5-8听力原文

Unit 5 Agriculture
Part I In-class Listening
I. Understanding Basic Skills
Listening Task
Directions: You will hear ten long and complicated sentences. Listen carefully and choose the best answers to the following questions.
1. Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please? Flight 5125 scheduled to take off at 11:30 will be delayed for 20 minutes. Please check in half an hour prior to departure. Thank you.
2. I have to teach the same course books several times in the summer holiday camp, which is sometimes boring and not well-paid, but by and large I’m quite delighted at being with young people.
3. It is getting much easier to travel nowadays, but increasingly harder to get away from people, and that is perhaps the most difficult thing for holiday makers.
4. The elderly woman was planning to take the half-past-five coach. Unfortunately due to poor road conditions, which made safe driving impossible, it departed at a quarter past eight.
5. Statistics show that 300 people are killed in air crashes in the United States every year, but about 50,000 people are killed in car accidents.
6. I have prescribed something for your daughter, Mrs. Johnson. Make sure she takes it three times a day after meals. If she is not any better by Tuesday, come to see me again.
7. Whenever I go to the bank near my house, the cashiers are either fooling around or keeping whole queues of people waiting by chatting to the customer at the front about their holiday.
8. The moment the windscreen shatters you should begin to take your foot off the accelerator, not completely off, of course, because you might be in heavy traffic, with another vehicle right behind you.
9. Two men who were caught stealing property after it grew dark have appeared before the local magistrate’s court this morning. They are expected to be kept in custody for several days.
10.If you don’t want to sound impolite, or cause embarrassment or distress of any
kind to the person you’re talking to, you should learn to use tactful and tentative forms in your English. OK, class is over.
II. Understanding News
Listening Task
Directions: Listen to the passage and decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
AGRICULTURE REPORT—Some Crops (Like Some People) Do Well as Companions
Companion planting is the idea that when some crops are planted together, they help each other grow. These compatible plants generally have similar needs for nutrients, soil and moisture.
Advice for companion plantings is sometimes based more on tradition than proof. But Fabian Fernandez at the University of Illinois says there is evidence for some combinations. These can lead to better crops, reduce disease and help with pest control by attracting helpful insects. For example, some kinds of soil bacteria take nitrogen from the air and make a form that plants can use. The plants keep the nitrogen in their roots. Legumes are especially good at this. Any crops sharing the same space can get the nitrogen as the roots decompose.
Crops like beans and potatoes can also share territory well because their roots reach different levels in the soil. Deep-rooted vegetables get nutrients and moisture from lower down, so they do not compete with shallower plants. But some plants placed together may harm each other’s development. For example, tomatoes do not like wet soil but watercress does, as the name suggests. So you would probably not want to put them together.
Even after harvest, some kinds of produce should be kept apart. Apples, for example, release ethylene gas, a plant hormone. It can cause other foods to ripen too quickly. Fruits that release a lot of ethylene also include apricots, melons and tomatoes. Vegetables easily affected by ethylene include asparagus, broccoli, cabbage and cucumbers. Markets often separate high ethylene-producing foods from those that are sensitive to the gas. But sometimes you might want them together. For example, if you put an apple in a bag with a green banana, the banana will be ready to eat sooner.
Now what about peaches, plums and nectarines that are too firm to eat? Growers in California answer this question at . They say an apple, banana or a riper piece of fruit is not needed. The peaches, plums and nectarines themselves release enough of the gas to ripen successfully.
Their advice: Place the fruit in a fruit bowl or in a paper bag with the top folded over. Keep the fruit at room temperature, out of direct sunlight. When the fruit is soft enough to your liking, either use it or place it in a refrigerator to stop further ripening.
And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson.
III. Understanding Passages
Listening Task 1
Directions: Listen to the passage carefully and fill in the blanks with the exact words, phrases or sentences you hear.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that leads international efforts to defeat hunger. FAO was established on 16 October 1945 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. In 1951 its headquarters were moved from Washington, D.C., United States, to Rome, Italy. The agency is directed by the Conference of Member Nations, which meets every two years to review the work carried out by the organization and to approve a
Program of Work and Budget for the next two-year period. The Conference elects a council of 49 member states (serve three-year rotating terms) that acts as an interim governing body, and the Director-General, that heads the agency.
Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information, and helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices, ensuring good nutrition and food security for all. Its Latin motto, fiat panis, translates into English as “let there be bread”.
