}   No one can avoid being influenced by advertisements. Much as we may pride ourselves on our good taste, we are no longer free to choose the things we want, for advertising exerts a subtle influence on us.

}  Avoid:

  在口语中经常有这样的用法，avoid sb 躲着某某人
For the past couple days, people have been avoiding me and giving me these really strange looks.

   在过去几天大家都躲着我，看我的表情怪怪的。

}  In their efforts to persuade us to buy this or that product, advertisers have made a close study of human nature and have classified all our little weaknesses.

}  a close study of human nature :

   human nature 人的本质
Such is human nature,(lesson 4)

   这就是人的本性
While she always criticized the fickleness of human nature… (lesson 49)

}  Classified:
classify /categorize

   归类（动词），这俩可作为同义词
classified / confidential
机密，像国家机密这种程度，叫做 classified（直接作为形容词时）confidential，也是机密，保守秘密的意思，但它的程度不像 classified 那么深。如，银行客户的资料是不会给人透露，职员会告诉你客户的资料是 confidential 的。注意这两种程度的差别。

}  Weakness:
flaw

    前者是指弱点；后者是缺点

}  Advertisers discovered years ago that all of us love to get something for nothing. An advertisement which begins with the magic word FREE can rarely go wrong. These days, advertisers not only offer free samples, but free cars, free houses, and free trips round the world as well. They devise hundreds of competitions which will enable us to win huge sums of money. Radio and television have made it possible for advertisers to capture the attention of millions of people in this way.

}  Free:
Buy one, get one free.
 买一送一

}  Competition：
competition / contest

   competition 泛指竞争；contest 尤指抢答问答，像综艺节目的那种竞赛。

}  During a radio programme, a company of biscuit manufacturers once asked listeners to bake biscuits and send them to their factory. They offered to pay $10 a pound for the biggest biscuit baked by a listener. The response to this competition was tremendous.

}  Once:
I had a crush on a teacher once, and it was so hard.
crush 短暂的爱恋，眷恋；你忽然有一段时间，特别爱恋一个人，这种就叫做 crush。
I had a dream once about a fax machine.

   我有一次做了一个梦，是关于 fax machine 的。

}  Before long, biscuits of all shapes and sizes began arriving at the factory. One lady brought in a biscuit on a wheelbarrow. It weighed nearly 500 pounds. A little later, a man came along with a biscuit which occupied the whole boot of his car. All the biscuits that were sent were carefully weighed.

}  Before long: 和所谓的long before… 没可比性
before long: shortly/in the near future

   不久，可以自己单独运用，相当于一个副词；可以用后面的解释去理解它的意思。
long before… : long 是副词， Before可为连词，介词
不要拿before long 和long before 对比，他们没有可比性；就像问“一公斤”= “几尺”，毫无意义！

but no one was willing to work there long. (lesson 30)

    这里的 long 是副词

his eccentricity had become legendary long before he died. (lesson31)
在他死的时候很久以前，他的个性已经很传奇了；要是这里把long 去掉，意思就是，在他死之前，他的个性已经很传奇了。意思是有点不一样的。

    long before the final catastrophe.（lesson 49）

    这里的before 是介词，就是说在这个 final catastrophe 来临很久之前；long 在这里的词性就相当于下面的just
just before her departure
就在她要离开的时候

　ｌｏｎｇ　ｂｅｆｏｒｅ它俩根本就不是一个结构，根本就不应该放在一起说。

}  The largest was 713 pounds. It seemed certain that this would win the prize. But just before the competition closed, a lorry arrived at the factory with a truly colossal biscuit which weighed 2,400 pounds. It had been baked by a college student who had used over 1,000 pounds of flour, 800 pounds of sugar, 200 pounds of fat, and 400 pounds of various other ingredients. It was so heavy that a crane had to be used to remove it from the lorry. The manufacturers had to pay more money than they had anticipated, for they bought the biscuit from the student for $24,000.

}  Flour:
wheat flour: all-purpose /cake/bread flour
corn flour
rice flour

　这几种是超市里面常见的面粉。wheat flour 有上述的几种，你要买的话，就买“all purpose”便可，它是指多功能的，要做什么样的都适用。

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