Unit 11 Open the Door to Forgiveness

 

Text comprehension

I. B.   II. 1. T;  2. T;  3. F;  4. T.

 

 

 

Structural analysis of the text

 

In the first five paragraphs the author gives his comment on one of our common experiences: being hurt and hating the person who hurts us. Then he moves on to give advice on the right approach to the matter: forgiving the person and heaing our wound.

 

After offering some suggestions about how to achieve forgiveness, the author presents the opposite view—“forgiveness is a sign of weakness” (Paragraph 19), which prepares the ground for his counter-argument in the subsequent paragraphs. The author winds up the essay with his conviction that forgiveness is a godlike act of creation.

 

Section Four Consolidation Activities

Part One. Vocabulary

I.

1. face up to: confront bravely

 

2. let go of: stop holding something  放开，松手

 

3. be let off the hook: be allowed to get away without being punished 摆脱困境，逃避惩罚

 

4. eye for an eye: every injury should be paid back; retaliation 以牙还牙

 

5. vicious circle: a situation in which the effect of one problem creates another, and causes the first problem to return  恶性循环

 

II.

1. guidelines;  2. promoted;  3. reconciled;  4. vicious circle;  5. worth;  6. keep;  7. compelled;  8. forge.

 

III. Word derivation

Fill in the blanks with the appropriate forms of the given words.

1. Freud’s approach to the analysis of dreams is highly compelling (compel).

2. We have yet to hear any acknowledgement (acknowledge) from them that a problem actually exists.

3. The survey showed that women were paid at lower rates than men and had less chance of promotion (promote).

4. There was no hope of a reconciliation (reconcile) between the families.

5. After weeks of discussion the two sides have reached a mutually (mutual) acceptable settlement.

6. Sometimes it was difficult to talk to her — it was like talking to a / an invisible (visible) wall.

7. The police were obviously anticipating a confrontation (confront) as they were heavily armed.

8. The denial (deny) by the factory management about its emission of polluted water into the river was proved a lie in the court.

 

1. compel v. 强迫，迫使，使不得已

  compelled a. 强迫的

  compelling a. 有说服力的

e.g. 大雪迫使我们呆在户内。

The heavy snow compelled us to stay indoors.

他强迫他的女儿读她不喜欢的科目。

He compelled his daughter to study the subject she does not like.

 

2. acknowledge v. 承认，公认，告知收到，表示感谢，注意到

  acknowledgement n. 承认，确认，感谢

e.g.他不愿认输。

He is unwilling to acknowledge defeat.

对我的申请，我还没有收到回信。

I didn’t receive an acknowledgement of my application.

 

3. promote v. 促进；提升，升迁； 促销

  promotion n. 晋升；促进；提升

  promotional a. 推销的；晋升的

e.g. 锻炼可增进健康。

Exercise promotes health.

在这家公司里提升的机会很多。

There are good chances of promotion in this firm.

 

4. reconcile v. 和解，调和，妥协

  reconciliation n. 和解，调和

e.g. 我们试图让她和她的父母和好。

We tried to reconcile her with her parents.

 

5. mutual a. 共同的，相互的

  mutually ad. 相互，共同

e.g. 爱是相互的。

Love is mutual.

 

6. visible a. 可见的，看得见的

  invisible a. 看不见的，无形的

e.g. 从我旅馆房间的窗户可以望到大山。

The mountain is visible from the window of my hotel room.

 

7. confront (v.) 面临，对抗，遭遇

  confrontation (n.) 对审，面对面，面对

e.g.士兵常常要身临险境。

A soldier often has to confront danger.

 

8. deny v. 否认，拒绝给与

  denial n. 否认，拒绝

e.g. 他的回答几乎等于拒绝。

His reply approaches to a denial.

 

IV.

1. B;  2. D;  3. D;  4. A;  5. D;  6. C;  7. C;  8. A.

 

V. Synonym / Antonym

Give a synonym or an antonym of the word underlined in each sentence in the sense it is used.

1. We all muddle our way through a world where even well-meaning people hurt one another.

Synonym: well-intentioned

 

2. In fact, forgetting too soon may be a dangerous way to escape forgiving’s inner surgery.

Antonym: outer, external

 

3. Our sense of fairness tells us that people should pay for the wrong they do.

Antonym: unfairness, partiality, injustice

 

4. For most of us, however, it is not easy to forgive.

Synonym: pardon, excuse

 

5. A man whose friend has betrayed him hopes the friend will be fired from his job.

Synonym: discharged, dismissed, sacked

 

6. But the fury denied rages beneath the surface and infects all our relationships.

Synonym: below, under

 

7. We must finally be reconciled with our foe, lest we both perish in the vicious circle of hatred.

Synonym: enemy, opponent

 

8. A woman wishes her former husband would be miserable with his new wife.

Antonym: current, present

 

VI. Word abbreviation  

Provide in each space the full form for each shortened form.

