研究生英语第四单元解析

Opportunity Cost
Robert E. Hall & Marc Lieberman
Background Information
1. Information about the authors 2. Information about opportunity cost 3. Opportunity cost in production
1. Information about the authors 2. Information about opportunity cost 3. Examples about opportunity cost
Text A Opportunity Cost
• Text Explanation & Translation • Organization of the Text
Text A Opportunity Cost
Contents
➢ Background Information ➢ Pre-reading Questions ➢ Text A Opportunity Cost ➢ Vocabulary
➢ Exercises
Background Information
Background
1. Information about the authors
Robert E. Hall was one of the world’s most eminent
economists. Dr. Hall received his Ph.D. from MIT and has taught there as well as at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the president of the American Economic Association for the year 2010. He is also director of the research program on Economic Fluctuations of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and chairman of the Bureau’s Committee on Business Cycle Dating, which maintains the chronology of the U.S. business cycle.
新编研究生综合英语教程
Advanced English for Graduate Students: General Skills &Academic Literacy
Unit Four Economy
Байду номын сангаас
Text A Opportunity Cost Text B Economic Outlook
Vocabulary
Core Vocabulary List
•Core Vocabulary List •Thematic Progression
•Expanding the Notion of Theme to Larger Structures than Clause
Exercises
l. Comprehension
Preface
Should I go to work today? Should I go to college after high school? Should the government spend money on a new weapon system? These are decisions that are made everyday; but, what is the cost of our decisions? What is the cost of going to work, or not going to work? What is the cost of college, or not going to college? Finally what is the cost of buying that weapon system, or the cost of not buying that weapon? In economics it is called opportunity cost.
II Word Study
III Cloze IV Translation V Writing
11
• I Comprehension
• 1. Answer Questions
• 2. Paraphrase
IV Translation
1. English Translation 2. Chinese Translation
Let's look at our examples from above. If you have a job, what do you give up to go to work? There are many possibilities. You could sleep in. If it is a nice day, you could take your dog to the park and play all day. Or, you could even spend the day looking for a better job, right? If you choose to go to work, you give up all of these things. What you get from working is a greater benefit than the cost of giving up these things. But, opportunity cost is the most desirable thing given up, not the aggregate of the things we have given up.
Opportunity cost is the cost we pay when we give up something to get something else. There can be many alternatives that we give up to get something else, but the opportunity cost of a decision is the most desirable alternative we give up to get what we want.