英语高级视听说上册Unit 2 The new space race录音文本
高级英语视听说教程_第二册__听力文本
Chapter 9 Lecture: Public Education: Philosophy and FundingMost young people in the United States, like most young people around the world, attend public school. Indeed, young people in the U.S. have to attend school because education is compulsory, in most states to the age of sixteen or until the students reach ninth grade.A small percentage of American youth attend private schools, wither religious or secular schools, but the vast majority attend public schools. One distinguishing feature of U.S. public education that surprises many foreigners is that although there are some standardized examinations, there is no nationwide curriculum set by the government ministry of education determines the curriculum that all students study and the examinations that all the students take at a set time. Of course, U.S. students follow a curriculum, and they take examinations as all students do. Although the federal government does influence public education by providing funds to schools for special programs such as education for the handicapped and for bilingual education, the federal government does not determine the curriculum or the examinations. Today I’d like to talk about the three levels of control within each state and then spend some time discussing where the money for education comes from and three issues related to funding.Control of education in the United States is mainly exercised locally at three levels. Let’s begin with the state department of education. The department of education of each of the fifty states has two basic functions. First, each state department of education sets basic curriculum requirements for all the schools in its state. For example, a high school might require four years of English, three years of math, two years of social science, and so forth. The state also sets the number of credits a student must complete in order to graduate from a high school. This total number of credits includes both required courses and electives. So much for the state part in education.The second level of control is the school district. The number of school districts a state has depends on the size of its population and the size of the state. A large metropolitan area would have several school districts. A smaller community might have only one district. Each school district is run by a school board that is elected by the citizens of the district. The school district is responsible for the specific content of courses taught in its schools. In other words, the school district determines what the students will study in each of their, let’s say, four years of high school English. The school district also decides what electives will be available for students. Besides determining course content, the school district is responsible for the operation of the schools in its district, for example, the hiring if teachers and administrators. The third level of control is the individual school itself, where teachers have primary responsibility for deciding how to teach the content of each course and for preparing and giving examinations to the students.Local control of schools may seem very strange to some of you, but it will seem less strange if you consider how public schools in the United States are funded- that is, where money to run the schools comes from. Only about 7 percent of the money comes from the federal government. The rest of the money comes from state and local taxes. The percentages supplied by the state and by the local districts fluctuate over tome and from state to state. Currently appropriately 49 percentage of school funding comes from the states and about 44 percent comes from the local communities, that is, the school districts.Finally, I’d like to discuss three issues related to the funding of schools that have been receiving a lot of attention recently in the United States. The first issue deals with theinequality of educational opportunity that students face. Because public schools are funded to a great degree by local taxes, this means that schools in poorer communities or poorer parts of large cities do not have the same amount of money as schools located in richer communities. This, in turn, means that children from poorer areas are less likely to receive a good education than children from wealthier areas. The second issue, one that has been controversial since the beginning of public education, is the issue of funding for private schools, which are generally run by religious organizations. As you already know, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution mandates separation of church and state. A little background on the history and development of public education will be useful here.During colonial times, education was largely a religious concern and most schools were supported by religious organizations. However, during the nineteenth century, there was widespread support and acceptance of public education paid for by taxes as the best way to provide equal educational opportunity for all children. Nevertheless, some parents have always chosen to send their children to either private religious schools or private schools devoted to academic excellence. Because private schools are not funded by the government, parents have had to pay tuition to send their children to private schools. People who have wanted to send their children to private schools have long questioned why they should have to pay taxes for public schools at the same time as they pay private tuition for their children’s education.Although this issue is not new, during the last twenty years or so, more parents have become unhappy about what they perceive to be the increasingly secular nature of public education and prefer to send their children to schools where they will receive an education more in line with their religious beliefs. Other parents are concerned about the questionable quality of education in public schools. These concerns have led to efforts by the school system, and the government, to offer alternative educational opportunities, that is, educational choices. Two of the most important responses to these concerns have been charter schools and school vouchers. Both of these alternatives to regular public education are based on the idea that competition in the educational market is a good thing, but otherwise, they differ quite a bit. Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools that compete with regular public for students. Charter schools operate under contract to a sponsor, usually a state or local school board. Charter schools are accountable to their sponsors, the parents who choose to send their children to them, and the public that funds them through their tax money. In turn, charter schools generally have greater autonomy, that is, independence, over selection of teachers, curriculum, resources, and so on, than regular public schools. The first charter schools came into existence toward the end if the 1980s. By 2003, there were 2,695 charter schools with almost 685,000 students enrolled. This was a 15 percent increase over the year 2003, which shows how fast these schools are growing. There are many issues surrounding charter schools, but a study published in 2003 found that charter school students did a little better than their public school counterparts on a standardized exams.The school voucher concept is a much more controversial one than charter schools. The idea behind school vouchers is that the government provides students with a certain amount of money each year that they can use to attend whatever school they choose, public or private. The idea again is that competition will improve the education students receive. Voucher schools in reality are largely private schools, and most often religiously based schools. They are quite different from charter schools, which as public schools are first of all, nonsectarian, that is, not religious. Second, charter schools cannot apply restrictive admission standards, as publicschools do. To date, voucher programs funded by taxpayers are operating in only three U.S. cities, and there are many court battles over the voucher system. Supporters of the voucher system feel very strongly that private schools offer better education than public schools. Those opposed to the voucher system claim that vouchers rob public schools of needed funding and that voucher schools do not truly provide school choice because of restrictive admissions standards, which can include academic performance, religion, sex, and other factors. Opponents of vouchers also strongly believe that using taxpayer funds for private religious schools violates the separation of church and state built into the U.S. Constitution.The third and final issue I’d like to touch on today is also very controversial. I mentioned earlier that United States does not have a nationwide curriculum nor nationwide exams set by the government. However, in the past fifteen or twenty years, there has been an increased emphasis in various states on raising standards and on giving students standardized exams to monitor their progress. The federal government in 2002 passed a sweeping education bill that requires states that wish to receive certain federal funding to develop and put in place extensive testing programs and other systems to ensure adequate yearly progress of students. Although the percentage of funding for schools from the federal government is relatively small, it still represents a lot of money that schools do not want to lose. Some people support this movement toward standardization and accountability in the educational system, while others see it as a dangerous step away from local control of schools.No one can predict the future of public education in the United States, but it appears that emphasis on educational choice and on accountability of educational system for student results will be with us for a long time.Chapter 10 Postsecondary Education: AdmissionsIn this lecture, I’m going to talk to you about postsecondary education in the United States. Today I’ll give you some facts and figures about colleges and universities in the United States and some general information about admission policies. I will also make a few remarks about community colleges and finish up by giving you an idea of what kinds of students make up the student body on a typical U.S. campus.Let’s begin with some facts and figures. The most recent figures I have reveal there are 4,182 public and private four-year and two-year colleges in the United States. These range from full universities with diverse programs to smaller four-year colleges to two-year community colleges. Most of them are accredited, which means the schools meet certain standards set by institutional and private evaluators. When applying to a school, you would probably want to make sure it was accredited. Even though there are more private colleges than public ones, over three-quarters of students, precisely 78 percent, are enrolled at public colleges and universities. Some of the small private schools may have fewer than 100 students, whereas some of the large state university systems may have 50,000 or more students. Most of these schools are coeducational although some of them are primarily for women and others are primarily for men. Some schools may offer only one program of study and others have a great variety of programs. The total cost for attending one of these schools may be less than $5,000 a year or as much as 30 or 40 thousand dollars a year for one of the prestigious private schools. These schools are located all over—in industrial areas, agricultural areas, large cities, and small towns in a wide variety of climates.With such a wide variety of sizes, kinds, and locations of schools, it probably won’t surpriseyou to find out that admissions requirements at these colleges and universities vary greatly also. Some are relatively easy to be admitted to whereas others are highly competitive. However, most schools will ask undergraduate applicants to submit their high school transcripts with a record of their grades and test results from one of the standardized tests regularly offered to high school students. The most common of these standardized exams is the Scholastic Aptitude Test, commonly known as the SAT. Students who are applying to graduate school are usually asked to take other, more specific standardized exams depending on which college they are applying to. For example, some students are required to take the Graduate Record Exam, or the GRE. Students applying to a business college will probably have to take the GMAT, and students applying to law college will have to take the LSAT. You probably know about the TOEFL exam, which most foreign students have to take before being admitted to American colleges or universities. These exams, including the TOEFL, are all prepared by a company that is independent of the school system. These exams have come under a lot of criticism lately, but they are still widely used as one way to determine who will be admitted to various schools. However, most schools try to look at the whole student and consider factors other than simply grades and test scores. Some of these factors may be extracurricular activities in school, ethnic background, work experience, and so on. Some schools will have personal interviews with students they are considering for admission. Many schools, private as well as public, try very hard to have a student population with a wide variety of backgrounds and ages. Even the most prestigious and most highly competitive colleges and universities will not take only those students with the highest grades and standardized test scores but will consider these other factors. Nevertheless, schools of this type, such as Stanford and Harvard, have so many more people applying than they can possibly accept that students who want to get into such schools take grades and SAT exams very seriously. In general, medical and law colleges, both private and public, are very difficult to get into, and, once again, test scores on standardized exams can be extremely important to those applying to these schools.However, for students who want to attend a state college or university in their own state, it may be enough to graduate from high school in the upper third or even upper half of their high school class. This may surprise those of you who come from an educational system that is highly competitive, a system in which only a small percentage of students who pass a very difficult nationwide standardized high school examination can enter a university. You may be even more surprised by what I have to tell you about community colleges.An interesting feature of education in the United States is the two-year community college. Community colleges that are publicly supported offer somewhat different educational opportunities than those offered by a senior college or a university. First, admissions requirements at public community colleges are usually much more lenient than those at a four-year college or university. It’s usually enough to have graduated from an American high school to be admitted. Second, it is also cheaper to attend a community college. The tuition and fees are usually quite a bit lower. Students often live at home because this type of school does not have dormitories. For these two reasons, many people who are unable to go to a four-year college or university can have an opportunity to take classes for college credit. Finally, community colleges offer two-year programs that can lead to an Associate of Arts degree. Many of these programs, but not all of them, are vocational in nature. People attend community colleges for many different purposes. Some people may be taking on a course or two in some field that particularly interests them and may not be planning on getting a degree. Other people may be going to community collegefull-time and planning to transfer to a four-year college or university upon successful completion of two years at a community college. Well, so much for community colleges.I promised to tell you a little about the actual student body on a typical U.S. campus. Let’s start with some statistics, and then we’ll discuss two items that surprise many foreign students. Among the 2.8 million high school graduates in 2002, 65.2 percent were enrolled in college the following October. More than 90 percent of those attended full time. Young men represented half of the high school graduates, but more women than men went on to college. The exact statistics are:68.4 percent of female high school graduates and 62.1 percent of male high school graduates. If we break down the statistics racially, we find that white students enrolled in college in greater proportions than black or Hispanic students. The figures are 66.7 percent for white graduates, 58.7 percent of black graduates, and 53.5 percent of Hispanic students. My next statistic may be surprising. 42.6 percent of full-time students in 2002 were either employed or looking for work. That number jumps to 75.7 percent for part-time students. That last statistic makes more sense when we consider that besides the students who are from eighteen to twenty-two years old that one expects to find on a college campus, there are also many older married students. They may be people who attend part-time to upgrade their skills, people who are changing careers, or retired people who still have a desire to learn. Also, foreign students are often surprised at how poorly prepare American students are when they enter a university. Actually, at very select schools the students are usually very well prepared, but at less selective schools, they may not be as well prepared as students in your country are. If you will remember the educational philosophy we discussed in the last lecture, you will understand why. Schools in the States simply admit a lot more students than is usual in most other countries. Also, most young American university students have not traveled in other countries and are not very well versed in international matters and do not know a lot about people from other countries. Foreign students usually find them friendly but not very well informed about their countries or cultures.In brief, you can see that educational opportunities and admissions standards vary greatly in the United States. While it may be quite difficult to gain admission to some colleges and universities because of the very large number of applicants, probably any student graduating from high school with reasonable grades can find some accredited university or college to attend. Those students hoping to enter graduate school will often face very stiff competition, whether at private or public schools. Many students who start at a college or university will not finish in four years. Some will drop out to work or travel and may never finish. Others will return to school a few months or a few years later. Some will go to school full-time and others part-time. Some will not work while going to school, but most will work at some time or other during their school years.We’re out of time, I see. In my next lecture, I’ll talk to you about a relatively new development in education, distance learning. It should be of interest to those of you who want to attend college but can’t because of living far from a college, busy schedules, or for other reasons.Chapter 11 Lecture: Distance educationOne of the most exciting changes in education in the United States today is the incredible growth of distance education at the post-secondary level. Let me begin the lecture by asking you a couple of questions. First, can you imagine getting a college, or university, degree, without ever once setting foot on a college campus? Second, would you believe me if I told you thereare a few higher education institutions that grant degrees that don’t even have a campus? Some of these schools even grant graduate degrees, that is, a master’s degree or even a Ph.D.What is distance education? A publication called Distance Education: A Consumer’s Guide defines distance education this way:” Distance education is instruction that occurs when the instructor and student are separated by distance or time, or both,” That sounds a little strange, but it’s not really new.As early as 1840, it was possible to take a correspondence course in shorthand; that is, a student could learn shorthand by mail. And the University of Wisconsin offered the first correspondence catalog in 1892. This meant that a student could take university courses by mail over 100 years ago. So distance education is not really new; however, modern technology, such as audio, video, and computer technology, has changed distance education a great deal. Today almost all distance education programs are online or have an online learning component to take advantage of the technology.As I mentioned, distance education is now growing at an incredible rate, Peterson’s 1994 Guide to Distance Learning listed 93 accredited distance education programs available at community colleges and universities across the United States and Canada, whereas its 1997 guide listed more than 700 programs. In 2003, almost 1,100 programs were listed. According to the U.S. college and universities with 10.000 students or more offer distance education programs with new ones coming online continuously.Distance education is quite a complex subject with many aspects to look at. Today let’s look at the reasons why distance education is growing so rapidly, how distance education works, that is, what the modes of delivery are, and some things people considering distance education need to be aware of.To start with, why is distance education growing at such an incredible rate?First, rapidly changing economic conditions require many professional people to upgrade their knowledge or skills on an almost continuous basis. For example, a person who graduates with a degree in engineering or computer science may find it necessary to take courses to upgrade his or her skills every few year. Or a person who begins his or her career with a B.A. or B.S. degree may find it desirable to pursue an M.A. after some time, or even a Ph.D. Busy working people often find it difficult or even impossible to take courses they need or to pursue degrees on campus. Thus, there are a lot of people wanting post-secondary education who don’t find it convenient to study in the traditional on-campus setting.At the same time that demand for postsecondary education is growing, many U.S. colleges and universities are facing budget crunches; many U.S. colleges and universities are facing budget crunches; that is , they just don’t have as much money as they had in the past, but at the same time they have more students. They have to find ways to deliver instruction in the most economical way possible.The final reason is modern technology, which is the key to making the desired postsecondary education available to the millions of people who have access to audio, video, and computer technology. Many institutions offer distance education courses, certificate programs, and degree programs. How does distance education work at the postsecondary level? What are the usual modes of delivery?The modes of instruction can vary greatly and different courses in a program may use different modes. And any given course may use several different modes. Some of the modes include video,audio, CD-ROM, Internet, bulletin boards, chat rooms, and e-mail. Let’s consider some of the possibilities among these technologies. Video, for example, can be as simple as videotape the student plays on his or her VCR. Or it could involve video conferencing where the student is able to see and interact with the instructor and other students. Audio works similarly. A student may have a set of audiotapes to play on a cassette player or may be connected to an audio conference where he or she interacts with other students and the instructor. When students study on their own, at a time convenient to them to them, from a video-or audiotape, it is asynchronous learning, asynchronous meaning not at the same time. Video and audio conferencing, on the other hand, are called synchronous learning; that is, the instructor and the students are engaged in the teaching and learning process at the same time. Let’s look at two other popular modes used in distance learning: bulletin board anytime of the day and night, read what other students have written, and respond, by either adding his or her ideas or asking a question. Chat rooms, on the other hand, offer a discussion forum where students can interact in real time, that is, synchronously. CD-ROMs may come to the student via mail or the student may download materials from the Internet. E-mail provides a very convenient way for students to submit assignments or to ask the instructor questions. There are many more modes of instruction, but this should give you an idea of the possibilities.Students interested in pursuing distance education degrees need to consider the following six points:Number 1. Many distance education programs have a residency requirement. The students may be required to take two courses on campus, that is, six hours of credit, or students may be required to spend several days on campus several times during the program.Number 2. Distance education courses generally have time limits. Courses and programs must be completed within a certain time limit. Assignments must be submitted on time.Number 3. Admissions requirements are the same as those of an on-campus education.Number 4. Distance education can save students money in terms of not having to travel to campus for classes, and the like, but the academic fees about the same as for traditional education. Fulfilling the residency requirements may be quite costly in terms of travel and lodging for students who live far from the campus.Number 5. Online study requires students to have access to a computer that meets minimum requirements such as the latest version of Windows, a microphone, sound card and speakers, adequate hard drive and RAM, a modern, browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape), and Internet connection. Connection speed is very important and many schools recommend having high-speed Internet access like a cable modern or DSL.And finally Number 6. Distance learning requires that students be disciplined and independent learners. Distance education is not easier than traditional education. Not everyone is temperamentally suited for distance education. The dropout rate from distance education courses and programs is higher than for traditional courses and programs.Before I close today, let me just say that many people are still suspicious of distance education believing that it cannot possibly be equivalent to a traditional classroom education, although there are studies that indicate that distance education can be as effective as traditional education and some times even more effective. However, some suspicions are well founded. There are many unscrupulous and disreputable universities advertising on the Internet with very alluring Web sites. Therefore, it is important for everyone wishing to take a courseor pursue a degree to check out the credentials of the school they are considering very carefully.We have an expression: Let the buyer beware. That means that anyone who wishes to buy something should be very careful! And that includes online or distance eductation.。
高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本
