Lecture Two 快速阅读 (Skimming and Scanning )
Exercise I:
Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the passage quickly and answer the
questions.
For questions 1—7, mark
Y (for YES)
if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage
N (for NO)
if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage
NG (for NOT GIVEN)
if the information is not given in the passage
For questions 8---10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.
Landfills
You have just finished your meal at a fast food restaurant and you throw your uneaten food,
food wrappers, drink cups, utensils and napkins into the trash can. You don’t think about that
waste again. On trash pickup day in your neighborhood, you push your can out to the curb, and
workers dump the contents into a big truck and haul it away. You don’t have to think about that
waste again, either. But maybe you have wondered, as you watch the trash truck pull away, just
where that garbage ends up.
Americans generate trash at an Astonishing rate of four pounds per day per person; which
translates to 600,000 tons per day or 210 million tons per year! This is almost twice as much trash
per person as most other major countries. What happens to this trash? Some gets recycled (回收利
用) or recovered and some is burned, but the majority is buried in landfills.
How Much Trash Is Generated?
Of the 210 million tons of trash, or solid waste, generated in the United States annually, about
56 million tons, or 27 percent, is either recycled (glass, paper products, plastic, metals) or
composted (做成堆肥) (yard waste). The remaining trash, which is mostly unrecyclable, is
discarded.
How Is Trash Disposed of?
The trash production in the United States has almost tripled since 1960. This trash is handled
in various ways. About 27 percent of the trash is recycled or composted, 16 percent is burned and
57 percent is buried in landfills. The amount of trash buried in landfills has doubled since 1960.
The United States ranks somewhere in the middle of the major countries (United Kingdom,
Canada, Germany, France and Japan) in landfill disposal. The United Kingdom ranks highest,
burying about 90 percent of its solid waste in landfills.
What Is a Landfill?
There are two ways to bury trash:
 Dump—an open hole in the ground where trash is buried and that is full of various animals
(rats, mice, birds). (This is most people’s idea of a landfill!)
 Landfill—carefully designed structure built into or on top of the ground in which trash is
isolated from the surrounding environment (groundwater, air, rain). This isolation is accomplished
with a bottom liner and daily covering of soil.
 Sanitary landfill—land fill that uses a clay liner to isolate the trash from the environment
 Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill—landfill that uses a synthetic (plastic) liner to
isolate the trash from the environment
The purpose of a landfill is to bury the trash in such a way that it will be isolated from
groundwater, will be kept dry and will not be in contact with air. Under these conditions, trash will
not decompose (腐烂) much. A landfill is not like a compost pile, where the purpose is to bury
trash in such a way that it will decompose quickly.
Proposing the Landfill
For a landfill to be built, the operators have to make sure that they follow certain steps. In
most parts of the world, there are regulations that govern where a landfill can be placed and how it
can operate. The whole process begins with someone proposing the landfill.
In the United States, taking care of trash and building landfills are local government
responsibilities. Before a city or other authority can build a landfill, an environment impact study
must be done on the proposed site to determine:
 the area of land necessary for the landfill
 the composition of the underlying soil and bedrock
 the flow of surface water over the site
 the impact of the proposed landfill on the local environment and wildlife
 the historical value of the proposed site
Building the Landfill
Once the environmental impact study is complete, the permits are granted and the funds have
been raised, then construction begins. First, access roads to the landfill site must be built if they do
not already exist. There roads will be used by construction equipment, sanitation (环卫) services
and the general public. After roads have been built, digging can begin. In the North Wake Country
Landfill, the landfill began 10 feet below the road surface.
What Happens to Trash in a Landfill?
Trash put in a landfill will stay there for a very long time. Inside a landfill, there is little
oxygen and little moisture. Under these conditions, trash does not break down very rapidly. In fact,
when old landfills have been dug up or sampled, 40-year-old newspapers have been found with
easily readable print. Landfills are not designed to break down trash, merely to bury it. When a
landfill closes, the site, especially the groundwater, must be monitored and maintained for up to 30
years!
