[背景了解]
　　文章取自于2003年9月的閱讀真題，是關于汽車的文章，選段不長，希望耐心看下，自己先猜下劃線部分單詞的意思吧
　　[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.
　　[單詞學習]
　　dimension n.尺寸, 尺度, 維(數), 度(數), 元
　　prevalence n.流行
　　ensue　 vi.跟著發生, 繼起 vt. (基督教《圣經》用語)追求
　　gloomy　 adj.黑暗的, 陰沉的, 令人沮喪的, 陰郁的
　　arguably adv.可論證地,正如可提出證據加以證明的那樣
　　[課后作業]
　　今天的作業就是翻譯下面5個句子,來試下吧
　　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.時間有時被稱為第四度空間。
　　2.他們對普遍存在的反政府情緒感到很吃驚。
　　3.這一誤會引發了激烈的討論。
　　4.你為什么情緒這么低落？振作起來吧！
　　5.約翰唱得很好，不過按理說彼得演得更好。