发布时间 : 星期六 文章A Payment Greater Than Money更新完毕开始阅读3750a4fec8d376eeaeaa316d
UNIT 1 Text A
PRE-READING TASK
Exercise 1
The passage you are going to read is entitled \to answer the questions before reading the passage.
1. Which of the following do you think is more important? Make your choice and give your reason. A. Money B. Love
C. Friendship D. Work
2. Guess what kind of payment might be greater than money according to the title of the passage.
Now read the passage and compare the writer's view with yours.
A Payment Greater Than Money
1. When I was 14, I earned money in the summer by mowing lawns, and I got to know people by the flowers I had to remember not to cut down, by the things stuck in the ground on purpose or by the things lost in the grass. I also learned something about my neighbors in Louisville, Ky., by their preferred method of payment: by the job, the month ——or not at all.
2. Mr Ballou fell into the last category, and he always had a reason. One day he had nothing smaller than a fifty. On another he was flat-out of checks; on another he was simply not home when I knocked on his door. Still, except for the money, he was a nice enough old guy, always waving or tipping his hat when he'd seen me from a distance. I figured him for a thin retirement check, maybe an injury that kept him from doing his own yardwork. I kept a running total, but didn't worry about the amount too much. Grass was grass, and the little that was Mr Ballou's didn't take long to trim.
3. Then one late afternoon in mid-July I was walking by his house, and he motioned me to come inside. The hall was cool, shaded, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the muted light.
4. \
5. I thought I'd save him the trouble of thinking up a new excuse. \problem. Don't worry about it.\
6. \will be cleared up in a day or two. In the meantime I thought perhaps you could choose one or two volumes for a down payment.\
7. He gestured toward the walls, and I saw books stacked everywhere. It was like a library, except with no order to the arrangement.
8. \your time,\Mr Ballou encouraged. \borrow, keep. Find something you like. What do you read?\
9. \don't know.\And I didn't. I generally read what I could get from the paperback rack at the drugstore or what I found at home —— magazines, the backs of cereal boxes, comics. The idea of consciously seeking out a special title was new to me, but not without appeal——so I browsed through the piles of books and asked, \actually read all of these?\10. Mr Ballou nodded. \is just what I've kept, the ones worth looking at a second time.\
11. \
12. He raised his eyebrows, cocked his head, regarded me appraisingly as though measuring me for a suit. After a moment, he searched through a stack and handed me a dark-red book, fairly thick.
13. \14. \
15. I started after supper, sitting outdoors on an uncomfortable kitchen chair. Within a few pages, the yard, the summer, disappeared, and I was plunged into the aching tragedy of the Holocaust, the extraordinary clash of good, represented by one decent man, and evil. The language was elegant, simple, overwhelming. When the evening light finally failed, I moved inside and read all through the night. 16. To this day, 35 years later, I vividly remember the experience. I was astonished by the great power a novel could contain. I lacked the vocabulary to translate my feelings into words, so the next week, when Mr Ballou asked, \I replied, \was good.\
17. \
18. I nodded, and was presented with Margaret Mead's classic study in anthropology, coming of Age in Samoa.
19. To make two long stories short, Mr Ballou never paid me a dime for cutting his grass that year or the next, but, eventually, I would teach anthropology at Dartmouth College. And I learned that summer that reading was not the innocent pastime I had assumed it to be, not a breezy, instantly forgettable escape in a hammock (though I've enjoyed many of those too.) I discovered that a book, if it arrives at the right moment, in the proper season, will change the course of all that follows.
New Words
payment
n. 1. the act of paying 支付，付款 2. sum of money paid 支付的款项 3. reward for something 报偿 mow
v. to cut (grass, etc.)割（草等） lawn
n. an area of grass 草坪，草地
category n. 种类
injury
n. harm, damage, wrongful treatment 伤害，不公平的待遇
yardwork
n. 庭院杂务活 trim
v. to make neat, even or tidy by cutting 修剪，整修
muted
a. （颜色、光线等）柔和的，不耀眼的 owe
v. 1. to have to pay 欠 2. to feel grateful 应感激
ignore
v. not to take notice of 不顾，忽视
meantime
n. the time between (two events) 其间
stack
v. to make into a neat pile 堆放
n. an orderly pile of things （一）堆，（一）叠
paperback n. 平装本 a. 平装的 rack n. 架子
drugstore n. （美）（常兼售软饮料、化妆品、杂志等的）药店，杂货店
cereal
n. food made from grain 谷类食物
comic
n. 1. （常作comics）（报刊的）连环漫画栏 2. 连环漫画（册） seek
v. (sought) to look (for); try to find or get 寻找
appeal
n. 1. power of attraction 吸引力 2. an earnest call for 呼吁，要求
v. 1. to make an earnest request 呼吁，要求
2. to be attractive or interesting (to someone) 有吸引力
browse
v. to read here and there in books 随便翻阅, 浏览
eyebrow
n. (=brow) 眉，眉毛 cock
v. to cause one's head to slope slightly 把头侧向一边
appraisingly ad. 估量地
uncomfortable
a. not comfortable 不舒适的
plunge
v. to (cause to) feel or be in a state of something （使）陷入
clash
n. an example of opposition or disagreement 不合，冲突
represent
v. to be symbol or example of 代表，表现
elegant
a. 优美，雅致
overwhelming