Book 2 Chapter 1 The PopulationToday we’re going to talk about population in the United States. According to the most recent government census, the population is 281,421,906 people. Now this represents an increase of almost 33 million people since the 1990 census. A population of over 281 million makes the United States the third most populous country in the whole world. As you probably know, the People’s Republic of China is the most populous country in the world. But do you know which is the second most populous? Well, if you thought India, you were right. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most populous countries are Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan. Now let’s get back to the United States. Let’s look at the total U. S. population figure of 281 million in three different ways. The first way is by race and origin; the second is by geographical distribution, or by where people live; and the third way is by the age and sex of the population.First of all, let’s take a look at the population by race and origin. The latest U. S. census reports that percent of the population is white, whereas percent is black. Three percent are of Asian origin, and 1 percent is Native American. percent of the population is a mixture of two or more races, and percent report themselves as “of some other race”. Let’s make sure your figures are right: OK, white, percent; black, percent; Asian, 3 percent; Native American, 1 percent; a mixture of two or more races, percent; and of some other race, percent. Hispanics, whose origins lie in Spanish-speaking countries, comprise whites, blacks, and Native Americans, so they are already included in the above figures. It is important to note that Hispanics make up percent of the present U.S. population, however. Finally, the census tells us that 31 million people in the United States were born in another country. Of the 31 million foreign born, the largest part, percent are from Mexico. The next largest group, from the Philippines, number percent.Another way of looking at the population is by geographical distribution. Do you have any idea which states are the five most populous in the United States? Well, I’ll help you out there. The five most populous states, with population figures, are California, with almost 34 million; New York, with 21 million; Texas, with 19 million; and Florida, with 16 million; and Illinois with million people. Did you get all those figures down? Well, if not, I’ll give you a chance later to check your figures. Well, then, let’s move on. All told, over half, or some 58 percent of the population, lives inthe South and in the West of the United States. This figure, 58 percent, is surprising to many people. It is surprising because the East is more densely populated. Nevertheless, there are more people all together in the South and West. To understand this seeming contradiction, one need only consider the relatively larger size of many southern and western states, so although there are more people, they are distributed over a larger area. To finish up this section on geographical distribution, consider that more than three-quarters of the people live in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Houston. That means that only 20 percent, or 2 out of 10 people, live in rural areas. An interesting side note is that some 3,800,000 U.S. citizens live abroad, that is, in foreign countries.Before we finish today, I want to discuss the distribution of the U.S. population in terms of age and sex. Just for interest, would you say there are more men or more women in the United States? Well, according to the 2000 census, there are more women. In fact, there are more than five million more women than men in the U.S. population. If we consider that more males than females are born each year, how can this difference be explained? Well, for a variety of complicated reasons that we can’t go into here, there is a progressively higher death rate for males as they get older. This is seen in 2003 life expectancy figures: the life expectancy for women is years whereas for men it is only years. I don’t know how these life expectancy figures compare to those in your countries, but statistically women generally live longer than men worldwide. Now, to finish up, let’s look at the average age of the whole population. Overall, the average age of the population is increasing: from years in 1990 to years in 2000. The average age has been slowly, but steadily, increasing over the past several decades. This trend toward a higher average age can be explained by a decreasing birth rate and an increasing life expectancy for the population as a whole. Well, I’d like to investigate these two subjects further, but I see our time is up, so we’ll have to call it quits for today. You may want to pursue the topic of the aging U.S. population further, so there are some suggestions at the end of the lesson to help you do so. Thank you.Chapter Two Immigration: Past and PresentThe act of immigrating, or coming to a new country to live, is certainly nothing new. Throughout history, people have immigrated, or moved to new countries, for many different reasons. Sometimes these reasons were economic or political. Other people moved because of natural disasters such as droughts or famines. And some people movedto escape religious or political persecution. No matter what the reason, most people do not want to leave their native land and do so only under great pressure of some sort, but a few people seem quite adventuresome and restless by nature and like to move a lot. It seems both kinds of people came to America to live. The subject of immigration is quite fascinating to most Americans, as they view themselves as a nation of immigrants. However, the early Britons who came to what is today the United States considered themselves “settlers” or “colonists,” rather than immigrants. These people did not exactly think they were moving to a new country but were merely settling new land for the “mother country.” There were also large numbers of Dutch, French, German, and Scotch-Irish settlers, as well as large numbers of blacks brought from Africa as slaves. At the time of independence from Britain in 1776, about 40 percent of people living in what is now the United States were non-British. The majority of people, however, spoke English, and the traditions that formed the basis of life were mainly British traditions. This period we have just been discussing is usually referred to as the Colonial Period. Today, we’re a little more interested in actual immigration after this period. Let’s first look at what is often called the Great Immigration, which began about 1830 and ended in 1930. Then let’s consider the reasons for this so-called Great Immigration and the reasons it ended. Finally, let’s talk about the immigration situation in the United States today,As I said, we’ll begin our discussion today with the period of history called the Great Immigration, which lasted from approximately 1830 to 1930. It will be easier if we look at the Great Immigration in terms of three major stages, or time periods. The first stage was from approximate1y 1830 to 1860. Now, before this time, the number of immigrants coming to the United States was comparatively small, only about 10,000 a year. However, the rate began to climb in the 1830s when about 600,000 immigrants arrived. The rate continued to climb during the 1840s with a tota1 of 1,700,000 people arriving in that decade. The rate continued to climb, and during the 1850s 2,600,000 immigrants arrived. During this first stage of the Great Immigration, that is, between the years 1830 and 1860, the majority of immigrants came from Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. Now let’s consider the second stage of the Great Immigration. The second stage was from l860 to 1890, during which time another 10,000,000 people arrived. Between l860 and 1890 the majority of immigrants continued to be from Germany, Ireland, and Great Britain. However, during the second stage, a smaller but significant number of immigrants came from the Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The third stage of the Great Immigration, which lasted from 1890 to 1930, was the eraof heaviest immigration. Between the years l890 and l930, almost 22 million immigrants arrived in the United States. Most of these new arrivals came from the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain and the Eastern European countries of Poland and Russia.Now that we know something about the numbers and origins of immigrants who came to the States during the Great Immigration, let’s consider the reasons why most of these people immigrated to the United States. Why did such large numbers of Europeans leave their homes for life in an unknown country? It would be impossible to discuss all the complex political and economic reasons in any depth today, but we can touch on a few interesting facts that might help to clarify the situation for you. First of all, one of the most important reasons was that the population of Europe doubled between the years 1750 and 1850. At the same time that the population was growing so rapidly, the Industrial Revolution in Europe was causing widespread unemployment. The combination of increased population and the demand for land by industry also meant that farmland was becoming increasingly scarce in Europe. The scarcity of farmland in Europe meant that the abundance of available land in the growing country of the United States was a great attraction. During these years, the United States was an expanding country and it seemed that there was no end to land. In fact, in 1862, the government offered public land free to citizens and to immigrants who were planning to become citizens. In addition to available farmland, there were also plentiful jobs during these years of great economic growth. Other attractions were freedom from religious or political persecution. Some other groups also came to the United States as the direct results of natural disasters that left them in desperate situations. For example, the frequent failure of the potato crop in Ireland between the years 1845 and 1849 led to widespread starvation in that country, and people were driven to immigrate. Another factor that affected the number of immigrants coming to the United States was improved ocean transport beginning in the 1840s. At that time, ships large enough to carry large numbers of people began to make regular trips across the ocean. Now let’s summarize the reasons for the high rate of immigration to the United States during the years we discussed: first, the doubling of the population in Europe between 1750 and 1850; second, the unemployment caused by the Industrial Revolution; and third, the land scarcity in Europe, followed by religious and political persecution and natural disaster. These reasons combined with improved transportation probably account for the largest number of immigrants.I would now like to talk briefly about the period of time following the Great Immigration and the reasons for the decline in the rate of immigration. Although immigration continues today, immigration numbers have never again reached the levels that we discussed previously. There are several reasons for this decline. This decline was in part due to various laws whose aim was to limit the number of immigrants coming from different parts of the world to the United States. The first such law that limited the number of immigrants coming from a certain part of the world was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law was followed by many other laws that also tried to limit the numbers of people immigrating from various countries or parts of the world. In addition to such laws, certainly economic and geopolitical events as important as the Great Depression starting in 1929 and World War II also contributed to the decline in immigration.Let’s conclude our talk by discussing the current situation with respect to immigration, which is quite different from that in the past. To understand some of the changes, it’s important to note that in 1965 strict quotas based on nationality were eliminated. Let’s see how different things are today from the past. As I noted, the greatest number of immigrants to the United States have historically been European. According to . Census figures, in 1860, the percentage of immigrants that were European was 92 percent. But by 1960, the percentage of European immigrants had dropped to percent, and by the year 2002, it had dropped to 14 percent! In 2002, percent of immigrants came from Latin America, that is, from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Mexico is ordinarily considered part of North America, but the . Census Bureau considers Mexico as a Central American country in terms of immigration statistics, and estimates that more than one-third of the total of all immigrants to the United States in 2002 came from Mexico or another Central American country. The next largest percentage, percent, of immigrants came from Asia, mainly from the Philippines, China, and India.Although immigration dropped sharply when the United States entered World War I and remained low throughout the Depression and World War II years, at the end of the l940s, immigration began to increase again and has, in general, risen steadily since then. It might surprise you to know that the actual number of immigrants coming yearly to the States in recent years is about the same as the numbers coming yearly between 1900 and 1910. Keep in mind, though, that the population of the United States is much larger now than at the turn of the century, so that while the yearly numbers may be similar, thepercentage of the population that is foreign-born is considerably smaller today than it was a century ago.It might be interesting to speculate on immigration in the future. Will the trend continue for non-Europeans to immigrate to the United States? The answer is probably yes for the foreseeable future. Do these non-European people come to the United States for the same reasons that Europeans came? Well, land is no longer plentiful and cheap. Industry no longer requires large numbers of unskilled workers. In fact, the government usually tries to restrict immigration to those people who already have the skills to be successful in U.S. society. Still, people come for politica1 and economic reasons and probably will continue to do so.Chapter 3 Americans at WorkWhether you love it or hate it, work is a major part of most people’s lives everywhere in the world. Americans are no exception. Americans might complain about “blue Monday,” when they have to go back to work after the weekend, but most people put a lot of importance on their job, not only in terms of money but also in terms of identity. In fact, when Americans are introduced to a new person, they almost always ask each other, “What do you do?” They are asking, what is your job or profession. Today, however, we won’t look at work in terms of what work means socially or psychologically. Rather, we’re going to take a look at work in the United States today from two perspectives. First, we’ll take a historical look at work in America. We’ll do that by looking at how things changed for the American worker from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century, that is, from the year 1900 to the year 1999. Then we’ll look at how . workers are doing today.As we look at the changes over the last century, we’re going to use a lot of statistics to describe these changes. You will need to write down a lot of numbers in today’s lecture. First, let’s consider how the type of work people were involved in changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about 38 percent of the workforce was involved in agriculture; that is, they worked on a farm. By the end of the century, only 3 percent still worked on farms. There was also a large decrease in the number of people working in mining, manufacturing, and construction. The number of workers in mining, manufacturing, and construction went down from 31 percent to 19 percent.While the number of people in these goods producing industries went down, the number of people in the service industries went up. As you may know, a service industry is one that provides a service, rather than goods or products. A few examples include transportation, tourism, banking, advertising, health care, and legal services. I’m sure you can think of more. The service industry workforce jumped from 31 percent of the workforce at the turn of the century to 78 percent in 1999.Let’s recap the numbers: in 1900, 38 percent in agriculture; 31 percent in mining, manufacturing, and construction; and 31 percent in the service industries. That should add up to 100 percent. In 1999, 3 percent in agriculture; 19 percent in mining, manufacturing, and construction; and 78 percent in the service industries. Again, that should add up to 100 percent.The labor force changed in other important ways. For example, child labor was not unusual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900 there were 1, 750, 000 children aged ten to fifteen working full-time in the labor force. This was 6 percent of the labor force. Over the years, child labor laws became much stricter and by 1999, it was illegal for anyone under sixteen to work full-time in any of the fifty states. While the number of children in the workforce went down, the number of women went up dramatically. In 1900, only 19 percent of women were employed; in 1999, 60 percent of women were holding down jobs.Let’s see what has happened to wages and salaries. All the numbers I will give you are in terms of 1999 dollars. Let me explain. In 1900 the average per capita income was $4,200 a year. That does not mean that the average worker in 1900 earned $4,200, a year, but that what he or she earned was equal to $4, 200 in 1999. That is, the amount of money the average worker earned in 1900 was worth the same as $4,200 in 1999. The average per capita income in 1999 was $33, 700. Not only did people earn a lot more money at the end of the century, they also received a lot more in benefits than at the beginning of the century. One of the important benefits most workers received later in the century was health insurance. Whereas wages and salaries rose over the century, the average workweek dropped. That is, workers, in general, did not work as long hours in 1999 as they did in 1900.The last area that I’d like to give you a few statistics about is workplace safety. Most of us who go to work every day don’t think a lot about whether we are safe or not, but in 1900 it was a real concernfor a lot of workers. There aren’t many statistics available, but the . government does have statistics on two industries that will give you some idea of the differences today. In 1900 almost 1,500 workers were killed in coal-mining accidents; in 1999, the number was 35. 2,555 railroad workers were killed in 1900, compared to 56 in 1999.People often tend to romanticize the past and talk about “the good old days,” but I think it’s fair to say that by the end of the twentieth century, . workers in general made more money, they enjoyed more benefits, and their working conditions had improved greatly.Now let’s turn our attention to the current situation for . workers. The picture is not so rosy as the one drawn by comparing U.S. workers at the beginning and the end of the twentieth century. I’m going to focus on the current situation in terms of productivity, working hours, and wages and salaries.First let’s consider the number of hours worked. According to a 2003 study released by the United Nations International Labor Organization, U.S. workers are the most productive in the world among industrialized nations, but they work longer hours than European workers to achieve this productivity. Europeans typically have four to six weeks of vacation a year, whereas the average American worker has only about two weeks. This study points out that the longer working hours in the United States is a rising trend, while the trend in other industrialized countries is the opposite.Workers in some European countries actually outproduce American workers per hour of work. It has been suggested that this higher rate of productivity might be because European workers are less stressed than U.S. workers.At any rate, there seems to be general agreement that U.S. productivity has greatly increased over the last thirty years. However, workers have not seen their wages rise at the same rate. A group of sociologists in their book Inequality by Design point out that there is a growing gap between rich Americans and everyone else in the United States. They write that between 1949 and 1974, increases in productivity were matched by increases in wages for workers in both manufacturing and the service industries, but since 1974, productivity increased 68 percent in manufacturing and 50 percent in services, but real wages stagnated. That is, wages moved up little or not at all. So, where does all the money generated by the increased productivity go then? According to the authors of this book, the moneygoes to the salaries for CEOs, to the stock market, and to corporate profits. Workers play a great role in increasing productivity, but no longer see their wages connected to increased productivity. In other words, CEOs’ salaries, the stock market, and the corporate profits go up as work productivity goes up, but workers’ wages don’t.What are the reasons why . workers, who are the most productive in the world, have to work longer hours, have fewer vacation days, and see their wages stagnate and not rising at the same rate as productivity? The answer to this question is complex and controversial, but there are two reasons most people who speak or write about these issues mention: The first is that labor unions in the United States have lost great power since the beginning of the 1980s, and the second is that the government has passed laws that favor the rich and weaken the rights of the workers.I see our time is up. So, I’ll see you next time.Chapter 4 Family in the United StatesA hundred years ago, one heard the same kind of comments about the American family that one hears today --- in short, that the American family is disintegrating. Proof of this disintegration at the end of the nineteenth century included three points: the declining birth rate, a rising divorce rate, and evidence that women were not completely content with their domestic role. It’s a little surprising to me that the same claim about the family is being made today --- that it is disintegrating. And often the same points are mentioned as proof: declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, and discontent of women with domestic roles. Now, in no way do I mean to imply that cultural, demographic, and economic conditions are the same now as they were 100 years ago. On the contrary, the very nature of the family has changed drastically in the last 50 years, not to mention the last 100 years. But I don’t think the average person’s concept of the family has changed very much over the years. A lot of people have on fixed idea of the family: a married couple where Mother stays home to care for the children and Father works. But this idea is challenged by what we see every day in U.S. society. To be sure, the family is a very sensitive barometer for what is happening in the society, the culture, and the economy of the United States. To make this point clearer, we’ll take a look at how the American family has changed in the last 50 years by looking at three different time periods: there are the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s; the mid-60sto the mid-80s; and finally the present. Sociologist Barbara Dafoe Whitehead labels these three periods: the period of traditional familism, the period of individualism, and the period of the new familism. I will try for each period to show how economic, demographic, and cultural elements interact and, in turn, affect the family.Well, let’s proceed in chronological order and start with traditional familism. We’re talking here of the twenty years from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. This was the period after World War II, a period characterized by a very strong economy. This gave the United States a rising standard of living and a growing middle class. Demographically, the predominant configuration of the family from these years was the traditional one: a married couple with children. Some women worked, but divorce rates were low, and birth rates were high. I guess you could say that the country idealized the family in these years. And what I mean is, there was a commitment to the family from its members and a reverence for it from society. TV programs of the era depicted the family in the classical configuration: working father, housewife, and children. Culturally, three characteristics stand out in this period: conformity to social norms, greater male domination of the family than in the later periods, and clear-cut gender roles, that is, clear and separate roles for men and women at home and at work. Well, things changed quite a bit after this period.Let’s move on to the second period, the period of individualism. This period is from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Now, because individualism is so often mentioned in our discussion of U.S. culture and people, I should make a little detour here before we discuss it. Individualism brings to mind two other words: independence and self-reliance. Individualism conveys the idea that one should think and act for himself or herself, according to what one feels is right. Individualism is easily confused with egotism or selfishness, but in its best sense, it is much more. Individualism implies that one has the freedom to decide what is best rather than allowing that decision to be made by a group such as the community or society. Individualism does, of course, conflict with the concept of community, which implies that the group shares in making decisions. And this conflict between the individual and the community is one that comes up again and again in our lecture series about the United States. All right, let’s get back to our discussion about the family.The second period, the period of individualism, saw three important social and political movements. Do you have any idea which movements I might be talking about? Keep in mind that these decadeswere characterized by a lack of conformity to social norms. Well, the movements have in mind are the sexual revolution, in which sex was clearly no longer reserved for marriage; the women’s liberation movement; and the movement against the war in Vietnam. All three movements---the sexual revolution, woman’s liberation, and the antiwar movement --- were typical of the nonconforming nature of these decades. Now, culturally, it is in this period where we see two important developments: one the idealization of one’s career and work and, two, the drive for self-expression and self-fulfillment. In this period, the feminist movement challenged traditional gender roles and male domination of society. Women began to enter professions previously closed to them like medicine, law, and management. Men, for their part, began at least to consider a more active role in raising their children.These cultural changes occurred during a time of economic changes, too. This was a time of rapidly rising cost of living. Together, these forces changed the demographics of the family. The former picture of the family had only one configuration: a married couple with children where Mother stayed home. The new picture of the family had to include new configurations, like families in which the husband and wife both worked, families of single parents with children, and families of cohabiting couples with or without children. With more women pursuing careers and making money, there was less economic pressure for them to stay in an unsuitable marriage. Therefore, divorce rates doubled in a decade. Rising divorce rates and more financial independence for women made marriage a less attractive arrangement for many women. Consequently, the number of single-parent households tripled. Less conformity to social norms paved the way for cohabitation. So the number of unmarried couples living together in this period quadrupled. Can you see how economic, cultural, and demographic aspects of the society interact with each other? I hope so. Well, let’s continue with our agenda.The third period, the new familism, is harder to see because we are living in this period now. And because we are constantly informed by the media about the deteriorating American family, it’s hard to get an objective view of the state of the family. I think that today most people applaud the social changes that came about in the second period of individualism. They are not willing to give up gender equality, the freedom to leave an unsuitable marriage, or the self-fulfillment of an interesting job. At the same time, most experts, if not most people, admit that children paid a high price for the social changes that took place in the second period. It was the。