Listening Task 2
Directions:Listen to the passage and choose the best answers to the questions.
New Zealand lies in the South Pacific Ocean. It is made up of two large islands—North Island and South Island—and lots of smaller islands. The area of New Zealand is 270,534 sq km.
New Zealand has very good conditions for agriculture. 66% of the land is good for farming. The farming can be on highland or lowland. Grass grows very well in wet climate, so most of the farming is animal farming. You can find sheep everywhere in the country. But farmers in rich lowland very often keep cattle, that is, cows for milk.
Sheep farms cover a half of all the land in New Zealand. Only the very wet areas and the highest mountains are not good for sheep. The sheep farms are called sheep stations. There are over 30,000 stations in North and South Islands, with sixty million sheep. The native grass of the country is not very rich. So the farmers get better grass seeds from Europe and America and plant good grass. The sheep give good meat and good wool. Most of the meat and wool is exported. Until 1882 only the wool was exported. New Zealand farmers sold the wool to factories in Britain. The sea journey to Britain was very long and slow, so meat couldn’t be exported. But in 1882 the refrigerator was invented, and the ship could keep the meat cold. So meat could be exported. Most of the meat exported today is lamb, not mutton. Lamb is the meat of young sheep, while mutton is the meat of fully grown sheep.
Unit 5 Agriculture
Part II After-class Listening
I. Understanding Basic Skills
Listening Task
Directions: Listen to the conversations carefully and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.
1. W: I wonder if Mrs. Fisher has any family. Her room is always quiet.
M: Actually she is a mother of three. Her children all live abroad. That’s why the nurses take care of her.
Q: What can be inferred from the conversation?
2. W: Hush. Mum has just fallen asleep.
M: It is so silent here that I can hear my breathing.
W: We must be quiet. She hasn’t fully recovered from her illness and needs rest. Q: What can be inferred from the conversation?
3. W: My mother does not approve of my friendship with our neighbor, John.
M: Why?
W: She says that John often tells lies and worries that I may become dishonest if I make friends with him.
Q: What can be inferred from the conversation?
4. M: I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling well.
W: Oh, it’s just a cold. Nothing serious. How about your job interview with IBM? M: Terrific. I have got a two-year contract of employment.
Q: What does the man mean?
5. W: Eggs are supposed to be one of the healthiest foods.
M: Next to potatoes.
Q: What does the man mean?
6. W: These clouds look strange, don’t they?
M: Yes. They look like snakes. I have read that black clouds of this shape are sometimes the sign of an earthquake.
Q: What can we learn from the conversation?
7. M: Did you hear that Mr. and Mrs. Brown went to Paris for a vacation last month? W: Yeah. Did they enjoy themselves?
M: It is hard to s ay. When they got there, they couldn’t get a room in a good hotel. W: That’s too bad. But they really should have made a reservation for a room earlier.
Q: What can be drawn from the conversation?
8. W: You have a telephone call, Mr. Smith.
M: Who is it?
W: He didn’t say.
M: Tell him I’m out of the office until next Monday.
Q: What can be inferred from the conversation?
9. W: You’re growing a beard, aren’t you?
M: Yeah. I am a free man now.
W: Why?
M: My wife has been away on a business trip. I’m m y own boss for the time being. Q: What does the man mean?
10. W: The city is going to put up a new shopping center in the neighborhood.
M: Another shopping center? That’s nothing new.
Q: What does the man mean?
II. Understanding a Conversation
Listening Task
Directions: Listen to the conversation and decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
One day in summer 2003, Miss Huang, a Chinese student who studied in Germany was invited by Mr. Schroder to visit his ecological farm in a little town near Hamburg. They chatted while walking around.
S: Miss Huang, welcome to the ecological farm. First allow me to give you a briefing of the farm. All you see is our farm. We are comparatively small with 70 hectares in total, of which 30 are agricultural fields, the same amount of 30 are pastries, and this is the forest, which also has some ecological functions.
H: Mr. Schroder, before I come to Germany, I hear that diversification is one typical symbol of the ecological agricultural field. Is that right?
S: You’re quite right. Let’s just stop here and have a look at the potatoes. We’re repeating the plant every seven years. This piece of land, you will find tomatoes only this year and the year 2010 again. In between, there will be other products, like grain, wheat, grass land or like what you see over there, peas. Peas are following immediately after potatoes. Next year, here will be growing peas.
