大学体验英语视听说原文unit 2

Unit 2
Lesson 1, Audio
“Most people you meet know more about comics than I do,” laughs Naif Al-Mutawa, creator of The 99, the world’s first comic-book series whose superheroes are based on Islamic culture.
“Strength, honor, truth, mercy, invention, generosity, wisdom, tolerance—these are some of the superpowers possessed by my heroes,” emphasizes Al-Mutawa. “No one hero has more than a single power, and no power is expressed to the degree that God possesses i t,’’ he adds. There are 99 young heroes from 99 countries, from all walks of life. All of them are Muslim, but not all are Arabs, and the number is almost evenly split between boys and girls. As Al-Mutawa explains, whenever these characters collaborate to solve problems, there is an implicit message of tolerance and acceptance, a theme central to the series.
Unlike many comic book heroes, the 99 do not use weapons. “They use the gifts they have within themselves,” Al- Mutawa notes, adding that “The 99 is not about what kids shouldn’t be doing. It’s about learning how to use the power within them to make a difference.”
Although the series is not religious, it aims to communicate Islamic virtues which are, as viewed by
Dr. Al-Mutawa, universal in nature. “The 99 is all about making a conscious choice not to let others define who you are. It is about being proactive in choosing the backdrop against which you are to be judged. Islamic culture and Islamic heritage have a lot to be proud and joyful about. The 99 is about bringing those positive elements into global awareness. Now it does.”
Lesson 2, Audio
The Danger of a Single Story (Part I)
I’m a storyteller. And I would like to tell you a few personal stories about what I’d like to call “the dange r of the single story.”
I was an early writer. And when I began to write stories in pencil with crayon illustrations that my poor mother was obligated to read, I wrote exactly the kinds of stories I was reading. All my characters were white and blue-eyed. They played in the snow. They ate apples. Now, this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria. I had never been outside Nigeria. We didn’t have snow. We ate mangoes.
I come from a conventional, middle-class Nigerian family. And so we had, as was the norm, live-in domestic help, who would often come from nearby rural villages. So the year I turned eight we got a new house boy. His name was Fide. The only thing my mother told us about him was that his
family was very poor. My mother sent yams and rice, and our old clothes, to his family. And when I didn’t finish my dinner my mother would say, “Finish your food! Don’t you know? People like Fide’s family have nothing.” So I felt enormous pity for Fide’s family.
Then one Saturday we went to his village to visit. And his mother showed us a beautifully patterned basket, made of dyed raffia, that his brother had made.
I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anybody in his family could actually make something. All I had heard about them is how poor they were, so that it had become impossible for me to see them as anything else but poor. Their poverty was my single story of them.
Home listening
1. programs into
2. stuck
3. honors-level class
4. fixed their cold stares
5. called out to me
6. cosists solely of
7. everything in between 8. colorblind
9. has done nothing to change my personality
10. define who I am and what actions I take in life.。