英语高级视听说听力原文unit2thenewspace
英语高级视听说听力原文U n i t2 T h e n e w s p a c e r a c e(总5页)--本页仅作为文档封面，使用时请直接删除即可----内页可以根据需求调整合适字体及大小--Unit 2 The new space raceA plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism.The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers – basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design –Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before.The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space."There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky," says Rutan.On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutan's spaceship. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship one.The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.Still climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.By the time the spaceship one reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles — the internationally recognized boundary of space.It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of 62 miles, SpaceShipOne's tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called the feather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned the spaceship into a glider.SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd ofthousands."After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground," remembers Rutan. "We had an operable space plane."Rutan's "operable space plane" was built by a company with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the government's monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen."I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business," says Rutan.Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge?"It's a technological challenge first. And it's a dream I had when I was 12," he says.Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up."I was fascinated by putting balsa wood together and see how it would fly," he remembers. "And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked."He's been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.Rutan began designing a spaceship nearly a decade ago, after setting up set up his own aeronautical research and design firm. By the year 2000, he had turned his designs into models and was testing them outside his office."When I got to the point that I knew that I could make a safe spaceship that would fly a manned space mission -- when I say, 'I,' not the government, our little team -- I told Paul Allen, 'I think we can do this.' And he immediately said, 'Go with it.'"Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world. His decision to pump $25 million into Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, was the vote of confidence that his engineers needed to proceed."That was a heck of a challenge to put in front of some people like us, where we're told,'Well, you can't do that. You wanna seeWe can do this," says Pete Sebold.Work on White Knight and SpaceShipOne started four years ago in secret. Both aircraft were custom made from scratch by a team of 12 engineers using layers of tough carbon fabric glued together with epoxy. Designed to be light-weight, SpaceShipOne can withstand thestress of re-entry because of the radical way it comes back into the atmosphere, like a badminton shuttlecock or a birdie.He showed 60 Minutes how it works."Feathering the wing is kind of a dramatic thing, in that it changes the whole configuration of the airplane," he explains. "And this is done in space, okayIt's done after you fly into space.""We have done six reentries. Three of them from space and three of them from lower altitudes. And some of them have even come down upside down. And the airplane by itself straightens itself right up," Rutan explainsBy September 2004, Rutan was ready for his next challenge: an attempt to win a $10 million prize to be the first to fly a privately funded spacecraft into space, and do it twice in two weeks."After we had flown the June flight, and we had reached the goal of our program, then the most important thing was to win that prize," says Rutan.That prize was the Ansari X Prize – an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space.The first of the two flights was piloted, once again, by Mike Melvill.September's flight put Melville's skill and training to the test. As he was climbing out of the atmosphere, the spacecraft suddenly went into a series of rolls.How concerned was he"Well, I thought I could work it out. I'm very confident when I'm flying a plane when I've got the controls in my hand. I always believed I can fix this no matter how bad it gets," says Melville.SpaceShipOne rolled 29 times before he regained control. The remainder of the flight was without incident, and Melvill made the 20-minute glide back to the Mojave airport. The landing on that September afternoon was flawless.Because Rutan wanted to attempt the second required flight just four days later, the engineers had little time to find out what had gone wrong. Working 12-hour shifts, they discovered they didn't need to fix the spacecraft, just the way in which the pilots flew it. For the second flight, it was test pilot Brian Binnie's turn to fly SpaceShipOne.The spaceship flew upward on a perfect trajectory, breaking through to space.Rutan's SpaceShipOne had flown to space twice in two weeks, captured the X Prize worth $10 million, and won bragging rights over the space establishment."You know I was wondering what they are feeling, 'They' being that other space agency," Rutan says laughing. "You know, quite frankly, I think the big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston, I think they're looking at each other now and saying 'We're screwed!' Because, I'll tell you something, I have a hell of a lot bigger goal than they do!""The astronauts say that the most exciting experience is floating around in a space suit," says Rutan, showing off his own plans. "But I don't agree. A space suit is an awful thing. It constrains you and it has noisy fans running. Now look over here. It's quiet. And you're out here watching the world go by in what you might call a 'spiritual dome.' Well, that, to me, is better than a space suit because you're not constrained."He also has a vision for a resort hotel in space, and says it all could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Rutan believes it is the dawn of a new era.He explains, "I think we've proven now that the small guys can build a space ship and go to space. And not only that, we've convinced a rich guy, a very rich guy, to come to this country and build a space program to take everyday people to space."That "rich guy" is Richard Branson, the English billionaire who owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build five spaceships for paying customers. Named "Virgin Galactic," it will be the world's first "spaceline." Flights are expected to begin in 2008."We believe by flying tens of thousands of people to space, and making that a profitable business, that that will lead into affordable orbital travel," says Rutan.Rutan thinks there "absolutely" is a market for this.With tickets initially going for $200,000, the market is limited. Nevertheless, Virgin Galactic says 38,000 people have put down a deposit for a seat, and 90 of those have paid the full $200,000.But Rutan has another vision. "The goal is affordable travel above low-Earth orbit. In other words, affordable travel for us to go to the moon. Affordable travel. That means not just NASA astronauts, but thousands of people being able to go to the moon," he says. "I'd like to go. Wouldn't you"。
新标准大学英语视听说2听力原文
新标准大学英语视听说2听力原文Unit 1。
Part I Listening Practice。
Section A。
1. M: I’m thinking of taking a trip to New York City next month. Have you ever been there?W: Yes, I went there last summer. It was amazing! There are so many things to see and do.2. M: I’m really worried about my final exams. I don’t think I’m prepared at all.W: Don’t worry. I can help you study. We can make a study schedule and review together.3. M: I heard that the new Italian restaurant downtown is really good. Do you want to go there for dinner tonight?W: That sounds great. I love Italian food. Let’s make a reservation.4. M: I can’t believe how expensive rent is in this city. I’m considering finding a roommate to split the cost.W: That’s a good idea. It would definitely help with the expenses.5. M: I’m thinking of buying a new car, but I’m not sure if I should get a small one or a larger one.W: It really depends on your needs. If you often have passengers or need more cargo space, a larger car might be better.Section B。
英语高级视听说听力原文 Unit 2 The new space
A plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism.The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers – basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design –Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before.The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space."There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky," says Rutan.On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutan's spaceship. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship one.The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.Still climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.By the time the spaceship one reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles —the internationally recognized boundary of space.It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of 62 miles, SpaceShipOne's tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called thefeather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned the spaceship into a glider.SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd of thousands."After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground," remembers Rutan. "We had an operable space plane." Rutan's "operable space plane" was built by a company with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the government's monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen."I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business," says Rutan.Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge"It's a technological challenge first. And it's a dream I had when I was 12," he says.Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up."I was fascinated by putting balsa wood together and see how it would fly," he remembers. "And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked."He's been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.Rutan began designing a spaceship nearly a decade ago, after setting up set up his own aeronautical research and design firm. By the year 2000, he had turned his designs into models and was testing them outside his office."When I got to the point that I knew that I could make a safe spaceship that would fly a manned space mission -- when I say, 'I,' not the government, our little team -- I told Paul Allen, 'I think we can do this.' And he immediately said, 'Go with it.'"Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world. His decision to pump $25 million into Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, was the vote of confidence that his engineers needed to proceed."That was a heck of a challenge to put in front of some people like us, wherewe're told, 'Well, you can't do that. You wanna see We can do this," says Pete Sebold.Work on White Knight and SpaceShipOne started four years ago in secret. Both aircraft were custom made from scratch by a team of 12 engineers using layers of tough carbon fabric glued together with epoxy. Designed to be light-weight, SpaceShipOne can withstand the stress of re-entry because of the radical way it comes back into the atmosphere, like a badminton shuttlecock or a birdie.He showed 60 Minutes how it works."Feathering the wing is kind of a dramatic thing, in that it changes the whole configuration of the airplane," he explains. "And this is done in space, okay It's done after you fly into space.""We have done six reentries. Three of them from space and three of them from lower altitudes. And some of them have even come down upside down. And the airplane by itself straightens itself right up," Rutan explainsBy September 2004, Rutan was ready for his next challenge: an attempt to win a $10 million prize to be the first to fly a privately funded spacecraft into space, and do it twice in two weeks."After we had flown the June flight, and we had reached the goal of our program, then the most important thing was to win that prize," says Rutan.That prize was the Ansari X Prize – an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space.The first of the two flights was piloted, once again, by Mike Melvill.September's flight put Melville's skill and training to the test. As he was climbing out of the atmosphere, the spacecraft suddenly went into a series of rolls.How concerned was he"Well, I thought I could work it out. I'm very confident when I'm flying a plane when I've got the controls in my hand. I always believed I can fix this no matter how bad it gets," says Melville.SpaceShipOne rolled 29 times before he regained control. The remainder of the flight was without incident, and Melvill made the 20-minute glide back to the Mojave airport. The landing on that September afternoon was flawless.Because Rutan wanted to attempt the second required flight just four days later, the engineers had little time to find out what had gone wrong. Working 12-hour shifts, they discovered they didn't need to fix the spacecraft, just the way in which the pilots flew it.For the second flight, it was test pilot Brian Binnie's turn to fly SpaceShipOne.The spaceship flew upward on a perfect trajectory, breaking through to space.Rutan's SpaceShipOne had flown to space twice in two weeks, captured the X Prize worth $10 million, and won bragging rights over the space establishment."You know I was wondering what they are feeling, 'They' being that other space agency," Rutan says laughing. "You know, quite frankly, I think the big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston, I think they're looking at each other now and saying 'We're screwed!' Because, I'll tell you something, I have a hell of a lot bigger goal than they do!""The astronauts say that the most exciting experience is floating around in a space suit," says Rutan, showing off his own plans. "But I don't agree. A space suit is an awful thing. It constrains you and it has noisy fans running. Now look over here. It's quiet. And you're out here watching the world go by in what you might call a 'spiritual dome.' Well, that, to me, is better than a space suit because you're not constrained."He also has a vision for a resort hotel in space, and says it all could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Rutan believes it is the dawn of a new era.He explains, "I think we've proven now that the small guys can build a space ship and go to space. And not only that, we've convinced a rich guy, a very rich guy, to come to this country and build a space program to take everyday people to space."That "rich guy" is Richard Branson, the English billionaire who owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build five spaceships for paying customers. Named "Virgin Galactic," it will be the world's first "spaceline." Flights are expected to begin in 2008."We believe by flying tens of thousands of people to space, and making that a profitable business, that that will lead into affordable orbital travel," says Rutan.Rutan thinks there "absolutely" is a market for this.With tickets initially going for $200,000, the market is limited. Nevertheless, Virgin Galactic says 38,000 people have put down a deposit for a seat, and 90 of those have paid the full $200,000.But Rutan has another vision. "The goal is affordable travel above low-Earth orbit. In other words, affordable travel for us to go to the moon. Affordable travel. That means not just NASA astronauts, but thousands of people being able to go to the moon," he says. "I'd like to go. Wouldn't you"。
听力教程第二册unit2听力原文
Unit 2Section One Tactics for ListeningPart 1 Phonetics-Stress, Intonation and Accenta . It's on top of the bookcase.b. With milk, please.c. At five past one.d. At five past one.e. It's on top of the bookcase.f. With milk, please.Exercise:1.f2.c3.e4.b5.a6.dPart2 Listening and Note-takingRalph NaderRalph Nader is a man of few possessions. He owns very little and lives in a small apartment. He doesn't have a car or a TV set. He doesn't have many clothes and he doesn't care about money when he makes a lot of money, he gives it away. He doesn't smoke and he works from six in the morning until late at night, seven days a week: he is paying back to America his debt as a citizen.When he went to parties as a young man, people complained that all he talked about was the dangers of cars, and how bad car design caused the deaths of so many people each year. After he graduated from Harvard, he published an article entitled "Unsafe at Any Speed," which was about a car called Corvair. Later, he made a big attack on the car industry and showed how many deaths in car accidents were because of badly-made cars. He said new laws were needed to make cars safer. In 1966, because of Nader's work, a law was passed to make car safer.After this success, Nader became interested in something very different. This was the quality of meat and the amount of meat that is put into foods like sausages and hamburgers. Ayear later, in 1967, again because of Nader's work, a law was passed to ensure that products like sausages and hamburgers contained the right amount of meat. In 1968, three more laws were passed because of Nader's efforts. The first was to ensure the safety of gas pipelines -- these are the pipes that take gas across the country from one town to another. The second was to protect people from radiation --that is, the dangerous radiation which may leak from nuclear sources. The third was to ensure the proper standard of poultry -- that is, the chicken and turkey meat.Ralph Nader, now one of the most influential people in the United States, has set a wonderful example of what determined men and women can do to improve the quality of life in their country.Exercise A:1. Ralph Nader is a man of few possessions.2. He is paying back to America his debt as a citizen.3. He said new laws were needed to make cars safer.4. A law was passed to ensure that products like sausages and hamburgers contained the right amount of meat.5. Ralph Nader has set a wonderful example of what determined men and women can do to improve the quality of life in their country.Exercise B:Section Two Listening ComprehensionPart 1 DialoguesDialogue 1Give Them Time to Get to Know YouFather: Well, whose fault do you think it is, then?Daughter: I don't know.Father: It couldn't be yours?Daughter: What? That I feel lonely because I haven't any friends there?Father: No, that you haven't got any friends.Daughter: But I've told you! They're not very friendly there. They never talk to me!They just leave me alone.Father: But why?Daughter: How should I know?Father: Isn't it possible it's because you're not very friendly towards them? Daughter: What do you mean?Father: Have you talked to them? Have you tried to make conversation? Daughter: I've told you! They're not interested in talking to me.Father: How do you know?Daughter: Because ... for example ... at lunch time, they all sit together in v groups!Father: Yes, but why don't you sit with one of the groups?Daughter: Don't be silly. I couldn't. It would be awful!Father: why?Daughter: It just would. That's all.Father: How do you know?Daughter: I just do!Father: Well, you'll never make friends if you don't try, will you? I mean, you've got to meet them, too, at least half way.Daughter: It just wouldn't work!Father: You know what I think. I think you're just saying that because you're impatient.Daughter: Impatient? Me?Father: Yes, impatient. You always have been, ever since you were a child. If you don't get what you want immediately, you get depressed and you give up tooeasily!Daughter: Look, if you came with me some morning, you'd understand ...Father: You've only been there for four weeks. These things take time. Daughter: I know, but I still feel ...Father: Listen, give them time to get to know you ... and give yourself time get to know them, and things will change. Believe me!1.T2.T3.F4.T5.T6.TDialogue 2 GesturesNumber 1Woman: You know, a "nod" -- moving your head up and down -- means “yes” in most places, but not everywhere. Did you know that in Greece a nod means "no"?Man: It means "no" in Greece? I'm surprised.Number 2Man: I didn't know "raised eyebrows" means "yes" in Tonga. It means something very different in Peru.Woman: Yeah? What does it mean there?Man: Money. "Raised eyebrows" is a gesture for money in Peru.Woman: Hmm.Number 3Woman: Um, Alberto, you said that "tapping your head" means "I'm thinking" in Argentina.Man: That's right.Woman: You'd better be careful about using that gesture here in Canada. It means someone is crazy.Man: Oh, it means "crazy" in Canada? I didn't know that. I'll be careful.Number 4Man: You know, it's interesting that in the Netherlands, "tapping your elbow" means you can't depend on someone. In Colombia, they use the same gesture, but ithas a different meaning.Woman: What does it mean in Colombia?Man: Well, it means someone is cheap. That person doesn't like to spend money. Woman: Oh.Number 5Woman: Here's an interesting one. You know how "circling your head" means that a person's crazy?Man: Yeah.Woman: Guess what it means in the Netherlands.Man: The Netherlands? I have no idea.Woman: It means someone is calling on the telephone. You know, like dialing a phone. Man: That's interesting.Number 6Man: So "flicking your chin" means "go away" in Italy, rightWoman: Yes.Man: Guess what it means in Brazil.Woman: In Brazil? I don't know.Man: That's right.Woman: Huh?Man: In Brazil, "flicking your chin" means "I don't know."Woman: "I don't know" is the meaning?Man: Right.Number 7Woman: Well, everything is "thumbs up" for my trip to Nigeria. I've never been to Africa before. I'm really looking forward to it.Man: Ah, you'd better be careful with that expression in Nigeria.Woman: Huh?Man: Thumbs up. In Nigeria, it means ... um ... well, it has a very bad meaning.Don't use that gesture. It will get you into a lot of trouble.Woman: Oh, thanks for telling me.Number 8Man: You said "tossing your head" means "come here" for Germans? Woman: That's right. But there are some other meanings. In India, it means "yes."But it has the opposite meaning in Italy. In Italy it means "no."Man: Hmm, "yes" in India, "no" in Italy. Isn't it interesting how the same thing can have such different meanings?Woman: It sure is.Part 2 passagesWhy Shouldn't you Go by First Impressions?One shouldn't always go by* first impressions. In my hometown there lived a giant of a man with huge hands and a manner so fierce and unfriendly that he always sat alone in any public place. Yet to those who knew him, he was a kind and generous friend. In the same way one should never assume* that somebody who looks inoffensive is always going to behave in an inoffensive manner.Recently my young brother, who works for a famous American airline, was reminded of this truth. The plane was overbooked and for once all the passengers turned up. So my brother had the difficult task of choosing three passengers and informing them that they couldn't travel on the flight in question*.Knowing that the young are generally impatient and often aggressive, my brother chose three elderly travelers, an English couple and a little old American lady.The English couple accepted the situation and went to have a drink while waiting for the next flight. Then my brother approached the American lady, whose name was Mrs. Pepper, with a sad smile on his face, "Mrs. Pepper? May I have a few words? I'm afraid we have a problem.""A problem? What de you mean, we have a problem, young man?"“Would you like to come into the office” asked my brother, sensing that this was not going to be easy."Oh, very well, but only for a moment. I have a plane to catch, you know.""Er ... yes." My brother explained the position.The little lady looked at him with steely, blue eyes. "Young man," she said. "I don't believe you are aware that you are talking to Mrs Katherine Pepper, widow of General Arnold Pepper, of the United States Army Air Force and I'd like to inform you, further, that the President of your airline was a personal friend of the General's. In the circumstances I'd advise you to sort this out* right away, otherwise you're going to be in a lot of trouble. Do I make myself clear?" Exercise A:Appearances are often deceptive. In this passage, the two examples tell us the reason why we shouldn't go by first impressions.Exercise B:I.C 2. D 3. A 4. B 5. C 6. D 7. A 8. BExercise C:1. To those who knew him, he was a kind and generous friend.2. The plane was overbooked and for once all the passengers turned up. So he had thedifficult task of choosing three passengers and informing them that they couldn’t travel on the flight in question.3. They had a very close relationship.4. Probably he would never trust his first impressions again.Part 3 NewsNews ltem 1The simultaneous* bombings of three underground trains and a double-decker bus in London three years ago are imprinted* on the minds of many people in Britain.But our memories of the attacks are unreliable, according to a study from Portsmouth University. 40% of British students questioned about the events remembered seeing CCTV footage* of the bus bomb - footage which never existed. A further 28% claimed to have seen a non-existent computerized reconstruction.Some even recalled specific details of the attacks, which none of them witnessed."Memories are not like videotape you can rewind and replay for perfect recall," said lead researcher James Ost. "Because of this, they are not reliable enough to form the basis of legal decisions."Exercise A:This news item is about the false memories that British people have about the attacks happened in London three years age.Exercise B:News Item 2China begins three days of mourning for earthquake victims in Sichuan province, with a three-minute silence and half-mast flags.For three minutes a collective wail * was heard across the town of Beichuan as ° raid sirens* and car horns sounded the exact time when the earthquake hit China one week ago. Workers here laid wreaths* outsidethe town's school. At 2:28 in the afternoon, last Monday, it was engulfed* in a landslide*,hundreds of children died.To the side of the mourners, bodies lay waiting to be buried. Rescue work has resumed and two women were found alive here this morning, but these glimmers* of hope are increasingly rare. The aftershocks* continue.Exercise A:This news about the mourning for earthquake victims in Sichuan, ChinaExercise B:1.The Chinese people mourned the earthquake victims with a three-minute silence andhalf-mast flags.2.At 2:28 p.m., last Monday.3.Hundreds of children were killed in a landslide.4.The hopes of finding more people alive were increasingly rare.5.No, aftershocks continued.News Item 3Indonesia is expected to announce stronger security measures Wednesday after a deadly bombing in Jakarta*. At least 13 people were killed when a car bomb exploded near a hotel. 149 people were injured. The hotel is operated by a United States company. The governor of Jakarta said it was very likely that the bomber was killed in the attack. Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri visited the damaged hotel. Buildings nearby also were damaged. The explosion comes 2 days before an Indonesian court decides the first case connected to the deadly bombings last year in Bali*. Those attacks killed 202 people.Exercise A:This news item is about the 2nd serious bombing that took place in Indonesia within 2 years.Exercise B:1. F2. T3. F4. F5. T6. TSection three oral worksRetellingAs Susan and her daughter Jenny walked around the park they were hounded by beggars. The girl was shocked when she saw a skeletal young beggar woman wrapped in a gray shawl*. Her eyes were sunken* and she held out a bony hand like she was receiving communion, As she did, her shawl fell away revealing a young child standing under it.Jenny just started throwing her money into that bony hand. Susan grabbed her before she could start taking off her jewelry, and the mother decided to have a talk with her about the beggars when they got back to the hotel.They boarded the return bus. They were stopped at a red light when Jenny stood straight up and screamed, "Mother? Susan went to her window and she pointed to a taxi next to the bus. There, in air conditioned comfort, sat the beggar woman with her child next to her, eating an ice cream cone.。
