新视野大学英语第三版读写教程第二册Unit6课文语法讲解

Door closer, are you?

1 The next time you're deciding between rival options, one which is primary and the other which is secondary, ask yourself this question: What would Xiang Yu do? 2 Xiang Yu was a Chinese imperial general in the third century BC who took his troops across the Zhang River on a raid into enemy territory. To his troops' astonishment, he ordered their cooking pots crushed and their sailing ships burned. 3 He explained that he was imposing on them a necessity for attaining victory over their opponents. What he said was surely motivating, but it wasn't really appreciated by many of his loyal soldiers as they watched their vessels go up in flames. But the genius of General Xiang Yu's conviction would be validated both on the battlefield and in modern social science research. General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a veteran leader who was highly respected for his many conquests and who achieved the summit of success. 4

He

is

featured

in

Dan

Ariely's enlightening new publication, Predictably Irrational, a fascinating investigation of seemingly irrational human behavior, such as the tendency for keeping multiple options open. Most people can't marshal the will for painful choices, not even students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where Dr. Ariely teaches behavioral economics. In an experiment that investigated decision-making, hundreds of students couldn't bear to let their options vanish, even though it was clear they would profit from doing so.

5 The experiment revolved around a game that eliminated the excuses we usually have for refusing to let go. In the real world, we can always say, \"It's good to preserve our options.\" Want a good example? A teenager is exhausted from soccer, ballet, piano, and Chinese lessons, but her parents won't stop any one of them because they might come in handy some day!

6 In the experiment sessions, students played a computer game that provided cash behind three doors appearing on the screen.The rule was the more money you earned, the better player you were, given a total of 100 clicks. Every time the students opened a door by clicking on it, they would use

up one click but wouldn't get any money. However, each subsequent click on that door would earn a fluctuating sum of money, with one door always revealing more money than the others. The important part of the rule was each door switch, though having no cash value, would also use up one of the 100 clicks. Therefore, the winning strategy was to quickly check all the doors and keep clicking on the one with the seemingly highest rewards.

7 While playing the game, students noticed a modified visual element: Any door left un-clicked for a short while would shrink in size and vanish. Since they already understood the game, they should have ignored the vanishing doors. Nevertheless, they hurried to click on the lesser doors before they vanished, trying to keep them open. As a result, they wasted so many clicks rushing back to the vanishing doors that they lost money in the end. Why were the students so attached to the lesser doors? They would probably protest that they were clinging to the doors to keep future options open, but, according to Dr. Ariely, that isn't the true factor.

8 Instead of the excuse to maintain future options open, underneath it all the students' desire was to avoid the immediate, though temporary, pain of watching options close. \"Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a big price to avoid the emotion of loss,\" Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easily measured in lost cash. In life, the corresponding costs are often less obvious such as wasted time or missed opportunities.

9 \"Sometimes these doors are closing too slowly for us to see them vanishing,\" Dr. Ariely writes. \"We may work more hours at our jobs without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away.\"

10 So, what can be done to restore balance in our lives? One answer, Dr. Ariely says, is to implement more prohibitions on overbooking. We can work to reduce options on our own, delegating tasks to others and even giving away ideas for others to pursue. He points to marriage as an example, \"In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we've closed doors.\"

11 Since conducting the door experiment, Dr. Ariely says he has made a conscious effort to lessen his load. He urges the rest of us to resign from committees, prune holiday card lists, rethink hobbies and remember the lessons of door closers like Xiang Yu.

12 In other words, Dr. Ariely is encouraging us to discard those things that seem to have outward merit in favor of those things that actually enrich our

lives. We are naturally prejudiced to believe that more is better, but Dr. Ariely's research provides a dose of reality that strongly suggests otherwise.

13 What price do we pay for trying to have more and more in life? What pleasure and satisfaction can be derived from focusing our energy and attention in a more concentrated fashion? Surely, we will have our respective answers.

14 Consider these important questions: Will we have more by always increasing options or will we have more with fewer, carefully chosen options? What doors should we close in order to allow the right windows of opportunity and happiness to open?

