新标准大学英语_综合教程3_课后答案unit7.pdfVIP

Unit 7 Active reading (1) Can bad luck be explained? Language points 1 Part of the explanation for bad luck is mathematical, but part is psychological. (Para 2) The sentence means bad luck is not only a matter of the odds for or against something happening, but of our memories and attitudes. 2 This popular notion would be unlikely to stand the scrutiny of any scientific study „ otherwise the phrase would never have arisen in the first place. (Para 3) To stand the scrutiny of any scientific study means to survive any scientific examination. The expression in the first place is used to mean what someone did or should have done at the start of a situation, eg I wish I’d never got involved in the first place. 3 So badness is much better represented as being on a spectrum rather than something which is there or not there. (Para 5) The sentence means that badness is not an either / or quality, but a matter of degree, and it exists on a continuum. 4 When it comes to bad things happening in threes, what may be most important of all is the duration and memorability of the first event. (Para 7) The sentence means that the impact of the first unpleasant event and the length of time we remember it is the critical factor in the origin of the common idea that three bad events often occur together. Unit 7 The secret life of science 230 5 The timescale has been extended as long as is necessary to confirm the original prophecy. (Para 8) The idea behind the sentence is that after one bad event, people predict two more and will wait a long time if necessary for them to happen and so to prove the prediction. 6 But it is more likely that a friend will tell you “three bad things have happened to me, isn’t that typical” than “only two bad things have happened to me, which just proves that the theory doesn’t work”. (Para 9) Some times after the second bad event, nothing happens for a long time. We could tell people that our experience shows t