How Is a Landfill Operated?
A landfill, such as the North Wake County Landfill, must be open and available every day.
Customers are typically municipalities and construction companies, although residents may also
use the landfill.
Near the entrance of the landfill is a recycling center where residents can drop off recyclable
materials (aluminum cans, glass bottles, newspapers and paper products). This helps to reduce the
amount of material in the landfill. Some of these materials are banned from landfills by law
because they can be recycled.
As customers enter the site, their trucks are weighed at the scale house. Customers are
charged tipping fees for using the site. The tipping fees vary from $10 to $40 per ton. These fees
are used to pay for operation costs. The North Wake County Landfill has an operating budget of
approximately $4.5 million, and part of that comes from tipping fees.
Along the site, there are drop-off stations for materials that are not wanted or legally banned
by the landfill. A multi-material drop-off station is used for tires, motor oil, lead-acid batteries.
Some of these materials can be recycled.
In addition, there is a household hazardous waste drop-off station for chemicals (paints,
pesticides, other chemicals) that are banned from the landfill. These chemicals are disposed of by
private companies. Some paints can be recycled and some organic chemicals can be burned in
furnaces or power plants.
Other structures alongside the landfill are the borrowed area that supplies the soil for the
landfill, the runoff collection pond and methane (甲烷) station.
Landfills are complicated structures that, when properly designed and managed, serve an
important purpose. In the future, new technologies called bioreactors will be used to speed the
breakdown of trash in landfills and produce more methane.
1. The passage gives a general description of the structure and use of a landfill.
2. Most of the trash that Americans generate ends up in landfills.
3. Compared with other major Industrialized countries, America buries a much higher percentage
of its solid waste in landfills.
4. Landfills are like compost piles in that they speed up decomposition of the buried trash.
5. In most countries the selection of a landfill site is governed by rules and regulations.
6. In the United States the building of landfills is the job of both federal and local governments.
7. Hazardous wastes have to be treated before being dumped into landfills.
8.Typical customers of a landfill are
.
9.To dispose of a ton of trash in a landfill, customers have to pay tipping fee of
.
10. Materials that are not permitted to be buried in landfills should be dumped at
.
文章篇章分析
篇章知识：
（Text organization）
文章结构特点:
英语文章有其固定的结构：引言、正文、和结尾三大部分。通常引言的作用是点明主题，
陈述文章中心思想。正文部分则阐述引言的中心思想或者对所提出的问题进行讨论，用列举，
分类，对比与比较等各种方法来说明和证实。段与段之间有必然的联系和一定的逻辑性。结
尾部分将论证的观点归纳起来，得出结论。
Text Organization
Introduction
Body
Conclusion
Paragraph 1:
Paragraph 2:
Paragraph 3:
由于四级阅读测试的文章体裁主要是议论文和说明文，我们重点看看该类别的文章结构
特点。
说明文的结构特点
 说明文就是解释说明事理。说明文的目的侧重于“告知”，即告诉人们某事并对其加以
解释，以便读者了解。
 说明文重在客观，事实，细节的描述，轻抽象评论。其语言多采用客观性词语，较少主
观判断性的词汇。
 典型的说明文具备英语文章的典型结构：说明的主题，说明的事实和实例，得出的结论。
 说明文的形式有很多种。有的是在文章开始提出主题，接着举大量的具体实例去说明这
个问题；有的是通过大量的对比来向读者说明文章所说明的问题（归纳法）；有的是首
先提出一个需要加以说明的主题，然后对其进行详细的描述（演绎法）
。相比较而言， 归
纳法在说明文中使用的更多些。例如：
Psychologist George Spilich and colleagues at Washington College in Chestertown,
Maryland, (中心思想) decided to find out whether, as many smokers say, smoking helps them to
“think and concentrate”. Spilich put young non-smokers, active smokers and smokers deprive (被
剥夺) of cigarettes through a series of tests.
