大学英语2012-2013学年第一学期学习材料Passage 1 College Pressure I see two kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure. It is easy to look around for rebels- to blame the colleges for charging too much money, the parents for pushing their children too far. But there are no rebels, only victims.The pressure is heavy on students who just want to graduate and get a job. If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades. I know incalculable students whose inquiring minds cheer me. I like to hear the play of their ideas. I dont know if they are getting A or C, and I dont care. I also like them as people. The country needs them, and they will find satisfying jobs. I tell them to relax. They cant.Nor can I blame them. They live in a brutal economy. Today it is not unusual for a student, even if he works part time at college and full time during the summer, to increase to 5, 000 in loans after graduation. Encouraged at commence merit to go forth into the world, he is already behind as he goes forth. How could he not feel under pressure throughout college to prepare for this day of reckoning? Along with economic pressure goes parental pressure. Inevitably, the two are deeply integrated.Poor students! They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt. The parents mean well: they are trying to steer their sons and daughters toward a secure future. But the sons and daughters want to major in history or classics or philosophy - subjects with no “practical” value. Wheres the payoff on the humanities? Its not easy to persuade such loving parents that the humanities do indeed pay off. The intellectual faculties developed by studying subjects like history and classics are just the faculties that make creative leaders in business or almost any general field.Luckily for me, most of them got into their field by an indirect route, to their surprise, after many roundabout ways. The students are startled. They can hardly conceive of a career that was not preplanned. They can hardly imagine allowing the hand of God or chance to nudge them down some unforeseen trail. （386 words） 大学生的压力 我发觉今天的大学生有两种压力：经济压力和来自父母的压力。环顾四周，你很容易发现一些叛逆者，他们指责学校收费太高，报怨父母对他们的要求过高。但他们不是叛逆者，而是受害者。 对于那些只想从大学毕业并且找到一个工作的人来说，压力是很大的。如果我是雇主，我宁愿雇佣那些有好奇心的博学之才而不是那些只选一些容易过的且能达高分的课程的学生。我认识无数学生，他们的好奇之心使我兴奋不已。我喜欢听他们阐述自己的观点。我不知道他们得的是A还是C，我不在乎这些。我也同样喜欢他们所散发出来的人性魅力。国家需要他们，他们也会找到自己满意的工作。我告诉他们要放松，但他们做不到。 但我也不能责怪他们，因为他们生活在残酷的经济时代。今天对一个学生来说，即使他在念书时兼职打工，在暑假全职工作，在毕业后欠下5000美元的债务也是很平常的。在毕业典礼上他们被告知即将踏入社会，而事实上，在踏入社会之际他已落后于他人了。为了面对这个清算日，他们在大学生活中怎会感受不到压力呢? 与经济压力同时存在的还有来自父母的压力，这两者不可避免地融合在一起。 可怜的学生们!他们被古老的爱、责任、负疚感所包围。父母们本意是好的,他们正把自己的儿女引向一个安全的未来。但这些孩子却想主修历史、古典文学、哲学这些没有“现实”价值的专业。学人文科学的报偿在何处呢?要说服父母相信人文科学有所报偿并不容易。由学习历史和古典文学所培养出来的能力正是商业及其他一般领域有创造力的领导人所必备的能力。 幸运的是，许多学生几经曲折终于到达他们自己的领域，对此他们感到吃惊。因为他们很难想象可以从事一项未经事先计划的事业，很难想象上帝之手或者机缘能把他们推到未曾预见到的人生轨道上来Passage 2 Work and Pleasure To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human being may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual laborer, tired out with a hard weeks sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend. It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortunes favored children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vacation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the means of bani