1. 学习目标

In this unit, you will learn

•  4 kinds of pressure college students today are suffering from;

•  post graduate paralysis;

•  the differences between your generation and your parents generation;

•  characteristics of today's teens;

•  young people's out look of the world;

•  the different opinions people have about today's youth;

•  the results of national studies of the attitudes of young people toward public affairs;

•  a new generation gap;

•  a citizenship crisis in America;

•  words related to job-hunting ( or school education);

•  sayings about youth;

•  a poem “ The Rain Day ”.

2. 语言精要

重点单词 (37) ：

questionnaire, favorite, semester, delivery, campus, administrator, raise, bright-eyed, critical, board, stress, pool, corrupt, democracy, preoccupy, illustrate, indifferent, mobile, elect, bureau, settle, interfere / interference, harass, deem, apply / application / applicant, inquire / inquiring, instruct / instruction / instructive / instructor, loan, poem / poetry, sad / sadden, urgent, taste / tasteful / distasteful, evolve / evolution / evolutionary, graduate / postgraduate, screw, diploma, architect

重点词组 (18)

come up with, drop out, wait on tables, cut off, break away from, carry on, disapprove of, get off the subject, on the whole, or else, stand for, stand up to, where … is concerned, get through, pay off, in due time, wind up, have a stronger sense of responsibility

重要语法

•  动名词（见 In-class Reading ）

例句： I was accustomed to being the only child at a table full of adults.

He prefers doing things his way.

•  复形名词 （见 In-class Reading, line 10 ）

例句 : The committee's findings are not available to the public.

We have no dealings with the boys from the college.

Michelangelo's dates are 1475 to 1564.

3 ． In-Class Reading 课文主题

The passage is about today's youth.

Problems of today's youth are quite different from that of their parents. The findings of two national studies show that the indifference of the young generation to politics, to government, even to news about the outside world is beginning to affect American politics and society. In addition, the young generations who are indifferent toward public affairs know less, care less, vote less, and are less critical of its leaders and institutions than young people in the past. Possible explanations for this problem are that the lack of mobilizing issues, the decline of the family, the rise of television, the weakness of their civic education and stress. Today young people seem to have a half-formed understanding of citizenship, stressing rights but ignoring responsibilities. They do not pay much attention to politics or to the news and do not have favorable or positive attitude to politics or politicians. They regard the news about corruption in government as a well-known fact. In short, the young people's lack of knowledge and interest has led to a new generation gap.

4 ．佳句背诵

•  The typical young person doesn't want to hear about it “unless it's knocking on my door.”

典型的年轻人是“事不关己，高高挂起”。

•  It is a generation that, as the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press put it in a report released today, “knows less, cares less, votes less, and is less critical of its leaders and institutions than young people in the past.

正如大众和媒体时代明镜中西今天公布的一篇报告中指出的，这一代人“与过去的年轻人相比，所知更少，所关心更少，更少参加选举，也更少评论领导人和社会制度 ” 。

•  The lack of mobilizing issues is part of the answer, as are the decline of the family and the rise of television.

或者缺乏鼓舞人心的事件、家庭的衰落、电视的兴起这些因素能解释一二。

•  I wish them the right to experiment, to trip and fall, to learn the defeat instructive as victory and is not the end of the world.

我希望他们有权利尝试，有权利犯错误跌倒，进而动的失败和胜利一样给人以启迪，失败并不是世界的末日。

•  Poor students, poor parents. They are caught in one of the oldest webs of love and duty and guilt.

可怜的学生，可怜的父母。他们被困在议长最古老的，由爱、责任、内疚交织在一起的网中。

•  If I were an employer I would rather employ graduates who have this range and curiosity than those who narrowly pursued safe subjects and high grades.

如果我是老板，我宁愿雇佣这些学业兴趣广泛，充满好奇心的毕业生，而不是那些只选修能有把握得高分的课程的狭隘的人。

5 ． In-Class Reading 篇章点评

这是一篇有关今日青年的写照的议论文。

文章一开始运用事例法，即通过介绍实例，引出文章的论点。作者通过“年轻的收银员不愿听有关在洪水中死亡和失踪者的报告”这一事件，引出全文论述的主要内容：“青年人对世界的态度，‘事不关己，高高挂起'”。

在文章的主体部分，作者提出了中心论点：“这一代人与以前的青年相比，所知更少，所关心更少，参加选举更少，也更少评论领导人和社会制度”。

文章的结尾部分，深化了中心论点，做出了“年轻人缺乏知识和兴趣，和 30 岁以上的人之间有了一道新的鸿沟”。

这种篇章结构对我们掌握英语说明文的文体特点，提高阅读效率和能力，具有积极意义。