大学英语六级考试阅读单词：14

　　[背景了解]
　　文章取自于2003年9月的阅读真题，是关于汽车的文章，选段不长，希望耐心看下，自己先猜下划线部分单词的意思吧
　　[文章部分]
　　As machines go, the car is not terribly noisy, nor terribly polluting, nor terribly dangerous; and on all those dimensions it has become better as the century has grown older. The main problem is its prevalence, and the social costs that ensue from the use by everyone of something that would be fairly harmless if, say, only the rich were to use it. It is a price we pay for equality.
　　Before becoming too gloomy, it is worth recalling why the car has been arguably the most successful and popular product of the whole of the past 100 years—and remains so.
　　[单词学习]
　　dimension n.尺寸, 尺度, 维(数), 度(数), 元
　　prevalence n.流行
　　ensue　 vi.跟着发生, 继起 vt. (基督教《圣经》用语)追求
　　gloomy　 adj.黑暗的, 阴沉的, 令人沮丧的, 阴郁的
　　arguably adv.可论证地,正如可提出证据加以证明的那样
　　[课后作业]
　　今天的作业就是翻译下面5个句子,来试下吧
　　1.Time is sometimes called the fourth dimension..
　　2.They were very surprised by the prevalence of anti-government sentiments.
　　3.Bitter arguments ensued from this misunderstanding.
　　4.What are you so gloomy about? Cheer up!
　　5.John sings very well though Peter is arguably the better actor.
　　答案：1.时间有时被称为第四度空间。
　　2.他们对普遍存在的反政府情绪感到很吃惊。
　　3.这一误会引发了激烈的讨论。
　　4.你为什么情绪这么低落？振作起来吧！
　　5.约翰唱得很好，不过按理说彼得演得更好。