H: Look, there scatter some sunflowers over there. I don’t think you do plant them on purpose.
S: It is not on purpose. It is just because sometimes we are amateurs, not professionals. But, anyway, it makes it more likable. Wherever you find only one plant, there is something wrong with the nature. Nature always means richness, diversification, and lot of numbers and lot of kinds.
H: This is actually your philosophy of running ecological farm. But why do you also keep a group of cattle in your farm? For meat?
S: We basically have the cattle to get manure, rather than meat. We have enough manure to keep our soil fertile. Look, we come to the processing factory. These are the early potatoes we have. They taste very good and sell very well.
H: Sweet?
S: No, we don’t like sweet potatoes.
H: What is the good quality of this plant?
S: The color, the taste and the consistency. It is quite firm. It is yellow, almost golden. Taste very crispy. Why not have a try?
H: Yeah, it tastes good and delicious.
S: Miss Huang, when it comes to the diet, there is an old Chinese saying we always refer to, do you know?
H: What is that?
S: You are what you eat.
H: I can’t agree more. It means if you eat good things you are of course good guy. If you eat bad things, you are a bad guy. Right?
S: Absolutely.
III. Understanding Passages
Listening Task 1
Directions: Listen to the news and then answer the following questions.
Aquaculture is the production of food through the controlled growth and harvesting of plants and animals that live in water. Using low-cost equipment and simple methods, aquaculture can supply more protein-rich foods than traditional agriculture like farming.
One popular environment for aquaculture is small lakes or ponds surrounded by land, away from the ocean. Fish such as carp and tilapia are produced in this way.
In most areas of the world, twenty-five percent of the fish ponds must be at least three meters deep. You can plant grass on the bottom of the pond. But you should remove all trees from the bottom and sides of the pond in order to keep the level of oxygen high enough for the fish. You should also remove all bushes and rocks. And you should remove all trees within nine meters of the edge of the pond. This is so that leaves will not fall into the pond. Leaves can use up a lot of oxygen that fish need. You should place a pipe at the bottom of the pond big enough for all the water to escape in about five days.
You can feed the fish many kinds of foods. These include cassava, sweet potatoes, banana and maize. Other foods include coffee and wastes from fruit-processing factories. Feed the fish only as much as they can eat in one day.
You harvest the fish by opening the pipe and permitting some of the water to escape. Then the larger fish can be caught by hand or with nets made from rope. There should be enough water left so that the smaller fish continue to live in the pond.
You can harvest the fish at any time, but it is best done in cool weather. The pond can also be dried at this time if necessary to fix any problems. Then the pond can be filled with water again and many new small fish can be added.
Aquaculture is popular around the world because there is usually no need for costly equipment. Also, you can know ahead of time how many fish will be harvested. Bad weather does not usually affect the harvest. However, good quality water is necessary and you must know how much of it is available at all times.
Listening Task 2
Directions: Fill in the blanks according to the passage you hear.
The number of countries growing GM crops has increased from 6 in 1996 to 25 in
2009, says the latest annual report of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Application (ISAAA), released in Beijing last month.
The planting of genetically modified crops has surged, particularly in developing countries, because of the global food crisis, according to the report. Around 134 million hectares worldwide are now planted with GM crops. The United States tops the list of countries growing GM crops, followed by Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada, China, Paraguay and South Africa.
“It is unwise to say no to GM t echnology considering the food crisis the world faces,” Clive James, chair of ISAAA, told .
“The most promising technological strategy at this time for increasing global food, feed and fiber productivity is to combine the best of the old and the best of the new, by integrating the best of conventional crop technology and the best of crop biotechnology applications including novel traits,” he said.
But non-governmental organization Friends of the Earth questioned whether GM crops have been as successful as ISAAA portrays.
In a report released on the same day, it said that GM crops occupy less than three per cent of global agricultural land and that more than 99 per cent of the crops are grown for animal feed and biofuels rather than food.
“There is still not a single commercial GM crop with increased yield, drought-tolerance, salt-tolerance, enhanced nutrition or other beneficial traits long promised by biotech companies,” said the report, pointing out that “99 per cent of biotech agriculture consists of four crops with just two traits, herbicide-tolerance and/or insect-resistance”.
It said that India has placed a moratorium on the planting of its first GM food crop due to widespread concerns on its health, environmental and socio-economic impact.
