Note –Taking and Gap-Filling

How is urbanization negatively affecting our society? The answer to this question is not a simple one. When answering this question, one must understand that urbanization cannot be stopped but only contained in a manner that will help the United States to function better as a country.

The more densely populated and more heterogeneous a community is, the more accentuated characteristics can be associated with urbanism. Urbanism promotes urban violence, political instability, crime and aggressive behavior. Rapid population growth in urban areas also perpetuates poverty. Another major issue being created by this social problem is the breaking of the traditional family structure. Our cities are not working well---sanitation, safety, transportation, housing, education, and even electricity are failing. These are all responsibilities of the government, or it is at least their job to regulate these services deemed to be monopolies. And it is a known fact that monopolies deem toward inefficiency.

Functionalists look at our cities as a means to profit. Cities are a place where everybody visits. And therefore vendors can raise their prices and profit more on their products. For example, from my own personal experience, I bought a pack of cigarettes for three dollars at my local gas station. And when I visited inner city Orlando, I bought the same brand of cigarettes for four dollars.

In the United States, the breaking of the traditional family structure is an issue that has become increasingly noticeable in recent years, particularly in urbanized areas. The traditional mom-and-dad-and-children are rarely seen in the inner cities any more. There is a weakened bond of kinship and declining social family significance as America has transferred industrial, educational and recreational activities to specialized institutions outside of the home. It is depriving families of their most characteristic, historical functions. With divorce rates rising, delinquency is also becoming more of a problem than before. In single-parent families, parents spend less time with children. These specialized institutions often help, but cannot replace the role of a child guardian. As long as the divorce rate continues to increase, delinquency will continue to increase in these areas as well.

The variations of people give rise to segregation of people by race, religious practices, ethnic heritage as well as economic and social status. Segregation often creates much tension and prejudice between social groups. This can cause physical or mental damage to individuals or society. As for racism and segregation, there is not much that can be done to fix these problems. Individuals will always have their own opinions, no matter how ignorant. And the only thing we can do is to hope that these problems die out as we desegregate our community. People will choose their destination or place of residence according to many different ideals and needs, for example, what fits their budget? The government assumes major responsibility for development attempting to meet rapid and increasing demands for education, housing, agriculture and industrial development, transportation and employment. The government budget is not distributed equally mainly due to differentiation in areas. Areas with higher income will obviously have a higher budget to work with.

Urban areas are usually lacking in financial resources, therefore they are not able to repair all the problems in these areas, such as sanitation, education and many other categories. America has hired 50% more teachers in the last few years than have been hired in the past, but the increase in population keeps the classrooms just as large. The effort does not meet the need, thus the problem remains as strong as ever. Due to the overpopulation in urban areas and the lack of employment opportunity, the crime rate is still a huge problem in which they are faced with. Also, the lack of the traditional family structure and weakened bonds of kinship weaken the moral of the children growing up in the urban areas. These children grow up in poverty, and usually look at crime as a quick and easy way out. Problems in urban areas are far more serious than can be handled in any short-term efforts. We can only hope to contain them and attempt to make sure that no more problems arise from the already existing ones.

本文主題是圍繞Urbanization城市化, 該主題在07.9已考過一次，本次考試再次涉及，相對(duì)前次，難度加深，涉及到了犯罪上升、城市污染、就業(yè)失業(yè)等多個(gè)熱點(diǎn)話題，這些話題都屬于我在課堂指出的十大熱點(diǎn)話題范圍內(nèi)。體現(xiàn)在詞匯難度上和文章深度上，想必會(huì)使很多同學(xué)感到緊張。雖然文章中詞匯難度加大，但如果考生完全可以撥開迷霧，直擊考點(diǎn)。而做到這一步的關(guān)鍵，便是對(duì)筆記考題的幾大“信號(hào)”爛熟于胸。

在上海新東方課堂上我通過考試文章文體一貫的特點(diǎn)和出題的規(guī)律，講了哪些信息是考試必須要記下來的，總結(jié)了必備“信號(hào)詞”— 即什么時(shí)候該聽，什么時(shí)候才記。本文與往年相比也不例外，多個(gè)空格出在文中的數(shù)字、列舉、重要，及作比較的句子中。而其他難詞，就算未聽懂（人并非金山詞霸,尤其對(duì)很多臨陣磨槍的考生來說），由于它們?cè)诳碱}中的地位并不重要，所以依然可以在聽文章時(shí)跨越障礙，取其精華。大家也可以對(duì)照真題及考試原文，畫出原句所在，來感受一下標(biāo)志詞的技巧。如比較類：more +falling+growing(共6處) ，列舉類（4處）。而最后填詞時(shí)很多空格可利用我再最后新東方考前串講時(shí)提到的填詞三步法迅速找出思路，填出同義詞即可得分。

對(duì)于信號(hào)詞相關(guān)應(yīng)考必備內(nèi)容，也可參考新東方09年新版的《高級(jí)口譯考試筆試備考精要》一書。

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