Unit 6

Text A

The Telephone

Anwar F. Accawi

IV Key to Exercises

Preview

2. Do the following exercises.

1 Translate, paying attention to the use of the bold type.

1. 这辆二手车买得很便宜。

2. 他的讲话被打断/缩短了。

3. 在这里建造铁路之前，先要把这里的水抽干。

4. 这花瓶擦干净以后看起来就会和新的一样。

5. 这房子被刷成了淡绿色。

6. 就在此时，门被突然踢开。

7. 恐怖分子被枪杀，人质都被释放。

8. 在日本，鱼往往是生吃的。

9. 这可怜的孩子生下来的时候就是聋的，不久又失明了。

10. 据说在皇陵完工的时候，那些建造皇陵的工人都被活活埋在里面。

2 Give the corresponding adjectives of the following names of countries.

1. Iraqi

2. Pakistani

3. Yemeni

4. Lebanese

5. Danish

6. Hungarian

7. Belgian

8. Argentine

9. Swedish

10. Swiss

11. Norwegian

12. Polish

3 Review how these words are formed.

These are compound adjectives consisting of a noun plus an adjective with the noun serving as a modifier of the adjective. Jet-black for example means as black as jet (a hard black material).

4 Point out the word or phrase that doesn’t belong in each line.

1. crush

2. crack

3. crunch

4. valueless

5. click

6. enthroned

7. breeze

8. commitment

9. career

10. obliterate

5 Complete the verb phrases by putting in prepositions or adverbs listed below.

1. for

2. up

3. for

4. for

5. for

6. for

7. down/up

8. up

9. into/in/down/up

10. up

11. up

12. for

13. up

14. in

15. into

16. into

17. up

18. up

19. up

20. in

21. up

22. for

23. up

24. into

25. in

26. for/up

27. up

28. up

29. up

30. in

31. for

32. in

33. in

34. up

35. down/up

36. into

37. for

38. into

39. for

40. into

41. into

42. for

43. down/up

44. up

45. up

46. down/up

47. for

48. in

49. up

50. up

51. for

Vocabulary

1. Translate the following expressions.

Into English

1. to crack the walls

2. to save souls

3. to play hide-and-seek

4. to slow to a trickle

5. to grab sb by the hair

6. to call sb names

7. to rip her shirt

8. to reveal the secret

9. to resist progress

10. to come into view

11. to gather firewood

12. to talk sb out of doing sth

13. to wriggle one’s way out of

14. to run errands

15. to deliver sb from suffering

16. to assure a steady supply

17. to take the pressure off sb

18. to keep him out of one’s hair

Into Chinese

1. 梯田

2. 多岩石的山脉

3. 百日咳

4. 周围的村庄

5. 林中的一块空地

6. 细粉尘

7. 羊粪

8. 粘乎乎的双手

9. 强壮有力的的妇女

10. 旌旗如林

11. 第一手的资料

12. 漆黑的头发

13. 一位虔诚的天主教徒

14. 家务事

15. 一种让人感到在家般自在的声音

16. 手卷香烟

17. 有利可图/十分挣钱的生意

18. 一家肉铺

19. 它往日风采的空架子

20. 一所教会学校

2. Replace the parts in bold type with appropriate words and expressions from the text.

1. gave way: caved in

buried: trapped

2. asked for: charged

profitable: lucrative

3. persuade him not to: talk him out of it

obstruct: resist

4. a quarrel: a argument

developing: escalating

5. sent to: relayed to / delivered to

gather: assemble/congregate

show their strong disagreement with: protest against

6. become all skin and bones: been reduced to mere skeletons

rescue: save/deliver

7. started to: began to/proceeded to

very seriously and carefully: with utmost gravity

8. destroyed: ruined/devastated/wrecked

tore: cracked/split

9. prevent unwanted visitors from bothering you: keep unwanted visitors off your hair

10. heavily crowded: packed with people

squeeze: wriggle

3．Translate the following sentences into English.

1. Incredible as it may sound, I hear that they charge 40 yuan for a bowl of simple noodles.

2. Sun Quan finally talked everybody into agreeing to put Lu Xun, a young scholar, in charge of (commanding) this decisive battle.

3. He was arrested on the charge of (charged with) smuggling, but in accordance with the law, no citizen can be arrested without evidence.

4. She dropped the plate on the ground, but it miraculously did not break, landing without so much as a crack. OR …not break. It didn’t have so much as a crack

5. I can assure you that if we dig a well deep enough here, we will strike water. So if you guys have no objection, let’s get started/proceed.

6. She takes delight in shifting the tables and chairs in this room so as to give the room a new look.

7. The focus of our economic development has shifted from the coastal areas in the east to the central and western areas.

8. He shifted/changed to the highest gear, thus leaving all the other cars far behind.

9. I maintained that smoking should be forbidden, but he disagreed because he said that the tobacco industry was an important source of government revenue.