英语高级视听说听力原文 Unit 2 The new space race
Unit 2 The new space raceA plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism.The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers – basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design – Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before.The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space."There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky," says Rutan.On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutan's spaceship. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship one.The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.Still climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.By the time the spaceship one reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles— the internationally recognized boundary of space.It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of 62 miles, SpaceShipOne's tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called the feather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned the spaceship into a glider.SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd of thousands. "After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground," remembers Rutan. "We had an operable space plane."Rutan's "operable space plane" was built by a company with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the government's monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen."I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business," says Rutan.Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge? "It's a technological challenge first. And it's a dream I had when I was 12," he says.Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up."I was fascinated by putting balsa wood together and see how it would fly," he remembers. "And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked."He's been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.Rutan began designing a spaceship nearly a decade ago, after setting up set up his own aeronautical research and design firm. By the year 2000, he had turned his designs into models and was testing them outside his office. "When I got to the point that I knew that I could make a safe spaceship that would fly a manned space mission -- when I say, 'I,' not the government, our little team -- I told Paul Allen, 'I think we can do this.' And he immediately said, 'Go with it.'"Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world. His decision to pump $25 million into Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, was the vote of confidence that his engineers needed to proceed."That was a heck of a challenge to put in front of some people like us, where we're told, 'Well, you can't do that. You wanna see? We can do this," says Pete Sebold.Work on White Knight and SpaceShipOne started four years ago in secret. Both aircraft were custom made from scratch by a team of 12 engineers using layers of tough carbon fabric glued together with epoxy. Designed to be light-weight, SpaceShipOne can withstand the stress of re-entry because of the radical way it comes back into the atmosphere, like a badminton shuttlecock or a birdie.He showed 60 Minutes how it works."Feathering the wing is kind of a dramatic thing, in that it changes the whole configuration of the airplane," he explains. "And this is done in space, okay? It's done after you fly into space.""We have done six reentries. Three of them from space and three of them from lower altitudes. And some of them have even come down upside down. And the airplane by itself straightens itself right up," Rutan explainsBy September 2004, Rutan was ready for his next challenge: an attempt to win a $10 million prize to be the first to fly a privately funded spacecraft into space, and do it twice in two weeks."After we had flown the June flight, and we had reached the goal of our program, then the most important thing was to win that prize," says Rutan.That prize was the Ansari X Prize – an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space.The first of the two flights was piloted, once again, by Mike Melvill.September's flight put Melville's skill and training to the test. As he was climbing out of the atmosphere, the spacecraft suddenly went into a series of rolls.How concerned was he?"Well, I thought I could work it out. I'm very confident when I'm flying aplane when I've got the controls in my hand. I always believed I can fix this no matter how bad it gets," says Melville.SpaceShipOne rolled 29 times before he regained control. The remainder of the flight was without incident, and Melvill made the 20-minute glide back to the Mojave airport. The landing on that September afternoon was flawless.Because Rutan wanted to attempt the second required flight just four days later, the engineers had little time to find out what had gone wrong. Working 12-hour shifts, they discovered they didn't need to fix the spacecraft, just the way in which the pilots flew it.For the second flight, it was test pilot Brian Binnie's turn to fly SpaceShipOne.The spaceship flew upward on a perfect trajectory, breaking through to space.Rutan's SpaceShipOne had flown to space twice in two weeks, captured the X Prize worth $10 million, and won bragging rights over the space establishment."You know I was wondering what they are feeling, 'They' being that other space agency," Rutan says laughing. "You know, quite frankly, I think the big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston, I think they're looking at each other now and saying 'We're screwed!' Because, I'll tell you something, I have a hell of a lot bigger goal than they do!""The astronauts say that the most exciting experience is floating around in a space suit," says Rutan, showing off his own plans. "But I don't agree. A space suit is an awful thing. It constrains you and it has noisy fans running. Now look over here. It's quiet. And you're out here watching the world go by in what you might call a 'spiritual dome.' Well, that, to me, is better than a space suit because you're not constrained."He also has a vision for a resort hotel in space, and says it all could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Rutan believes it is the dawn of a new era.He explains, "I think we've proven now that the small guys can build a space ship and go to space. And not only that, we've convinced a rich guy, a very rich guy, to come to this country and build a space program to take everyday people to space."That "rich guy" is Richard Branson, the English billionaire who owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build five spaceships for paying customers. Named "Virgin Galactic," it will be the world's first "spaceline." Flights are expected to begin in 2008."We believe by flying tens of thousands of people to space, and making that a profitable business, that that will lead into affordable orbital travel," says Rutan.Rutan thinks there "absolutely" is a market for this.With tickets initially going for $200,000, the market is limited. Nevertheless, Virgin Galactic says 38,000 people have put down a deposit for a seat, and 90 of those have paid the full $200,000.But Rutan has another vision. "The goal is affordable travel above low-Earth orbit. In other words, affordable travel for us to go to the moon. Affordable travel. That means not just NASA astronauts, but thousands of people being able to go to the moon," he says. "I'd like to go. Wouldn't you?"。
新世纪英语高级视听说上册原文第二单元
新世纪英语高级视听说上册原文第二单元1.引言1.1 介绍新世纪英语高级视听说上册第二单元的内容和重要性新世纪英语高级视听说上册第二单元是一个重要的学习内容，主要包括了听力、词汇和口语部分。
该单元的内容涉及到日常生活中的各种场景和对话，能够帮助学生更好地了解和运用英语。
该单元还有许多实用的词汇和表达方式，能够帮助学生提高英语应用能力。
在学习该单元的过程中，学生将会接触到各种不同的听力材料，包括短对话和长对话，能够帮助他们提高听力理解能力。
词汇部分也包括了大量的实用词汇和短语，学生可以通过学习这些词汇来丰富自己的词汇量，同时提高自己的语言运用能力。
在口语部分，学生将会学习到如何进行日常生活中的对话和表达，帮助他们更好地应对各种交流场景。
本文将通过对该单元内容的介绍，帮助学生了解该单元的重要性，指导学生如何学习和应用该单元的内容，使其能够更好地掌握英语，并提高英语应用能力。
希望学生能够重视该单元的学习，加强练习，从而提高自己的英语水平。
1.2 强调学习该单元内容的必要性学习新世纪英语高级视听说上册第二单元的内容是非常必要的。
这一单元涵盖了丰富多彩的听力、词汇和口语技巧，对于提高学生的英语综合能力具有重要意义。
通过学习该单元内容，学生可以提升自己的听力理解能力，丰富词汇量，增强口语表达能力，对于日常交流和学术研究都有着重要的作用。
在当今全球化的背景下，掌握一门国际通用的语言至关重要。
英语作为全球通用的语言之一，学好英语已成为现代人的基本素质和必备能力。
而新世纪英语高级视听说上册第二单元的内容涵盖了真实场景下的听力材料、精选词汇和实用口语，是非常有针对性和实用性的内容。
通过学习该单元，学生不仅可以提高自己的英语水平，还可以更好地适应现代社会的发展需求。
在面对各种英语交流场景时，学生能够更加自信和流利地表达自己的观点，与他人进行有效的交流。
强调学习新世纪英语高级视听说上册第二单元的内容是十分必要的，也是对未来发展有着重要意义的一环。
新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_Unit4new
Unit 4-Conversation 1Kate :So, what did you think of the movie?Mark :It was good but I thought it was too long.Kate :Yes, me too.Kate :Hey, where's my bike? I don't believe it! It's gone!Mark : It was next to mine, you chained it up!Kate : Someone's stolen it! Oh, how could they!Mark :Oh, Kate!Kate : How could someone have done this! The creep!Mark : It's a really mean thing to do, steal a bike.Kate :It was a mountain bike and it cost a fortune— I don't have the money to buy another one.Mark :Listen, I'll go down the street and see if I can see anyone with it. Why don't you go into that shop and seeif they've seen anything suspicious? I'll be back in a minute. Kate :OK.Kate :Well?Ma rk:No luck. What did they say in the shop?Kate :I asked the shopkeeper if she'd seen anything —Mark :And?Kate :She said she hadn't. I guess it was a long shot. She advised me to report it to the police. But accordingto her, bikes get stolen all the time around here.Mark :Listen, let's get back so you can report it.Kate :I've got no bike. I'm just so upset!Mark :It's not far to college. Come on!Unit 4-Conversation 2Mark :So did you ring the police?Kate :Yes. I went to the police station to report it.Mark :What did they say?Kate : No one's found it. This woman said that Oxford hasthe fifth highest rate of bike theft in the country!Mark :You're joking!Kate :That's what she said.Mark :What else did she say?Kate : She told me that sometimes you do get bikes back—the thieves use them and then abandon them, apparently, and then people find them and report them.Mark :So you might get it back.Kate : I hope so, Mark, I really do. It's just too much, you know? But ... um ... what else? She told me to go to this sale theyhave of abandoned bikes. She thinks I might find it there. Butit's only every two months, I can't wait till then! Honestly, Mark, I'm really furious!Mark :You can always buy a cheap bike on eBay.Kate :Hello ... Speaking ... You found it! Where was it? Isit ...? Oh, that's fantastic news! There was a lamp and a basketon it ... Right ... OK, thank you, I'll be in tomorrow morningto pick it up. Unbelievable! This guy found it!Mark :Brilliant! Was that the police?Kate : Yes. What they said was, someone dumped it outsidethis guy's backyard.Mark :That's so strange!Kate:The lamp's been stolen and the basket.Mark :Forget about it! You're lucky to get it back!Unit 4-Outside viewReporter：The trade in endangered animals is booming, as this collection of items seized by border agents shows.Ivory and rhino horn, trophy animals and Chinesemedicines, it's a multimillion pound black-marketindustry. This year, Sky News has filmed with rhinosin South Africa, clearly seeing the damage done bypoachers, and it's thought the number of rhinos killedthere might reach a record high this year.Interviewee1 ： Poaching levels are at... you know,unprecedented levels now, you know, they've gonethrough the roof. The rhino ... they're anticipating1,000 rhinos to be slaughtered in South Africa, er,this year alone.Reporter： In the past year, UK customs officials have seized2.5 million illegal itoms. That ’sten times more thanthe year before. Included in that, almost 4,000 kilosof illegally imported medicines, 93 endangered liveanimals, and over 300 items made from ivory. Interviewee 2 ：Here we've got a pair of, er, snakeskin shoes of some sort, look like python.Reporter： The items held in this warehouse have also been smuggled illegally, often in the form of packages sentby courier or parcel post, and intercepted at the UK'sports and airports. Endangered animals brought inalive are rehomed across the country.Interviewee 3 ： There's a huge trade in reptiles, tortoises for example are enormous problems, and turtles, oftenconfiscated. And it's extremely difficult trying to findhomes for these, these, these sorts of animals. Reporter：Many of these items will be passed on for education or research. But the rhino horn will be destroyed, andprevented from ever hitting the black market again.Harriet Hadfield, Sky News.Unit 4-Listening inNews reportOver the past few years, the true crime genre has grown in popularity in the US. First, there was the podcast Serial, which revisited the case of Adnan Syed. He was imprisoned for the 1999 murder of his high school classmate and former girlfriend, which he claims he did not commit. Then Netflix came out with the documentary series Making a Murderer . The series follows the real-life story of Steven Avery ， a man who was wrongly imprisoned for 18 years for a crime he didn ’tcommit. But soon after he was released from prison, he was arrested for the murder of a photographer. Again, he claims that hedidn ’tcommit the crime.Some fans are even investigating the crimes and trials themselves. They have gathered and analyzed evidence andshared theories on other possible suspects. Both Serial and Making a Murderer have had impacts on the cases involved. Syed was given another chance to present evidence to prove he is innocent after his case became a pop cultural phenomenon, and more than 500,000 people asked for Steven Avery to be freed after the release of Making a Murderer .1.What is the news report mainly about?2.What do the cases in the programs have in common?Passage 1Patrick I read a funny story today in the paper - true story. Steve Go on, then.Patrick OK. This 72-year-old guy stole a pair of trousers from a department store in Paris. A security man saw him and alerted the police and they were waiting for him when he came out of the shop. The shoplifter started running, but the policeman soon caught up with him. The man then bit the policeman on his arm several times. Steve He bit the policeman?Patrick Yes - you have to remember, he was 72.Steve I'd forgotten that.Patrick Problem was, it didn't hurt the policeman at all,'cause the guy had forgotten to put his false teeth in before heleft home.Steve Very funny!Patrick And the moral of the story is -Steve Always remember to wear your false teeth if you'regoing to bite someone.Patrick That's good. I read a funny crime story the other day. Let's see ... yeah ... this guy... this guy robbed a supermarket somewhere in America -1 can't remember where exactly -anyway, he got away with about 4,000 dollars. The next week the local newspaper reported the story but said he'd stolen 6,000 dollars. The thief rang the newspaper office to complain. He said, "Look, I only took 4,000 dollars. I'm wondering if the supermarket manager took another 2,000 and said I'd taken it. I did not take 6,000, I promise you."Steve He was probably telling the truth.Patrick He probably was. Anyway, the newspaper managed to keep the guy talking while they rang the police. And the police traced the call - the guy was ringing from a phonebooth - and they arrested him while he was still talking tothe newspaper.Steve That's good. Stupid guy! I've got another true story ... This - this - old guy was in court for some crime - and he fell asleep. His case began and his lawyer stood up and said, "My client pleads not guilty." The man suddenly woke up, but wasn't sure what was happening. He jumped up and shouted, "I plead guilty! I plead guilty!"Patrick So what happened?Steve The judge allowed him to plead not guilty.Patrick That's the best, I think.Passage 2Presenter You're listening to Kevin Fallen and my topic for today is street crime. Being mugged is something that can happen to anyone - and it's a very frightening experience. So it's positive when you hear of someone who was attacked by a mugger and defeated them - especially when that person is a woman. Anna Black was attacked by a mugger. She's here to tell us about it. How long ago did this happen, Anna?Anna Just over a week ago. The day it happened,I was coming home from work a bit later than usual -1 think it was about seven. I was on my mobile phone, talking to my husband.Presenter And it was still daylight?Anna Yes. Anyway, suddenly, someone pulled my hair from behind - and at the same time they grabbed my mobile phone. Now, I'm a karate black belt -Presenter Really!Anna Yes, I practise three times a week - so I'm ready for situations like this.Presenter I bet you are.Anna Yes, I can react very fast. So as soon as this guy grabbed me, I did what you're told to do in these situations. Presenter And what's that?Anna I fell backwards onto him.Presenter You fell backwards onto him!Anna Yeah! I'm tall and quite heavy - so we both fell to the ground together.Presenter Goodness!Anna I er, yeah -1 was ready to hit him but then next thing I knew, two men had seized the guy. They were driving past and they, they stopped to help. They were big strong guys. They called the police who came in five minutes.Presenter So the mugger was arrested?Anna Yes, he was.Presenter Do you think, if that hadn't happened, you could have injured him?Anna Oh, I'd like to think so. I'm a black belt,that's what I'm trained to do.Presenter Well, it's great to hear of women coping well in situations like this. Perhaps we should all learn karate.Anna I think it's a good idea to have some kind of defence training. Yes, especially if you live in an area that isn't very safe.。
最新英语高级视听说听力原文 Unit 2 The new space race讲课稿
Unit 2 The new space raceA plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism. The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers – basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design – Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before.The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space. "There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky," says Rutan.On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutan's spaceship. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship one.The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.Still climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.By the time the spaceship one reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles — the internationally recognized boundary of space.It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of 62 miles, SpaceShipOne's tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called the feather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned the spaceship into a glider.SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd of thousands. "After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground," remembers Rutan. "We had an operable space plane."Rutan's "operable space plane" was built by a company with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the government's monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen."I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business," says Rutan.Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge? "It's a technological challenge first. And it's a dream I had when I was 12," he says.Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up."I was fascinated by putting balsa wood together and see how it would fly," he remembers. "And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked."He's been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.Rutan began designing a spaceship nearly a decade ago, after setting up set up his own aeronautical research and design firm. By the year 2000, he had turned his designs into models and was testing them outside his office. "When I got to the point that I knew that I could make a safe spaceship that would fly a manned space mission -- when I say, 'I,' not the government,our little team -- I told Paul Allen, 'I think we can do this.' And he immediately said, 'Go with it.'"Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world. His decision to pump $25 million into Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, was the vote of confidence that his engineers needed to proceed."That was a heck of a challenge to put in front of some people like us, where we're told, 'Well, you can't do that. You wanna see? We can do this," says Pete Sebold.Work on White Knight and SpaceShipOne started four years ago in secret. Both aircraft were custom made from scratch by a team of 12 engineers using layers of tough carbon fabric glued together with epoxy. Designed to be light-weight, SpaceShipOne can withstand the stress of re-entry because of the radical way it comes back into the atmosphere, like a badminton shuttlecock or a birdie.He showed 60 Minutes how it works."Feathering the wing is kind of a dramatic thing, in that it changes the whole configuration of the airplane," he explains. "And this is done in space, okay? It's done after you fly into space.""We have done six reentries. Three of them from space and three of them from lower altitudes. And some of them have even come down upside down. And the airplane by itself straightens itself right up," Rutan explainsBy September 2004, Rutan was ready for his next challenge: an attempt to win a $10 million prize to be the first to fly a privately funded spacecraft into space, and do it twice in two weeks."After we had flown the June flight, and we had reached the goal of our program, then the most important thing was to win that prize," says Rutan.That prize was the Ansari X Prize – an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space.The first of the two flights was piloted, once again, by Mike Melvill.September's flight put Melville's skill and training to the test. As he was climbing out of the atmosphere, the spacecraft suddenly went into a series of rolls.How concerned was he?"Well, I thought I could work it out. I'm very confident when I'm flying a plane when I've got the controls in my hand. I always believed I can fix this no matter how bad it gets," says Melville.SpaceShipOne rolled 29 times before he regained control. The remainder of the flight was without incident, and Melvill made the 20-minute glide back to the Mojave airport. The landing on that September afternoon was flawless.Because Rutan wanted to attempt the second required flight just four days later, the engineers had little time to find out what had gone wrong. Working 12-hour shifts, they discovered they didn't need to fix the spacecraft, just the way in which the pilots flew it.For the second flight, it was test pilot Brian Binnie's turn to fly SpaceShipOne.The spaceship flew upward on a perfect trajectory, breaking through to space.Rutan's SpaceShipOne had flown to space twice in two weeks, captured the X Prize worth $10 million, and won bragging rights over the space establishment."You know I was wondering what they are feeling, 'They' being that other space agency," Rutan says laughing. "You know, quite frankly, I think the big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston, I think they're looking at each other now and saying 'We're screwed!' Because, I'll tell you something, I have a hell of a lot bigger goal than they do!""The astronauts say that the most exciting experience is floating around in a space suit," says Rutan, showing off his own plans. "But I don't agree. A space suit is an awful thing. It constrains you and it has noisy fans running. Now look over here. It's quiet. And you're out here watching the world go by in what you might call a 'spiritual dome.' Well, that, to me, is better than a space suit because you're not constrained."He also has a vision for a resort hotel in space, and says it all could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Rutan believes it is the dawn of a new era.He explains, "I think we've proven now that the small guys can build a space ship and go to space. And not only that, we've convinced a rich guy, a very rich guy, to come to this country and build a space program to take everydaypeople to space."That "rich guy" is Richard Branson, the English billionaire who owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build five spaceships for paying customers. Named "Virgin Galactic," it will be the world's first "spaceline." Flights are expected to begin in 2008."We believe by flying tens of thousands of people to space, and making that a profitable business, that that will lead into affordable orbital travel," says Rutan.Rutan thinks there "absolutely" is a market for this.With tickets initially going for $200,000, the market is limited. Nevertheless, Virgin Galactic says 38,000 people have put down a deposit for a seat, and 90 of those have paid the full $200,000.But Rutan has another vision. "The goal is affordable travel above low-Earth orbit. In other words, affordable travel for us to go to the moon. Affordable travel. That means not just NASA astronauts, but thousands of people being able to go to the moon," he says. "I'd like to go. Wouldn't you?"（一）敏慧1、黄琬巧对黄琬幼而慧。
高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本精修订
