1999年考研英语阅读真题单词解析（考研1号读者原创）.doc

1999年考研英语阅读真题单词解析（考研1号读者原创） 1999年Text 1 It’s a rough world out there. Step outside and you could break a leg slipping on your doormat. Light up the stove and you could burn down the house. Luckily, if the doormat or stove failed to warn of coming disaster, a successful lawsuit might compensate you for your troubles. Or so the thinking has gone since the early 1980s, when juries began holding more companies liable for their customers’ misfortunes. rough adj 粗糙的 粗野的 艰苦的 未经加工的 doormat n 门垫 light on 点亮 stove n 火炉 lawsuit n 诉讼 compensate vt 补偿 赔偿 付报酬 juries n 陪审团 （jury的复数） 评委会 misfortune n 不幸 灾祸 灾难 Feeling threatened, companies responded by writing ever-longer warning labels, trying to anticipate every possible accident. Today, stepladders carry labels several inches long that warn, among other things, that you might -- surprise! -- fall off. The label on a child’s Batman cape cautions that the toy “does not enable user to fly.” label n 标签 商标 anticipate vt 预期 期望 抢先 提前使用 stepladder n 折梯 cape n 披肩 caution n 小心 谨慎 警告 vt 警告 While warnings are often appropriate and necessary -- the dangers of drug interactions, for example -- and many are required by state or federal regulations, it isn’t clear that they actually protect the manufacturers and sellers from liability if a customer is injured. About 50 percent of the companies lose when injured customers take them to court. appropriate adj 适当的 vt 占用 拔出 federal adj 联邦的 同盟的 actually adv 实际上的 protect vt 保护 manufacturer n 制造商 court n 法院 球场 朝廷 Now the tide appears to be turning. As personal injury claims continue as before, some courts are beginning to side with defendants, especially in cases where a warning label probably wouldn’t have changed anything. In May, Julie Nimmons, president of Schutt Sports in Illinois, successfully fought a lawsuit involving a football player who was paralyzed in a game while wearing a Schutt helmet. “We’re real