本书题材广泛，内容涉及当代社会文化和科学技术的各个方面，具有较强的知识性和可读性。练习形式多样，突出了对学生交际运用能力的培养，本课的文字精彩段落配有录音光盘，便于学生听说模仿，紧扣教育部颁布的《非英语专业硕士生英语学位课程考试大纲》和《样题》，以便于研究生学位课程考试。

Unit 1 Ghosts for Tea

Unit 2 Individuals and Masses

Unit 3 On Friendship

Unit 4 Explicit and Implicit Moral Education

Unit 5 Take a Lesson from the Economists

Unit 6 How to Read Body Language

Unit 7 The Healing Power of Belief

Unit 8 Is a Race of Robots Possible

Unit 9 Pollution Is a Dirty Word

Unit 10 Three kinds of Heroes Emerge

Unit 11 TheIks

Unit 12 Thanksgiving

Unit 13 Nine Years for A and B

Unit 14 To Err Is Human

Unit 15 The Passers-by Who Are Stealing Your Secrets

Unit 16 The Role of Science Fiction

Unit 17 Newspapers

Unit 18 Three Days to See

Unit 19 The Essayist

Unit 20 Culture Shock

Unit 21 Little Lamb, Who Made Thee

Unit 22 Infotopia or Market Place7

Unit 23 The Unhappy American Way

Unit 24 The Cultural Patterning of Time

Unit 25 A Science of Society