新概念英语第四册笔记-完整版(6)

So, faced with the Danish advance, Alfred did not risk open battle but harried the enemy. He was constantly on the move, drawing the Danes after him. His patrols halted the raiding parties: hunger assailed the Danish army. Now Alfred began a long series of skirmishes--and within a month the

Danes had surrendered. The episode could reasonably serve as a unique epic of royal espionage! L12 The Language of Hollywood

What characterizes almost all Hollywood pictures is their inner emptiness. This is compensated for by an outer impressiveness. Such impressiveness usually takes the form of truly grandiose realism. Nothing is spared to make the setting, the costumes, all of the surface details correct. These efforts help to mask the essential emptiness of the characterization, and the absurdities and trivialities of the plots. The houses look like houses, the streets look like streets; the people look and talk like people; but they are empty of humanity, credibility, and motivation. Needless to say, the disgraceful censorship code is an important factor in predetermining the content of these pictures. But the code does not disturb the profits, nor the entertainment value of the films; it merely helps to prevent them from being credible. It isn't too heavy a burden for the industry to bear. In addition to the impressiveness of the settings, there is a use of the camera, which at times seems magical. But of what human import is all this skill, all this effort, all this energy in the production of effects, when the story, the representation of life is hollow, stupid, banal, childish ? L13 Thames Waters

Oxford has been ruined by the motor industry. The peace which Oxford once knew, and which a great university city should always have, has been swept ruthlessly away; and no benefactions and research endowments can make up for the change in character which the city has suffered. At six in the morning the old courts shake to the roar of buses taking the next shift to Cowley and Pressed Steel, great lorries with a double deck cargo of cars for export lumber past Magdalen and the University Church. Loads of motor-engines are hurried hither and thither and the streets are thronged with a population which has no interest in learning and knows no studies bey

新概念英语第四册笔记-完整版

ond servo-systems and distributors, compression ratios and camshafts.

Theoretically the marriage of an old seat of learning and tradition with a new and wealthy industry might be expected to produce some interesting children. It might have been thought that the culture of the university would radiate out and transform the lives of the workers. That this has not happened may be the fault of the university, for at both Oxford and Cambridge the colleges tend to live in an era which is certainly not of the twentieth century, and upon a planet which bears little resemblance to the war-torn Earth. Wherever the fault may lie the fact remains that it is the theatre at Oxford and not at Cambridge which is on the verge of extinction, and the only fruit of the combination of industry and the rarefied atmosphere of learning is the dust in the streets, and a pathetic sense of being lost which hangs over some of the colleges. L14 How to Grow Old

L15 The Consumer Social and the Law

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 to that basically simple concept, the bank and its customer owe a large number of obligations to one another. Many of these obligations can give rise to problems and complications but a bank customer, unlike, say, a buyer of goods, cannot complain that the law is loaded against him. The bank must obey its customer's instructions, and not those of anyone else. When, for example, a customer first opens an account, he instructs the bank to debit his account only in respect of cheques drawn by himself.He gives the bank specimens of his signature, and there is a very firm rule that the bank has no right or authority to pay out a customer's money on a cheque on which its customer's signature has been forged.It makes no difference that the forgery may have been a very skilful one: the bank must recognize its customer's signature. For this reason there is no risk to the customer in the modern practice, adoptedby some banks, of printing the customer's name on his cheques. If this facilitates forgery it is the bank which will lose, not the customer.

L16 The Search for the Earth’s Minerals

The deepest holes of all are made for oil,and they go down to as much as 25,000 feet. But we do not need to send men down to get the oil out, as we must with other mineral deposits. The holes are only borings, less than a foot in diameter. My particular experience is largely in oil, and the search for oil has done more to improve deep drilling than any other mining activity. When it has been decided where we are going to drill, we put up at the surface an oil derrick. It has to be tall because it is like a giant block and tackle, and we have to lower into the ground and haul out of th. ground great lengths of drill pipe which are rotated by an engine at the top and are fitted with a cutting bit at the bottom.

The geologist needs to know what rocks the drill has reached, so e

very so often a sample is obtained with a coring bit. It cuts a clean cylinder of rock, from which can be seen he strata the drill has been cutting through. Once we get down to the oil,it usually flows to the surface because great pressure, either from gas or water,is pushing it. This pressure must be under control,and we control it by means of the mud which we circu …… 此处隐藏：6015字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……