1. WTO                 World Trade Organization / World Tourism Organization         

2. WHO                World Health Organization                                

3. UNESCO          United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization 

4. EU                    European Union                                         

5. FBI                   Federal Bureau of Investigation                             

6. ASEAN             Association of Southeast Asian Nations                        

7. DIY                  do it yourself                                            

8. UFO                 unidentified flying object                                   

 

Part Two: Grammar Exercises

 

1.  Use of pronouns

   Pronouns are varied closed-class words with nominal function. English has a developed pronoun system, comprising personal pronouns such as I, you, he, she, it, we, they, me, him, her, them, possessive pronouns such as my, mine, your, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs, reflexive pronouns such as myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, themselves, reciprocal pronouns such as one another, each other, demonstrative pronouns such as this, that, these, those, interrogative pronouns such as who, whom, whose, what, which, relative pronouns such as who, whom, whose, that, which and indefinitive pronouns such as somebody, anybody, everybody, nobody, someone, anyone, everyone, no one, something, anything, everything, nothing, all, another, any, both, each, few, neither, none, some, etc.

  e.g. There’s somebody at the door.

      Did anybody ever hear of such a thing?

 

I.  Fill in the blanks with pronouns.

1. I have told the police ___all____ I know about the burglary. I can’t tell you ____anything___ more.

2. all;

3. The Titanic may be at the bottom of the sea, but ________ is never forgotten.

4. ones;  5. I, I;  6. anything;  7. Anybody;  8. none;

9. Have you seen my watch? I’ve looked all over the house but I can’t find __it___ anywhere.

10. something, anyone/ anybody.

 

2.  Use of determiners

Words that precede any premodifying adjectives in a noun phrase and which denote such referential meanings as specific reference, generic reference, definite quantity or indefinite quantity are referred

to as determiners.

1) Determiners with all three classes of nouns

Determiners such as possessive determiners, genitive nouns and the definite article as well as some, any, no, the other, and whose can go with all the three classes of nouns.

e.g.  the car       the cars       the money       

his car       his cars       his money

some book   some books     some money

2) Determiners with singular count nouns only

Determiners such as a(n), one,

another, each, every, either, neither, many a, such a can only   

collocate with singular count nouns.

e.g. each worker     every student   either book      neither boy

3) Determiners with plural count nouns only

Determiners such as both, two, three, etc., another two / three, many, (a) few, several, these, those, a (great) number of can only collocate with plural count nouns.

e.g. both workers     (a) few words     several girls   these / those tourists

4) Determiners with noncount nouns only

  Determiners such as a (little) bit of, a great amount of, a great deal of, (a) little, much, less, least can only collocate with noncount nouns.

e.g. much noise     (a) little courage     a bit of fun    a large amount of money  less oil      

5) Determiners with singular and plural count nouns only

Determiners such as the first, the second, the last, the next can go with either singular or plural count nouns.

e.g. the first rose / roses         the last man / men          the next meeting / meetings

6) Determiners with singular and noncount nouns only

Determiners such as this, that can collocate with either singular or noncount nouns.

e.g. this / that job       this / that work

7) Determiners with plural and noncount nouns only

Determiners such as a lot of, lots of, plenty of, enough, most, such, other can go with plural and noncount nouns, but not with singular nouns.

e.g. enough copies    enough bread   more essays    more time   most people   

This class of determiners may also include less and least,

normally occur with noncount nouns, but in present-day English, especially in informal style, may occasionally occur with plural nouns.

e.g.  Less and less people can afford to go abroad for their holidays.

Political programs on TV attract the least viewers.

(This use of less and least is regarded by some as non-standard.)

 

II. Correct the errors, where found, in the following sentences.

1. He’s invited to a lot of parties and he goes to everyone. –every one

2. I would like to visit each country in the world. –every

3. When I was on holiday, my whole luggage was stolen. –all my luggage

4. I like living on myself. – on my own独立地 / by myself 独立

5. the –a

6. OK

7. a little –little

8. most my spar time –most of my

  

3.  Use of genitive case of nouns

Case is a grammatical term. It denotes the changes in the form of a noun or a pronoun showing its relationship both grammatically and semantically with other words in a sentence.

The genitive case of nouns is formed by adding ’s to nouns.

  e.g.  my mother’s arrival, women’s clothes, my mother-in-law’s death, an hour’s work

Certain semantic relations between noun phrases may be expressed by a genitive in premodification or by a prepositional phrase (usually an of- phrase) in postmodification.

  e.g. the trunk of an elephant, the foreign policy of China, the arrival of the prime minister

 

III.

