Unit 8 Book 3
Competition and Cooperation
I. Difficult Sentences
1. “Dog-eat-dog” rivalries are fueled by “greedy self-interests”
operating according to “the law of the jungle” in which “survival of the fittest” is the only rule.
(1) What do the phrases “the law of the jungle” and “survival of the fittest” mean?
(=a. “The law of the jungle” means everyone cares for himself only.
b. “Survival of the fittest” means only the strongest creatures will stay alive.
(2) Translate the sentence into Chinese.
2. But those who deplore free-market competition simply do not understand it.
What is the author’s attitude toward the people who are strongly against free-market competition?
(=In the author’s opinion, they don’t really know what competition means.)
3. Competitive markets excel at promoting cooperation.
Paraphrase the sentence.
(=Competitive markets do quite well in encouraging people to cooperate.)
4. Competition and cooperation exist side by side.
(1) Translate the sentence.
(=竞争与合作并存。)
(2) Say something more about the usage of “side by side.”
(= This kind of phrases are called “frequentative words”(重复型成对词). The two same words can be linked by the conjunction “and” or prepositions such as “in”, “by” and so on.
More examples:
again and again适者生存英语 反复地; 屡次地; 一再地
through and through 彻底地；全面地
out-and-out 完全的, 彻底的
day after day 持续不断地
word for word 逐字逐句地
eye to eye 见解一致
man-to-man 坦诚地
hand in hand 手牵手地，紧密合作
5. It follows that we must find some way to decide who gets how
much of any scarce goods.
Translate the sentence into Chinese.
(=这样我们必须到某种方式来确定谁该得到多少某种奇缺的商品。)
6. We call such bidding competition, but note that such competition differs fundamentally from another kind of “competition”…
(1) What does the first “such” refer to here?
(= It refers to what had mentioned in the previous sentence.)
(2) Compare the two “such” in the sentence.
(=These two words have different parts of speech. The first one is a pronoun while the second one is an adjective.)
7. If the owners of General Motors spread nails on the roads leading to Ford factories and dealerships, this is a form of non-economic competition—and a most undesirable form.
What is the author’s purpose of citing the example of “spreading nails”?
(=He just wants to support his argument – sometimes competition is not good.)
8. But notice that identically undesirable consequences occur when General Motors and Ford cooperate with each other to lobby successfully for import restrictions on foreign automobiles.
Why doesn’t the author think much of the “import restriction on foreign automobiles” ?
(=Because in his opinion tariffs hurt consumers too.)
9. Instead, such legislation is typically revered as desirable social
policy.
What can we infer from this sentence?
(=From this sentence, we can infer that the author doesn’t think much of this kind of legislation.)
10. Today, the descendants of the owners of mom-and-pops are surely better off than they would have been had supermarkets never come along.
(1) What can we infer from the sentence?
(=By citing this example, the author just wants to tell us sometimes the competition is not a bad thing.)
(2) What does the author want to tell us when he uses the subjunctive mood here?
(=The author just wants to tell us that supermarkets do exit now.)
(3) Translate the sentence into Chinese.
(=今天，夫妻店老板的子孙过的生活，肯定比超级市场未
出现时富裕得多。)
II. Words and Expressions
1. cutthroat: adj. very fierce, cruel, or unprincipled
*At the root of the problems with the old system was cut-throat
competition.
那是一笔残酷无情的生意。
(That is a cutthroat business.)
2. rivalry : n. [+ with/between] the state or condition of competing
*Most of the killings result from gang rivalry.
(=There has always been intense rivalry between New Zealand and Australia.)
Collocations:
friendly rivalry 友好竞争
intense/acute/bitter/fierce/keen/strong rivalry between ……间的激烈竞争
sibling rivalry 手足相争
enter/get into rivalry with sb. 开始和某人竞争
stir up rivalry 煽动对立
3. fuel : vt. to make sth., especially sth. bad, increase or become stronger
*His words fuelled her anger still more.
这个预算会加剧通货膨胀，降低我们的生活水平。
(=This budget will fuel inflation and cut our living standard.)
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