Language Points:

1 The next time you’re deciding between rival options, one which is primary and the other which is secondary, ask yourself this question: What would Xiang Yu do? (Para. 1) Meaning: The next time when you are to make a choice between two competing options, you have to distinguish which is the primary one and which is the minor one. To be enlightened, you can ask yourself what option Xiang Yu would choose.

Meaning beyond words: It suggests that Xiang Yu was a wonderful decision-maker. Note: The phrase rival options means that both options seem like good choices, but one choice is somewhat better than the other. In this case, it is the one that Xiang Yu chose to implement.

2 Xiang Yu was a Chinese imperial general in the third century BC who took his troops across the Zhang River on a raid into enemy territory. (Para. 2)

Meaning: Xiang Yu was an ancient Chinese general in the third century BC. He led his troops across the Zhang River to attack the enemy in its territory.

3 To his troops’ astonishment, he ordered their cooking pots crushed and their sailing ships burned. (Para. 2)

Meaning beyond words: To make sure his troops would win the battle quickly, Xiang Yu ordered the soldiers to crush their cooking pots and burn their sailing boats after he led his troops across the Zhang River to attack the enemy. This way, he closed the door for retreating from the enemy’s territory and sent out a clear message to his men that they only had two choices: to win the battle or die in the battle. However, his decision was obviously against normal practice, which greatly shocked his troops.

4 He explained that he was imposing on them a necessity for attaining victory over their opponents. (Para. 3)

Meaning beyond words: By having their cooking pots crushed and their sailing ships burned, Xiang Yu put his troops in such a desperate condition that they wouldn’t have any hope to escape but fight to survive and eventually win the battle. In other words, Xiang Yu gave his troops only one option. Usage note: rival, opponent

rival 和 opponent 都可以用作名词， 都可以表示“ 对手”，但两者有区别。 1 rival 指在同一领域中为相同目标相竞争或相匹敌的对手。例如：

The United States’ biggest rival in technological advancement is Japan. 在技术进步方面， 美国最大的对手是日本。

2 opponent 指在某次竞赛或某个场合直接面对的对手。例如：

He’s the best opponent I’ve come across this season, a great player. 他是我本赛季遇到的最出色的对手，一位了不起的运动员。 比较：

The Los Angeles Lakers’ biggest rival is the Boston Celtics. 洛杉矶湖人队最大的对手是波士顿凯尔特人队。（指湖人队一直与凯尔特人队在争高低，其竞争对手多年来一直是凯尔特 人队。）

The Los Angeles Lakers’ opponent in the 2010 NBA Finals is the Boston Celtics. 洛杉矶湖人队在 2010 年 NBA 总决赛中的对手是波士顿凯尔特人队。（指在 2010 年 NBA 决赛中湖人队的竞争对手是凯尔特人队。）

3 opponent 不能用作动词，rival 可用作动词，表示“竞争；与…相匹敌”。例如： Ships can’t rival aircraft for speed. 轮船在速度方面无法与飞机匹敌。

5 What he said was surely motivating, but it wasn’t really appreciated by many of his loyal soldiers as they watched their vessels go up in flames. (Para. 3)

Meaning: Xiang Yu’s order of crushing the cooking pots and burning the sailing ships was definitely inspiring to his troops, but it was hardly valued by his faithful soldiers, who watched their boats burning.

go up in flames: suddenly begin burning in a way that is difficult to control 突然着火 The factory went up in flames last night. 昨晚工厂突然着火了。

6 But the genius of General Xiang Yu’s conviction would be validated both on the battlefield and in modern social science research. (Para. 3)

Meaning: However, the high level of intelligence expressed in his strong belief would prove to be correct on the battlefield as well as in modern social science research.

Note: The word battlefield is a compound word, which is the combination of two nouns: battle and field. There are more examples of this kind of compound

words: armchair, bedtime, birdhouse, birthplace, bookstore, etc. The meaning of many words from such a combination is easy to guess: battlefield — a place where a battle is being fought or has been fought. For example:

They carried the wounded soldiers from the battlefield. 他们把伤员从战场上抬了下来。

7 General Xiang Yu was a rare exception to the norm, a veteran leader who was highly respected for his many conquests and who achieved the summit of success. (Para. 3) Meaning: What Xiang Yu did was quite different from what was usually practiced. As an experienced leader, he was very much respected by his soldiers for his many amazing accomplishments, and his highest level of success.