1. depict; possess

2. non-unique; definite

3. disapproval; fact

4. informal; formal

5. glass; wine

6. bag / for shopping; shopping / in a bag

7. vegetables; garden

8. owners; existing in / England and America

 

II. Rephrase the following sentences, using the correct possessive forms.

1. I am taking a holiday for a week.

   I am taking a week’s holiday.

2. John and Peter’s

 

3. two minutes’ walk

 

4. Charles’ bicycle

 

5. Three men helped to organize the school sports day. They were the fathers of Robert, Peter and Henry.

     Three men helped to organize the school sports day. They were Robert’s, Peter’s and Henry’s fathers.

 

6. of my cat’s kittens

 

7. I had a cup of coffee in the buffet on the station.

    I had a cup of coffee in the station buffet.

 

8. our heart’s content

 

V.

1. b;  2. a;  3. b;  4. a;  5. a;  6. c;  7. c;  8. b.

 

VI.

1. Suppose：

2. lest：

 

Part Three Translation exercises

I.

1. Admitting our hate compels us to make a decision about the surgery医治灵魂 of the soul we call forgiving. （par. 7）

承认仇恨将迫使我们做出决定，是否要对我们的灵魂进行可以称之为“宽恕”的手术。

 

2. When he said how sorry he was that his support could not convince the dean, she pretended to believe him. But she could not keep up the duplicity.

当他说他的支持没能打动院长，因此感到非常抱歉时，她假装相信了他，可她无法保持这种两面性。

 

3. Forgiving is finding a new 新面孔vision of the person who has wronged错待了我们 us, the person stripped解脱掉他的罪过 of his sins — who really lives beneath the cloak of 他的恶行的阴影之中his wrongdoing

宽恕意味着用一种新的眼光去审视伤害我们的人，排除他的过错（姑且将他的罪过搁置一边），看看那不道德的外衣下究竟是一个什么样的人。

 

4. If we all live by the “eye for an eye” brand of justice, the whole world will be blind. (Paragraph 20)

 Translation: 如果我们都遵循“以牙还牙、以眼还眼”的司法模式（公平方式），那么整个世界都将陷入盲目行动之中。

 

 

II.

1. 我的论文超过了一万字，最后不得不删掉了几段，以满足该学术期刊的要求。（cut out）

Translation:

As my article was over 10,000 words, I finally had to cut out several paragraphs to satisfy the requirements of the academic journal.

Practice:

我们把不重要的细节删掉。

Let us cut out the unimportant details.

我把那些我认为没有价值的东西删除了。

I have cut out some of the material which I found to be of little value.

 

2. 事实是无法逃避的，必须直面真相，为自己的错误付出代价。（face up to）

Translation:

    There is no running away from the facts, so we must face up to the truth and pay for our mistakes.

Practice:

一个结婚的人必须承担他的责任。

A married man has to face up to his responsibilities.

人才外流是一个全球性的问题，不能面对这一新现实的国家，就将失去一些最为宝贵的资源。

The brain drain is a universal phenomenon, and countries that don’t face up to the new reality will be losing some of their most precious resources.

 

3. 那一年，他虽然遭受了一场车祸，但还是通过了所有学校要求的考试，升入了下一个年级。（promote）

That year, despite the car accident, he was promoted to the next grade after he passed all the exams required by the school.

 

4. 那个国家的知识分子对政府新的福利政策持强烈的批评态度，他们认为这将降低劳动人民的生活水平。（be critical of）

The intellectuals of that country were very critical of the government’s new social welfare policy because, according to them, it would bring down the living standards of the working people.

 

5. 要消除他们之间的怨恨固然很困难，但至少值得尝试一番。（resentment, be worth doing）

It is, to be sure, difficult to remove the resentment between them, but it is at least worth trying.

 

6. 政府正在采取一切措施把物价压下去，以防止通货膨胀失控。（bring down, lest）

Translation:

    The government is taking all possible measures to bring down the prices lest inflation should get out of control.

Practice:

在新政的压力下，杂货商们同意降低几种基本商品的成本。

Under the pressure of the new policy, grocers have agreed to bring down the cost of several basic commodities.

如果不加反击，恐怖行为不仅可以摧毁大楼，还会威胁合法政府的稳定存在，这是我们所不能容忍的。

Terror, unanswered, can not only bring down buildings; it can threaten the stability of legitimate governments. And we will not allow it.

 

7. 那个谋杀犯否认了一切指控，我们不得不提出更多的证据让评审团相信他是有罪的。（deny, convince）

As the murder denied all the charges, we had to convince the jury with more evidence that he was guilty.

