新标准大学英语综合教程3教师用书(文秋芳 外研社)4

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Unit

4Changing times

答案、译文

Unit 4 Changing times

Teaching suggestions and answer keys Starting point

1 Imagine you are your mother or father, and do the questionnaire.

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When something goes wrong with your computer, you (a) try to fix it yourself (b) ask someone to help fix it (c) speak loudly and harshly to it (d) think “What’s a computer” (b). Whenever you call a help desk, the person (c). (a) is very helpful and supportive, and solves the problem quickly (b) is rather impatient and condescending (c) thinks you’re unbelievably ignorant (d) asks for help with their own problems When you need to tune a new television, you (d). (a) read the instruction manual from cover to cover, and carefully do as you’re told(b) press AUTOMATIC TUNING, then go and make a cup of tea (c) burst into tears and hysterical laughter, and hide behind the sofa (d) ask your younger and much smarter son or your cousin to do it

4 If you had the technology to conduct virtual meetings with family, friends and co-workers, you would (b) (a) use it as often as possible, and save the environment by travelling less

(b) decide there’s nothing like a face-to-face meeting, then use it once to prove your point

(c) unplug the power supply, and pretend the technology isn’t working

(d) stay at home and never go out

2 Do the questionnaire again and choose your own answers.

Note: Technophobia is a strong dislike or fear of technology. A phobia is a strong feeling of dislike or being afraid of something or someone, eg some people have a phobia about computers.

Answers with mainly (a) mean you are very familiar and confident with technology; (b) answers are less 114

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Changing times Unit 4

confident about technology; (c) and (d) answers show a lesser or greater extent of technophobia. Some (but not all) older people are likely to give (c) or (d) answers.

3 Now talk about the differences between your parents’ generation and your own generation. How has society changed?

A main difference could be that our parents’ generation tends to be more technophobic, whereas our own generation is more at ease with technology and competent in IT skills. Society has changed a lot since our parents’ generation, because modern technology is now much more common in our daily life – the most obvious examples are mobile phones and computers.

Active reading (1)

1 Look at the first sentence of the passage and choose the best answer to the question.

It is not surprising that modern children tend to look blank and dispirited when informed that they will someday have to “go to work and make a living”.

Why is it not surprising that children are unhappy that one day they will have to “go to work”?

(a) Most of them have never done any hard work in their lives.

(b) They feel demotivated about the qualifications they will have to get.

(c) They can’t make up their minds what they want to do.

(d) They don’t understand what most of today’s jobs are.

Reason: The reason for this may be that children are not familiar with what their parents actually do at work; they just have a vague idea about work.

Comment: I suppose this is a real problem but it can be solved in several ways. First, parents can tell their children in detail what they do on a daily basis at work. Second, schools can include more examples of day-to-day work in different occupations in curriculum subjects; and third, schools can provide more work experience through work placement programmes (internships) for senior students. In these ways students will become more familiar with the career world before they leave school.

Work in corporate America

Background information

This was written in 1972 by Russell Baker (1925– ), a well-known American journalist and writer. It was collected by Sandra Fehl Tropp and Ann Pierson D’Angelo in their edited book Essays in Context (2000), published by Oxford University Press. The essay leads readers to think from a child’s perspective and to evaluate how a job is seen and understood in corporate America. It uses satire and humour to illustrate the writer’s critical views on corporate America.

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Unit 4 Changing timesPlease note that in the passage the word paper is being used as a satirical term to include anything with paperwork – records, files, documents, memos, minutes of meetings, plans, schemes, projects, business deals, accounts, designs etc. The writer persistently repeats the word paper in different ways to show that the lifeblood of corporate America is paper. After students have understood the passage, they could be asked whether they think this also applies to emails, electronic files and folders – is a corporate society nowadays an e-society?

Language points

1 Work in corporate America (Title)

Corporate America is a general term given to a large non-government-owned organization or company in the United States, eg a bank, a marketing research company etc. It has both positive and negative connotations. Positively, it means that a company or an organization produces wealth and improves people’s living standards in a free market and competitive society by people working together to achieve the goals. This mainly refers to financial gains and success. Negatively, it seems to indicate the promotion of self-interest, financial gains, greed and irresponsibility in the workplace.

2 It is not surprising that modern children tend to look blank and dispirited when ... (Para 1)

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