10. The local people raised a strong objection to installing the cable car over that beautiful mountain.

4. Choose the right words in their proper forms.

1

1. assure

2. assured

3. reassuring

4. insured; ensured

5. ensure; reassured

6. reassuringly

2

1. twisted/turned

2. twisted

3. wring

4. distorted/twisted

5. twisted

6. twisted

7. wringing

3 1. gathered/assembled

2. assembling

3. gather; gathered OR collect; collected

4. gathering; assembled/gathered; collectors

5. collect/gather

6. collect; collecting; collection

4 1. crack; break

2. cracked; tear

3. tore

4. split; broke

5. break; Split

6. tore/ripped

7. torn

5

1. abandoned

2. abandoned/deserted/forsaken; abandoned

3. abandon/desert/forsake

4. desert

5. forsaken; deserted

6. abandoned

6

1. ignore

2. neglect

3. overlook

4. neglected

5. ignore

6. neglecting

5. Point out which of the following sentences contain paradox and which oxymoron.

1. paradox

2. paradox

3. oxymoron

4. oxymoron

5. oxymorons

6. paradox

7. paradox

8. paradox

9. oxymoron

10. paradox

11. paradox

12. paradox

13. paradox

14. paradox

15. oxymoron

16. paradox

Grammar

1. Learn to use as and though as concessive conjunction.

1 Group the patterns of concessive clauses in the following sentences into the categories listed below.

1, 2, 3, 6; 4, 9; 5, 8; 7, 10

2 Complete the sentences by translating the Chinese in brackets using the patterns of concessive clauses listed in the previous exercise.

1. Simple as it is

2. Much as he loves his children

3. Try as he might

4. Trash as it really is

5. Happy and contented as they are in retirement

6. Hard taskmaster though he appeared to be in the lab

7. Tempting though it was

8. Perfect talk show host though he is

9. Much as I respect him

10. Proud as they are of their father

2. Learn to use “It is/was (high) time that sb did sth”.

1 Decide on the precise meaning of the structure.

Note:

The structure “it is/was (high) time (that)…” is used to convey two meanings. One is “approximately the right time”, the other being “past the appropriate time” For example, It’s time you went to bed can mean either that “You should have gone to bed much earlier” (often stated with emphasis on the word time), or that now is the appropriate time for you to go to bed. The precise meaning of this term depends on the tone of voice and/or the context.

1, 3, 6, 7, 2, 4, 5, 8。

2 Translate the sentences into Chinese using the “it is/was time” pattern.

1. We’ve been training for the whole morning. It’s time we took a break and had lunch.

2. The Johnsons decided that it was high time their 40-year-old son moved out of their house.

3. 20 years have passed, and it’s time we buried the past misunderstandings of our two families.

4. It’s time we protested publicly and said no to such gender discrimination in this department.

5. It’s time unions and management sat down and worked out a real solution to the problem.

6. It is time national leaders took stock of their nation’s resources and worked out realistic plans.

1 Study the grammatical structure of these involved sentences.

1. This is a complex sentence.

Main clause: story of the fish and oranges was true

Subordinating clauses:

Adverbial clauses:

1. of concession: Incredible as it may sound

2. of reason: because men who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that story until it was incorporated into Magdalene’s calendar.

Both adverbial clauses modify the predicate verb of the main clause “was true”.

Embedded in the second are two subordinating clauses.

The first is a relative clause “who would not lie even to save their own souls” modifying the subject of the reason clause “men”; the second, “until it was incorporated into Magdalene’s calendar” is a time clause modifying its main verb “told and retold”.

2. It is also a complex sentence.

Main clause: I watched

Subordinating clauses:

Time clause: the rest of the sentence except for the opening word “breathless.”

Within the time clause there are two relative clauses.

The first of which, “that supposedly would make it possible to talk with uncles, aunts, and cousins”, modifies “a black machine”; the second, “who lived more than two days’ ride away”, modifies “uncles, aunts, and cousins”.

2 Translate the selection into Chinese.

然而这个问题仍然没有得到答复。以上所列举的明显的影响看起来说得很不够，而且仅涉及机械方面，也就是说仅触及皮毛。或许电话至关重要的影响都转瞬即逝，而且无法测量。使用电话对个人是有风险的，因为这意味着对外界的暴露；对某些人来说，与人通话时对方突然挂断电话是他们最怕发生的一件事；还有的人会梦中听到电话铃响，醒来时心脏砰砰地跳。现实生活中，电话铃声或许比生活中的其他任何声音都更能激起希望、恐惧、忧虑、快乐——究竟是哪种情感当然取决于我们的期盼。电话是我们连接社会的神经末梢。

在某些方面电话本身是个矛盾的怪物。一方面，它是它促使其诞生之时代的象征，另一方面，它又与这个时代截然相反。在这个崇尚“大”、充满暴力的时代，他却小而平和——只需要一些微小的部件和很低的电压。在这个一切都变得复杂的时代，它基本上极为简单。它是如此和人相似，传出的声音是如此的真实，就连跨洋通话时朋友、情人之间都无须自报姓名，问它对人类生活的影响，也就像问我们手和脚有什么作用一样没有意义。加拿大哲学家马歇尔·麦克鲁汉是少数谈及这些问题的学者之一，他称电话创造了人的“一种额外的感知。”他的话或许接近于道出了电话的本质。