 

8．和妻子分居多年之后，他终于宽恕了她的不忠，和她言归于好了。（infidelity, be reconciled with）

Translation:

    Finally he managed to forgive his wife’s infidelity and was reconciled with her after years of separation.

Finally he managed to forgive his wife for her infidelity and was reconciled with her after years of separation.

Practice:

许多年以后，她和婆婆和解了。

After many years, she was reconciled with her husband’s mother.

吃鱼与素食主义有矛盾吗?

Can eating fish be reconciled with vegetarianism?

 

 

 

VI Writing Practice

Paragraph development — Repetition and substitution

Discussion: A paragraph has to be unified in some way to make sense. To achieve such unity, we usually have to stick to one line of development and a limited number of relevant subjects and objects. That means we need to refer back to previously mentioned things constantly.

Very often we can also move from specific objects to their generic name, as is done in the following two sentences:

Large cars and lorries are not advised to use this route. These vehicles should take the other road.

Synonymic substitution is almost as common. For example:

People in love often speak in foolish ways, and their friends are bound to find those lovebirds funny, even ridiculous, now and then.

In writing we substitute one word or phrase for another all the time in order to avoid repetition.

 

Exercise: Write two paragraphs based on the first sentences given below. While writing, use the repetition strategy where it is necessary and the substitution technique where it is fit, so that your writing might be coherent and clear, but not boring because of unnecessary repetition.

1. College students have all kinds of worries and anxieties.

Ideas for reference:

College isn’t a problem-free land, and college students also suffer from all kinds of worries and anxieties.

Freshmen need to think carefully about how to handle well their free time.

Sophomores and juniors may be troubled by whether to take part-time jobs or not.

Seniors may worry about what they can do and where they should go after graduation.

Sample:

College isn’t a problem-free land, and college students also suffer from all kinds of worries and anxieties. For the freshmen, they need to think carefully about how to handle well their free time. College is so different from high school. In college, students don’t need to have lessons all day long; they don’t need to do so many excises; they don’t need to have extra lessons in the weekends. In a word, they have a lot of free time to do whatever they want. In this case, some freshmen may abuse the freedom and waste their time playing online games day and night or skipping classes constantly. Some smarter ones may be keenly aware of their problems but they just cannot make a change by themselves. For the sophomores and juniors, some may be troubled by whether to take part-time job or not. By doing part-time jobs, they can, on the one hand, get some money and relieve their parents’ burden; on the other hand, they can accumulate some working experience and know better about the society as well as sharpen their mind. However, these may gain at the expense of their valuable time. Others may be troubled by whether to further their study or not. Graduate schools have high requirements on academy. If a student wants to have a chance to study in a graduate school, he or she may sacrifice most of his or her free time to prepare for it. Therefore, they have a lot of pressure. For the seniors, they may worry about what they can do and where they should go after graduation. The competition in the job market is becoming more and more severe, and that is a great challenge for the graduates. Although they have spent four years on college and have taken all kinds of lessons, college students are still not confident about themselves. Job hunting is a big issue lingering in their mind. All in all, college life isn’t trouble-free, and college students also have a lot to worry about.

 

2. Every Chinese college student should become a guardian of the environment (an environment protector).

Ideas for reference:

Chinese economy has been growing fast.

Environment has exerted great pressure: water is polluted, the ecological system is disturbed, and natural resources have been excessively used.

Urgent problems need serious and immediate attention.

College students should set a good example for the whole Chinese society by taking pro-environmental actions.

Sample:

Every Chinese college student should become a guardian of the environment (an environment protector). Since reform and opening to the outside world, Chinese economy has been growing fast. As a result, Chinese people’s living standard is improving and tourism is flourishing. But at the same time, the environment has exerted great pressure: water is polluted, the ecological system is disturbed, and natural resources have been excessively used. All these urgent problems need serious and immediate attention. College students, as a community better educated than the average, should set a good example for the whole Chinese society by taking pro-environmental action, engaging in environment-friendly practices and improving their own environment-related behavior. The global awareness of the current environmental deterioration is another important reason for Chinese college students to become protectors of the environment. For the past decade, China has been preoccupied with economic growth in order to catch up with the most developed countries in the world. However, our environmental awareness has been lagging behind. Since environmental issues have dominated the agendas of most advanced countries, we should seriously study environmentalist values and concepts, lest China lose the common ground shared with the rest of the world. Young people receiving higher education today will be the most active participants in China’s international exchanges and interaction tomorrow. Therefore, they should act like Greenpeace keepers and try their best to let more and more people realize the importance of sustainable development. As long as all Chinese college students take actions, the country’s environmental quality will be improved and China’s international image will become better and better.