Unit 1
Lesson 1 How Closely Connected Are We？
第一课我们之间的联系有多紧密？
Research shows the average person only has regular communication with between seven and fifteen people, and that most of our communication is in fact with five to ten people who are closest to us. However, perhaps we are closer to the rest of the world than we think. “Six Degrees of Separation” refers to the theory that any person on Earth can be connected to any other person through a chain of no more than five other people.
研究表明，普通人只与7 至15 个人经常保持联系，而且其中大部分的交流实际上只发生在5 到10 个亲近的人身上。不过，也许我们与世界上其他人的联系比想象中的更紧密。“六度分隔”理论说的是地球上任何人都可通过不超过另外五个人与一个陌生人联系起来。
The concept was first talked about as long ago as in the 1920s. The Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy published a book called Everything Is Different in 1929, in which he introduced the idea of friendship networks and his ideas influenced many
of our early impressions of social networks.
这个概念早在20世纪20年代就被提出。匈牙利作家弗里吉斯·考林蒂在1929年出版了《一切皆不同》一书，书中介绍了朋友关系网的概念，许多早期关于社交网络的构想都受到他思想的影响。
In the 1950s, an attempt was made by two scientists to prove the theory mathematically; but after twenty years, they still had not had any success. In 1967, an American sociologist called Stanley Milgram tried using a new method to test the theory, which he called the “small-wor ld problem”. He chose a random sample of people in the middle of America and asked them to send packages to a stranger in the state of Massachusetts. The people sending the packages only knew the name, job and general location of the stranger. Milgram told them to send the package to a person they knew personally who they thought might know the target stranger. Once the parcel had been received by this person, he/she would send the parcel onto a contact of theirs until the parcel could be personally delivered to the correct person. Amazingly, it only took between five and seven people to get the parcels delivered, and once released, the results were published in the bimonthly magazine Psychology Today. It was this research that inspired the phrase “Six Degrees of Separation”.
20世纪50年代，两位科学家试图用数学方法证明该理论，但20年过去了，仍未成功。1967年，美国社
会学家斯坦利·米尔格拉姆试图用新的方法来验证这一理论，他称之为“小世界问题”。米尔格拉姆在美国中部随机抽取一部分人作为样本，让他们给马萨诸塞州的一位陌生人寄包裹。这些寄送包裹的人只知道这位陌生人的姓名、工作和大致的位置。米尔格拉姆告诉这些人先把包裹寄给认为有
的人，直到包裹被送到目标收件人手中。令人惊讶的是，这些包裹只需通过5
至7个人就能送到正确的人手中。结果一经公布，便发表在双月刊《今日心理学》上。正是这项研究启发了“六度分隔”这一说法。
In the last few decades, the theory and the phrase have appeared again. Its name was used as the title of a play and then a film. Then, more films and TV programmes based on the concept were made and broadcast. For example, the Oscar-winning film Babel is based on the concept of “Six Degrees of Separation”. The lives of all the characters were closely connected, although they did not know each other and lived thousands of miles apart. The television series Lost also explored the idea of “Six Degrees of Separation”, as almost all the characters had randomly met each other, or had met someone the other characters knew, before they were all in the same plane crash. In the mid-1990s, two college students in the United States invented a game. The idea of the game was to link any actor to Kevin Bacon, a famous American actor and musician, through no more than six links. Soon the game was being played in universities across the United States.
在过去的几十年里，这一理论和说法又再次出现。它被用作戏剧标题和电影名称。随后，更多基于这一理论的影视节目相继拍摄、播出。例如，奥斯卡获奖影片《通天塔》就是基于“六度分隔”这一概念。影片中所有人物彼此不认识、相隔千里，但他们的生活都是紧密相连的。电视连续剧《迷失》也探讨了“六度分隔”的理论，剧中失事飞机上几乎所有人物此前都曾偶遇，或曾遇见其他人物认识的人。上世纪90年代中期，美国两名大学生发明了一款游戏。这个游戏的玩法是用不超过六个联结将任意一个演员与著名演员、音乐家凯文·贝肯联系起来。这款游戏很快在美国的大学里流行起来。
In 2003, Columbia University tried to recreate Milgram’s experiment on the Internet. This became known as the “Columbia Small-world Project”. The experiment involved 24,163 email chains with 18 target people in 13 different countries. The results confirmed that the average number of links in the chain was six.
