P11
1. inviting: attractive, appealing, tempting, alluring, welcoming, enticing /forbidding repellent, unattractive
2. glamour: excitement, fascination, romance, charm, glitter, challenge
3. clod: a lump of a man, clay or earth, (bit by bit)
4. exasperating: annoying, irritating, enraging, maddening
5. instruments of persuasion and democratic decision making: An illustrative example of this in the United States is lobbying done by agents of various public interest groups.
6. About all that … it works— … : the most important advantages of it (the strategy) is that it is really effective.
7. remedy: effect a remedy, cure, heal, mollify, set right, fix, help, aid, improve, repair, mend, rectify
8. outrage: atrocity, gross crime, evil, wrong, inhuman act, act of brutality, violence, gross offence
P12
1. The economic machinery had broken down almost everywhere: This refers to the economic crisis in western countries in the 1930s. In the United States, this is termed the Great Depression.
2. a major war: the Second World War
3. vehemently: violently, furiously, fervently. Fiercely, emotionally, zealously, vigorously, wildly / feebly, wildly, indifferently
P13
1. a military campaign in the Apennines: Here the author only explains the nature of a military campaign in the Apennines. He certainly expects the reader to recognize the historical context in which such campaigns have occurred. During the Second World War, when Italy surrendered in September, 1943, German troops held on in Italy. They took advantage of this irregular mountain range to put up a desperate fight. For a time, the progress of the Allied troops was held up.
2. loom: come into view suddenly, emerge, rise, appear
3. unprecedented: unparalleled, unique, hitherto unknown, unheard of, extraordinary, exceptional
4. affluent: rich, wealthy, prosperous, well-to-do, well-off / impoverished, poor, impecunious
5. cope with: to find a way to deal with
6. guise: an outer appearance: in a certain guise. In new (unfamiliar) forms; in unprecedented forms.
7. our discovery of the population explosion: The world population reached 3 billion in 1960. What was more shocking was that by 1960 the rate of world population growth had exceeded two percent, a rate which, if unchanged, would add another 3 billion in the next 35 years. In the United States, there was a baby “boom” after World War II. These postwar babies grew up in the 1960s. The rapidly increasing number of the young easily led Americans to their sudden discovery of the world population explosion.
8. dawn on: begin in ; to become gradually known by …
9. It dawned on us rather… every forty years: passengers on the small
10. Passengers on the small spaceship: a metaphor indicating the world population. The earth seems small because there are too many people, and the earth, metaphorically, is a spaceship.
11. Spaceship: the population on this planet we live… (analogy /metaphor)
12. cancerous: mortal, vital, deadly, most dangerous
13. virtually: practically, in essence, essentially, in effect, for the most part
14. insoluble: which can not be dissolved, which can not be made right.
15. clutter: litter, scatter
16. inevitable: unavoidable, unpreventable, destined
17. warfare on a rising scale seems inevitable…: This opinion calls for comment. It reveals Malthus’ theory on population and the cause of war.
18. windling: diminishing, decreasing, decline, lessen, shrinking, waning, fading/ grow
P14
1. formidable: fearful, terrifying, dreadful, threatening, menacing, terrific, alarming
2. insuperable: which is too difficult to be conquered or passed.
3. piecemeal: bit by bit, only one piece at a time
4. pragmatically: practically, effectively; dealing with matters in the way that seems best under the actual conditions
5. dogged: persistently, unswervingly, steadfastly, unyieldingly, resolutely, untiringly.