高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本SANY标准化小组 #QS8QHH-HHGX8Q8-GNHHJ8-HHMHGN#Book 2 Chapter 1 The PopulationToday we’re going to talk about population in the United States. According to the most recent government census, the population is 281,421,906 people. Now this represents an increase of almost 33 million people since the 1990 census. A population of over 281 million makes the United States the third most populous country in the whole world. As you probably know, the People’s Republic of China is the most populous country in the world. But do you know which is the second most populousWell, if you thought India, you were right. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most populous countries are Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan. Now let’s get back to the United States. Let’s look at the total U. S. population figure of 281 million in three different ways. The first way is by race and origin; the second is by geographical distribution, or by where people live; and the third way is by the age and sex of the population.First of all, let’s take a look at the population by race and origin. The latest U. S. census reports that 75.1 percent of the population is white, whereas 12.3 percent is black. Three percent are of Asian origin, and 1 percent is Native American. 2.4 percent of the population is a mixture of two or more races, and 5.5 percent report themselves as “of some other race”. Let’s make sure yourfigures are right: OK, white, 75.1 percent; black, 12.3 percent; Asian, 3 percent; Native American, 1 percent; a mixture of two or more races, 2.4 percent; and of some other race, 5.5 percent. Hispanics, whose origins lie in Spanish-speaking countries, comprise whites, blacks, and Native Americans, so they are already included in the above figures. It is important to note that Hispanics make up 12.5 percent of the present U.S. population, however. Finally, the census tells us that 31 million people in the United States were born in another country. Of the 31 million foreign born, the largest part, 27.6 percent are from Mexico. The next largest group, from the Philippines, number 4.3 percent.Another way of looking at the population is by geographical distribution. Do you have any idea which states are the five most populous in the United States Well, I’ll help you out there. The five most populous states, with population figures, are California, with almost 34 million; New York, with 21 million; Texas, with 19 million; and Florida, with 16 million; and Illinois with 12.5 million people. Did you get all those figures downWell, if not, I’ll give you a chance later to check your figures. Well, then, let’s move on. All told, over half, or some 58 percent of the population, lives in the South and in the West of the United States. This figure, 58 percent, is surprising to many people. It issurprising because the East is more densely populated. Nevertheless, there are more people all together in the South and West. To understand this seeming contradiction, one need only consider the relatively larger size of many southern and western states, so although there are more people, they are distributed over a larger area. To finish up this section on geographical distribution, consider that more than three-quarters of the people live in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Houston. That means that only 20 percent, or 2 out of 10 people, live in rural areas. An interesting side note is that some 3,800,000 U.S. citizens live abroad, that is, in foreign countries.Before we finish today, I want to discuss the distribution of the U.S. population in terms of age and sex. Just for interest, would you say there are more men or more women in the United States Well, according to the 2000 census, there are more women. In fact, there are more than five million more women than men in the U.S. population. If we consider that more males than females are born each year, how can this difference be explainedWell, for a variety of complicated reasons that we can’t go into here, there is a progressively higher death rate for males as they get older. This is seen in 2003 life expectancy figures: the life expectancy for women is 80.4 years whereas for men it is only 74.5years. I don’t know how these life expectancy figures compare to those in your countries, but statistically women generally live longer than men worldwide. Now, to finish up, let’s look at the average age of the whole population. Overall, the average age of the population is increasing: from 33.1 years in 1990 to 35.3 years in 2000. The average age has been slowly, but steadily, increasing over the past several decades. This trend toward a higher average age can be explained by a decreasing birth rate and an increasing life expectancy for the population as a whole. Well, I’d like to investigate these two subjects further, but I see our time is up, so we’ll have to call it quits for today. You may want to pursue the topic of the aging U.S. population further, so there are some suggestions at the end of the lesson to help you do so. Thank you. Chapter Two Immigration: Past and PresentThe act of immigrating, or coming to a new country to live, is certainly nothing new. Throughout history, people have immigrated, or moved to new countries, for many different reasons. Sometimes these reasons were economic or political. Other people moved because of natural disasters such as droughts or famines. And some people moved to escape religious or political persecution. No matter what the reason, most people do not want to leave their native land and do so only under great pressure of some sort, but a few people seemquite adventuresome and restless by nature and like to move a lot. It seems both kinds of people came to America to live. The subject of immigration is quite fascinating to most Americans, as they view themselves as a nation of immigrants. However, the early Britons who came to what is today the United States considered themselves “settlers” or “colonists,” rather than immigrants. These people did not exactly think they were moving to a new country but were merely settling new land for the “mother country.” There were also large numbers of Dutch, French, German, and Scotch-Irish settlers, as well as large numbers of blacks brought from Africa as slaves. At the time of independence from Britain in 1776, about 40 percent of people living in what is now the United States were non-British. The majority of people, however, spoke English, and the traditions that formed the basis of life were mainly British traditions. This period we have just been discussing is usually referred to as the Colonial Period. Today, we’re a little more interested in actual immigration after this period. Let’s first look at what is often called the Great Immigration, which began about 1830 and ended in 1930. Then let’s consider the reasons for this so-called Great Immigration and the reasons it ended. Finally, let’s talk about the immigration situation in the United States today,As I said, we’ll begin our discussion today with the period ofhistory called the Great Immigration, which lasted from approximately 1830 to 1930. It will be easier if we look at the Great Immigration in terms of three major stages, or time periods. The first stage was from approximate1y 1830 to 1860. Now, before this time, the number of immigrants coming to the United States was comparatively small, only about 10,000 a year. However, the rate began to climb in the 1830s when about 600,000 immigrants arrived. The rate continued to climb during the 1840s with a tota1 of 1,700,000 people arriving in that decade. The rate continued to climb, and during the 1850s 2,600,000 immigrants arrived. During this first stage of the Great Immigration, that is, between the years 1830 and 1860, the majority of immigrants came from Germany, Great Britain, and Ireland. Now let’s consider the second stage of the Great Immigration. The second stage was from l860 to 1890, during which time another 10,000,000 people arrived. Between l860 and 1890 the majority of immigrants continued to be from Germany, Ireland, and Great Britain. However, during the second stage, a smaller but significant number of immigrants came from the Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The third stage of the Great Immigration, which lasted from 1890 to 1930, was the era of heaviest immigration. Between the years l890 and l930, almost 22 million immigrants arrived in the United States. Most of thesenew arrivals came from the Southern European countries of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain and the Eastern European countries of Poland and Russia.Now that we know something about the numbers and origins of immigrants who came to the States during the Great Immigration, let’s consider the reasons why most of these people immigrated to the United States. Why did such large numbers of Europeans leave their homes for life in an unknown countryIt would be impossible to discuss all the complex political and economic reasons in any depth today, but we can touch on a few interesting facts that might help to clarify the situation for you. First of all, one of the most important reasons was that the population of Europe doubled between the years 1750 and 1850. At the same time that the population was growing so rapidly, the Industrial Revolution in Europe was causing widespread unemployment. The combination of increased population and the demand for land by industry also meant that farmland was becoming increasingly scarce in Europe. The scarcity of farmland in Europe meant that the abundance of available land in the growing country of the United States was a great attraction. During these years, the United States was an expanding country and it seemed that there was no end to land. In fact, in 1862, the government offered public land free tocitizens and to immigrants who were planning to become citizens. In addition to available farmland, there were also plentiful jobs during these years of great economic growth. Other attractions were freedom from religious or political persecution. Some other groups also came to the United States as the direct results of natural disasters that left them in desperate situations. For example, the frequent failure of the potato crop in Ireland between the years 1845 and 1849 led to widespread starvation in that country, and people were driven to immigrate. Another factor that affected the number of immigrants coming to the United States was improved ocean transport beginning in the 1840s. At that time, ships large enough to carry large numbers of people began to make regular trips across the ocean. Now let’s summarize the reasons for the high rate of immigration to the United States during the years we discussed: first, the doubling of the population in Europe between 1750 and 1850; second, the unemployment caused by the Industrial Revolution; and third, the land scarcity in Europe, followed by religious and political persecution and natural disaster. These reasons combined with improved transportation probably account for the largest number of immigrants.I would now like to talk briefly about the period of time following the Great Immigration and the reasons for the decline inthe rate of immigration. Although immigration continues today, immigration numbers have never again reached the levels that we discussed previously. There are several reasons for this decline. This decline was in part due to various laws whose aim was to limit the number of immigrants coming from different parts of the world to the United States. The first such law that limited the number of immigrants coming from a certain part of the world was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law was followed by many other laws that also tried to limit the numbers of people immigrating from various countries or parts of the world. In addition to such laws, certainly economic and geopolitical events as important as the Great Depression starting in 1929 and World War II also contributed to the decline in immigration.Let’s conclude our talk by discussing the current situation with respect to immigration, which is quite different from that in the past. To understand some of the changes, it’s important to note that in 1965 strict quotas based on nationality were eliminated. Let’s see how different things are today from the past. As I noted, the greatest number of immigrants to the United States have historically been European. According to U.S. Census figures, in 1860, the percentage of immigrants that were European was 92 percent. But by 1960, the percentage of European immigrants had dropped to74.5 percent, and by the year 2002, it had dropped to 14 percent! In 2002, 52.2 percent of immigrants came from Latin America, that is, from the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. Mexico is ordinarily considered part of North America, but the U.S. Census Bureau considers Mexico as a Central American country in terms of immigration statistics, and estimates that more than one-third of the total of all immigrants to the United States in 2002 came from Mexico or another Central American country. The next largest percentage, 25.5 percent, of immigrants came from Asia, mainly from the Philippines, China, and India.Although immigration dropped sharply when the United States entered World War I and remained low throughout the Depression and World War II years, at the end of the l940s, immigration began to increase again and has, in general, risen steadily since then. It might surprise you to know that the actual number of immigrants coming yearly to the States in recent years is about the same as the numbers coming yearly between 1900 and 1910. Keep in mind, though, that the population of the United States is much larger now than at the turn of the century, so that while the yearly numbers may be similar, the percentage of the population that is foreign-born is considerably smaller today than it was a century ago.It might be interesting to speculate on immigration in thefuture. Will the trend continue for non-Europeans to immigrate to the United States The answer is probably yes for the foreseeable future. Do these non-European people come to the United States for the same reasons that Europeans cameWell, land is no longer plentiful and cheap. Industry no longer requires large numbers of unskilled workers. In fact, the government usually tries to restrict immigration to those people who already have the skills to be successful in U.S. society. Still, people come for politica1 and economic reasons and probably will continue to do so.Chapter 3 Americans at WorkWhether you love it or hate it, work is a major part of most people’s lives everywhere in the world. Americans are no exception. Americans might complain about “blue Monday,” when they have to go back to work after the weekend, but most people put a lot of importance on their job, not only in terms of money but also in terms of identity. In fact, when Americans are introduced to a new person, they almost always ask each other, “What do you do?” They are asking, what is your job or profession. Today, however, we won’t look at work in terms of what work means socially or psychologically. Rather, we’re going to take a look at work in the United States today from two perspectives. First, we’ll take ahistorical look at work in America. We’ll do that by looking at how things changed for the American worker from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century, that is, from the year 1900 to the year 1999. Then we’ll look at how U.S. workers are doing today.As we look at the changes over the last century, we’re going to use a lot of statistics to describe these changes. You will need to write down a lot of numbers in today’s lecture. First, let’s consider how the type of work people were involved in changed. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about 38 percent of the workforce was involved in agriculture; that is, they worked on a farm. By the end of the century, only 3 percent still worked on farms. There was also a large decrease in the number of people working in mining, manufacturing, and construction. The number of workers in mining, manufacturing, and construction went down from 31 percent to 19 percent.While the number of people in these goods producing industries went down, the number of people in the service industries went up. As you may know, a service industry is one that provides a service, rather than goods or products. A few examples include transportation, tourism, banking, advertising, health care, and legal services. I’m sure you can think of more. The service industry workforce jumped from 31 percent of the workforce at the turn of the century to 78percent in 1999.Let’s recap the numbers: in 1900, 38 percent in agriculture; 31 percent in mining, manufacturing, and construction; and 31 percent in the service industries. That should add up to 100 percent. In 1999, 3 percent in agriculture; 19 percent in mining, manufacturing, and construction; and 78 percent in the service industries. Again, that should add up to 100 percent.The labor force changed in other important ways. For example, child labor was not unusual at the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1900 there were 1, 750, 000 children aged ten to fifteen working full-time in the labor force. This was 6 percent of the labor force. Over the years, child labor laws became much stricter and by 1999, it was illegal for anyone under sixteen to work full-time in any of the fifty states. While the number of children in the workforce went down, the number of women went up dramatically. In 1900, only 19 percent of women were employed; in 1999, 60 percent of women were holding down jobs.Let’s see what has happened to wages and salaries. All the numbers I will give you are in terms of 1999 dollars. Let me explain. In 1900 the average per capita income was $4,200 a year. That does not mean that the average worker in 1900 earned $4,200, a year, but that what he or she earned was equal to $4, 200 in 1999. That is,the amount of money the average worker earned in 1900 was worth the same as $4,200 in 1999. The average per capita income in 1999 was $33, 700. Not only did people earn a lot more money at the end of the century, they also received a lot more in benefits than at the beginning of the century. One of the important benefits most workers received later in the century was health insurance. Whereas wages and salaries rose over the century, the average workweek dropped. That is, workers, in general, did not work as long hours in 1999 as they did in 1900.The last area that I’d like to give you a few statistics about is workplace safety. Most of us who go to work every day don’t think a lot about whether we are safe or not, but in 1900 it was a real concern for a lot of workers. There aren’t many statistics available, but the U.S. government does have statistics on two industries that will give you some idea of the differences today. In 1900 almost 1,500 workers were killed in coal-mining accidents; in 1999, the number was 35. 2,555 railroad workers were killed in 1900, compared to 56 in 1999.People often tend to romanticize the past and talk about “the good old days,”but I think it’s fair to say that by the end of the twentieth century, U.S. workers in general made more money, they enjoyed more benefits, and their working conditions had improvedgreatly.Now let’s turn our attention to the current situation for U.S. workers. The picture is not so rosy as the one drawn by comparing U.S. workers at the beginning and the end of the twentieth century. I’m going to focus on the current situation in terms of productivity, working hours, and wages and salaries.First let’s consider the number of hours worked. According to a 2003 study released by the United Nations International Labor Organization, U.S. workers are the most productive in the world among industrialized nations, but they work longer hours than European workers to achieve this productivity. Europeans typically have four to six weeks of vacation a year, whereas the average American worker has only about two weeks. This study points out that the longer working hours in the United States is a rising trend, while the trend in other industrialized countries is the opposite.Workers in some European countries actually outproduce American workers per hour of work. It has been suggested that this higher rate of productivity might be because European workers are less stressed than U.S. workers.At any rate, there seems to be general agreement that U.S. productivity has greatly increased over the last thirty years. However, workers have not seen their wages rise at the same rate. Agroup of sociologists in their book Inequality by Design point out that there is a growing gap between rich Americans and everyone else in the United States. They write that between 1949 and 1974, increases in productivity were matched by increases in wages for workers in both manufacturing and the service industries, but since 1974, productivity increased 68 percent in manufacturing and 50 percent in services, but real wages stagnated. That is, wages moved up little or not at all. So, where does all the money generated by the increased productivity go thenAccording to the authors of this book, the money goes to the salaries for CEOs, to the stock market, and to corporate profits. Workers play a great role in increasing productivity, but no longer see their wages connected to increased productivity. In other words, CEOs’salaries, the stock market, and the corporate profits go up as work productivity goes up, but workers’ wages don’t.What are the reasons why U.S. workers, who are the most productive in the world, have to work longer hours, have fewer vacation days, and see their wages stagnate and not rising at the same rate as productivity The answer to this question is complex and controversial, but there are two reasons most people who speak or write about these issues mention: The first is that labor unions in the United States have lost great power since the beginning of the1980s, and the second is that the government has passed laws that favor the rich and weaken the rights of the workers.I see our time is up. So, I’ll see you next time.Chapter 4 Family in the United StatesA hundred years ago, one heard the same kind of comments about the American family that one hears today --- in short, that the American family is disintegrating. Proof of this disintegration at the end of the nineteenth century included three points: the declining birth rate, a rising divorce rate, and evidence that women were not completely content with their domestic role. It’s a little surprising to me that the same claim about the family is being made today --- that it is disintegrating. And often the same points are mentioned as proof: declining birth rates, increasing divorce rates, and discontent of women with domestic roles. Now, in no way do I mean to imply that cultural, demographic, and economic conditions are the same now as they were 100 years ago. On the contrary, the very nature of the family has changed drastically in the last 50 years, not to mention the last 100 years. But I don’t think the average person’s concept of the family has changed very much over the years. A lot of people have on fixed idea of the family: a married couple where Mother stays home to care for the children and Father works. But this idea is challenged by what we see every dayin U.S. society. To be sure, the family is a very sensitive barometer for what is happening in the society, the culture, and the economy of the United States. To make this point clearer, we’ll take a look at how the American family has changed in the last 50 years by looking at three different time periods: there are the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s; the mid-60s to the mid-80s; and finally the present. Sociologist Barbara Dafoe Whitehead labels these three periods: the period of traditional familism, the period of individualism, and the period of the new familism. I will try for each period to show how economic, demographic, and cultural elements interact and, in turn, affect the family.Well, let’s proceed in chronological order and start with traditional familism. We’re talking here of the twenty years from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. This was the period after World War II, a period characterized by a very strong economy. This gave the United States a rising standard of living and a growing middle class. Demographically, the predominant configuration of the family from these years was the traditional one: a married couple with children. Some women worked, but divorce rates were low, and birth rates were high. I guess you could say that the country idealized the family in these years. And what I mean is, there was a commitment to the family from its members and a reverence for it from society. TVprograms of the era depicted the family in the classical configuration: working father, housewife, and children. Culturally, three characteristics stand out in this period: conformity to social norms, greater male domination of the family than in the later periods, and clear-cut gender roles, that is, clear and separate roles for men and women at home and at work. Well, things changed quite a bit after this period.Let’s move on to the second period, the period of individualism. This period is from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Now, because individualism is so often mentioned in our discussion of U.S. culture and people, I should make a little detour here before we discuss it. Individualism brings to mind two other words: independence and self-reliance. Individualism conveys the idea that one should think and act for himself or herself, according to what one feels is right. Individualism is easily confused with egotism or selfishness, but in its best sense, it is much more. Individualism implies that one has the freedom to decide what is best rather than allowing that decision to be made by a group such as the community or society. Individualism does, of course, conflict with the concept of community, which implies that the group shares in making decisions. And this conflict between the individual and the community is one that comes up again and again in our lecture seriesabout the United States. All right, let’s get back to our discussion about the family.The second period, the period of individualism, saw three important social and political movements. Do you have any idea which movements I might be talking about Keep in mind that these decades were characterized by a lack of conformity to social norms. Well, the movements have in mind are the sexual revolution, in which sex was clearly no longer reserved for marriage; the women’s liberation movement; and the movement against the war in Vietnam. All three movements---the sexual revolution, woman’s liberation, and the antiwar movement --- were typical of the nonconforming nature of these decades. Now, culturally, it is in this period where we see two important developments: one the idealization of one’s career and work and, two, the drive for self-expression and self-fulfillment. In this period, the feminist movement challenged traditional gender roles and male domination of society. Women began to enter professions previously closed to them like medicine, law, and management. Men, for their part, began at least to consider a more active role in raising their children.These cultural changes occurred during a time of economic changes, too. This was a time of rapidly rising cost of living. Together, these forces changed the demographics of the family. Theformer picture of the family had only one configuration: a married couple with children where Mother stayed home. The new picture of the family had to include new configurations, like families in which the husband and wife both worked, families of single parents with children, and families of cohabiting couples with or without children. With more women pursuing careers and making money, there was less economic pressure for them to stay in an unsuitable marriage. Therefore, divorce rates doubled in a decade. Rising divorce rates and more financial independence for women made marriage a less attractive arrangement for many women. Consequently, the number of single-parent households tripled. Less conformity to social norms paved the way for cohabitation. So the number of unmarried couples living together in this period quadrupled. Can you see how economic, cultural, and demographic aspects of the society interact with each other I hope so. Well, let’s continue with our agenda.The third period, the new familism, is harder to see because we are living in this period now. And because we are constantly informed by the media about the deteriorating American family, it’s hard to get an objective view of the state of the family. I think that today most people applaud the social changes that came about in the second period of individualism. They are not willing to give up。
新标准大学英语视听说教程2册unit1-3听力原文
