新起點大學英語精讀第四冊Unit1BigBuckstheEasyWay

1、unit onezbig bucks the easy waytwo college-age boys, unaware that making moneyusually involves hard wor k, are tempted by an advertisement that promises them an easy way toearn a lot of money. the boys soon learn that ifsomething seems to good to be true ,it probably is.big bucks the easy wayjohn g.

2、 hubbell”you ought to look into this/1 i suggested to our twocollege-age sons."it might be a way to avoid the indignity of having to ask for money all theti me.” i handed them some magazines in a plastic bag some one bad hung on our doorknob. amessage printed on the bag offered leisurely, lucra

3、tive work ( "big bucks the easy way!”)ofdelivering more such bags.”1 don't mind the indignity/1 the older one answered.”1 can live with it,” his brother agreed.”but it pains me/1 i said,” to find that you both have bee n pan handling so long that it no ion gerembarr asses you.”the boys said

4、 they would look into the magazine-delivery thing. pleased, i le ft town on abusiness trip. by midnight i was comfortably settled in a hotel ro om far from home. the phonerang. it was my wife she wanted to know how my day had gone.f,great!m i enthused. hhow was your day?11 i inquired.f,super!m she s

5、napped"just super! and itfs only getting started. another truck just pulled upout fron t.h"another truck?*"the third one this evening. the first delivered four thousand montgomery wa rds the secondbrought four thousand sears, roebucks. i donft know what thi s one has, but rm sure it w

6、ill befour thousand of something. since you are re sponsible, i thought you might like to knowwhafs happeningwhat i was being blamed for, it turned out, was a newspaper strike which m ade it necessary tohand-deliver the advertising inserts that normally are inclu ded with the sunday paper. thecompan

7、y had promised our boys $600 for deli vering these inserts to 4,000 houses by sundaymorning”piece of cake!” our older college son had shouted.” six hundred bucks!" his brother had echoed,"and we can do the job in two hours!11 "both the sears and ward ads are four newspaper-size pages,

8、11 my wife infor med me.hthereare thirty-two thousand pages of advertising on our porch. even as we speak, two big guys arecarrying armloads of paper up the walk. what do we d o about all this?*”just tell the boys to get busy,11 i instructed.f,theyfre college men. theyll do what they have todo.nat n

9、oon the following day i returned to the hotel and found an urgent messag e to telephonemy wife. her voice was unnaturally high and quavering. there had been several more truckloadsof ad inserts.f,theyfre for department stores, dime stores, drugstores, grocery stores, auto stores and so on. some are

10、whole magazine sections. we have hundreds of t housands, maybemillions, of pages of advertising here! they are crammed wa ll-to-wall all through the house in stacks taller tha n your oldest son. there's on ly enough room for people to walk in, take oneeach of the eleven inserts, roll them togeth

11、er, slip a rubber band around them and slide theminto a plasti c bag. we have enough plastic bags to supply every takeout restaurant ina merica!h her voice kept rising, as if working its way out of the range of the h uman ear. ,fallthis must be delivered by seve n c/clock sun day morni ng.” "we

12、ll, you had better get those guys ban ding and sliding as fast as they can, and11 talk to youlater. got a lunch date.when i returned, there was another urgent call from my wife”did you have a nice lunch?” she asked sweetly. i had had a marvelous stea k, but knew betterby now than to say so.11 awful/

13、1 i reported. ffsome sort of sour fish eel, i think/1”good. your college sons have hired their younger brothers and sisters and a couple ofneighborhood children to help for five dollars each. assembly lines h ave been set up. in thelanguage of diplomacy, there is fmovement.mt hthatfs encouraging.11”

14、no, itfs not，” she corrected.flltfs very discouraging. they're been as it for hours. plastic bagshave been f illed and piled to the ceiling, but all this has n't made a dent, not a dent, in t hesituation! itfs almost as if the inserts keep reproducing themselves!11 ”another thing/1 she conti

15、nued.f,your college sons must learn that one does not get the bestout of employees by threatening them with bodily harm.obtaining an audience with son no. 15 i snarled,"i'll kill you if threaten one of those kids againlldiot! you should be offering a bonus of a dollar every hour to the work

16、er who fills the mostbags.”but that would cut into our profit/1 he suggested."there won't be any profit unless those kids enable you to make all the delive ries on time. ifthey don't, you two will have to remove all that paper by your selves. and there will be noeating or sleeping until

17、 it is removed.11 there was a short, thoughtful silence. then he said,”dad, you have just worked a profoundchange in my personality.h”do it!”yes, sir!nby the following evening, there was much for my wife to report. the bonus p rogram hadworked until someone demanded to see the color of cash. then so

18、 me activist on the work forceclaimed that the workers had no business settlin g for $5 and a few competitive bonuses whilethe bossed collected hundreds of dollars each. the organizer had declared that all the workerswere entitled to $5 per hour! they would not work another minute until the bosses a

19、greed. the strike lasted less than two hours. in mediation, the parties agreed on $ 2 per hour.gradually, the huge stacks began to shrink.as it turned out, the job was completed three hours before sunday 7 a.m. d eadline. by thetime i arrived home, the boys had already settled their accou nts: $150