Unit 6 IT Industry
Part I In-class Listening
I. Understanding Basic Skills
Listening Task 1
Directions: In this section, you will hear two short paragraphs and write down the missing main idea sentences.
1. The Internet brings us great websites full of information and entertainment, and email and chat have revolutionized communication. But there’s a dark side, too, as
Internet users are increasingly concerned about how much of their personal information they’re giving up in exchange. As more and more people are realizing, we often reveal a lot of information about ourselves when we go online, information we may not realize we’re disclosing, but which advertisers and commercial websites can use to sell us goods and services.
2. Caught Twittering o r on Facebook at work? It’ll make you a better employee, according to an Australian study that shows surfing the Internet for fun during office hours increases productivity. The University of Melbourne study showed that people who use the Internet for personal reasons at work are about 9 percent more productive than those who do not. Study author Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing, said “workplace Internet leisure browsing,” or WILB, helped to sharpened workers’ concentration.” Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the Internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days’ work, and as a result, increased productivity,” he said.
II. Understanding a Conversation
Listening Task
Directions: Listen to the conversation carefully and complete the sentences with the information you get from the talk.
M: Earning extra income on the Internet is easier than you might think. After I started selling traditional craft items on the Internet last year, I have really been able to make bank doing something I love.
W: Is that right? I hear all these horror stories of internet business crashing because there is not enough of a customer base yet. How can you be sure your idea will cash in?
M: To run a successful internet business, it requires a little research and relatively small investment. You’ve got to have a good idea of some kind of product that is in demand or would be popular.
W: That’s marketing research.... But what about getting star ted once you have an idea?
M: After you have your great idea, then you can set up a shop by registering a domain name, creating a website, an email address, and a hosting service. If you want to go all out on your website, you can put together shopping cart technology, but that can be pricey to start out with.
W: Sounds like a lot of work!
M: Anything worth doing takes work. Money doesn’t grow on trees....Most of us have to work for it.
III. Understanding Passages
Listening Task 1
Directions:Listen to the passage carefully and decide whether the following
statements are true (T)or false (F).
Online Bookstores Overtaking Traditional Ones
A medium-sized bookstore in downtown Beijing is going out of business. All of their books are on sale. Wang Jian, the bookstore owner, says hot sales of books on the Internet and e-books online pushed him to change the way he does business.
“Now e-books are overtaking traditional books, and Internet book stores are becoming more popular. This is one of the reasons why our in-store bookselling is harder than before. We are preparing to withdraw from this part of the business.”
A report issued by one leading world marketing information company AC Nielsen revealed that China has the highest online book purchasing rate in the world. About 63 percent of Chinese Internet users have made online purchases and 56 percent of the purchasers had bought reading materials, the highest ratio in the world. More than ten years ago, became the first online book retailer, and is now one of the main forces in the Chinese online book market.
A fierce “price war” is taking shape between traditional bookstores and their online counterparts. Faced with the low-cost advantage of online bookstores, traditional ones can do nothing but lower their prices. But they always seem to be falling behind their rivals online, as customers can frequently find certain books at discount prices on websites like .
Yuyu, President and CEO of explains their sales principle. “Ou r core competitiveness is lower prices, more choices and more convenience. We detect the changing prices of books in the market, and always can provide the best deal for our customers.”
Listening Task 2
Directions: Listen to the passage carefully and answer the following questions.
China taps into Internet of Things world
The idea in a world even everyday objects such as books and air conditioners are plugged into a network—Internet of Things, seems like a scenario from a science-fiction movie. China is tapping into such a world. In Wuxi City of east China’s Jiangsu Province, an intelligent transportation system is under construction, which by using the Internet of Things technologies, would enable traffic lights to change automatically according to traffic flows. The system would also help drivers
avoid traffic congestions by sending messages about road conditions and suggesting driving routes, said Zhang Xin, vice manager of Wuxi public bus company. Some 2,153 buses in Wuxi, or 92 percent of the to tal, are the first batch of the country’s “smart buses” using the network, Zhang said.
Through a combination of GIS (geographic information system), GPS (global positioning system) and electronic controls, people can learn nearly everything about a bus, including its location, speed and road conditions, he said.
The Internet of Things, or the sensor web, is a network of real-world objects linked by the Internet and interacting through web services. Technologies such as radio frequency identification and sensors were the basis of the network.
