四、练习答案

Text I

Text comprehension

I. Decide which of the following best states the author’s purpose.

C

II. Judge, according to the text, whether the following statements are true or false.

1．T Refer to Paragraph 1.

2．F Refer to Paragraph 3. She was extremely busy before they were born.

3．T Refer to Paragraph 5.

4．F Refer to Paragraph 5. She left Warsaw for Paris at 22.

5．T Refer to Paragraph 7.

6．F Refer to Paragraph 8. They won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity.

7．F Refer to Paragraph 10. Eve Curie was scarcely a year old when her father died.

8．T. Refer to Paragraph 10.

9．F Refer to Paragraph 11. A second Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Marie alone.

10．T Refer to Paragraph 14.

III. Answer the following questions.

1．Refer to Paragraph 2. In the author’s mind, Madame Curie was the strongest and most capable woman in the world.

2．Refer to Paragraph 3. In science, she revolutionized the study of atomic energy and radioactivity, and succeeded in isolating the elements radium and polonium, for which she became the first person in the world to have won two Nobel Prizes. In life she was a woman driven by passions, fighting battles much of her life with severe depression. In the end, she suffered from and eventually died of a disease which was caused by her own discovery.

3．Refer to Paragraph 4. Young as she was, Marie Curie did not appear to be affected by her mother’s death at all and carried on with her schoolwork as if nothing had happened. But when she was left alone, she cried her eyes out for months releasing her bitter grief.

4．Refer to Paragraph 5. First, she was then 22 years old, too young to confront the world all by herself. Second, survival in a big city like Paris would be difficult for a poor and inexperienced girl like her.

5．The scene in the film might have led to the misconception that the process of discovering radium was exciting, easy and romantic. What the author intends to do is emphasize, by contrasting the film scene with reality, the fact that the actual discovery of radium was much harder than it appeared.

6．Refer to Paragraph 9. Their tragedy was attributable to the fact that they worked around radioactivity nearly every day. Before winning the Nobel Prize, Pierre was severely ill from exposure to this fierce energy. He had increasing difficulty walking, until 1906, when he fell into the path of a wagon, and a wheel ran over his head. He died instantly. Although Madame Curie won a brilliant success in science, she suffered an appalling loss in life.

7．Refer to Paragraph 13. Her death was caused by pernicious anemia which probably resulted from her long, devastating exposure to radium and other radioactive elements.

8．The unravelling of the mysteries of nature presents a big challenge to natural scientists. The exploration of nature and the discovery of its mysteries call for painstaking and enduring effort on their part. Yet for many of them, this is a mission that has great magnetic power, and they are so much drawn to it that they are ready to devote their whole life to it. And Madame Curie is undoubtedly one of them.

IV. Explain in your own words the following sentences taken from the text.

1．I was then a young girl without a clear idea of what to do in the future; but I was keener on literature than on natural science.

2．I think the reason why I enjoyed looking at the photo was not because Mari Curie herself was in the photo, nor because she represented a great woman, but because her image appealed to me as mysteriously different.

3．Marie Curie’s own daughters distinguished themselves in their respective field due to their own efforts and competence.

4．Finally she fell in love with Casimir Zorawski.

5．She, a poor, common nursemaid, was much lower in social status than her young master.

6．The reality was much harder, not as romantic as shown in the 1943 film Madame Curie.

7．They were highly respected in the European scientific community, entertained exuberantly and visited by acolytes to show their reverence to the Curies at home in Paris.

8．The changes in Madame Curie brought about by the loss of her husband were much more profound than the simple change from a happy young wife to an unhappy widow. The shadow of loneliness and introversion hung over her for the rest of her life.

9．The Marie Curie I discovered was not a sacred being, but a woman existing in real life.

Writing strategies

1．More instances of metaphorical language found in the text:

In Paragraph 1: ... her arms wrapped around her daughters...