Unit 1 College cultureInside viewConversation 1Janet ：So this is the Cherwell Boathouse –it’s lovely! And look at those people punting! It looks quite easy.Mark ：I’m not so sure about that! Janet, there’s something Kate and I wanted to discuss wi th you.Some people in college are organizing charity events this term. We’ve decided to get involved.Janet ：Raising money for charity? Right. In China, people raise money for charity but students don’t usually do that.Mark ：Students often do that here. Anyway, we’re thinking of doing sponsored punting.Janet ：Sponsored punting! What’s that?Kate ：Sponsoring is when people pay you to do something – like run a long distance. So people would be sponsoring students to punt.Janet ：What a great idea! I’d love to join you!Mark ：That’s why we’re telling you about it. So that’s decided then. Let’s make a list of things we need to do.Kate ：I’ll do that. One of the first things we should do is choose the charity.Mark ：Yes. And choose a day for the event. And we need to design the sponsorship form. I’ve got one here.Kate ：That looks fine, but we must change the wording. Who wants to do that?Mark ：I’ll do that. What have we got so far?Kate ：Choose a charity. Also a day for the event. Change the wording on the sponsorship form …Um … We have to decide where the punt will start from.Mark ：Cherwell Boathouse, no question! It's a very beautiful route from here, apparently.Kate ：I’m with you on that.Janet ：Me too …Conversation2Janet ：I’m not us ed to boats – Woah!Mark ：Whoops!Kate ：Watch out! You nearly hit me with that thing!Mark ：Sorry! I didn’t mean to. … OK, we’re off!Kate ：Maybe I should do the punting.Mark ：It’s fine. I’ve got the hang of it now – give me a chance.Kate ：Well, I’d like to have a go.Mark ：Supposing I do the first hour. Then you can take over for a while, if you want to.Kate ：Yes, great.Janet ：You’re really good at it, Mark! This is fantastic! It’s exactly how I imagined life here! Look over there –isn’t it lovely!Kate ：Yes, it is.…Janet ：Kate, everything’s organized, isn’t it, for collecting the sponsorship money?Kate ：Yes, I’ve arranged for people to get the money to me by next Friday –if they haven’t paid online. I’ll count it all up.Janet ：Good. We’d better have a meeting soon after that, don’t you think? How much have we raised?Kate ：About 600.Janet：Fantastic! I’m so enjoying this!Mark ：Hey guys, I’ve got a suggestion – how about moving over to the bank and we can have our picnic! Hey, look, there’s Louise and Sophie!Mark ：Whoo …Girls：Mark!Janet ：Are you all right?Mark ：Er … Of course I’m all right. Kate, I think it’s your turn to punt!Outside viewV/O （画外音）Harvard University in Cambridge is one of the best universities in the world. We spoke to Alex Jude, the university’s Head of Communications. He explained that Harvard looks for the best and most talented students from around the world.AlexHarvard actually seeks students from around the world, the best students that we can find, to study chemistry, or study literature, or study government, or business. Our business school is particularly well-known around the world, as is the medical school and law school, so, um, and, and the Kennedy School of government, for the John F. Kennedy School of Government, so, er, we do seek very, very talented students and we have open doors for them.V/O （画外音）We asked five students at Harvard to tell us what kind of social life they have.AshleyUm, well relaxing is a little hard to do around here, but basically, I mean, I still, I, I live nearby anyway, so I see a lot of my friends, and … Um, there’s a good social life here if you look for it. I go to the gym, run. So that’s what I do.AdamIt is whatever you want it to be. It’s go od. If you wanna go out party, do anything you can. If you wanna sit in your room and study all night like my friend over here, you can also do that.BrianSocially, like you said, it’s, it’s a lot of what you make it. Um, we don’t have fraternities here, and so, you know, that’s, it’s obviously not as social. There’s not as many parties as there would be on another campus. Um, but on a Friday or Saturday night, there, there, there will be a party. Usually we end up studying until about 10 o’clock. And then we, and then we’ll go out and have fun maybe, or just watch a movie with friends, or, you know, whatever is going on for the night. JodieNot everyone would agree with me, obviously, but it’s, I think it’s a fun place to be.Interviewer: Have you made a lot of friends?Jodie : Oh, definitely.Interview. ：Mm.Jodie: Many.Interviewer: What, what do you do with your friends?Jodie: Um, well, I like to go to concerts. I’m in three music groups, so I have lots of rehearsals during the week for that. Um, just do, you know, some fun things, on the weekend.V/O （画外音）We asked the Harvard students if they use the Internet.Ashley: Um, I, I use it a fairly good amount. Um, our library system is online, so I use that a lot.And a lot of my classes, you know, have to do research papers. You can find a lot of information on there, so.Interviewer: So how often do you use it, a week, a day?Ashley: Um, I use it probably on more of a weekly basis. Maybe three or four times a week. Brian: Oh yes, definitely. We live through the Internet actually. Well, I do a lot of research through the Internet, follow my stocks on the Internet. Um, well, even though e-mail isnot officially Internet, we, that’s how we communicate a lot at college, so, through thee-mail.John: Um, I use the internet mostly for, er, I’d say, sort of leisure purposes. I mean, I play, um, I use it for a lot of, I don’t, we don’t have TV in my room, so I use it, uh, uh, go to the CNN website, keep up on current events, things like that. Uh, I also, uh, you know, there’s some little games to play over the Internet. Um, just um, I go to to see what’s happening, follow the Boston Red Sox, things like that. Um, I think a lot of courses use it to post things, but I, I don’t usually use it that much for research, or things. I tend to use the libraries for such things, so.Listening inPassage 1Voice-overHi, I’m Nick Carter, and this is SUR, your university radio station. This morning we went around campus to ask freshers –now half-way through their first year –the question, “How are you finding uni?” Here are some of the answers we got.Speaker 1It’s cool. It’s everything I hoped it would be. I’m very ambitious, I want to be a journalist and I want to g et to the top of the profession. I’ve started writing for the university newspaper so I’ve got my foot on the ladder already.Speaker 2I’m working hard and the teaching is as good as I expected. And I’ve made some good friends. But I’m very homesick. I’m Nigerian and my family’s so far away. I went home at Christmas for a month –that really helped, but man, I miss my family so much.Speaker 3“How am I finding uni?” It’s great. It’s not perfect, nothing is, but, like, I’ve got a brilliant social life, just brilliant, and I’ve made lots of friends. For the first few months I just didn’t do, really enough work. But I –I talked about it with my parents and I’m working harder now and gettinggood grades.Speaker 4Actually, I’ve been quite lonely to be honest. I’m a bit shy … everyone else seemed to find it so easy to make friends straight away. But things have been better recently –yeah, they have. I’ve joined a couple of clubs and like, it really helps to get to know people when you have shared interests. So, yeah –I’m feeling a lot happier now.Speaker 5Uni’s great, I love it. My only problem –and it’s quite a big problem – is money. My parents are both unemployed so, you know, they can’t help me financially. My grant just isn’t –it’s just not e nough for me to live on, so I’ve taken a part-time job as a waitress – a lot of people I know, like a lot, have had to do the same. I don’t want to have huge debts at the end.Speaker 6I love my subject, History, and I’m, I’m getting fantastic teaching here. I want to be a university lecturer and that means I have to get a first. I have a good social life but work definitely comes first for me.Passage 2Oxford and Cambridge – two universities so similar that they are often spoken of together as “Ox bridge”. They’re both in the UK, fairly near London, and both regularly come top in any ranking of the world’s best universities.The two universities began within a century of each other. Oxford University, now 900 years old, was founded towards the end of the 11th century. In 1209 there was a dispute between the university and the townspeople of Oxford. As a result, some of the Oxford teachers left and founded a university in the town of Cambridge, some 84 miles away. Ever since then, the two institutions have been very competitive.Unlike most modern universities, both Oxford and Cambridge consist of a large number of colleges. Oxford has 39 and Cambridge 31. Many of these colleges have old and very beautiful architecture, and large numbers of tourists visit them.In all UK universities, you need good grades in the national exams taken at 18. But to get into Oxford and Cambridge, it’s not enough to get A grades in your exams. You also have to go for a long interview. In these interviews, students need to show that they are creative and capable of original thinking.Through the centuries, both universities have made huge contributions to British cultural life. They have produced great writers, world leaders and politicians. Cambridge, in particular, has produced scientists whose discoveries and inventions have changed our lives.Among the great university institutions is the world’s most famous debating society, the Oxford Union, where undergraduates get a chance to practise speaking in public. Cambridg e’s comedy clubFootlights has produced many first-class comedians, while some of the UK’s most famous actors and actresses began their careers at The Oxford University Dramatic Society, known as OUDS. Then there’s the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, whic h takes place every year in March or April, and is watched on television all over the UK.So with all this excellence in so many fields, it’s not surprising that the ambition of clever students all over the world is to attend either one of these great universities.Unit 2 Mixed feelingsInside viewConversation 1Kate ：Come in. Hey, Janet.Janet ：Hi Kate, are you busy?Kate ：Yes, I’m just doing an essay. But it’s great to see you. So what’s new?Janet ：Well, nothing much.Kate ：You look a bit fed up. What’s bugging you?Janet ：Well, I had a phone call from my parents and it made me feel homesick. It happens every time they call, and it gets me down.Kate ：I’m sorry to hear that. I know how you feel. I love speaking to my mum and dad, but I always feel miserable after the call.Janet ：My dad doesn’t say much, and I want to speak to him, but I wish I knew what to say. Kate ：Don’t let it get to you. My dad doesn’t say much on the phone either. I call, he answers the phone, and says, “Hi, I’ll pass you to your mother.” It’s really irritating.Janet ：But I miss him and my mother a lot, and I like to hear his voice.Kate ：Just tell him what you’re up to.Janet ：Sometimes I feel as if I made a mistake leaving home and coming to Oxford.Sometimes I feel like a moody teenager.Kate ：Try not to worry about it, Janet. It’s normal to feel like that. I understand how you feel, butI bet everything will be fine next term. You’ll get used to it. Hey, why don’t you do what Ido?Janet ：What’s that?Kate ：When my dad calls, I ask him for more money! He usually says no, but at least I get to hear his voice!Janet ：Maybe. I’m sorry to take up your time, Kate, but I must go now. Bye!Kate ：Wait a minute …!Conversation 2Kate ：I think I may have upset Janet last night.Mark : What happened?Kate ：She came to see me. I was busy doing an essay but I was r eally pleased to see her. She’d had a call from home, and said she was feeling homesick.Mark : Poor kid! It must be tough on you guys, living so far away from home.Kate ：I tried to make her laugh, told her not to worry about it, and that it was normal to feel miserable. Suddenly she looked miserable, and then she got up and said, “I must go now”and left my room. It was really sudden. I felt as if I’d said something wrong.Mark ：Maybe she was just being polite. It was probably because she realized you were workingand didn’t want to disturb you.Kate ：I just wonder if she found it difficult to talk about her feelings with me. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to make her laugh? Perhaps she thought I wasn’t taking her s eriously.Mark ：I wouldn’t worry about it. Put yourself in her shoes. How would you feel if you were a student at college in China?Kate ：I know. That’s why I feel bad. If only she had stayed longer! I wish I could have helped her more.Janet ：Hey, everyone!Mark ：Hi Janet, you look cheerful!Janet ：Yes, I’ve just got my essay back. I got an alpha minus!Kate ：What an amazing grade! Well done.Mark ：I’m really happy for you, Janet.Janet ：I feel on top of the world!Outside viewSebastienHi. I’m Sebastien. I’m from Germany. Um, the idea of IQ of a measure of your brain power has been around for a while, but recently there’s been this new idea of the EQ – your emotional quotient. And by now, it’s actually almost being regarded as more important.If you look at it, businesses will ... Well, they will prefer employing people with great EQ. Well, of course, IQ cannot be disregarded, but um, EQ does have its importance as well. Uh, I believe that, um, (I)mean, people, most people will have, um, their basic means of communicating with other people. Most people are somewhat socially adept, and just like most people have, you know, a basic general knowledge. But then, what I think really is the difference betweenIQ and EQ, I mean, you can have a “brainiac”, and they will be great at most things they do, but if you just can’t get along with him, if you just can’t communicate with him, I mean, you know, he’s not really that useful.KimHi. This is Kim. I’m originally from Korea, and I was raised in Cali fornia. And today, we are going to talk about the differences between IQ and EQ –IQ meaning your intelligence, EQ meaning your emotions. Now, in … When I was, when I was a little, little boy in Korea, I had to take … I think I’d taken like two or three IQ tests before the age of ten, which is when I moved to California. So, I guess we stress a lot of importance on intelligence, on having great IQ scores. But after I moved to the States, I learnt how to associate with people, and along the lines that this word EQ came up, you know, emotional, caring about … It’s basically how you deal with people, how you make people feel, and how people make you feel. I think they’re equally as, as important, but it seems that in the Eastern world they kind of stress on that a lot more back in the days. But I think again, you know, now that with Internet and people are communicating so much faster, there’s a better mixture of the two I think. There’s a stress on EQ in Korea as well, and a stress on IQ in the States. Thank you.TedHello. My name is Ted, and I’m from the United States of America. Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about IQ or EQ – which is most important, or which is more important. Now, for a long time when I was growing up, people said, “IQ. What’s your IQ? Take an IQ test.” But then EQ, your emotions, how you interact with people, that became very important. And I think they’re … that people might be onto something with that, because your EQ – how you deal with people, how you interact with people – is important. Now, a big part of this, in my opinion, is listening. I know I’m talking a lot right now, but if you want to get along well with people, you have to listen to them, so just take a minute, maybe shut your mouth for a minute, and listen to others, and then you can understand and communicate with them in a better way. So, part of EQ, I think, is listening – listening to others – and it can be more important than IQ.Listening inPassage 1Presenter: We’re fortunate to have as our guest today Dr Jenna Hudson, who has just written a book about how colours affect us in our surroundings, especially in the world of advertising. It’s called Market Colours. Dr Hudson, which are the most common colours in advertising and marketing?Dr Hudson :Well, of course, it depends what image the marketing team wish to project with their products. So for example, we often think of blue as a cold colour, but it also makes you feel peaceful, quiet, and it doesn’t suggest strong emotions. So it’s a favourite for ban ks and insurance companies, who wish to suggest the image that they are trustworthy. And for selling products, it’s often used to suggest something is pure and fresh.Presenter: What about red?Dr Hudson: You can sell almost anything with red. It’s a hot colour, which suggests a feeling of energy and even passion. It grabs your attention, and can make people buy almost anything. You often see red on magazine covers. But if you use it too much, it looks cheap and may make people tired. And orange has a sim ilar effect to red, it’s upbeat and happy, it suggests pleasant feelings and images. Most people react well to orange, and it’s especially popular in advertising and on packaging for baked food.Presenter: What about yellow, for instance?Dr Hudson: Yell ow is the colour of sunshine and it’s a positive, happy colour, so it’s used a lot in advertising. But it’s also often used for warning signs, direction signs, and so on, where you have to read the message quickly and at a distance.Presenter: What about less popular colours for advertising?Dr Hudson: Surprisingly, green isn’t used much in advertising except for garden products. It’s friendly and restful. It can be cool and soothing, the colour of apples and mint, but it can also be quite strong and many people associate it with unpleasant ideas of decay or slimy creatures. But most colours are not primary colours, they’re a combination. Absolutely. So yellow-orange is common, and often used to give animpression of style and class, it looks like gold. But it’s not often used in letters because it’s not very strong. And yellow-green reminds people of feeling sick. Blue-green works well as a cool colour, suggesting freshness, and is sometimes used for toothpaste products, bathroom products, food and household cleaning products. It has many of the advantages of blue without the disadvantages of green.Presenter: Fascinating！Thank you very much, Dr Hudson. Market Colours by Dr Jenna Hudson is on sale from next week, priced ￡15.99 …Passage 2Presenter ：What makes you embarrassed, Sally?Sally ：Oh, I’m easily embarrassed. If anybody notices me or looks at me, I get very emb arrassed.When people sing me Happy Birthday on my birthday, I get very embarrassed. Presenter ：And what makes you upset?Sally ：When people are selfish, people who think only of themselves. And cruelty –I can’t bear people who are cruel, especially to animals or children.Presenter ：Jake, what makes you depressed?Jake ：I hate it when it rains, and I don’t like people who look down on me, who think they’re superior to me without any reason.Presenter ：And what makes you angry?Jake ：When people don’t behave properly in public, bad behaviour like dropping litter or people pushing each other on the bus or the train.Presenter ：Andrew, what makes you cheerful?Andrew ：I like to see everyone around me being happy and having a positive attitude towards the future, optimistic people.Presenter ：And what makes you jealous?Andrew ：Well, to be honest, I just never feel jealous. I can’t see the point of it.Presenter ：Monica, what makes you proud?Monica ：I’m proud when I’m successful, especially in my work. Being recognized by my boss for what I can do makes me feel really proud. Oh, and my family. I’m very proud ofthem.Presenter ：And what makes you nervous?Monica ：Every time I teach a new class. The night before I’m very nervous. You don’t know wh at the kids are going to be like and how they might behave, or if they’re going tolike you.Presenter ：Anything else?Monica ：Doing interviews like this.Unit 3 Crime watchInside viewConversation 1Kate ：So, what did you think of the movie?Mark ：It was good but I thought it was too long.Kate ：Yes, me too.Kate ：Hey, where’s my bike? I don’t believe it! It’s gone!Mark ：It was next to mine, you chained it up!Kate ：Someone’s stolen it! Oh, how could they!Mark: Oh, Kate!Kate ：How could someone have done this! The creep!Mark ：It’s a really mean thing to do, steal a bike.Kate ：It was a mountain bike and it cost a fortune –I don’t have the money to buy another one. Mark ：Listen, I’ll go down the street and see if I can see anyone with it. Why don’t you go into that shop and see if they’ve seen anything suspicious? I’ll be back in a minute.Kate ：OK.…Kate ：Well?Mark ：No luck. What did they say in the shop?Kate ：I asked the shopkeeper if she’d seen anything –Mark ：And?Kate ：She said she hadn’t. I guess it was a long shot. She advised me to report it to the police.But according to her, bikes get stolen all the time around here.Mark ：Listen, let’s get back so you can report it.Kate ：I’ve got no bike. I’m just so upset!Mark ：It’s not far to college. Come on!Conversation 2Mark ：So did you ring the police?Kate ：Yes. I went to the police station to report it.Mark ：What did they say?Kate ：No one’s found it. This woman said that Oxford has the fifth highest rate of bike theft in the country!Mark ：You’re joking!Kate ：That’s what she said.Mark ：What else did she say?Kate ：She told me that sometimes you do get bikes back – the thieves use them and then abandon them, apparently, and then people find them and report them.Mark ：So you might get it back.Kate ：I hope so, Mark, I really do. It’s just too much you know? But … um … what else? She told me to go to this sale they have of abandoned bikes. She thinks I might find it there.But it’s only every two months, I can’t wait till then! Honestly, Mark, I’m really furious! Mark ：You can always buy a cheap bike on eBay.Kate ：Hello … Speaking … You found it! Where was it? Is it …? Oh, that’s fantastic news!There was a lamp and a basket on it … Right … OK, thank you, I’ll be in tomorrowmorning to pick it up. Unbelievable! This guy found it!Mark ：Brilliant! Was that the police?Kate ：Yes. What they said was, someone dumped it outside this guy’s backyard.Mark ：That’s so strange!Kate ：The lamp’s been stolen and the basket.Mark ：Forget about it! You’re lucky to get it back!Outside viewPart 1Presenter: Dodgy deals aren’t the only problems associated with doorstep sellers. Your door step presents these unannounced visitors with a real opportunity to undertake distraction burglary where they often pose as bogus officials to gain access to your home.I’m joined now by Ian Holt, from Thames Valley Police. Ian, just outline for me what does distraction burglary actually entail?Ian Holt: Well basically wh at happens is, somebody uses a story to get inside somebody’s house and then they steal items, usually cash or small items of jewellery.Presenter: And what are the different techniques that are commonly used?Ian Holt: Well basically the er … the people that commit this crime move from area to area, er … they will look at an area, they will try and pick a particular target and they can find that by looking at property, it may beer, an uncut garden, it may be repairs that need doing to the property. Somet hing that indicates that there’s, there’s a vulnerable person in there. It … usually, it’s an elderly person that lives there.Presenter: Is this quite a common problem now?Ian Holt: It is becoming more common. To get it in perspective, of the 14,000 burglaries that were in Thames Valley last year, we had reported 800 crimes of distraction burglary. But, it … there’s a slight increase this year over last year’s figures.Presenter: OK, you mentioned some of the victims being elderly. What other people are targeted? Ian Holt: Well, unfortunately, with this type of offence, it is the vulnerable in society and the elderly. The, the national average, if there’s such a thing as a, a victim for this type of crime, is a white female aged 81 years.Part 2Presenter: And what about things that people can do to prevent it happening, basically?Ian Holt: Well the things they can do are very, very simple. The difficulty comes, is that some of these people, er … it’s very difficult for them to remember what to do. But the three things we, we always say is: stop, chain and check. And that’s stop before you open the door to make sure who’s on the other side. Always apply a chain. If you haven’t got a chain, fit a chain to the door, or a door bar if you’ve got diffic ulty in handling a chain with arthritic fingers.But also when you answer the door, check the identity of the person there. Generally the offenders say they are from the Water Board or from utilities. They may say they’re from a charity or even from local authority. But generally, a utility will be in uniform.Ask for their identification. A genuine person will not mind you doing that and will wait until you can check them out. If you do need to check them, phone the number on, on your last bill. What won’t happen is that if it is a bogus caller, they will become unnerved by this reaction and they will leave.Presenter: OK and there’s also a couple of gadgets new on the market that also can help as well.Just talk us through that.Ian Holt:Certainly, yes. The … a spy er … viewer is fairly standard. But for elderly who may have poor eyesight there’s a spyscope which actually makes it a lot easier for them to see who’s outside. As I mentioned before about the door bar, again, it can be easier to apply than the chain. Very reasonable priced er, and something that is fairly new … as I mentioned before it’s verydifficult for some of these people to remember what they have to do when they go to the door and that’s why they become victims. And this item is calle d a Memo Minder and actually you can record a message on there and it’s nice to have a grand-daughter or somebody to record a message, but every time the person approaches the door it reminds them with a voice to say “Putyour chain on.”Listening inPassage 1Patrick ：I read a funny story today in the paper – true story.Steve：Go on, then.Patrick ：OK. This 72-year old guy stole a pair of trousers from a department store in Paris. A security man saw him and alerted the police and they were waiting for him when hecame out of the shop. The shoplifter started running, but the policeman soon caughtup with him. The man then bit the policeman on his arm several times.Steve ：He bit the policeman?Patrick：Yes – you have to remember, he was 72.Steve ：I’d forgotten that.Patrick ：Problem was, it didn’t hurt the policeman at all, ’cause the guy had forgotten to put his false teeth in before he left home.Steve ：Very funny!Patrick ：And the moral of the story is –Steve：Always remember to wear your false teeth if you’re going to bite someone.Patrick ：That’s good. I read a funny crime story the other day. Let’s see … yeah … this guy … this guy robbed a supermarket somewhere in America –I can’t remember where exactly – anyway, he got away with about 4,000 dollars. The next week the local newspaper reported the story but said he’d stolen 6,000 dollars. The thief rang the newspaper office to complain. He said, “Look, I only took 4,000 dollars. I’m wondering if the supermarket manager took another 2,000 and said I’d taken it. I did not take 6,000, I promise you.”Steve ：He was probably telling the truth.Patrick ：He probably was. Anyway, the newspaper managed to keep the guy talking while they rang the police. And the police traced the call – the guy was ringing from a phonebooth – and they arrested him while he was still talking to the newspaper.Steve ：That’s good. Stupid guy! I’ve got another true story … This – this – old guy was in court for some crime – and he fell asleep. His case began and his lawyer stood up and said,“My client pleads not guilty.” The man suddenly woke up, but wasn’t sure what washappening. He jumped up and shouted, “I plead guilty! I plead guilty!”Patrick：So what happened?Steve ：The judge allowed him to plead not guilty.Patrick ：That’s the best, I think.Passage 2Presenter ：You’r e listening to Kevin Fallon and my topic for today is street crime. Being mugged is something that can happen to anyone –and it’s a very frighteningexperience. So it’s positive when you hear of someone who was attacked by a。
经典：英语视听说Unit2-The-New-Space-Race
Useful Expressions (II)
Post Listening Homework
But it is Rosso who has the law on his side. If the movie industry acts now and starts exploring alternatives and solutions, hopefully they won’t have a problem.
