Letter to a B student

Letter to a B student

How to Calculate Grades

Key to vocabulary/phrase quiz • Norm • Eligibility • Offset • Perspective • Apt to • Transcript • Proficiency • Correspondent to • fuzzy • ritual • Flunk • Gear • Coercive • Hewn • coordinate

Structural analysis

Words and expressions • Zero-sum game（零和游戏/博弈）：A situation in which if one person gains an advantage form it, someone else involved in it must suffer an equivalent disadvantage. 博弈论的英文名为game theory，直译就是“游戏理论”。游戏者有输有赢，一方所赢正是另一方所输，游戏的总成绩永远是零。“零和游戏”之所以广受关注，主要是因为人们发现，在社会的方方面面都有与“零和游戏”类似的局面，胜利者的光荣后面往往隐藏着失败者的辛酸和苦涩。 Positive sum game 正和游戏(“双赢”或“多赢”) Negative sum game 负和游戏(没有赢家)

Paraphrase • To lose, to fail, to go under, to go broke — these are deadly sins in a world where prosperity in the present is seen as a sure sign of salvation in the future. • Being unsuccessful in one’s life and career and financially disadvantaged is regarded as shameful or even sinful because in this world people tend to think that only those who are successful now can be saved from evil in the future. • Deadly sins——The phrase specifically refers to “the seven deadly sins”: pride, covetousness(贪婪), lust（色欲）, anger, gluttony（暴食）, envy and sloth（懒惰）.

put/see/view … in perspective 正确看待 to judge the real importance of something by considering it in relation to other things e.g. You must put the story in its right perspective. to see problems in their true perspective

take … at face value根据外表判断 to accept something for what it appears to be e.g. If you take his remarks only at their face value you will not have understood his full meaning. She took his stories at face value and did not know he was joking.

GI (pl. GIs or GI‘s) is an American soldier , especially an enlisted one(现役军人). GI-Bill or the GI-Bill of Rights is the popular name for the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, which provided US World War II veterans with special assistance. • 1944年，《退伍军人权利法案》(Servicemen’s Readjustment Act ，或GI Bill“大兵法案”) 出台。根据这一法案，政府资助二次大战的退伍军人接受大学教育，旨在帮助退伍军人更好地适应平民生活。此外，政府还为退伍军人提供医疗,卫生,住房等方面的优惠政策。这些军人学生就称为GI-Bill students。

Private （兵） • Corporal（下士） • Sergeant（中士） • First Sergeant（上士） • Sergeant Major （军士长） • Command Sergeant • Major （指挥军士长） • Warrant Officer （准尉) • Second Lieutenant（少尉） • First Lieutenant（中尉） • Captain（上尉） • Major（少校） • Lieutenant Colonel（中校） • Colonel（上校） • Brigadier General（准将） • Major General（少将） • Lieutenant General（中将） • General（上将） General of the Army（五星上将）

It is important to recognize that human beings, despite differences in class and educational labeling, are fundamentally hewn from the same material and knit together by common bonds of fear and joy, suffering and achievement. • It is important to see the fact that although they differ in their class status and educational background, human beings are essentially the same. First of all, they are, biologically speaking, constructed in the same way, and then they all share the feelings of fear and joy, and also the common experience of suffering and achieving. This commonality has bound them together.

Warfare, sickness, disasters, public and private—these are the larger coordinates of life. • All of them will regard wars, diseases, and disasters, both private and public, as unfortunate big events in their lifetime.

Letter to a B student