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Reading
Activity
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| Skill: Looking for the Topic
Sentence |
More often than not, one sentence in a paragraph tells
the reader(读者) exactly what the subject of the paragraph is
and thus gives the main idea. This main idea sentence is called
a topic(主题) sentence or topic statement. The topic sentence
states briefly an idea whose full meaning and significance
are developed by the supporting details. It may appear at
the beginning, or in the middle, or at the end of a paragraph.
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| Sample 1: At the beginning
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London’s weather is very strange.
It can rain several times a day; each time the rain may come
suddenly after the sun is shining brightly. The air is damp(潮湿的)
and (chill冷的) right through July. On one March afternoon on
Hampton Heath last year it rained three times, there was one
hail(冰雹) storm, and the sun shone brilliantly—all this within
two hours’ time. It is not unusual(不平常的) to see men and women
rushing down the street on a sunny morning with umbrella (雨伞)
on their arms. No one knows what the next few moments will bring.
(The topic sentence in this paragraph is London's weather
is very strange. All the other sentences illustrate(说明) the
idea with supporting details.)
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| Sample 2: In the middle |
Just as I settle down to read or watch television,
he demands that I play with him. If I get a telephone call,
he screams in the background or knocks something over. I always
have to hang up (挂断电话) to find what’s wrong with him. Baby-sitting
with my little brother is no fun. He refuses to let me eat a
snack (快餐) in peace. Usually he wants half of whatever I have
to eat. Then, when he finally grows tired, it takes about an
hour for him to fall asleep.
(All the details in this paragraph are cited (引用) to support
the main idea: Baby-sitting with my little brother is no fun.)
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| Sample 3: At the end |
Doctors are of the opinion that most people
cannot live beyond 100 years, but a growing number of scientists
believe that the aging process(过程) can be controlled. There
are more than12,000 Americans over 100 years old, and their
numbers are increasing each year. Dr. James Langley of Chicago
claims that, theoretically and under ideal(理想的) conditions,
animals, including man, can live six times longer than their
normal period of growth. A person’s period of growth lasts about
25 years. If Dr. Langley’s theory is accurate (准确的), future
generations can expect a life span(寿命) of 150 years.
Sometimes a writer wants to give strong emphasis to a topic
sentence. He may place a topic sentence at both the beginning
and end of a paragraph. This can tell a reader that the idea
in this paragraph is more important than other ideas found in
other paragraphs.
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| Sample 4: At both the beginning
and end |
Good manners are important in all countries,
but ways of expressing good manners are different from country
to country. Americans eat with knives and forks (叉) ; Japanese
eat with chopsticks (筷子). Americans say “Hi” when they meet;
Japanese bow(鞠躬). Many American men open doors for women; Japanese
men do not. On the surface, it appears that good manners in
America are not good manners in Japan, and in a way this is
true. But in any country, the only manners that are important
are those involving one person’s behavior (行为) toward another
person. In all countries it is good manners to behave considerately
(关切地) toward others and bad manners not to. It is only the way
of behaving politely that differs from country to country.
(This paragraph begins with a topic sentence and ends with
a restatement of the same topic sentence) |
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Read the following article ant then
1. write down the topic sentence of each paragraph in the
blank space after the text;
2. complete the true / false exercise.
Words to Know
interpret vt. 解释 horizon n. 地平线 sunlight n. 阳光 shelf n.
架子, 搁板
normally ad. 正常地 cube n. 立方体 shade vt. 遮蔽，遮光 n.阴印
visual a.视觉的夺目 interpretation n. 解释 reject vt. 拒绝；舍弃
Perception
See the translation
Have you ever thought about how you see things?
How do you know how big something is?
Why do you notice some objects and not others?
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1.These are questions which psychologists(心理学家)
have been studying for many years. They try to understand the
way that people interpret what they see. For example, if you
look out of your window perhaps you can see a tree on the horizon.
Your eyes tell you that the trees is about one
centimeter tall. But you know that is not true. Your
knowledge about the world tells you that the tree is much bigger.
Perhaps this seems simple but it is something we have to learn
when we are children. If we didn’t learn this we would find
life very difficult.
