新概念英语第四册学习手册【Lesson10、11、12】.docx

新概念英语第四册学习手册【Lesson10、11、12】 Lesson 10 Silicon valley 硅谷 What does the computer industry thrive on apart from anarchy? Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes there are now work-stations that enable engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a newsletter on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making a chip drop to a few days and a few hundred dollars, engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. Mead predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the office -- spawning a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the U.S. a jump on its foreign rivals in getting new products to market fast. ”We”re got more garages with smart people,” Mead observes. ”We really thrive on anarchy.” And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from California”s colleges. As the heads of next-generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs and languages to forge righter links with crucial Pacific Rim markets. For instance, Alex Au, a Stanford Ph. D. from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge Japan”s near lock on the memory-chip market. India-born N.Damodar Reddy”s tiny California company reopened an AT TEXT-INDENT: 2em“>Lesson 11 How to grow old 如何安度晚年 First listen and then answer the following question. 听录音，然后答复以下问题。

What, according to the author, is the best way to overcome the fear of death as you get older? Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it -- so at least it seems to me -- is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river -- small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done. BERTRAND RUSSELL How to grow old from Portraits from Memory New words and expressions 生词和短语 oppress v. 愁闷，压抑 justification n. 正值理由 justifiably adv. 无可非议地 cheat v. 哄骗 abject adj. 可怜的 ignoble adj. 不风光的，可耻的 impersonal adj. 超脱个人感情影响的 ego n. 自我 receded v. 退去 increasing adv. 日益，不断 passionately adv. 激扬地 painlessly adv. 毫无苦痛地 vitality n. 精力 weariness n. 疲乏感 参考译文 有些老年人由于怕死而感到苦恼。

青年人有这种感觉是情有可原的有理由可怕自己会死在战场上的年轻人，想到自己被剥夺了生活所能赐予的最美妙的东西时，感到苦痛，这是可以理解的可是老年人已经饱尝了人间的甘苦，一切能做的都做了，假如怕死，就有点儿可怜又可鄙克制怕死的方法 -- 至少在我看来是这样 -- 就是渐渐使自己的兴趣更加广泛，渐渐摆脱个人狭小的圈子，直到自我的围墙一点一点地倒塌下来，自己的生活渐渐地和整个宇宙的生活融合在一起个人的存在应当像一条河流，开头很小，被紧紧地夹在两岸中间，接着热忱奔放地冲过巨石，飞下瀑布然后河面慢慢地变宽，两岸后撤，河水流得平缓起来，最终连绵不断地汇入大海，毫无苦痛地失去了自我的存在上了年纪的人这样对待生命，就不会有惧怕死亡的心情了，由于自己关怀的一切大事都会连续下去 再者，随着精力的衰退，老年人的疲乏会增长，有长眠的愿望未尝不是一件好事情，我盼望工作到死为止，明白了有人会连续我的未竟事业，想到能做的事都做了，也就坦然了 Lesson 12 Banks and their customers 银行和顾客 Why is there no risk to the customer when a bank prints the customer”s name on his cheques? When anyone opens a current account at a bank, he is lending the bank money, repayment of which he may demand at any time, either in cash or by drawing a cheque in favour of another person. Primarily, the banker-customer relationship is that of debtor and creditor -- who is which depending on whether the customer”s account is in credit or is overdrawn. But, in addition t。