全新版大学英语快速阅读2(新题型版 第2版)

《全新版大学英语快速阅读2(新题型版 第2版 附光盘)/“十二五”普通高等教育本科**级规划教材》:
Leaf
At last we went out and stood on the lawn and watched the sun go down, and my father said, "Ifit weren't for art, we'd have vanished from the face ofthe earth long ago."
What art really is, though, and what a human being really is, and what the world really is. Ijust don't know, that's all.
Standing there, watching the sun go down into the sea, my father said, "In every house there ought to be an art table on which, one by one, things are placed, so that everybody in that house might look at the things very carefully, and see them."
"What would you put on a table like that?"
"A leaf. A coin. A button. A stone. A small piece oftorn newspaper. An apple. An egg. A pebble. A flower. A dead insect. A shoe."
"Everybody's seen those things."
"Ofcourse. But nobody looks at them, and that's what art is. To look at familiar things as ifthey had never before been seen. A plain sheet of paper with typing on it. A necktie. A pocketknife. A key. A fork. A cup. A bottle. A bowl. A walnut."
"What about a baseball? A baseball's a beautiful thing."
"It certainly is. You would place something on the table and look at it. The next morning you would take it away, and put something else there - anything, for there is nothing made by nature or by man that doesn't deserve to be looked at particularly."
Now, the sun was gone all the way into the sea. There was a lot of orange light on the water, and in the sky above the water. Legion of Honor Hill grew dark, and my father brought out a cigarette and lighted it and inhaled and then let the smoke out ofhis nose and mouth, and he said, "Well, boy, there's another day ofthe wonderful world gone forever."
"New day tomorrow, though."
"What do you say we drive to the seaside and look at the ships from all over the world?"
Loaf
We loafed through the whole town, because that was what we had planned to do. It was nothing more than just another little town with another bunch of people living in it. We saw some of the people. All of a sudden I noticed their eyes.
This made me laugh.
"Tell me about it," my father said.
"Eyes," I said. "We sure have got eyes, haven't we?"
"Very good," my father said.
He began to sing, "I saw your eyes, your wonderful eyes."
Pretty soon he stopped singing and began to breathe deeply.
"Somebody's baking bread somewhere. Would you like some fresh bread?"
"I sure would."
We walked to the corner, then around the corner, but we didn't fmd a bakery there, so we went back to where we had been, and near there we found the place, but the door was locked.
My father knocked, and then we saw a man in a baker's white coat with flour on his hands and face come to the door and open it.
"We open at seven," the man said. "It's not six yet."
"What are you baking back there?"
"Bread and rolls."
"How about letting me buy some? I don't often get a chance to eat freshly baked bread."
"You want to come in, then?" the baker said, so my father and I went in. We followed the man to where he and his wife were baking bread. It was clean and warm back there. The metal racks had new loaves on them and new rolls.
……

Unit 1
Text A-1 Why Learn Another Language?
Text A-2 Tips on Studying a Foreign Language
Text B-1 How to Study Effectively
Text B-2 What Is Intelligence, Anyway?

Unit 2
Text A-1 Remembering My Grandparents.
Text A-2 Leaf and Loaf.
Text B-1 The True Story of a Young Man.
Text B-2 A Game of Light and Shade

Unit 3
Text A-1 A Long Walk Home
Text A-2 The Disappearing Generation Gap
Text B-1 Rites of Passage
Text B-2 The Last Adventure

Unit 4
Text A-1 The Fun and Excitement of "Reality"
Text A-2 Future Talk
Text B-1 E-mail Is for Old People
Text B-2 Talk to Me

Unit 5
Text A-1 A Young, Blind Expert on Computers
Text A-2 As Dream Comes True
Text B-1 Go for the Gold
Text B-2 Across the Frozen Sea

Unit 6
Text A-1 In Every Era There Are Fads, Crazes and Trends
Text A-2 Txt Msg Phenomenon: R U in2 It?
Text B-1 Reality TV: A Fad or the Future?
Text B-2 The MySpace and Facebook Generation

Unit 7
Text A-1 Why English?
Text A-2 Reading —— the Most Important Way to Learn English
Text B-1 Two Languages
Text B-2 Conversational Ball Games

Unit 8
Text A-1 Acid Rain
Text A-2 Industry and the Environment
Text B-1 Global Warming May Not End Up Being Warm at All
Text B-2 Rubbish Disposal

Appendix
Key to Comprehension Exercises