课本背诵篇目Unit112 Although I could have pursued a career in law or business, as several of my friends did, I chose teaching instead. My job has benefits all its own. I’m able to bake cookies without getting them stuck together as they cool, buy cheap sewing materials, take out splinters, and search just the right trash cans for useful odds and ends. I’m sometimes called “Daddy” and even “Mommy”by my students, and if there’s ever a lull in the conversation at a dinner party, I can always ask those assembled if they’ve heard the latest riddle about why the turkey crossed the road. (He thought he was a chicken.)虽然我曾经可以像我的几个朋友那样在法律界或商界谋求发展，但是我选择了教学。

我的工作本身就有很多“福利”。

我能烤出放凉之后不会粘在一起的小甜饼，能买到便宜的缝纫材料，能挑出扎进皮肤的小刺，知道从哪个垃圾桶里能找到有用的小零碎儿。

有时，学生们叫我“爸爸”甚至“妈妈”。

参加宴会时，如果交谈中有片刻沉默的话，我总能用最新的脑筋急转弯题目问在场的客人——火鸡为什么过马路？（因为它以为自己是小鸡呢。

）Unit24 Books are one of the few things men cherish deeply. And the better the man the more easily will he part with his most cherished possessions. A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum – of both books and money! But especially books, for books represent infinitely more than money. A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold.书籍是人类为数不多的钟爱物之一。

并且越是好人，就越愿意与他人分享自己最珍贵的财产。

闲置在架子上的书就像被浪费的弹药。

书籍和金钱一样，必须经常流通，最为频繁地借入与借出！书籍更是如此，因为书籍所蕴含的意义远非金钱所能比拟。

书不仅是你的朋友，它还能帮你结交新朋友。

当你领会了一本书的思想和精神，你会变得富有。

但是，如果把这本书传递下去的话，你要富有三倍。

Unit313 Sometimes hemlines can even predict a change in the mood of the stock market long before it actually happens. In September 2007, at the New York fashion shows, which were displaying their styles for spring 2008, the trend wasfor much longer dresses and skirts, many to midcalf or even down to the ankles.Some people felt this showed that the hemline indicator was no longer reliable, and that designers no longer dictated what people would wear. During the London and New York fashion shows in September 2008, hemlines continued to drop. But sure enough, in the fall of 2008, the stock market indexes crashed when the banking crisis hit the US, Europe and then the rest of the world. Hemlines were no longer following the stock market – they were showing the way and indicating future economic trends.有时裙子底边甚至可以预测股市行情。

2007 年9 月，纽约时装秀上展示的2008年春季时装的流行趋势是长长的裙子，许多长及小腿中部，甚至长至脚踝。

有人认为，这表明裙边指标不再可靠，并且设计师也丧失了对于人们着装的主宰权。

2008 年9 月，伦敦和纽约时装秀上展示的裙子底边继续下降。

果然，2008 年秋季，当金融危机重创美国、欧洲继而世界各地时，股指崩溃了。

裙子底边不再追随股市行情——而是预示股市行情，并表明未来的经济走势。

Unit54 Despite these findings, the myth is still widely believed, particularly among males, that men spend their conversations “solving the world’s problems”, while the womenfolk gossip in the kitchen. In my focus groups and interviews, most English males initially claimed that they did not gossip, while most of the female readily admitted that they did. On further questioning, however, the difference turned out to be more a matter of semantics than practice: What the women were happy to call “gossip”, the men defined as “exchanging information”.即便如此，让人费解的是人们，尤其是男性，仍然普遍认为男人交谈是“解决世界问题”，而女人们则是在厨房里闲聊。

在我做的焦点人群调查和访谈中，大多数英国男性最初都声称他们不聊八卦，而女性却很乐于承认自己聊八卦。

然而，通过进一步追问，我发现两者的区别与其说体现在实践中，倒不如说是体现在语义层面上：男人把女人津津乐道的“八卦”称为“交流信息”。

Unit72 After Canada and Mexico, China is the US’ biggest trading partner. UK exports to China are expected to multiply by four times by the end of the decade, and its government wants every school, college and university to be twinned with an equivalent institution in China. With the importance of English as an international language set to decline over the next 40 years, it’s not surprising that this fall is matched by a rise of interest in learning Chinese.中国是继加拿大和墨西哥之后的美国的第三大贸易伙伴。

英国对中国的出口额预计十年后将增长四倍，所以英国政府希望英国的每所学校、学院和大学都要和中国相应的院校建立合作关系。

未来40年，随着英语作为国际语言的重要性逐渐减弱，人们学习汉语的兴趣不断高涨也就不足为奇了。

Unit88 On his return to England with his cargo of specimens, Darwin spent 14 years devising his theory on how life kept changing. It was during these years that the facts he had observed and the inferences he had made during his research formed the basis of the theory. But he kept it secret, refining it and making sure it was valid against all objections. It was only when another scientist came up witha similar theory that, in great haste, Darwin finally presented his own findings in The Origin of Species, published in 1859, It was greeted with applause by his colleagues. It was also easy and compelling to read, and quickly became a best-seller.达尔文带着大量的标本回到英国，花了14 年时间构建起有关生命如何不断变化的理论。