Note: The word norm means “the usual or normal situation, way of doing sth., etc.”. Here it refers to a situation in which other commanders would surely do: Keep more options. an exception to: sth. or sb. that is not included in a general statement, or does not follow a rule or pattern 对…例外

Most basketball players are very tall, but he’s an exception to that rule; he’s relatively short. 大多数篮球运动员都非常高大，但他是一个例外，他比较矮。

8 He is featured in Dan Ariely’s enlightening new publication, Predictably Irrational, a fascinating investigation of seemingly irrational human behavior, such as the tendency for keeping multiple options open. (Para. 4)

Meaning: General Xiang Yu, together with his boat burning strategy, was introduced in Dan Ariely’s inspirational new publication, which examines unreasonable human behavior such as the unintentional desire to keep many options open.

Note: The title of the book Predictably Irrational describes an unreasonable or illogical behavior which is predictable because of the nature of human beings. It has to do with the hidden forces that shape people’s decisions. People sometimes make decisions based on irrational thought, and that’s why we see how certain mistakes are made again and again.

9 Most people can’t marshal the will for painful choices, not even students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where Dr. Ariely teaches behavioral economics. (Para. 4)

Meaning: Most people, including the students learning behavioral economics with Dr. Ariely at MIT, can’t think logically and make rational decisions when facing painful choices.

10 In an experiment that investigated decision-making, hundreds of students couldn’t bear to let their options vanish, even though it was clear they would profit from doing so. (Para. 4)

Meaning: In an experiment about decision-making, hundreds of students couldn’t tolerate the pain of seeing their options disappear, even though they knew that they would benefit in the long run if they let them go.

Meaning beyond words: This is a specific example of “predictably irrational” behavior of human beings mentioned earlier.

11 The experiment revolved around a game that eliminated the excuses we usually have for refusing to let go. (Para. 5)

Meaning: The experiment was focused on a game that rejected the excuses we normally have for not letting options go.

12 In the real world, we can always say, “It’s good to preserve our options.” (Para. 5) Meaning beyond words: In the real world, it is always reasonable for people to keep options for the future, so it seemed it’s not a mistake to keep doors open in the experiment.

13 A teenager is exhausted from soccer, ballet, piano, and Chinese lessons, but her parents won’t stop any one of them because they might come in handy some day! (Para. 5)

Meaning: A teenage girl is worn out from attending classes of soccer, ballet, piano, and Chinese, but her parents won’t allow her to stop any one of them because they might be useful one day. Meaning beyond words: It reflects human beings’ nature: The more, the better, though it’s not necessarily true in real life.

14 In the experiment sessions, students played a computer game that provided cash behind three doors appearing on the screen. (Para. 6)

Meaning: During the period of the experiment, students at MIT played a game on the computer, where they could see three doors appearing on the screen. With each click on a door, students were able to find some cash behind it.

15 The rule was the more money you earned, the better player you were, given a total of 100 clicks. (Para. 6)

Meaning: The rule for the game was that each player could totally click 100 times to get

the money that was behind the doors, and at the end of the game the person who earned the most money was the best player.

Sentence structure note: “The more …, the more …” 句型

1 “The more … , the more …” 句型表示“越…，（就）越…”， 是一个复合句，其中第一个the more 引出的句子是条件状语从句，后面的句子是主句。比较部分本身在从句中可以是宾语、状语、表语，也可以是主语。例如：

The more calories they burn up, the leaner they will become. 他们燃烧的卡路里越多就会越瘦。（比较部分 the more calories 在从句中是宾语。）

The more I observed, the more different categories I discovered. 我对鸟观察得越多，发现的不同类别就越多。（比较部分 the more 在从句中是状语。）

Clearly, the more successful and popular the artist is, the greater demands there are from TV, radio and the press. 显然，越成功越受欢迎的艺术家，越受电视、电台和报刊的青睐。 （比较部分 the more successful and popular 在从句中是表语。）