According to the International Telecommunication Union, in the future world, the Internet of Things, by embedding short-range mobile transceivers into a wide array of additional gadgets and everyday items, enables new forms of communication between people and things, and between things themselves.
The Internet of Things is considered as the third wave in information industry since the introduction of computers and Internet.
Unit 6 IT Industry
Part II After-class Listening
I. Understanding Basic Skills
Listening Task
Directions: Listen and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.
1. M: Mary, would you join me for dinner tonight?
W: You treated me last weekend. Now, it’s my turn. Shall we try something Italian? Q: What do we learn from the conversation?
2. W: Bob said that Seattle is a great place for conferences.
M: He is certainly in the position to make that comment. He has been there so often.
Q: What does the man mean?
3. W: John, what ar e you doing on your computer? Don’t you remember your promise?
M: This is not a game. It’s only a crossword puzzle that helps increase my vocabulary.
Q: What is the probable relationship between the speakers?
4. W: Daddy, I have decided to give up science and go to business school.
M: Well, it is your choice as long as pay your own way, but I should warn you that not everyone with a business degree will make a successful manager.
Q: What do we learn from the conversation?
5. M: Hurry, there is a bus coming.
W: Why run? There will be another one in two or three minutes.
Q: What does the woman mean?
6. M: Wow, that’s a big assignment we got for the English class.
W: Well, it’s not as bad as it looks. It isn’t due until Thursday morning.
Q: What does the woman mean?
7. W: Hello, is that Steve? I’m stuck in a traffic jam. I’m afraid I can’t make it before
seven o’clock.
M: Never mind. I’ll be here waiting for you.
Q: What do we learn from the conversation?
8. M: Do you want to go to the lecture this weekend? I heard that the guy who is
going to deliver the lecture spent a year living in the rainforest.
W: Great, I am doing a report on the rainforest. Maybe I can get some new information to add it.
Q: What does the woman mean?
9. W: Listen to me, Joe, the exam is already a thing of the past. Just forget about it. M: That’s easier said than done.
Q: What can we infer from the conversation?
10. M: This article is nothing but advertising for housing developers. I don’t think the
houses for sale are half that good.
W: Come on, David. Why so negative? We are thinking of buying a home, aren’t we? Just a trip to look at the place won’t cost us much.
Q: What can be inferred form the conversation?
II. Understanding a Conversation
Listening Task
Directions:Listen to the conversation carefully and decide whether the following statements are true (T)or false (F).
W: Last month, we only had 40 hits on our site. Our products and prices are good, but the problem is that no one knows about our website.
M: If we wan t to get this Internet business off the ground, we’ve got to do something fast.
W: We need to maximize the chances that our site will be at the top of search engine lists, but I’m not sure how to do it.
M: We’ve got to put more buzz words into the page tex t, so it will pop up when people search about our kind of products.
W: Yeah, you’re right. We’ve got to get the most popular phrases there.... How else can we boost site traffic?
M: I think one of the least costly ways to attract business is to ask some of our neighboring sites to offer links to our page inside of theirs. If they have related services, they may be willing to help us out.
W: I guess we could also put out a few advertisements for our website inside of the search engine. I would like to find the most effective way to let people know about our site and our products.
III. Understanding Passages
Listening Task 1
Directions: Listen to the passage carefully and fill in the blanks below.
Facebook ranked 3rd among world’s most innovative enterprises In the Internet market, social networking sites are the most popular on-line trend. Facebook and Twitter are leading this trend. While studying at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg has no idea that one day Facebook would become the darling of today’s Int ernet market, being compared with Google, Apple and Microsoft. Recently, the American magazine Fast Company selected the 50 most innovative companies of the year, including Facebook. With advantages of innovation, Facebook ranked third among 50 companies, while last year it ranked 15th. Amazon was this year’s champion followed by Apple, and Google came in fourth place. The most surprising thing in this selection is that Microsoft only ranked No. 48. Last year it was 34th. Twitter also enters the top 50 innovative companies. At present, Facebook has over 400 million users with a rapid increase every day. No doubt that Facebook continually adding new features to provide users with a better user experience contributes to its innovative leap in ranking. For Google, the pace of innovation is slower. And for Microsoft, it needs to make greater efforts to save their sinking ship.
Listening Task 2
Directions: Listen to the passage carefully and answer the following questions.。