Unit 4 Growing up: Keys to the execises
Enhance Your Language Awareness
Words in Action
Working with Words and Expressions
1 Listed in the boxes below are some of the words that you need to be very familiar with. Now work in pairs and make sentences with each of them to see if you have really mastered their usages. You are encouraged to consult a dictionary if you are still not quite sure about their meanings and usages.
1) When the father learned about his son’s school performance, he beamed with satisfaction. 2) How do people celebrate New Year’s Day in your country?
3) What are you complaining about? You have already got everything you want. 4) There were 24 people enrolled in the French class.
5) The children panicked when they saw the serious look on the teacher’s face. 6) When I turned off the TV, all my three kids protested. 7) He is too stubborn to admit that he was wrong.
8) George is very ambitious about his future though he is just a teenager. 9) My son is very good at figures, and he plans to take up Mathematics as his major. 10) He got very frustrated when he learned that he had failed the exam again.
11) Being a very possessive father, he felt very unhappy when he learned his daughter was going to get married.
12) How can you keep your children at home for the whole week? Of course, they will get restless.
2 In the box below are some of the words you have learned in this unit. Complete the following sentences with them. Change the form where necessary.
1) She finds herself in conflict with her parents over her future career. 2) The two parties finally overcame their differences on the matter of interest rate (利率).
3) Some strange customs have survived from earlier times.
4) Please let us know if you can attend the meeting scheduled (事先安排) for the coming Thursday.
5) She frowned with displeasure as she was reading her son’s school report. 6) Students are likely to let their minds wander if the teacher’s lectures are dull and boring.
7) I always feel so guilty about not visiting my parents more often, but I do have lots of things to cope with every day.
8) The local farmers sustained heavy losses during the flood season.
9) The next morning we all went out to survey the damage caused by the fire. 10) The sudden appearance of a tiger from the woods terrified us all. 11) International students are required to carry medical insurance as a condition of enrollment (注册).
12) Adapting to a new culture is no easy task because there are lots of cultural differences to overcome.
3 In the boxes below are some of the expressions you have learned in this unit. Do you understand their meanings? Do you know how to use them in the proper context? Now check for yourself by doing the blank-filling exercises. Change the form where necessary.
1) The old man was sick of having arguments all the time with his wife. 2) “You really can’t imagine what I have gone through,” Mary said, choking
back her tears.
3) Compared with growing up in primitive societies, growing up in today’s world is in some ways harder.
4) When I first settled into teaching in this small town, I felt very awkward, for my neighbors wanted to know everything about me.
5) The boys would give anything / the world to meet that football star.
6) Tom rushed into the room when Jane and I were in the midst
of a conversation.
7) It’s true that his father is a world-famous movie star, but Jack became famous in his own right .
8) We didn’t plan it like that but it worked out very well.
9) At first he found it extremely hard to fit in with his colleagues at the new company.
10) When I was in my teens, I gradually grew apart from my parents, only to realize how wrong I was in my later years.
11) I’m sorry to hear that you’re suffering from a severe cold. No wonder you did not turn up at the party yesterday.
12) It is not a healthy habit staying up too late.
13) I was annoyed with my mother’s tight control over me and ended up shouting at her one day.
14) The boy was scared of his mother because she would always scold(责怪) him if he did anything wrong.
15) Because of my carelessness, I soon found myself in trouble again and then I realized that what my mother had said was right.
16) He is not a very responsible person. For instance , he promised to come to our meeting, but never even responded when we invited him.
● Increasing Your Word Power
1 The words listed in the following box can be used to describe either a teenager or a parent. Go over each word carefully and then choose the right word to complete each sentence.
1) He is a very possessive father. He says “no” to all his daughter’s boyfriends. 2) A(n) over-protective parent usually weakens his / her child’s belief in his / her ability to solve his / her own problems.
3) Are you a(n) frustrated parent whose teenager always makes angry scenes when you try to get him or her to “just DO something”?
4) His possessive mother wants him to ring her 3 times a day at least to keep her informed of what he does at school.
5) It is often the case that in a family one parent is usually slightly lenient /
strict and the other is slightly strict / lenient .