The more air there is inside the tire, the greater pressure there is in it. 轮胎里空气越多， 承受的压力就越大。（比较部分 the more air 在从句中是主语。）

2 若主句的谓语动词用一般将来时，从句是条件状语从句，其谓语动词要用一般现在时表 示将来。例如：

The harder you work, the greater progress you will make. 你越用功，进步就越大。

3 “The more … , the more …” 句型的变化。若表示“越…，越不…”时，常用 “the more … , the less …” 句型； 若表示“越不…， 就越…” 时, 常用 “the less…，the more…”句型。例如： The more she flatters me, the less I like her. 她越奉承我，我就越不喜欢她。 The less he worried, the better he worked. 他越不担心，工作就干得越好。

16 Every time the students opened a door by clicking on it, they would use up one click but wouldn’t get any money. However, each subsequent click on that door would earn a fluctuating sum of money, with one door always revealing more money than the others. (Para. 6)

Meaning beyond words: Even though the click on any door to open it wouldn’t earn any money, each click afterward would give a certain amount of money, with one door always having more money than the other two. To be the winner of the game, the students should quickly check all the doors first and then keep clicking on the one with the highest rewards.

17 While playing the game, students noticed a modified visual element: Any door left un-clicked for a short while would shrink in size and vanish. (Para. 7)

Meaning: In the process of the game, students noticed something changed on the screen:

If they didn’t click a door for a short while, the door would become smaller and disappear eventually.

Meaning beyond words: In the game, an un-clicked door would become smaller and finally disappear — an analogy between closed doors in the game and closed future options in life.

18 Since they already understood the game, they should have ignored the vanishing doors. Nevertheless, they hurried to click on the lesser doors before they vanished, trying to keep them open. (Para. 7)

Meaning beyond words: Since students understood the game, they were expected to ignore the doors being closed. Nevertheless, students rushed to click these less important doors. This indicates they couldn’t bear the pain to lose any opportunities and had a strong desire to keep all the options open.

lesser: a. (fml.) (only before noun) not as large, as important, or as much as sth. else 更 小的；次要的；更少的

I’ll spend important holidays with family members and ask others to join me for lesser holidays. 我会与家人一起过重要的节日，并请其他人和我一起过不甚重要的节日。

19 As a result, they wasted so many clicks rushing back to the vanishing doors that they lost money in the end. Why were the students so attached to the lesser doors? (Para. 7) Meaning: Just because students used up so many clicks were trying to keep the vanishing doors open, they lost money or the game in the end. Why were students so unable to see their future options vanish?

20 They would probably protest that they were clinging to the doors to keep future options open, but, according to Dr. Ariely, that isn’t the true factor. (Para. 7) Meaning: The students would probably argue that they were trying to hold the doors to keep future options open, but, according to Dr. Ariely, that wasn’t the real reason.

Note: protest 在表示“公开反对；”时，常用作不及物动词，后接 about/against/at。在 美语中，protest 在表示“公开反对；”时，也可用作及物动词。例如：

He protested the action in a telephone call to the president. 他在打电话给总统时，了该行动。

21 Instead of the excuse to maintain future options open, underneath it all the students’ desire was to avoid the immediate, though temporary, pain of watching options close. (Para. 8)

Meaning: Keeping future options available was only an excuse. What students couldn’t bear was the immediate but momentary pain of watching options disappear.

22 “Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a big price to avoid the emotion of loss,” Dr. Ariely says. (Para. 8)

Meaning beyond words: According to Dr. Ariely, closing a door on an option is felt as a loss. To avoid such an emotional loss, people would rather pay the high cost to keep all the doors of opportunity open.

23 In the experiment, the price was easily measured in lost cash. In life, the corresponding costs are often less obvious such as wasted time or missed opportunities. (Para. 8)

Meaning beyond words: In the experiment, the cost of keeping options open could be easily counted in lost cash, while in life the cost cannot be easily measured.