In Paragraph 3: Also she was a woman driven by passions, fighting battles much of her life with what a doctor now would probably diagnose as severe depression.

In Paragraph 5: ... walked into history.

In Paragraph 7: The reality was a lot grittier...

In Paragraph 9: For the Curies, though, their triumph contained the seeds of their tragedy.

In Paragraph 10: “... A cape of solitude and secrecy fell upon her shoulders forever’.’

2．Elaboration of this point is mainly found in the second paragraph of the text:

Looking back, I think I admired that photo so much, not because of Marie Curie and what she stood for but because she seemed so exotic—or maybe because of how her arms encircled her girls. My own mother lay in the hospital, recovering from a grave injury in a car crash. I wanted her to hold me, but she couldn’t. So, instead, I idolized Marie, who in my mind became the strongest and most capable woman in the world.

Language work

I. Explain the underlined part in each sentence in your own words.

1．except the most important aspects of her life

2．having no concrete goals or purposes to attain

3．because of their own efforts and talents

4．cry to her heart’s content

5．and thus launched her journey to become somebody to remember

6．represented the most crucial change

II. Fill in each blank with one of the two words from each pair in their appropriate forms and note the difference of meaning between them.

glistening luminous

Note: Luminous describes a source of light, indicating the brightness or clarity, but it can also specifically suggest a soft or barely perceivable radiance or one enclosed within or seen through something else. Glistening is almost exclusively restricted to reflected light, although sometimes it does suggest in addition to dimness an undulating reflection or a moist surface.

1．luminous

2．luminous

3．glistening

4．glistening

grave serious

Note: Both words emphasize something that is urgent or crucial and that promises to have an extremely undesirable outcome. Grave is the more restricted of the two, specifically suggesting something that may well have a fatal conclusion. Serious is more general and it suggests the crucial, ponderous, or solemn, but with less emphasis on urgency and even less on negative eventualities.

1．grave

2．serious

3．serious

4．grave

fantasy imagination

Note: Both words refer to the mind’s power to call up images, to picture or conceive things that are not actually before the eye or within the experience. Fantasy is imagination divorced from reality. The creations of fantasy may be delightfully bizarre or may be weird and grotesque, as in the case of science-fiction stories depicting monstrous beings from Mars. Engaged in fantasy, the imagination projects unreal images or imaginary scenes on the screen of the mind, creating a dream world.

1．fantasy

2．imagination

3．fantasies

4．fantasies; imagination

prominent outstanding

Note: Both words refer to something of unusual distinction or relevance by reason of its excellence or motivating force. Outstanding, besides its general meaning of being excellent, suggests a feature that is sharply distinct from its surroundings. Prominent carries less suggestions of excellence than outstanding, and it may point to status gained on other grounds entirely, or suggest merely familiarity to a wide audience.

1．outstanding

2．prominent

3．outstanding

4．Prominent

III. Fill in the blank in each sentence with a word or phrase taken from the box, using its appropriate form.

1．A useful definition of an air pollutant is a compound added directly or indirectly by humans to the atmosphere in such quantities as to affect humans, animals, vegetation, or materials adversely.

2．The most distant luminous objects seen by telescopes are probably ten thousand million light years away.

3．“Want some wine?” she asked. He smiled and took a swig from the bottle. He thanked her and retreated again into his silence.

4．The self-educated son of a Delaware farmer, Evans became obsessed by the possibilities of mechanized production and steam power.

5．Stone carvers engraved their motifs of skulls and crossbones and other religious icons of death, into the gray slabs that we still see standing today in old burial grounds.

6．The employment department has undergone several metamorphoses over the past few years.

7．Respect is never given freely; every shred of it has to be earned and you earn it by how well you treat others.

8．The professor argued that these books had a pernicious effect on young and susceptible minds.

IV. Make a sentence of your own for each of the given words with meanings other than those used in the text. You may change the part of speech of these words.

1．He suddenly stopped talking, and his friends knew something was up.

