21世纪大学英语读写教程第三册 Unit3-21世纪大学英语读写教程

Unit 3

Text A

Pre-reading Activities

1. Before you listen to the passage, predict the words that are missing in the printed version of the passage. Then when you hear the passage, mark where you hear differences between your predictions and what's actually on the tape. Don't worry about writing down exactly what you hear — just note where you hear differences.

The sense of _____ dominates every modern culture to such an extent that most people never _____. Relying mainly on _____ seems so natural — how could a culture favor _____ instead? What would such a culture be like? It's almost impossible to imagine. But _____ is in fact not as "natural" as we normally think. Although most humans are born with _____, no one is born knowing how to _____. We must learn _____, and many of the rules we learn vary _____. _____ is an excellent example: Before artists invented formal rules for portraying three dimensions, no one thought of distant objects as looking _____. If you doubt this, try explaining _____ to a young child.

2. If you had to lose one of your senses, which one would you choose to give up? And having lost it, what do you think you'd miss the most?

3. It's common to speak of "the five senses" — but are there only five? Some researcher say that we all have and use other senses as well. What others can you think of?

The Sense of Wonder

Rachel Carson

A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that, for most of us, that clear-eyed vision — that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring — is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the angels who are supposed to preside over all children, I would ask that their gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.
If children are to keep alive their natural sense of wonder without any such gift from the angels, they need the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with the child the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often feel inadequate when confronted on the one hand with the eager, sensitive mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, "How can I possibly teach my child about nature — why, I don't even know one bird from another!"
I sincerely believe that for children, and for parents seeking to guide them, it is not half so important to know as it is to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused — a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love — then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, such knowledge has far more lasting meaning than mere information. It is more important to pave the way for children's desire to know than to put them on a diet of facts they are not ready to assimilate.