Pre-listening
While Listening
Useful Expressions (I)
Post Listening Homework
How did those movies get on the Internet? How did that happen? On the newest computers, you can just “burn” it onto a DVD and watch it on your big –screen TV. Where movies make the bulk of their money is on DVD and home videos. If you wanted a movie, you would click on the video section, and then you would type in a search phrase.
discuss the questions below. During your discussion, you are encouraged to draw on information from the program to support your points. At the end of the discussion, a spokesperson for the group should
新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_Unit+3New15521学习资料
新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_U n i t+3N e w15521Unit 3-Conversation 1Kate: Are you on your way to the boathouse? Janet: No. What's happening?Kate: There's a practice race to help choose who will row on the college team. Mark really wants a place on the team, so he has to row well today. And I'm going to watch.Janet: Well, I'd like to, but I have an essay to finish.Kate: That's too bad! I know how you feel. Janet: Maybe I can come later?Kate: Sure. I'm thinking of having lunch in the boathouse bar, and then watching the rowing all afternoon.Janet: How do I get to the boathouse? Kate: It's easy. Can you see where we are on the map? Here, look!Janet: OK, which way round are we standing? ... Yes, got it!Kate: OK, go down Catte Street, and turn right into the High Street. Go along the High Street and turn left into St Aldates. Walk along St Aldates, past Christ Church College until you get to Folly Bridge.Janet: I see.Kate: Then when you get to the bridge, cross over the river ... turn left and walk along the river bank. Keep going along the river ... And you're there! The boathouses are on the right, and the Hertford College Boathouse is the last one along. You can't miss it.Janet: Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing the rowing.Kate: No problem. We shouldn't miss the rowing —it's a great university tradition! Janet: I know, Mark was telling me.Kate: Like the boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities every year.Janet: Of course! The great rivals!Kate: The Boat Race has been going for years, maybe nearly 200 years.Janet: And Oxford won it this year!Kate: Yes, but Cambridge was very close behind. Anyway see you later, down by the river.Janet: Bye.Unit 3-Conversation 2Kate: So the rules are ... the boats follow each other and the one behind has to bump the one in front ... just like that one has done. Janet: Is that Mark's boat?Kate: Yes! Look, his boat is about to bump the one in front! Well done!Mark: Hi you guys!仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除谢谢2Kate: Fantastic, Mark. You were amazing!Mark: Well,we won the practice race, but I'm worried about getting a place on the team.The problem is that there are at least three other people on the team who have rowed before.And I can't help thinking that they were better than me.Janet: Don't worry, Mark. Everything will be OK.Mark: And then I hurt my knee getting into the boat.Janet: Oh, I'm so sorry!Kate: Too bad, but it's only a scratch. Listen up, Janet is right. No need to get nervous, Mark. You were the strongest looking guy in the boat today. Chill out!Mark: Hey, they're putting the team list on the door.Janet: Let's go over and see.Mark: No, you go! I can't bear to look! Kate: OK.Kate: Hey, Mark, great news! You got a place on the college team!Janet: Congratulations!Kate: That's great, Mark, you deserve it. You trained so hard.Mark: I can't believe it! Unit 3-Outside viewPart 1Narrator: A historic moment, and yet he made it so easy. Usain Bolt became the firstman to successfully defend both the100- and 200-meter Olympic sprinttitles, and he went on to anchorJamaica’s winning run in the four by100 hundred meters relay in worldrecord time. At the end of that race,Bolt gave a nod to another track starwith a “Mobot” gesture, signature ofMo Farah, who became only theseventh person ever to win the 5000and 10000 double, in front of anecstatic home crowd.Mo Farah: I t’s not going to affect me, I’m the same to old Mo, nothing’s going tochange. It just means you’ve got twogood medals and…but som ethingyou’ve worked so hard for, I’m justgoing to enjoy it.Narrator: Also a legend in the making, Kenyan David Rudisha, who smashed the 800meters record which had stood since1976.仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除谢谢3Swimmer Michael Phelps broke another long-standing record. He became theworld’s most successful Olympian with22 medals, 18 of them gold, breakingthe record set in 1968. His lastpodium before retiring was anemotional moment.Phelps: Yeah, as soon as I stepped up, ah,onto the podium, I…I could feel thetears starts coming. And, you know, Isaid to Nathan, I said, “Uh-oh, herethey come. This could be…this couldbe pretty brutal up here.” And theyjust started coming. And I tried tofight it but then I just…I just decidedjust to let it go.Part 2Narrator: Tears too for cyclist Chris Hoy, who became Britain’s most successfulOlympian, with six golds. And thenthere were also moment of anguishand frustration. China’s star hurdler LiuXiang crash out of his secondconsecutive Olympics, and Brazil’sfootballers once again failed to liftgold. These games were also marked bywomen. Teenagers Ye Shiwen, KatieLedecky and Missy Franklin set recordtimes in the pool. Saudi Arabia, Bruneiand Qatar sent female athletes foe thefirst time. Women’s boxing became anOlympic sport. And British poster girlJessica Ennis gave the home nation adefining moment when she tookheptathlon gold. She was at theforefront of the team GB’s biggestmedals haul of modern times, comingthird in the medal table. The UnitedStates regained their place at the top,with China coming second. For somethough, it wasn’t about the medals.But it’s the taking part that counts.Unit 3-Listening inNews reportThere’s a new fitness trend in Australia called “crunning”. It’s a new sport that combines crawling and running that involves using your hands and feet on the ground. The idea was started by Melbourne resident Shaun McCarthy, and he hopes it will spread to other countries.仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除谢谢4McCarthy can’t prove that crunning is more beneficial than traditional running. However, he believes that it is a better way to exercise because it involves using your upper body as well as your lower body. Therefore it provides a complete body workout. He also said that crunning burns more calories than running.Experts aren’t sure if crunning is actually a safe exercise for people. Unlike animals, humans are not built to move on all four limbs. People’s wrists are not as strong as their ankles, and crunning can place a large amount of pressure on the wrists as well as their elbows and shoulders. It could result in an injury to the lower back, shoulders, elbows or wrists.1 What do we learn about the new sport?2 What do experts think about the new sport?Passage 1Speaker 1 And David Seaman is in goal forthe Englandteam down to our right... it's difficult to getused to the changeof team colours here ... I'm looking at thewhite shorts and thinking they're English players, but they're not.For thismatch it's the Germans who are wearing white.I hope theEnglish players don't have the same problem,we don't wantthem to pass the ball to the Germans. NowGascoigne forEngland passes to McManaman for the firsttime ...McManaman is immediately surrounded bythree Germandefenders ... he brings the ball to the near side of the pitch ...still McManaman for England, crosses the ballto Pearce ...Pearce takes a shot! ... saved by the GermanZiegler, andpicked up by Ince only 25 yards away from the Germangoal... good effort by Ince, aims at the goal! ...and Kopke, theGerman goalkeeper pushes the ball over thetop of the goal.So a comer kick for England.仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除谢谢5Speaker 2 A great shot by Ince, I'm sure he knows that Pearce set that up for him, but Kopke put the shot out of danger.Speaker 1 He does like to punch the ball, that Kopke in the German goal... England's first corner of this semi-final... Gascoigne will take it... Here comes the comer kick from Gascoigne ... and Shearer's there and Alan Shearer scores for England ... England have scored after only two minutes' play ... with a comer kick by Gascoigne ... aimed at the near post, and Alan Shearer heads the ball into the German goal ,.. It's an absolute dream start for the semi-final ... Shearer has got his fifth goal of the tournament... Would you believe it? It's England one, Germany nil!Passage 2Matt Now it's time for Critic's Choice, with news and reviews about the latest films. Good evening, Jack, seen anything good at the cinema this week?Jack Good evening Matt, yes, I've seen one of the best sports films of recent years.Matt Sports films? That's not usually a type of film which appeals to you. Jack You're right, but this time it's different. I've been to see a film about mountain climbing, it's not really your typical sports film. It's more man against the mountain.Matt Tell us more.Jack I've been to see Touching the Void, which is the story of a pair of mountain climbers in the Peruvian Andes.Matt Is it a true story?Jack Yes, it is. In 1985, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates set out to climb the 7,000-metre Siula Grande mountain in the Peruvian Andes. Simpson and Yates were young, fit and confident they would succeed.Matt So what happens?Jack Simpson and Yates' style of climbing involved moving quickly up a mountain with very few supplies and no base camps, which is risky. You can't make any mistakes.Matt I think I can guess what happens next. Jack And sure enough after climbing well for three and a half days, disaster strikes. Simpson falls and breaks his right leg. With no food or water, the climbers know they have to get off the mountain - fast. Yates is determined to find a way to get his friend home, and he has to lower Simpson down the mountain. Simpson仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除谢谢6is in agony, but Yates has no choice except to ignore his partner's cries of pain because otherwise he'll die.Well, for a while, things go well. But suddenly Simpson, at the end of the rope, fails to respond to Yates' signal. Yates is unable to move any further and has no idea why Simpson is not responding. So Yates holds on with all of his strength, all too aware that eventually his strength would give out and both would fall.But what Yates doesn't know is that he has lowered Simpson over the edge of a crevasse. Simpson is hanging in mid-air from the vertical face of the mountain. He's unable to climb back up the rope and he's got frostbitten fingers and can't communicate with Yates above him.Matt So what happens?Jack Well, I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone whohasn't seen it yet.Matt But...Jack But Yates hangs onto the rope for an hour, gettingweaker. For any climber, cutting the rope that binds him to his partner is unthinkable.Matt Sounds very exciting. So what about the directionand the filming?Jack The director is Kevin Macdonald, and he tells thestory by cutting from interviews to shots of the climb itself.But it's the message of the film which interests me. You see,in the end, the impression left by the film is astonishment thata human being could do what Joe did, which isto survive.Matt Thanks Jack, this week's Critic's Choice isTouching the Void, on general release in all cinemas from nextWeek.仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除谢谢7。
新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_Unit+2
新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_U n i t+2-CAL-FENGHAI.-(YICAI)-Company One1Unit 2-Conversation 1Kate: Come in. Hey, Janet.Ja n et: Hi Kate, are you busyKate: Yes, I'm just doing an essay. But it's great to see you. So what's newJanet: Well, nothing much.Kate: You look a bit fed up. What's bugging youJanet: Well, I had a phone call from my parents and it made me feel homesick. It happens every time they call, and it gets me down.Kate: I'm sorry to hear that. I know how you feel. I love speaking to my mum and dad, but I always feel miserable after the call.Janet: My dad doesn't say much, and I want to speak to him, but I wish I knew what to say.Kate: Don't let it get to you. My dad doesn't say much on the phone either. I call, he answers the phone, and says, "Hi, I'll pass you to your mother."It's really irritating.Janet: But I miss him and my mother a lot, and I like to hear his voice.Kate: Just tell him what you're up to. Janet: Sometimes I feel as if I made a mistake leaving home and coming to Oxford. Sometimes I feel like a moody teenager.Kate: Try not to worry about it, Janet. It's normal to feel like that. I understand how you feel, but I bet everything will be fine next term. You'll get used to it. Hey, why don't you do what I doJanet: What's thatKate: When my dad calls, I ask him for more money! He usually says no, but at least I get to hear his voice! Janet: Maybe. I'm sorry to take up your time, Kate, but I must go now. Bye!Kate: Wait a minute ...!Unit 2-Conversation 2Kate: I think I may have upset Janet last night. Mark: What happenedKate: She came to see me. I was busy doing an essay but I was really pleased to see her. She'd had a call fromhome, and said she was feeling homesick.Mark: Poor kid! It must be tough when you guys living so far away from home.Kate: I tried to make her laugh, told her not to worry about it, and that it was normal to feel miserable. Suddenlyshe looked miserable, and then she got up and said, "I must go now" and left my room. It was really sudden. I feltas if I'd said something wrong.Mark: Maybe she was just being polite. It was probably because she realized you were working and didn't want todisturb you.Kate: I just wonder if she found it difficult to talk about her feelings with me. Maybe I shouldn't have tried tomake her laugh Perhaps she thought I wasn't taking her seriously.Mark: I wouldn't worry about it. Put yourself in her shoes. How would you feel if you were a student at college inChinaKate: I know. That's why I feel bad. If only she had stayed longer! I wish I could have helped her more. Janet: Hey, everyone!Mark: Hi Janet, you look cheerful!Janet: Yes, I've just got my essay back. I got an alpha minus!Kate: What an amazing grade! Well done.Mark: I'm really happy for you, Janet. Janet: I feel on top of the world!Unit 2-Outside viewSebastienHi. I'm Sebastien. I'm from Germany. Um, the idea of IQ of a measure of your brain power has been around for a while, but recently there's been this new idea of the EQ - your emotional quotient. And by now, it's actually almost being regarded as more important. If you look at it, businesses will... Well, they will prefer employing people with great EQ. Well, of course, IQ cannot be disregarded, but um, EQ does have its importance as well. Uh, I believe that, um, (I)mean, people, most people will have, um, their basic means of communicating with other people. Most people are somewhat socially adept, and just like most people have, you know, a basic general knowledge. But then, what I think really is the difference between IQ and EQ, I mean, you can have a "brainiac", and they will be great at most things they do, but if you just can't get along with him, if you just can't communicate with him, I mean, you know, he's not really that useful.KimHi. This is Kim. I'm originally from Korea, and I wasraised in California. And today, we are going to talk about the differences between IQ and EQ -IQ meaning your intelligence, EQ meaning youremotions. Now, in ... When I was, when I was a little, little boy in Korea, I had to take ... I think I'd taken like two or three IQ tests before the age often, which is when I moved to California. So, I guess we stress a lot of importance on intelligence, on having great IQ1 scores. But after I moved to the States, I learnt how to associate with people, and along the lines that this word EQ came up, you know, emotional, caring lout... It's basically how you deal with people, how you make people feel, and how people make you feel. t hink they're equally as, as important, but it seems that in the Eastern world they kind of stress on that a lot more back in the days. But I think again, you know, now that with Internet and people are communicating so much faster, there's a better mixture of the two I link. There's a stress on EQ in Korea as well, and a stress on IQ in the State s. Thank you.TedHello. My name is Ted, and I'm from the United States of America. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about IQ or EQ - which is most important, or which is more important. Now, for a long time when I was growing up, people said, "IQ. What's your IQ Take an IQ test." But then EQ, your emotions, how you interact with people, that became very important. And I think they're ... that people might be onto something with that, because your EQ - how you deal with people, how you interact with people - is important. Now, a big part of this, in my opinion, is listening. I know I'm talking a lot right now, but if you want to get along well with people, you have to listen to them, so just take a minute, maybe shut your mouth for a minute, and listen to others, and then you can understand and communicate with them in a better way. So, part of EQ, I think, is listening - listening to others - and it can be more important than IQ.Unit 2-Listening inNews reportAccording to recent studies, the number one fear people have above everything else, including death, is of public speaking. People can become very anxious when they have to speak in front of an audience. The symptoms can range from slight nervousness with hands shaking or sweating to full-on panic: the heart beating very quickly, the body shaking, the inability to speak or move.The symptoms of fear of public speaking can begin before the event. People imagine that they will forget what they are going to say, or imagine that the audience will see how nervous they look and will think badly of them. The cause of their fear of publicspeaking is their belief that they will fail and be embarrassed.Researchers say that the fear of public speaking is associated with the fear of rejection. People who have to stand up in front of an audience believe that the audience will not like them or will not like what they say, and will reject or make fun of them.1 What is the news report mainly about?2 Why do people fear public speaking according to researchers?Passage 1Presenter We're fortunate to have as our guesttoday DrJenna Hudson, who has just written a book abouthow coloursaffect us in our surroundings, especially in the world ofadvertising. It's called Market Colours. Dr Hudson,which arethe most common colours in advertising andmarketing?Dr Hudson Well, of course, it depends what image themarketing team wish to project with their products.So for example, we often think of blue as a cold colour, but it alsomakes you feel peaceful, quiet, and it doesn'tsuggest strongemotions. So it's a favourite for banks and insurance companies, who wish to suggest the image that they aretrustworthy. And for selling products, it's often used tosuggest something is pure and fresh.Presenter What about red?Dr Hudson You can sell almost anything with red.It's a hot colour, which suggests a feeling of energy and even passion. It grabs your attention, and can make people buy almost anything. You often see red on magazine covers. But if you use it too much, it looks cheap and may make people tired. And orange has a similar effect to red, it's upbeat and happy, it suggests pleasant feelings and images. Most people react well to orange, and it's especially popular in advertising and on packaging for baked food. Presenter What about yellow, for instance?Dr Hudson Yellow is the colour of sunshine and it's a positive, happy colour, so it's used a lot in advertising. But it's also often used for warning signs, direction signs, and so on, where you have to read the message quickly and at a distance.Presenter What about less popular colours for advertising?Dr Hudson Surprisingly, green isn't used much in advertising except for garden products, It's friendly and restful. It can be cool and soothing, the colour of apples and mint, but it can also be quite strong and many people associate it with unpleasant ideas of decay or slimy creatures.Presenter But most colours are not primary colours, they're a combination.Dr Hudson Absolutely. So yellow-orange is common, and often used to give an impression of style and class, it looks like gold. But it's not often used in letters because it's not very strong. And yellow-green reminds people of feeling sick. Blue-green works well as a cool colour, suggesting freshness, and is sometimes used for toothpaste products, bathroom products, food and household cleaning products. It has many of the advantages of blue without the disadvantages of green. Presenter Fascinating. Thank you very much, Dr Hudson. Market Colours by Dr Jenna Hudson is on sale from next week, priced £15.99...Passage2Presenter What makes you embarrassed, Sally Sally Oh, I'm easily embarrassed. If anybody notices me or looks at me, I get very embarrassed. When people sing me Happy Birthday on my birthday, I get very embarrassed.Presenter And what makes you upsetSally When people are selfish, people who think only of themselves. And cruelty -I can't bear people who are cruel, especially to animals or children. Presenter Jake, what makes you depressedJake I hate it when it rains, and I don't like people who look down on me, who think they're superior to me without any reason.Presenter And what makes you angryJake When people don't behave properly in public, bad behaviour like dropping litter or people pushing each other on the bus or the train.Presenter Andrew, what makes you cheerfulAndrew I like to see everyone around me being happy and having a positive attitude towards the future, optimistic people.Presenter And what makes you jealousAndrew Well, to be honest, I just never feel jealous.I can't see the point of it.Presenter Monica, what makes you proudMonica I'm proud when I'm successful, especially in my work. Being recognized by my boss for what I can do makes me feel really proud. Oh, and my family. I'm very proud of them.Presenter And what makes you nervousMonica Every time I teach a new class. Thenight before I'm very nervous. You don'tknow what the kids are going to be like andhow they might behave, or if they're going tolike you.Presenter Anything elseMonica Doing interviews like this.。
年级英语上册--Module 2 听力
Module 2 听力(限时：20分钟满分：20分)一、听句子, 选择适当的答语。