2003年，哥伦比亚大学尝试在互联网上重现米尔格拉姆的实验，被称为“哥伦比亚小世界项目”。这项实验涉及24163个链接，覆盖了来自13个国家的18个目标人物。实验结果证实，联络串上的连接平均数量是6个。
Most recently, an experiment in 2011 at the University of Milan analysed the relationship between 721 million social media users and found that 92 percent were connected by only four stages, or five degrees of separation.
最新的是2011年米兰大学的一项实验，该实验分析了7.21亿社交媒体用户之间的关系，发现92%的用户只需通过四个阶段(即五度分隔)，就可建立联系。
So, think about it for a minute: How might you be connected to the driver of the bus you regularly take or the person who delivers your parcels?
所以，思考一下这个问题：你与你经常乘坐的公交车司机或给你送包裹的人可能存在怎样的联系？
Lesson 3 Anne of Green Gables
第三课绿山墙的安妮
Marilla saw Matthew in the front yard and immediately rushed to the door. But when her eyes fell on the odd little figure in the stiff, ugly dress, with the long red hair and the eager, bright eyes, she froze in amazement.
玛丽拉看见马修到前院了，立刻冲到门口。但当她的目光落在那个衣服不合身又难看、长着红长头发、眼睛热切而明亮的古怪小人身上时，她惊呆了。
“Matthew Cuthbert, who’s that?” she asked. “Where is the boy?”
“马修·卡斯伯特，她是谁？那个男孩子呢？”她问道。
“There wasn’t any boy,” said Matthew. “There was only her.”
“没有男孩子，只有她在那里。”马修答道。
He nodded at the child, remembering that he had never even asked her name.
他向那孩子点了点头，突然想起自己甚至还没有问过女孩儿的名字。
“No boy! But there must have been a boy,” insisted Marilla. “We sent word to Mrs Spencer to bring a boy.”
“没有男孩儿！可是一定得有个男孩儿，”玛丽拉坚持说。“我们给斯宾塞太太捎口信要带个男孩子来的呀。”
“Well, she didn’t. She brought her. She arrived at train station and couldn’t be left there alone.”
“好吧，她没有。斯宾塞太太只带来了这个孩子。她到了火车站，总不能把她一个人扔在那儿吧。”
During this dialogue the child had remained silent. Suddenly she seemed to grasp the full meaning of
what had been said. She sprang forward a step and clasped her hands.
俩人说话时，这孩子一声不吭。突然，她似乎完全明白了他们说话的意思，冲上前一步，双手紧握。
“You don’t want me!” the girl cried. “You don’t want me because I’m not a boy! I might have expected it. I might have known it was all too beautiful to last. I might have known nobody really did want me. Oh, what am I going to do? I’m going to burst into tears!”
“你们不想要我！”她大喊道。“你们不想要我，就因为我不是男孩儿！我早就应该料到。我早就应该知道这件事太美好，无法持久。我早就应该想到没人真得想要我。哦，我该怎么办呀？我马上就要哭出来了！”
on it, and burying her face in them, she proceeded to cry stormily. Marilla and Matthew looked at each other. Neither of them knew what to say or do. Finally Marilla stepped in to try to comfort the child.高中英语课文
她立刻哭了起来。一下坐到桌边的椅子上，扑到桌上，脸埋在臂弯里，放声大哭。玛丽拉和马修面面相觑，都不知道该说什么，也不知道该做点儿什么。最后玛丽拉试着走上前安慰这个孩子。
“Well, well, there’s no need to cry so about it.”
“好啦，好啦，没必要为这事儿哭成这样。”
“Yes, there is need!” The child raised her head, revealing a tear-stained face. “You would cry, too, if you were an orphan and had come to a place you thought was going to be home and found that they didn’t want you because you weren’t a boy.