In the first test, each subject sat before a computer screen and pressed a key as soon as he or
she recognized a target letter among a grouping of 96. In this simple test, active smokers,
deprived smokers and non-smokers performed equally well.
The next test was more complex, requiring all to scan sequences of 20 identical letters and
respond the instant one of the letters transformed into a different one. Non-smokers were faster,
but under the stimulation of nicotine (尼古丁), active smokers were faster than deprived
smokers.
In the third test of short-term memory, non-smokers made the fewest errors, but deprived
smokers committed fewer errors than active smokers.
“As our tests became more complex,” Sum up Spilich, “non-smokers performed better than
smokers by wider and wider margins” He predicts, (结论句) “smokers might perform adequately
at many jobs until they got complicated. A smoking airline pilot could fly adequately if no
problems arose, but if something went wrong, smoking might damage his mental capacity.”
这是一片典型的说明文。有说明的主题——decided to find out whether smoking helps
them to “think and concentrate”。随后作者以三次试验验证，说明主题；最后得出结论——
smoking might damage mental capacity.
了解并掌握上述的篇章结构的特点和表达方法，对在解题过程中把握主线，理清作者
的思路有一定的作用。从而克服忙乱和盲目的心理，增强做题的理性和逻辑性。
Exercise I:
A breakthrough in the provision of energy from the sun for the European Economic
Community (EEC) could be brought forward by up to two decades, if a modest increase could be
provided in the EEC’s research effort in this field, according to the senior EEC scientists engaged
in experiments in solar energy at EEC’s scientific laboratories at Ispra, near Milan.
The senior West German scientist in charge of the Community’s solar energy program, Mr.
Gretz, told journalists that at present levels of research spending it was most unlikely that solar
energy would provide as much as three percent of the Community’s energy requirements even
after the year 2000. But he said that with a modest increase in the present sums, devoted by the
EEC to this work it was possible that the breakthrough could be achieved by the end of the next
decade.
Mr. Gretz calculates that if solar energy only provided three per cent of the EEC’s needs, this
could still produce a saving of about a billion pounds in the present bill for imported energy each
year. And he believes that with the possibility of utilizing more advanced technology in this field it
might be possible to satisfy a much bigger share of the Community’s future energy needs.
At present the EEC spends about $2.6 million a year on solar research at Ispra, one of the
EEC’s official joint research centers, and another $3 million a year in indirect research with
universities and other independent bodies.
1. The phrase “be brought forward” most probably means ________.
A) be expected B) be completed C) be advanced D) be introduced
2. Some scientists believe that a breakthrough in the use of solar energy depends on ________.
A) Sufficient funding
B) future experiments
C) advanced technology
D) well-equipped laboratories
3. According to Mr. Gretz, the present sum of money will enable the scientists to provide
________.
A) more than 3% of the EEC’s needs after the year 2000
B) only 3% of the EEC’s needs before the year 2000
C) less than 3% of the EEC’s needs after the tear 2000
D) 3% of the EEC’s needs after the year 2000
4. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
A) The EEC spends one million pounds on imported energy each year.
B) At the present level of research spending, it is difficult to make any significant progress in
the provision of energy from the sun.
C) The desired breakthrough could be obtained by the end of the next decade if investment
were increased.
D) The total yearly spending of the EEC on solar energy research amounted to almost 6
million.
