Unit 3 Out of Step
Key to the Exercis
Text comprehension
I. Decide which of the following best states the author's purpo of writing.
A
(The author brings the attention of Americans to the fact that they walk too little by citing many of his personal experiences as well as others'. He does not write out any solution to the problem; he simply "sounds the siren" as the last ntence of the passage shows: "And if that isn't sad, I don't know what is.")
II. Judge, according to the text, whether the following statements are true or fal.女性泌尿道感染
明亮的近义词1. T (Refer to Paragraph 1. The author and his wife wanted to live in a small, compact, and date town where they can go about their business on foot when they moved back to t
超市利润he United States. As a result, they ttled down in Hanover, a typical New England town.)
我的宝贝儿
2. T (Refer to Paragraph 6. Though it was convenient to go about one's business on foot in the town, the author could hardly find anyone el who did so. His acquaintances in the early days would "depart reluctantly, even guiltily" when failing to persuade the author to accept a ride as if they escaped the scene of an accident without giving their names.)
3. F (People like the man who drove his car to do the chores and the woman who complained about the difficulty of parking outside the gymnasium make a clear distinction between exerci and walking for business. They "jog extravagant distances" or walk on the treadmill, but they never take walking on the sidewalk as a form of exerci.)
4. T (Refer to Paragraphs 18 and 19. The pedestrian mall constructed in the early 1970s in Laconia proved to be a commercial disaster simply becau people had to walk one whole block to the mall from the nearest parking place. When the shopping mall was reconstructed so that people could park their cars immediately before the stores, downto
wn Laconia thrived again. That suggests how reliant Americans are on their cars.)
III. Answer the following questions.
1. Refer to Paragraphs 3 to 6. They find it odd to e the author walking around for his business and they even feel slightly guilty for leaving the author on the sidewalk without driving him to the place he is going to.
2. Refer to Paragraphs 2, 3 and 7. Ordinary Americans, even in this agreeable and easy place to go about on foot, have virtually never done so. In fact, in the U.S., people have got accustomed to using the car for everything.
3. Refer to Paragraphs 7 to 9. The American people have come to depend on cars for almost everything to the extent that they have forgotten about what they can do with their legs. Sometimes, they would take great and ridiculous trouble with driving rather than take an easy walk.
4. Refer to Paragraph 14. According to an editorial in The Boston Globe, the U.S. has s
pent less than one percent of its transportation budget on facilities for pedestrians. The government, in this n, has basically ignored the need for pedestrians, which has caud some trouble for the author and discouraged people from going about on their business on foot.
幼儿园实习总结5. Refer to Paragraphs 16 and 17. He is sad becau he has come to realize, from the ca of Laconia, N.H., that people don't walk anywhere anymore in the country.
IV. Explain in your own words the following ntences.
个人英雄1. People in the United States tend to drive for every purpo, so much so that they have forgotten that they still have legs and about what their legs can do.
2. I admit that I had never realized how poorly equipped our bodies are in this respect.
3. … Maybe I was the only person who had ever attempted to cross that interction on foot.
Structural analysis of the text
守株待兔作者The author develops his ideas by means of examples. He cites factual and verifiable examples: the man he obrved outside the post office, his conversation with an acquaintance of his who would drive to the gym to do exercis, his own effort to walk across the street and the commercial failure of the pedestrian mall in Laconia. The examples have made his idea more effective and convincing.
Rhetorical features of the text
1. "I confess it had not occurred to me how thoughtlessly deficient nature is in the regard." (Paragraph 13) (for lf-debament)
海蛎
2. "An acquaintance of ours was complaining the other day about the difficulty of finding a place to park outside the local gymnasium. She goes there veral times a week to walk on a treadmill. The gymnasium is, at most, a six-minute walk from her front door." (Paragraph 10) (for satire on some ridiculous contradiction in a particular act)
Vocabulary exercis
I. Explain the underlined part in each ntence in your own words.
1. pleasant/comfortable, practically
2. very long, (places of) physical exercis
3. was made to realize this
4. decided not to have coffee and instead to go (to the bookstore)
5. held in mind
II. Fill in the blank in each ntence with a word taken from the box in its appropriate form.
