[考研词汇]考研阅读词汇3

Unit Five

American Economic System

The American economic system is organized around a basically private-enterprise, market-oriented economy in which consumers largely determine what shall be produced by spending their money in the marketplace for those goods and services that they want most. Private businessmen, striving to make profits, produce these goods and services in competition other businessmen; and the profit motive, operating under competitive pressures, largely determines how these goods and services are produced. Thus , in the American economic system it is the demand of individual consumers, coupled with the desire of businessmen to maximize profits and the desire of individuals to maximize their incomes, that together determine what shall be produced and how resources are used to produce it.

①An important factor in a market-oriented economy is the mechanism by which consumer demands can be expressed and responded to by producers. In the American economy, this mechanism is provided by a price system, a process in which prices rise and fall in response to relative demands of consumers and supplies offered by seller-producers. If the product is in short supply relative to demand, the price will be bid up and some consumers will be eliminated from the market. If, on the other hand, producing more of a commodity results in reducing its cost, this will tend to increase the supply offered by seller-producers, which in turn will lower the price and permit more consumers to buy the product. Thus, price is the regulating mechanism in the American economic system.

The important factor in a private-enterprise economy is that individuals are allowed to own productive resources(private property), and they are permitted to hire labor, gain control over natural resources, and produce goods and services for sale at a profit. In the American economy, the concept of private property embraces not only the ownership of productive resources but also certain right to determine the price of a product or to make a free contract with another private individual.

名人名言：

②The newspaper must provide for the reader the facts, objectively selected facts. But in these days of complex news it must provide more; it must supply interpretation, the meaning of the facts. This is the most important signment confronting journalism--- to make clear to the reader the problems of the day, to make international news as understandable as community news, to recognize that ③there is no longer any such thing as “local” news, because any event in the international arena has a local reaction.

生词与联想词

enterprise-----------ambition

orient---------------oriental---------------orientation

consume--------------consumer--------------consumption-------------------exhaust

strive------------------contend-----------------exert----------strain

profit-------------------------profitable

motive--------motion-----------intention

maximum---------------maximize/-se--------------minimum----------minimize/-se

resource

factor

mechanism-------mechanic-----mechanical-----------mechanics

respond------------response--------react

bid

eliminate--------discard---------delete------------------cancel

commodity

concept-----------conception

property

embrace

ownership

contract--------compact

objective

select-------------selection

complex----------complexity

interpret---------interpretation-----interpreter

confront

journal------journalist-----journalism—reporter

arena--------platform

Unit Six

How to See a Person’s Growth

There are two basic ways to see growth: one as a product, the other as a process.

People have generally viewed personal growth as an external result or product that can easily be identified and measured. The worker who gets a promotion, the student whose grades improve, the foreigner who learns a new language --- all these are examples of people who have measurable results to show for their efforts.

①By contrast, the process of personal growth is much more difficult to determine, since by definition it is a journey and not the specific signposts or landmarks along the way. The process is not the road itself, but rather the attitudes and feelings people have, their caution or courage, as they encounter new experiences and unexpected obstacles. In this process, the journey never really ends; there are always new ways to experience the world, new ideas to try, new challenges to accept.

In order to grow, to travel new roads, people need to have a willingness to take a risks, to confront the unknown ,and to accept the possibility that they may “fail” at first. How we see ourselves as we try a new way of being is essential to our ability to grow. Do we perceive ourselves as quick and curious? If so, then we tend to take more changes and to be more open to unfamiliar experiences. Do we think we’re shy and indecisive? Then our sense of timidity can cause us to hesitate, to move slowly, and not to take a step until we know the ground is safe. Do we think we’re slow to adapt to change or that we’re not smart enough to cope with a new challenge? Then we are likely to take a more passive role or not try at all.

These feelings of insecurity and self-doubt are both unavoidable and necessary if we are to change and grow. If we do not confront and overcome these internal fears and doubts, if we protect ourselves too much, then we cease to grow. We become trapped inside a shell of our own making.

名人名言

②Education in any society is a mirror of that society. In that mirror we can see the strengths, the weaknesses, the hopes, the prejudices, and the central values of the culture itself. The great interest in exceptional children shown in public education over the past three decades indicates the strong feeling in our society that all citizens, whatever their special conditions, deserve the opportunity to fully develop their capabilities.

Exceptional children are different in some significant way from others of the same age.③ For these children to develop to their full adult potential, their education must be adapted to those difference.

生词与联想词

process----procession-------procedure

external------exterior--------internal-------interior

identify-------identification-------identical

promote----promotion----elevate----elevation---elevator---hoist---hinder---obstruction—obstacle

contrast-----------in contrast with/to--------contrary

define--------definite--------definition-----infinite-------finite

specific

attitude-------altitude

encounter-------confront

willing--------------------unwilling

risk

essential--------------crucial---------vital-----fundamental

perceive-------------detect---------discern

tend--------------------------tendency

decisive

timid---------timidity-----coward

adapt---------adaptation---------adjust------conform

cope-------------passive-----------activate

avoid----------------avert--------escape

cease---------suspend--------------------halt----quit-------terminate-----terminal

trap-----pit

shell--------------------cannon

mirror

prejudice-----bias

exceptional

potential--------------latent