“有，有必要！”那孩子抬起头，露出一张泪痕斑斑的脸。“如果你是个孤儿，来到一个满以为会成为自己家的地方，却发现他们并不想要你，因为你不是个男孩，你也会哭的。”
“Well, don’t cry anymore. We’re not going to send you off tonight. You’ll have to stay here until we investigate this affair. What’s your name?”
“好吧，别再哭了。今晚我们不会送你走的。在我们搞清楚这件事之前，你先待在这儿。你叫什么名字？”
“Anne,” said the child sadly.
“我叫安妮，”孩子悲伤地说。
“Well, come along, Anne. It’s dinner time.”
“好的，来吧，安妮，该吃晚饭了。”
They all sat down for dinner but Anne could not eat. She tried to enjoy the bread and butter and the apple jam out of the little glass dish by her plate but she had no appetite.
他们都坐下来吃饭，但安妮吃不下。她试着吃点儿面包、黄油和摆在她盘子旁边小玻璃碟里的苹果酱，但一点胃口都没有。
“You’re not eating anything,” said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious problem. Anne sighed.
“你什么都没吃，”玛丽拉严厉地说，眼睛盯着她，好像这是个严重的问题。安妮叹了口气。
“I can’t. I’m in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?”
“我吃不下。我彻底绝望了。你彻底绝望的时侯还能吃得下东西吗？”
“我从来没有完全绝望的时候，所以没法回答，”玛丽拉回答道。
“Weren’t you? Well, did you ever try to imagine you were in the depths of despair?”
“你没有过吗？好吧，那你有没有试着想象自己陷入了绝望的深渊？”
“No, I didn’t.”
“不，没想过。”
“I guess she’s tired,” said Matthew. “Best put her to bed, Marilla.”
“我想她一定是累了，”马修说。“最好让她去睡觉吧，玛丽拉。”
Marilla had been wondering where Anne should be put to bed. She decided on the small bedroom on the first floor. She lit a candle and told Anne to follow her, which Anne did, taking her hat and bag from the hall table as she passed. The hall was perfectly clean; the little room in which she found herself seemed still cleaner.
玛丽拉一直在想应该让安妮睡在哪里，最后决定安排在一楼的小卧室。她点了根蜡烛，叫安妮跟着她。安妮跟了上来，路过大厅时从桌子上拿起自己的帽子和包。大厅非常干净，她发现自己进来的这间小屋似乎更干净。
Marilla set the candle on a three-legged table and turned down the bedclothes.
玛丽拉把蜡烛放在一张三腿桌上，铺开床褥。
“Well, undress as quick as you can and go to bed. I’ll come back in a few minutes for the candle. I daren’t trust you to put it out yourself. You’d likely set the place on fire.”
“好了，赶快脱掉衣服上床睡觉吧。几分钟后我会回来拿蜡烛，我可不放心让你自己吹灭蜡烛，你很可能会放火烧了这个地方。”
When Marilla had gone, Anne looked around her sadly. The whitewashed walls were so painfully bare. The floor was bare, too. In one corner was the bed, a high, old-fashioned one of dark wood. Midway between table and bed was the window, with an icy white curtain over it. There was no restroom, but there was a wash stand with a faucet in the other corner. The whole room felt cold and unwelcoming, which sent a shiver through Anne’s bones. With a sob she quickly undressed, put on her nightclothes and jumped into bed where she pressed her face down into the pillow and pulled the clothes over her head.
玛丽拉走后，安妮悲伤地环顾四周。四周的墙壁粉刷得雪白，什么装饰也没有。地板上也空荡荡的，角落里有一张床，一张高高的老式深木床。桌子和床的中间有一扇窗，窗上挂着一块冰白的窗帘。房间里没有洗手间，但另一个角落有一个带水龙头的洗漱台。整个房间让人感到寒冷而陌生，安
妮浑身打了个冷战。她抽泣着，迅速脱下衣服，穿上睡衣，跳到床上，把脸埋在枕头里，拉过棉被蒙住脑袋。