新标准大学英语4summary

UNIT 1

Active Reading 1

What are the most important issues for students today? Is the university campus really such a different place compared to what it was 40 years ago?

For the students in the 1960s, going to college was the most exciting and stimulating experience of their life. They took part in protests and launched strikes against the establishment with their new and passionate commitment to freedom and justice. Going to college also meant their first taste of real freedom. They could discuss the meaning of life, read their first forbidden book and see their first indie film.

In contrast, the students today don’t have the passion for college life that they used to. Today, college is seen as a kind of small town from which people are keen to escape. Instead of the heady atmosphere of freedom which students in the 1960s discovered, students today are much more serious.College has become a means to an end, an opportunity to improve their prospects of being competitive in the employment market, and not an end in itself.

But in spite of all this, the role of the university is the same as it always has been. It is the place where students have the opportunity to

learn to think for themselves.

Active Reading 2

Older generations generally have a negative attitude to today’s students, the product of postmodern times. Today’s students are expected to accomplish anything in an era with extraordinary privileges and opportunities. It would seem they do the opposite. They direct their energy on the Internet communicating ideas and frustrations, instead of trying to assert their identity by revolution. Perhaps when they are not told about what their parents did before, they will be seen writing the revolution in technology.

UNIT 2

Active Reading 1

Empathy, orginally known as motor mimicry, stemmed from physical imitation of others’ plight, which then evokes the same feelings in oneself. Children seem to feel sympathetic distress from infancy—much earlier than they realize they exist apart from other people

By one year old, they start to learn the pain is someone else’s but still seem confused about what to do. At around two and a half years, motor mimicry fades from toddlers’ repertoire when they are able to distinguish their own feelings from others’ feelings, so they are able to

use other means to comfort others. At the same time, their sensivity to other’s emotional upsets begins to diverge from one to another. Active Reading 2

This is Sandy is an extract from Tone, a story about the life of a deaf girl. She thinks her friends are honorable people who beam with pride when they introduce her to someone new. When people find out she is deaf they are mostly shocked for a moment at first but pretend not to be. Sandy says that the hearing aids she saw in a catalog are great fashion accessories, they’re just like a clip you put onto your ear. Sandy likes to show her hearing aid. She doesn’t tie her hair up in a knot but sh e tucks it behind her ears. Sandy’s friend Carol introduces her to a boy called Colin at a party. They sit together on a couch and Colin realizes that Sandy can understand what he is saying by reading his lips. Someone turns up the volume of the music and they dance together. Soon they are dating. This is when the real drama begins.

UNIT 3

Active Reading 1

Identity theft refers to stealing information about someone that makes it possible to use their bank account or credit card. With an informal and conversational tone the author persuades readers into