20、in labor costs, $40 forgasoline, and a like amount for giftsboxes of candy for saintly neighbors who had volunteered station wagons and helpin delivery and dozen roses for their mother. this left them with $185 each 一 about two-thirds the minimum wage for the 91 hours they worked. still, it was &quo

21、t;enough蔦 as one of themput it, to enable them to havoid indignity19 for quite a while.all went well for some weeks. then one saturday morning my attention was d rawn to the oddgoings-on of our two youngest sons. they kept carrying carto n after carton from variouscorners of the house out the front

22、door to curbside i assumed their mother had enlisted themto remove junk for a trash pick up. then i overheard them discussing finances.”geez, wefre going to make a lot of money!11"we're going to be rich!"investigation revealed that they were offering h for sale or rent” our entire libr

23、 ary."no! no!m i cried. "you can't sell our books!""geez, dad, we thought you were done with them!”f,youfre never 'dowith books/1 i tried to explain.”sure you are you read them, and you're done with them. thatfs it. then you might as wellmake a little money from them.

24、 we wanted to avoid the indig nity of having to ask you for,fnew wordsbuckn. (si.) u.s. dollarplastica.塑料的n. (pl)塑料doorknobn.門把手leisurelya. unhurried從容的，慢慢的leisuren. free time空閑時間，閑暇lucrativea. profitable有利的;賺錢的painvt. cause pain topanhandlevi. (ame) beg. esp on the streetsdeliveryn. delivering (of

25、letters, goods, etc.)投遞； 送交enthusevi. show enthusiasminquirevt. asksupera. (colloq.) wonderful, splendid; excellentsnapvt. say(sth.) sharply 厲聲說insertn.插頁normallyad. in the usual conditions; ordinarily 通常companyn.公司echovt. say or do what another person says or does; repeat 附和； 重復(fù)adn. (short for) adv

26、ertisementinformvt. tell; give information 告知porchn. (ame) veranda 門廊armloadn. as much as one arm or both arms can hold; armfulwalkn. a path specially arranged or paved for walking 人行道unnaturallyad. in an unnatural way 不自然地quavervi. (of the voice or sound) shake; tremble 顫抖truckloadn. as much or as

27、many as a truck can carrydepartment storen. store selling many different kinds of goods in separate departments 百貨公 司dimen. coin of u.s. and canada worth ten centsdime storen.(ame) a store selling a large variety of low-priced articles; variety store 廉價 商品店；小商口店drugstore（ame） a store that sells not

28、only medicine，but also beauty products, film, ma gazines, andfood 線店，雜貨店groceryn. a store that sells food and household supplies 食品雜貨店sectio nn. part of subdivision of a piece of writing, book, newspaper, etc.; portion （ 文章等的）段落：節(jié)；部分cramvt. fill too full; force or press into a small space 把塞滿;把塞進sta

29、ckn. an orderly; heap or group of things 一疊 （堆、垛等）bandn. flat, thin piece of material 帶；帶狀物vt. tie up with a band 捆扎rubber bandn.橡皮筋takeouta.（餐館）岀售外賣菜的rangen. the distance at which one can see or hear （聽覺、視覺等）的范圍marvel（l）ousa. wonderful; astonishingsteakn.牛排；大塊肉（或魚）片soura.酸的eeln.鰻螂diplomacyn.外交encou

30、ragi nga.鼓舞人心的dentn. a hollow in a hard surface made by a blow or pressure; initial progress 凹痕，凹坑，初步進展reproducevt. produce the young of (oneself or one's own kind)生殖, 繁殖bodilya. of the human body; physicalharmn. damage or wrong 傷害audiencen. the people gathered in a place to hear or see; a chanc

31、e to be heard 觀眾；聽眾；陳述意見的機會snarlvt. speak in a harsh voice 咆哮著說bonusn. an extra payment to workers 獎金thoughtfula. give to or indicating thought 沉思的，思考的cashn. money in coins or notes 現(xiàn)金activistru a person taking an active part esp. in a political movement 激進分子work forcen. total number of workers empl

32、oyed in a particular factory, industry or area工人總數(shù)；勞動人口competitivea.競爭的organizern. person who organizes things 纟織者mediationn.調(diào)解partyn. one of the people or sides in an agreement or argument 一方； 當事人 graduallyad. slowly and by degrees.graduala.shrink (shrank, shrunk)vi. become less or smaller 減少； 變小de

33、adli nen. fixed limit of finishing a piece of work 最后期限station wagonn.小型客年，客貨兩用車minimum (pl. minima or minimums)n. the smallest possible amount, number, etc.最低限度的最、數(shù)等minimum wagen. the lowest wage permitted by law or by agreement for certain work 法定最工資odda. strange; unusualgoings-onn. activities, usu. of an undesirable kindcartonn. a cardboard box for holding goods 紙板箱(或盒)curbsiden. the area of sidewalk at or near curb (curb:人行道的鑲邊石)enlistvt. obtain the support and help of; cause to join the armed forces 取得的支持和幫助；征募trashn. waste material to be thrown away; rubbish 垃圾pickupn. a smal