5. The application of advanced technology to research in solar energy ______.
A) would lead to a big increase in research funding
B) would make it unnecessary to import oil
C) would make it possible to meet the future energy needs of the EEC
D) would provide a much greater proportion of the Community’s future energy needs
议论文的结构特点和论证方法
1． 议论文的结构：议论文包括论点，论据，结论三个要素。议论文重在“说服”--- 即作
者要力图说服读者赞同并支持某观点或驳斥某一观点。
2． 议论文的特点是对客观事物进行分析和评论，重点放在论点和论证方面，主题往往比较
明确。通常在文章开头点明主题，直接表明作者的观点和态度，其后的段落围绕主题展
开，并有读者思维的倾向。
3． 一篇短文如果有若干个论点，考生一定要农清楚哪个是主论点，哪个是次论点，以及主
次论点之间的关系。
4． 议论文常用的论证方法有两种：
5． 归纳法 (inductive) --- inductive: using known facts to produce general principles. Usually be
defined as “reasoning from the specific to the general”. (由个别到一般；先设前提，通过例
证归纳出结论。)
6． 演绎法 (deductive) --- beginning with a generalization which is then supported. “reasoning
from the general to the specific”. (由一般到个别；先提出一般性的论断，再逐步提出支持
该论点的论据，最后得出结论。)
Exercise II:
Like fine food, good writing is something we approach with pleasure and enjoy from the first
taste to the last. And good writers, like good cooks, do not suddenly appear full-blown. Quite the
contrary, just as the cook has to undergo an intensive training, mastering the skills of his trade, the
writer must sit at his desk and devote long hours to achieving a style in his writing, whatever its
purpose --- schoolwork, matters of business, or purely social communication. You may be sure
that the more painstaking the effort, the more effective the writing, and the more rewarding.
There are still some remote places in the world where you might find a public scribe to do
your business or social writing for you, for a fee. There are a few managers who are lucky enough
to have the service of that rare kind of secretary who can take care of all sorts of letter writing with
no more than a quick note to work from. But for most of us, if there is any writing to be done, we
have to do it ourselves.
We have to write school papers, business papers or home papers. We are constantly called on
to put words to paper. It would be difficult to count the number of such words, messages, letters,
and reports out into the mails or delivered by hand, but the daily figure must be enormous. What is
more, everyone who writes expects, or at least hopes, that this writing will be read, we want to
arouse and hold the interest of the readers. We want whatever we write to be read, from first word
to last, not just thrown into some “letter-to-be-read” file or into a wastepaper basket. This is the
reason we bend our efforts toward learning and practicing the skills of interesting, effective
writing.
1. What’s the purpose of the author in writing this passage?
2. How does the author prove his point?
3. In this passage, good writing is compared to fine food because
4. According to the passage, some managers don’t do any letter writing because
5. According to the author, we can improve our writing skills only by
Assignments:
1.Fast-Reading One on the textbook
2. Reading in Depth: (read your textbook before finishing this exercise)
Psychologists take opposing views of how external rewards, from warm praise to cold crash,
affect matotivion and creativity. Behaviorists, who study the relation between actions and their
consequences, argue that rewards can improve performance at work and school. Cognitive
researchers, who study various aspects of mental life, maintain that rewards often destroy
creativity by encouraging dependence on approval and gifts from others.
The latter view has gained many supporters, especially among educators. But the careful use
of small monetary rewards speaks creativity in grade-school children, suggesting that properly
presented inducements indeed aid inventiveness, according to a study in June Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology.
“If kids know they’re working for a reward and can focus on a relatively challenging task,
they show the most creativity,” says Robert Eisenberger of the University of Delaware in Newark.
“But it’s easy to kill creativity by giving rewards for poor performance or creating too much
anticipation for rewards.”
A teacher who continually draws attention to rewards or who hands out high grades for
ordinary achievement ends up with uninspired students, Eisenberger holds. As an example of the
latter point, he notes growing efforts at major universities to tighten grading standards and restore
failing grades.
In earlier grades, the use of so-called token economies, in which students handle challenging
problems and receive performance-based points toward valued rewards, shows promise in raising
efforts and creativity, the Delaware psychologist claims.
1. What is the thesis statement of this passage?
2. In which way has the main idea been developed?
3. What is the response of many educators to external rewards for their students?
4. Major universities are trying to tighten their grading standards because they believe
5. The phrase “token economies” (Para.5, Line 1) probably refers to