2．The angry wife dropped the tray of bowls and plates with a crash.

3．Numerous experiments have shown that once the concept of self is changed, other things consistent with the new concept of self are accomplished easily and without strain.

4．She looked down at her lap while one hand absently stroked the other.

5．Nothing is fixed and permanently stable. There must be movement forward, which is progress of a sort, or movement backward, which is decay and deterioration.

6．Worksheets require defining the problem in a clear and concise way and then listing all possible solutions to the problem.

V. Rewrite the following sentences in such a way as to avoid dangling non-finite clauses.

1．When I read in bed, my hands often get very cold.

2．He was cleaning his gun when it went off unexpectedly.

3．When carrying a gun, you should never point it at anyone.

4．We thought falling from such a height he would never survive.

5．Tied to a post, the boat was tossed up and down by the sea.

6．Barking furiously, the dog was led out of the room.

7．Being read a second time, the letter becomes clearer in meaning.

8．As she was wondering where to go, an advertisement caught her eye.

9．He was sitting at the foot sofa cliff when a stone fell on him.

10．When planting these flowers you must take care not to damage the roots.

VI. Put a word in each blank that is appropriate for the context.

Translation

I. Translate each of the following sentences into English, using the words or expressions given in brackets.

1．Researchers suggest that people in their old age should engage in mental and physical activities individually as well as in groups.

2．The fact that he won the gold medal at the Olympic Games made him over-night the toast of his hometown.

3．Many states leaders came to pay homage to him for his lifetime achievements.

4．I suppose that the rapid change in life and globalization are apt to make people become less single-minded.

5．His failure in winning a second championship dampened his enthusiasm for athletic activities.

6．Expectations for economic recovery faded away when devaluation occurred again.

7．In some AIDS patients, there are several years between exposure to the HIV virus and the onset of the illness.

8．The pitiful story told by the girl deeply softened the old lady’s heart.

II. Translate the following into Chinese.

瑞典发明家和实业家阿尔弗雷德·诺贝尔是一个在各方面都对比鲜明的人。他是一个破产者的儿子，却成为了百万富翁，他是一个科学家，但爱好文学。他是一个实业家，但坚持理想主义。他是一个百万富翁但生活简朴。和友人在一起他兴致勃勃，但一个人私下里却常常郁郁寡欢。他热爱人类，却未曾有妻子和儿女去关爱他。对祖国一片赤子之心却孑然一身，客死他乡。他发明了一种新炸药，以改进采矿和筑路等和平时期的工业，却目睹炸药被用作战争武器杀伤同伴。在他有用的一生中，他常常感到自己无所作为。他的成就名扬天下，而他自己却始终默默无闻，殊不知他一生总是在回避抛头露面。但是他逝世后，他的名字却给别人带来了名誉和荣耀。

Text II

I. Answer the following multiple-choice questions:

1．D

2．C

3．B

4．D

5．D

6．C

7．D

8．B

II. Questions for discussion:

1．Music has always been linked in her mind with the mystic texture of he life and with the memories of her father. For in this linkage between the generations rests the magic of music. There is something deeply satisfying in the knowledge of this continuity.

2．The Soviet authorities suppressed expressions of political discontent. He was wounded by the political persecution from the Soviet authorities because he was suspected of anti-Soviet behavior, which interfered with his career and kept him from fulfilling the promise of his talent.

3．She had no money, so she had to sashay down the catwalk and pose for the camera. But with all the attention, she never took well to the world of haute couture because music alone was her life and her happiness rested on music.

4．She has a gift for music and has devoted her life to it. When she was young, she was greatly influenced by her father. Later, she received systematic Western-style academic training in the fundamentals of music. She plays classical music with her own passion and intensity of expression.

5．Nina circles back to her childhood. Her journey through time is connected in some fundamental way to the fact that she is now a famous musician herself. She is anxious to share her success and happiness with her father.