2. Now let’s look at an interesting example with colors.
(1) If you own a blue car, you know
it is blue, even if it is in bright sunlight, in darkness or
under a yellow street light. Your eyes tell you that
it changes colour in these different situations, but your brain
knows better. You have learnt that cars don’t change colour
all the time, and so your
brain interprets the information your eyes give you.
3. Psychologists have found that people learn to understand
and interpret what they see easily. One psychologist tried an
experiment on himself. He put on a special pair of glasses.
When he looked through them
everything he looked at seemed to be upside-down.
Try and imagine how that feels. (2)
At first, if he saw something on a high
shelf, he bent down to pick it up because
his eyes told him that the object was near the floor.
But in a few weeks, he learnt to understand the strange, new
world he saw. He lived normally without walking
into things.
4. Sometimes, however, we make mistakes. Look at the Necker
Cube (内克尔立方体) below. Is the shaded part
of the cube at the back or at the front?
Now look at it for a few minutes. Does the shaded part seem
to move? This is an example of a visual illusion（视错觉）. (3)The
Necker Cube shows us that when we see an object, we make
the best interpretation of it that we can. But
sometimes we are wrong.
5. (4)The way we see
things is therefore more complicated
than we imagine. Our eyes give us information all the
time. But our brains decide what is important to us. For example,
if you walk down a crowded
street, you will see many faces. But you will probably not really
notice them. But if you see someone you know, you will notice
him immediately. (5)From this example
we can see that your brain chooses the visual information which
is useful to you, and rejects the information which it does
not need. The way your brain interprets that information
depends on the knowledge
you have about the world. And all this happens in less than
a second.
-----Vicky Greig
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Exercise A
Write down the topic sentence of each paragraph: 
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Key
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1. They try to understand
the way that people interpret what they see.
2. Your brain interprets the information your
eyes give you.
3. Psychologists have found that people learn
to understand and interpret what they see easily.
4. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we are
wrong.
5. The way we see things is therefore more complicated
than we imagine.
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1.______________________________________________
2.______________________________________________
3.______________________________________________
4.______________________________________________
5.______________________________________________
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Exercise B True or False?
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Key
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1. T
2. F If you know the color of an object, your
brain will keep telling you what color it is,
though it changes color in different situations.
3. T
4. F When the psychologist put on a special pair
of glasses, he found everything had changed only
in position, not in size.
5. F In a few weeks the psychologist got used
to the new world around him.
6. F Our brains also make mistakes in interpreting
what we see.
7. T
8. T
9. T
10. T
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If you think a statement is false, make necessary changes to
make it true.
1. When you catch sight of an object in the far distance, you
know immediately from
experience that it must be much bigger than it looks.
2. If you know the colour of any object, you won’t find it changes
colour in any
circumstances(在任何情况下), because your brain keeps telling you
what colour it is.
3. Your eyes send off “signals” constantly and your brain accepts
them and explains their
meaning in its unique（独特地）way.
4. When the psychologist put on a special pair of glasses, he
found everything had changed
either in size or in position.
5. But in a few weeks the psychologist found everything had
turned back into its normal
state.
6. Our eyes may make mistakes, causing optical illusions, but
our brain never will—it can
always make a sound judgment.
7. We cannot always avoid having a visual illusion because things
we see are more
complicated than we think.
8. Our brain accepts or rejects the information our eyes provide
according to our actual
needs.
9. The three questions raised at the beginning of the text are
related to the relationship
between visual information and mental interpretation.
10. From the text we may infer（推断） that “ perception” means
“awareness through
senses ( sense of sight , for example) of external（外部的）objects”.
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Exercise C
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Key
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translation for Reference
1.如果你有辆蓝色汽车，那么即使在明亮的阳光下、在黑暗中或是在昏黄的路灯下，你都知道它是蓝色的。
2. 起初，如果他看到高架上某样东西，就弯下腰把它捡起来，因为视觉告诉他那东西靠近地板。
3. 内克尔立方体向我们表明，当我们看到某个物体时，我们总是尽量对它作出最佳解释。
4. 因此，我们观察物体的方式比我们想象的更为复杂。
5. 从这个例子我们可以看到，大脑会选择对你有用的视觉信息，而对它不需要的信息则加以排斥。
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Translate into Chinese the underlined sentences in the passage.
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