24 “Sometimes these doors are closing too slowly for us to see them vanishing,” Dr. Ariely writes. “We may work more hours at our jobs without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away.” (Para. 9)

Meaning: According to Dr. Ariely, sometimes the doors in real life are closing slowly, so we don’t really see the future opportunities vanishing away visually. This is just like when we work long hours, we hardly notice that the childhood of our sons and daughters is disappearing. Meaning beyond words: People are indifferent to the things which seem to be intangible and trivial to them. They keep themselves busy all the time, but they actually lose a lot in life.

25 So, what can be done to restore balance in our lives? (Para. 10)

Meaning: The tendency to keep all our doors open might have damaged our life already, but what can we do to make our life balanced again?

26 One answer, Dr. Ariely says, is to implement more prohibitions on overbooking. (Para. 10)

Meaning beyond words: In Dr. Ariely’s opinion, one way is to take action to limit the amount of things we schedule in our daily lives and to reduce the amount of things we plan to do in the future. We should simplify our lives.

overbook: v. sell more tickets than you have available 超额预订；超额订出

Planes are crowded, airlines overbook, and departures are almost never on time. 飞机拥挤不堪，航空公司超额售票，起飞时间几乎从未准点过。

Unfortunately, there has been a major problem with overbooking rooms among the hotels here. 不幸的是，超额预订房间一直是这里的酒店一个主要的问题。

Note: The word overbook is a compound verb from the combination of over and book. Prefix over- combines with verbs to form new verbs. Words formed in this way indicate an action is done to a too large extent.

27 We can work to reduce options on our own, delegating tasks to others and even giving away ideas for others to pursue. (Para. 10)

Meaning: We can take the initiative to close our doors with too many options: Ask others to do our tasks and even give others our ideas to let them carry out our ideas.

28 He points to marriage as an example, “In marriage, we create a situation where we promise ourselves not to keep options open. We close doors and announce to others we’ve closed doors.” (Para. 10)

Meaning beyond word: Marriage is a good example when talking about closing doors of options in order to open windows of opportunity. We tell others that we are married and close the door to new relationships. Doing so makes our marriage successful.

29 Since conducting the door experiment, Dr. Ariely says he has made a conscious effort to lessen his load. He urges the rest of us to resign from committees, prune holiday card lists, rethink hobbies and remember the lessons of door closers like Xiang Yu. (Para. 11) Meaning: Since the door experiment, Dr. Ariely has consciously reduced his load. He urges people to quit committees, cut holiday activities, reconsider hobbies and learn the lessons from door closers like General Xiang Yu.

30 In other words, Dr. Ariely is encouraging us to discard those things that seem to have outward merit in favor of those things that actually enrich our lives. (Para. 12) Meaning: That is to say, Dr. Ariely urges us to get rid of things that seem to have only surface value and to engage in those that can actually make our lives better.

31 We are naturally prejudiced to believe that more is better, but Dr. Ariely’s research provides a dose of reality that strongly suggests otherwise. (Para. 12) Meaning: We are biased by nature to believe that it is better to keep more doors open, but Dr. Ariely’s research tells us that in reality the opposite is true: More is not necessarily better.

32 What price do we pay for trying to have more and more in life? What pleasure and satisfaction can be derived from focusing our energy and attention in a more concentrated fashion? Surely, we will have our respective answers. (Para. 13) Meaning: We have paid a big price to keep more options and more material things, but I believe we can get greater pleasure and more satisfaction by focusing our energy and attention to fewer options and things. Of course, each one of us will have a different opinion.

33 Consider these important questions: Will we have more by always increasing options or will we have more with fewer, carefully chosen options? What doors should we close in order to allow the right windows of opportunity and happiness to open? (Para. 14) Meaning beyond words: Closing doors in order to open windows of opportunity or keeping all the doors open remains an important question to everyone. If you are a door closer, the next question is what doors you should close in order to allow for the right windows of opportunity and happiness to open.

Note: The expression windows of opportunity is a high-frequency collocation meaning “an opportunity to do sth. that will only be available to you for a short time”, which implies individuals must be decisive before the windows close. The text indicates that closing the doors of irrelevant options is to open the windows of opportunity for success and happiness, but leaving too many doors open results in the windows of opportunity being closed.