朱永涛《英美文化基础教程》课后习题详解(1-11章)【圣才出品】

第2部分美国文化

第1章从大西洋到太平洋

I.Explain the following in English:

1.New England

【答案】(1)New England refers to the north-eastern six states:Maine,New Hampshire,Vermont,Connecticut,Massachusetts and Rhode Island,an area running from the Canadian shore to New York.

(2)This area resembles old England in many ways.

(3)Some of the earliest settlement in American history was in this area.

(4)In general,this part of the country is small-scale,long-established and urban.

2.The Mid-Atlantic area

【答案】Pennsylvania is the main part of the mid-Atlantic area,which includes New Jersey and Maryland,bounded at the south by the Potomac River.This is the clearest dividing-line in the United States,because across the river is the south.

3.The South

【答案】(1)It refers to the area across the Potomac River and southwards down the Atlantic coast.

(2)This was slave-owning area before the Civil War and mainly produced tobacco and cotton.

(3)Economically these states are notoriously backward,but more recently there has been an industrial development,helped by federal plans and hydro-electric power.

4.Washington,D.C.

【答案】Washington,D.C.,formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington,“the District”,or simply D.C.,is the capital of the United States. The signing of the Residence Act on July16,1790,approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country’s East Coast.As permitted by the U.S.Constitution,the District is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and is therefore not a part of any U.S.state.

5.New York City

【答案】(1)It is the commercial capital of the United States.

(2)It is at the southernmost tip of the New York State.

(3)It is composed of five boroughs:Manhattan,Brooklyn,the Bronx,Richmond and Queen’s,with Manhattan Island as its center.

(4)It is well-known for such places as Wall Street,the Empire State Building, Harlem and Central Park.

6.The Middle West

【答案】(1)It describes the north-eastern part of the central plain,or the north-eastern quarter of the United States except for the states close to the Atlantic.

(2)In terms of political geography,it refers to these states:Illinois,Michigan, Indiana,Wisconsin and Ohio and so on.

(3)First developed for farming,these states include huge,sparsely-populated open spaces.

(4)Chicago and Detroit are two of the big industrial cities in this area.

7.The Great Plain states

【答案】The plains run from the Gulf of Mexico in the south up to the Canadian border and beyond-an endless open space comparable with Siberia.Few places in the world can compare with these great plains for uniformity and monotony,and they are only part of a continuous system which goes northwards to the barren lands of the Arctic.

8.The western states

【答案】It consists of11states:Montana,Wyoming,Colorado,New Mexico,Idaho, Utah,Nevada,Arizona in8states plus the3states of Pacific coast:Washington, Oregon,and California.