大学英语综合教程4Cloze整理(Unit 1-Unit 6)(2)

Unit 4 NO.1

Davos is a small Alpine city in eastern Switzerland which began making itself known in the 1990s for hosting the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of politicians, financiers and academics. Each year, those taking part spend five days there networking and discussing a variety of issues such as the global supply of oil, world economic growth and environmental problems.

Davos Men share the belief that globalization is both welcome and unstoppable. They would like to see national boundaries vanish so as to facilitate their global operations. Some people say that this international perspective is a minority elitist position not shared by the majority of people. Others, however, argue that endorsing a global outlook does not mean sweeping aside one’s patriotic feelings or erasing one’s national identity. The question, perhaps, is whether it is possible to strike a balance between being global and being local. NO.2

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects in economic development, on political systems, and on human physical well-being societies around the world.

Globalization is not new, though. For thousands of years, people—and ,later, corporations—have been buying from and selling to each other in lands at great distances, such as through famed Silk Road across Central Asia that connected China and Europe during the Middle Ages. Likewise, for centuries, people and corporations have invested in enterprises in other countries. In fact, many of the features of the current wave of globalization are similar to those prevailing before the out break of the First World War in 1914.

But policy and technological development of the past few decades have spurred increases in cross-border trade, investment, and migration so large that many observers believe the world has entered a qualitatively new phase. Since 1950, for example, the volume of world trade has increased by 20 times, and from just 1997 to 1999 flows of foreign investment nearly doubled, from 468 billion to 827 billion. Distinguishing this current wave of globalization from earlier ones, author Thomas has said that today globalization is”farther, faster, cheaper, and deeper” Unit 5 NO.1

You see that young man swimming out at sea? He’s trying to swim out to the beacon and back. He must be insane to have committed himself to such a thing. The current is far too strong. To be candid, I wouldn’t attempt it. I dare say few swimmers are capable of such a feat. I met him on the beach before he set out. I don’t mind telling you that I was taken aback when he told me what he was going to do, because he didn’t look in good condition at all. Far from it. He may have had a good constitution once, but he had clearly let himself go all to pieces. However, it seems like he had no choice. He told me that he had gone broke, not a penny left, and that old Burton would only find him a vacancy in his firm if he did the swim. That was another surprise. Burton seems such a mild-mannered man, kind to everybody. Perhaps he thought the young man would not have the courage, that he would funk it. Then, again, perhaps Burton knew he was sending the young man to his death, but was too cold-blooded to care. It only goes to show how deceptive appearances can be. NO.2

Years of begging on the streets of Shahr-e Kord in western Iran meant that Habibian was never anything more than a local beggar to his neighbours. So when he was found dead in his home, no one suspected that the man who spent his life pleading for money and favours had left behind a big fortune. But now a judge has confirmed that Habibian was a real-life slumdog（穷小子）millionaire after police discovered a lot of valuables when they went to recover his body. Searching through the dead man’s possessions, officers were stunned to find more than 7,000 in cash and owenship documents to lucrative properties and businesses. They also discovered an array of precious jewellery, including earrings

dating back to the mid-19th century.

Habibian is not Iran’s first wealthy beggar. In 2003, a 40-year-old woman filed for divorce after discovering that her husband, a wealthy carpet trader, regularly begged in a neighbourhood in the south of the city. The husband explained that he was driven by a(n) urge stemming from his poor upbringing in which he fell under the spell of organized beggars. And three years ago, a beggar arrested by police in Tehran was found to have 10,000 in the bank and own a luxury flat. Unit 6 NO.1

Can you switch off from the cars of life and relax? Many people today cannot. They feel instead that they are obliged to be on the go all the time. The pace of life seems to grow ever faster. As a result, feelings of stress are common as people struggle to cope with what they see as a shortage of time. Such widespread feelings are in part caused by the large quantity of information that comes pouring in on us. ”All men,” said Aristotle, ”by nature desire to know.” But it is no longer possible, as it was in the past, for an individual to master the whole range of human knowledge. Instead, any individual, no matter how smart he is, can only command a fraction of the total knowledge available. It may be argued that it is futile to even attempt to do so. We should learn to set more realistic goals for ourselves if we are to hope to escape from the tyranny（专制）of time. NO.2

There are only 24 hours in your day, just the same as everybody else’s. So how do you end up time-starved, frustrated, and behind in your work? Maybe it is because you don’t know how to use those 24 hours to your advantage. If using your time wisely is a problem for you, you probably don’t have a very good idea of where it all goes. It just seems to go! A good place to start, then, is to faithfully keep track of how you use your waking hours for a week. The results will probably surprise you.

The next step is to do some planning. You’ll discover, among other thing, that if

you get seven hours’ sleep a night, you have 119 hours per week to do everything you need to do. That, of course, includes going to class, eating, social activities, personal hygiene, telephone and TV time, etc. Be sure to schedule time for all these in your 119 hours. They try sticking to your schedule for a week. This should give you a good idea of what your real priorities are! Learn to say NO once your priorities are set. Turning down an invitation doesn’t mean you’ll never be invited again. Making a decision based on what you know is best for you at the time actually leads to greater respect from your friends.

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