate and because of the expense involved in going out for the evening, the British spend a lot of time at home and a large part of their social life takes place there Young people tend to stay with their families longer these days as acmodation is expensive but, when they move away to a job or college, there are various options open to them. They can get lodgings with a landlady. This means that they rent a room in someone’s house and have breakfast with the family. They can also get a bedsitting room, that is to say one selfcontained room in which they can cook, live and sleep. Alternatively, they can share a rented flat or house with a group of young people, perhaps the most popular option of all. Useful Words and Expressions: 1. lodging 寄宿處 2. bedsit 臥室兼起居室 3. bedsitting 臥室兼起居室的 4. selfcontained 設(shè)備齊全的34 Will Computers Replace Human Beings? We are in the puter age today. The puters are working all kinds of wonders now. They are very useful in automatic control and data processing. At the same time, puters are finding their way into the home. They seem to be so clever and can solve such plicated problems that some people think sooner or later they will replace us. But I do not think that there is such a possibility. My reason is very simple: puters are machines, not humans. And our tasks are far too various and plicated for any one single kind of machine to perform. Probably the greatest difference between man and puter is that the former can do things of his own while the latter can do nothing without being programmed. In my opinion, puters will remain nothing but an extension of our human brains, no matter how clever and plicated they may bee. 36 Artists Every artist knows in his heart that he is saying something to the public. Not only does he want to say it well, but he wants it to be something which has not been said before. What visual artists, like painters, want to say is easy to make out but difficult to explain, because painters translate their experiences into shapes and colors, not words. They seem to feel that a certain selection of shapes and colors, out of the countless billions of possible, is exceptionally interesting for them and worth showing to us. Most artists take their shapes and colors from the world of nature and from human bodies in motion and respon