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1、- 1 -大学英语精读 4 课后习题答案及课文讲解Unit 1Active reading (1)Looking for a job after university? First, get off the sofaBackground informationAbout the passage: This is an article by an Education Correspondent, Alexandra Blair, published in September 2008 in The Times, a long-established British quality newspap
2、er. In Europe generally, and in Britain in particular, for a number of years there has been a rising number of students who go to university and therefore more new graduates seeking employment. However, for many graduates finding a job became harder in 20082009 because the economic downturn then a r
3、ecession meant that many employers were reducing their workforce. After their final exams, some students rested in the summer before looking for jobs and then they found that it was difficult to find employment in their field or at the level they wanted. The article addresses the problems of such ne
4、w graduates who might be stuck at home and advises their parents to be there for their children (ie to be available if their children want to talk about the problem or if they need help). The article recommends finding work in a bar or supermarket rather than sitting unemployed at home since this is
5、 more likely to lead to better employment later. The style is partly of a report, but also of a humorous comment for light entertainment (seen in the jokey language and problem-solving advice to parents).Why finding a job in 2008 is so difficult for university graduates?Universities in Europe, parti
6、cularly in Britain, have expanded greatly in the last fifteen years (over 45% of young adults now go on to higher education), so there are more graduates looking for jobs. This competitive situation became a lot worse in 2008 onwards with the credit crunch and economic depression, which meant that t
7、here were fewer jobs available and a rise in unemployment. Thus new graduates have to be active to seek a job, they need to fill in many application forms and try to get job interviews: they wont find employment by lying on the sofa at home.Culture pointshonours degree: Traditionally, in the British
8、 university system, BA and BSc honours degrees are awarded in different categories: a first class degree (written using Roman numbers as I), a second (divided into two subcategories, written as IIii and IIii, which are called “a two one” and “a two two”), a third (written III) and a pass degree. Mos
9、t people get a second. There are also ordinary degrees with more general courses of study without these categories.Generation Y and Grunt: The main idea here is that there is a succession of different generations or cohorts of adults who come into the workforce in North America which are given diffe
10、rent informal names to characterize them. First, “Baby boomers” were born in the great increase (the boom) of births after World War II (19461960), followed by “Generation X” people (born 19601980) who were said to bring new attitudes of being independent, informal, entrepreneurial, and expected to
11、get skills and have a career before them. “GenerationY” or the “Millenial Generation” (born 1980s and 1990s and becoming adult in the new millenium) are now making up an increasing percentage of the workforce; they are said to be spoilt by doting parents, to have structured lives, to be used to team
12、work and diverse people in a multicultural society. In the passage, this generation is now becoming (morphing into) Generation Grunt, which is an ironic - 2 -name referring to repetitive, low status, routine or mindless work this may be the only work available to some graduates, who may have to take
13、 very ordinary jobs to get experience before they find something more suitable. “Grunt” also refers to coarse behaviour or bad manners and to the deep sound that is made by a pig; when people “grunt” they express disgust but do not communicate with words this may be how the parents of new graduates
14、think their children communicate with them!A comprehensive refers to a British type of secondary school which became popular in the1960s. Before that there were academic “grammar schools” and more general “secondary modern” schools for those who did not pass the grammar school entrance tests, but th
15、e comprehensive schools were designed for all students in a social philosophy of bringing diverse students together whether they were academic or not. Those students who went to a comprehensive school probably felt that had to study particularly hard (I worked my backside off) to get to university,
16、compared to those who went to grammar schools where all students were academic comprehensive students felt they had to struggle to get to university.Chicken suit This refers to a large yellow costume that someone wears which makes the person look like a giant chicken. Before he became a famous actor, Brad Pitt once dressed in such a costume when he had a job advertising for a restaurant called El Pollo Loco (The Crazy Chicken in Spanish) the job meant that he had to walk aro