每个句子读一遍(每小题1分, 共5分)1. A. Have a good trip.B. Thank you.C. Congratulations.2. A. Three years ago.B. For three years.C. In three years.3. A. Not at all.B. Good idea.C. Never mind.4. A. On 4th July.B. On 1st October.C. On 10th September.5. A. I have dumplings.B. I wear green clothes.C. I watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.二、听五段小对话和问题, 选择正确的答案。
每段对话读两遍(每小题1分, 共5分)6. What does the man mean?A. Yunnan is beautiful.B. Visiting Yunnan is boring.C. The Water Festival is great.7. Where is the man going for Christmas this year?A. To his grandparents' home.B. To England.C. To Hong Kong.8. Where does the conversation probably happen?A. At home.B. In a shop.C. In a school.9. How are they feeling about the weather?A. It is bad.B. It will be sunny.C. It is good.10. How does the man go to work?A. By subway.B. By car.C. By bus.三、听两段较长的对话, 选择正确答案。
大学英语-高级媒体英语视听说课本录音文字
Unit 1 School lifeClip 1 Healthy eatingWoman 1: The schools are doing it because they’ve got to promote healthy eating and I think it’s the right message. But I think really they should target the parents beforehand, because I think it’s quite sad for th e children to have things in there and then to take them away.Woman 2: I think it’s a good idea. I think children should eat healthy while they’re at school. Treats should be at weekends or after school. Man 1: So what is allowed in children’s lunch bags? Well, here I have an array of food. Good and bad.Man 2: Sandwiches, pasta, fruit and nuts are fine. Sweets, crisps, fizzy[1] drinks and chocolate though are set to be taken away.Clip 2 Grants for school buildingsV oice-over: The building work continues but for how much longer? They’re ready to start a second phase of refurbishment here, but the college may have to send the builders home.Woman 1: We’ve just co me up onto the roof of the old building and as you can see there, that is the new building we’ve been working on for two years and we’re just about to move into the refurbishment of this great two-lifted building.V oice-over: The principal of South Thames College told me what would happen of she doesn’t get the money for the new building project.Woman 1: I will have already committed six and a half to eight million pounds that will then be the College’s debt. And this building would no longer work because the services would be cut off and this will have to be muffled.V oice-over: From hair dressing to forensic science—over 20,000 students and adult learners come here. Some classes are in the old listed building. But the basement floods and the heating break s down and that’s why they wanted to give it a refurb.Clip 3 The increasing tuition feeV oice-over: University fees paid by these students are capped at around 3.000 pounds a year. But the government is due to review the situation and the body representin g the bosses of England’s universities has a suggestion, to increase fees to 5,000 or even 7,000 pounds a year. Woman 1: We have a world-class reputation that needs to be maintained. Students, I think quite rightly, expect a very high-quality higher education. And that has to be paid for.Woman 2: Today’s second-year students will leave university with debts of more than 17,000 pounds on average. Under one of the schemes being discussed today, that amount will increase to more than 26,000 pounds, a sum that could take quite a few years to pay off. The question is, would this increase actually put young people off from applying to university in the first place.Man 1: Potentially yes. Yes, I would have to assess my personal situation at that time. But I think it will put a lot of people off as it’s a huge amount of money.Woman 3: I’m doing a history degree so I have about eight hours of contact a week. So as for my money being wasted, whereas medical students have lots of labs and lots of money on them, so I think it would kind of cause me to think twice about going to university and which university I go to and where.Man 2: Well I think it is breathtakingly arrogant of university vice chancellors to be talking about doubling the level of tuition fees and the level of graduate debt in the middle of a recession. I think they need to get out of their ivory tower to look at what is going on with the economy now. Students are in increasing hardship already and leaving tens of thousand of people graduating with even bigger amounts of debts is reckless and irresponsible.V oice-over: Introducing tuition fees in the first place was controversial and difficult so the government is unlikely to rush to increase them now. Annabel Roberts. ITV News.Clip 4 Graduates facing difficult timeV oice-over: Students setting out on life’s journey are feeling the economic strain before they’ve even secured their first job. For as the economy contracts, graduates vacancies have fallen for the first time inthree years.Woman 1: Most of the other people that I know in my degree, in my course, they’re still struggling to find jobs.V oice-over: Diphian Serran is a final-year student hoping for a first-class degree and praying for a good job. So far, despite numerous interviews and an impre ssive CV, she’s had bad luck.Woman 1: Very bad luck. Unfortunately. I’ve gone through the interview stage of many, so to the final stage. But once I reach there, I often get, either get rejected or it’s, you know, “we’ll let you know”.V oice-over: The downturn in manufacturing and the meltdown in the financial services mean that nearly half of the employers expect to hire fewer graduates this year. That means the competition on campus has ever been tougher.Woman 2: This is the generation of university students who were born and bred in the economic boom. But they are graduating in the economic bust. Recruitment’s down, salaries are frozen. This is crunch time in every sense.Man 1: These times are a lot tougher than they had been the last 10, 15, possibly even 20 years. But employers are still recruiting. The brains of today are the profits of tomorrow. The question is whether the graduates are able to adjust their expectations to the realities of the labor market.V oice-over: For this final year engineering student, the reality is still great.Vacancies in the engineering and public sectors are on the rise. Will’s found a job in a bank. His starting salary is 42K.Man 2: There are still opportunities down there for people being smart or, kind of risk savvy enough to get them so it’s just, you know, it’s more difficult but it’s not impossible.V oice-over: The generation who never had it so good as children may find the economic realities harder as adults. Penny Marshall. News at Ten. Warwick University.Clip 5 Value of a degreeV oice-over: ‘Tis the season when 400,000 bright young things write off hoping their dreams will come true. Not a letter to Santa, but a university application form. The government wants half of all our young people to experience the wonderful world of the undergraduate. The joy of learning, of student life, the thrill of graduation, the invitation to high-powered, exciting careers.The reality can be rather different. A few years ago these telesales staff would have been school leavers. Today this publishing firm employs only graduates. Same job, similar salary, different qualifications.Man 1: Fifteen years ago we would’ve probably said the basic requirements would be A-levels. Because that would be the benchmark we would’ve expected our new employees to have achieved. You know now we see the benchmark is being the degree. So I think the very factthat there are far more students leaving university looking for jobs, enables us to specify a degree today whereas we wouldn’t have done 15 years ago,V oice-over: Thirty-five per cent of graduates enter the world of work in a job that doesn’t need a degree. And many get stuck in careers they don’t like. Asked what they did want to do, 47% hoped for jobs in media, advertising or PR. Other popular careers include design—favored by 21% of women—and computing, picked by 23% of men. But over 10% of media studies graduates are currently unemployed. It’s the same for design studies. And even worse in computing. Unpopular careers include engineering. Only 9% of students mention that. And yet unemployment amongst civil engineering graduates is only 2.9%.At today’s graduate recruitment fair, thousands of students were searching for jobs. But engineering stands were typically deserted. And those that did enquire often lacked relevant qualifications. The engineering industry believes in encouraging yet more school leavers to go to university may be an expensive indulgence.Man 2: Universities argue that we are not training, we are educating. We are creating people who can think. Now, if we are just producing philosophers and thinkers, I don’t think we are going to resolve the economic needs of this country. I mean, that would be absolutely silly, quite frankly.V oice-over: There are now 60,000 different degree courses in Britain. The biggest increase in so-called cheap degrees, usually humanities or social sciences, which don’t require equipment or laboratories. Universities get money for how many students they have and extra cash if they can woo school leavers from poor and deprived backgrounds. Students are saddled with debts, justified by government on the basis that across a lifetime, a degree is worth an extra 400,000 pounds. But is it?Man 3: There are two flaws in the government’s figures. Firstly they’re based on the percentage of graduates going through our education. Those figures were in a small per cent. In a couple of years’ time one in every two people will go through higher education of that age group. The second big fundamental problem is they were based on an employment market where there was a job for life, Things have changed.V oice-over: Here at this plumbing school in North London, about 20% of the class are graduates who’ve decided to retrain. Many come from just the kind of backgrounds government wants to encourage into higher education. But their experience is hardly an advert.Man 4: By the time I graduated I would say there weren’t the jobs there. So in hindsight, it probably was a waste of time, yeah.Man 5: So how much money do you reckon you can earn as a plumber? Woman1: Well, they say between 50 to 75 thousand in about 10 years’ time.Man 5: 75 grand[2]?Woman 1: Approximately, yes.Clip 6 Sc hool disciplines (David Cameron’s speech, 31 July 2007)So going back to my question, how do we translate our values into action? To reprise[3] those values, families as the origin of society, the role of schools in backing up and adding to the lessons of home, the need for clear boundaries and for rules of behavior, the diversity and the differentness of children, the obligation to help the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.Earlier this month I spoke about families. Most of all, we need to encourage stable parental relationships for example, as has been suggested, through removing the bias through against cohabitation in the benefits system and using the tax system to support married couples. Yesterday I spoke about special educational needs. We need to radically reform the statementing process to give parents what they need, including a more sensitive and flexible system of categorising special needs. Parents need greater choice between specialist schools and mainstream schools. And until the system is properly balanced, we believe we need a moratorium[4] on the closure of special schools.Today I want to explain something of what we'll do to improve behaviour in the mainstream schools.Sometimes people who discuss education give the impression that somesort of incredibly complex alchemy. It isn’t. We know what works because we see it, in our own country and oversees. The best schools, whether they are private schools, academies, grammar schools, comprehensives, have some simple things in common. Most of all, they have an independent ethos and clear rules on acceptable behaviour. Schools should be places where teachers teach and children learn - not sort of holding centres for children irrespective of how badly they behave. Most of all, they should be places where the kids respect, and even fear, the teachers, and not the other way around. If we want our children to grow up in a loving environment, they need to know where the lines are and not to step over them.Heads need to be able to impose real codes of behaviour and discipline and be backed up by parents.Teachers often say to me that they set clear rules, they enforce them and then the parents come along and take the side of the child. This can completely undermine the authority of the school and contribute directly to bad behaviour.Now many schools have home-school contracts, setting out in black and white what is expected of the school, of the parent and of the child. I'd like to take this idea further and make them enforceable, as requirements of admission and as grounds for exclusion.Head teachers should be ab le to say to parents, if you don’t sign up to thiscode of conduct for yourselves and your children, your child cannot come to school as simple as that.And I want to strengthen the position of teachers as well. More needs be done to protect teachers from the tiny minority who are bent on undermining authority in schools by making false allegations of abuse against the teacher. This is a growing problem. A recent survey in SecEd magazine indicated that 20 per cent of teachers had been falsely accused and 55 per cent of teachers knew a colleague in their school to whom this had happened.The Teacher Support phone line is taking almost twice as many calls about pupil allegations as it did a year ago. Yet in the past ten years only three per cent of serious allegations have actually resulted in a conviction. And that’s why we believe that teachers should have the full protection of anonymity until the case against them has actually been dealt with. Given the elementary principle that a head teacher must have control over the standards of behaviour in his or her school, this must mean, as a last resort, the power to exclude pupils whose conduct badly disrupts the education of others.Today, at the moment, if a head teacher excludes a pupil, the child has a right of appeal to an external panel run by the local authority. And currently a quarter of the exclusions which are reviewed by appeals panels are overturned. More than half of these pupils are then returned tothe school from which they have been expelled.Now just imagine what that does to the standing of the head teacher in the eyes of the students. To see a child, expelled for bad behaviour, swaggering back into the school. It sends completely the wrong message about the relative power of the child and of the school itself. The local authority should be there to serve the school, to help the school, to support the school, not the other way around.Unit 2 Love and familyClip 1 Valentine’s DayVoice-over:An avalanche of color today at Britain’s biggest flower market, new Convent Garden. Even by the standards of Valentine’s Day, trade has been awesome. Double an average day and 20% up on last year. But this is where love really was in the air, as mobile phone masts radiated romance. The industry estimates 80 million text messages were sent, double the daily average.Man 1: The good thing with a text message is you nearly always get a response. You can’t guarantee to get that when you send a bunch of flowers or an anonymous card.Man 2: OK, this might not be the most sentimental thought, but on Valentine’s Day romance isn’t just an emotion, it’s a rapidly growingindustry. Today 25 million pound’s worth of flowers were given. Twenty-two million cards were sent and at least 2.25 million romantice-mails were sent on work computers.Voice-over:That’s according to those using a new system to stop Internet pornography. Screening for X-rated[1] material, today had an accidental but interesting by-product.Man 3:Coincidentally we pick up this time of the year triple X’s ine-mails. And of course what we discover is that an awful lot of these are just Valentine’s messages signed with kisses and not pornography at all. Voice-over:But even with flower prices tripling through Valentine’s Day demand, many people felt they couldn’t get away with merely sending an e-mail or text. And that meant shelling out around five pounds a time for a single red rose.Man 4:Definitely we’re unde r some kind of pressure today. With just some flowers and just card of some sort, you know.Man 5:I think it’s quite commercialized, but I guess it’s always good to give each other presents on Valentine’s Day.Voice-over: But today has proven that the electronics which have become a part of life are also rapidly becoming a part of love. Chris Choi. ITV News.Clip 2 HousehusbandVoice-over: Getting ready in the morning is the same rush for this family as it is for any other. The only difference is Kirsty’s parents have swapped traditional roles. The mother the breadwinner, the father part of a growing breed of men turned homemaker. When four-year-old Kirsty was born, it made sense to her father to look after her. He enjoys it, but now has the problem traditionally faced by mothers wanting to get back to work.Man 1:As far as an employer is concerned, your availability is very sporadic,so you can’t even start part-time work, or look for part-time work, with a view to getting full-time work.Voice-over: Confe rence organizers say parents like Kirsty’s are increasingly put in the position where they do all or very little parenting. They say by giving men more freedom to be with their children, a crisis of fatherhood could be avoided. Greg Oliver. ITN. Central London. Voice-over:John Stanley is something of a statistical oddity, a single father struggling to bring up his young son. Mr. Stanley from Corbey is one of only 2% of families run solely by men. He is separated from his parents but unlike nine out of ten cases, won custody of three-year-old Sean. But while single moms may now be accepted as part of modern day life, society, it appears, has been slower when it comes to dads.Man 2:What’s the most difficult bit, you seen to be isolated by yourself. You don’t seem part of a society... no more. Now people look at you a bit different, you know, like your dolls ground you and things like that. Voice-over:Whatever father’s statutory成文法rights, many families are adopting an increasing egalitarian approach to their roles as parents. In the Dixon’s case, they are now both breadwinners and both share the work of child caring.Man 3:Before I thought, if I’m going to work, she does all the housework and all the kids. And if she went to work I would do everything. But now we’re both working and we both still do the work in the house.Voice-over: Whoever the breadwinner, few would argue nowadays that a man’s place too can be at home. Though, when it comes to political correctness, don’t rely on the children.Man 4: Who would you prefer, your mommy or daddy staying at home? Girl 1: Mommy.Man 4:But daddy is all around, isn’t he?Girl 1:I like mommy better, ‘cause mommy is nice.Clip 3 StepfamilyVoice-over: The Bennet family settle down for Sunday lunch in Biggin Hill in Kent. Michael and Margaret married three years ago after both being widowed. Their children, who come from both marriages, range from 13 to 20 and all still live at home. Michael is a plasterer, currently stacking supermarket trolleys, because he can’t fi nd enough work. Margaret is a playground supervisor in her son’s secondary school. Money is tight and the family is of viral support.Man 1:I’m married to this nice lady and we get on quite well, you know. And things could be better for us but we just hav e to accept what we’ve got. Sometimes I feel that I just don’t want to go on sometimes, because it’s, you know, too much pressure is on here all the time. My family here...they really give me all the support that I need really. They’ve seen through the good times and they’ve seen me through the bad times.Girl 1:Some families are breaking down, but I think they’ve been sort of reformed in stepfamilies. I think my friends have different sorts of stepfamilies. My father died and my stepfather’s wife died so then you know, they married and formed another family unit.Voice-over: The idea of family then remains very strong, despite the emotional and economic strains of 90s life—a fact which surprised the researchers.Man 2: We looked wherever we could in the survey to look for evidence that what was actually happening to the family was somehow dangerous or threatening, and we couldn’t find it. Broadly speaking, as far as we can measure these things, people still have as much contact with the family as ever, and rely on their family as much as ever for practical support and emotional support.Voice-over: One final observation: More people are now happy to see explicit sex scenes on television, provided it is after the nine o’clock watershed. Attitudes towards gay sex on television though remain more inhibited. Overall, the social attitudes survey presents a contradictory picture. Moral values may not be in crisis, but they are changing to reflect new styles of family life. A point which politicians and pundits[2] would do well to remember.Clip 4 Arranged marriage in IndiaVoice-over: At a Sikh temple in Derby, Bulvinder Singh and Suvinder Kaur are joined in holy matrimony. It is the third time they have met. This is an arranged marriage, brokered through by an intermediary. The couple introduced only after the two families had agreed on their mutual acceptability.Woman 1: It was with the family pushed and then we were allowed for 10 minutes to talk. That we could talk about the entrance to your...Voice-over: Nearly all Asian marriages here are arranged, the majority successfully so. But sometimes the line between arranged and forced is a thin one. If it’s cross, there ca n be bitter unhappiness. This fugitive Muslim bride would not show her face.Woman 2:To convince my parents that I don’t like the person, I tried to commit suicide. And at the first daylight, at least they will understand my feelings that I don’t want tha t guy. Now when I got back from the hospital, I’ve been pushed again to go.Voice-over: The Asian community frowns on separation and when it happens, the cultures of East and West can collide with painful consequences. The younger generation do not so readily share adherence to the old ways. Increasingly expectations are different.Woman 3:Often the young client would say, “But I don’t love him. I never wanted to marry him. I was forced into it. Why can’t I get divorced?” Then I have to say, “Well you can’t. Because the law doesn’t allow you to do that.”Voice-over:But when Nazreen Akhmal’s marriage was annulled by a Scottish court, a crucial precedent was set.Man 1: Get out of here you bastards!Voice-over: Her father is enraged by the media attention. Cameron Fyfe, the lawyer of Nazreen and Shamzad says the Scottish rulings will belegally persuasive in England as well. He’s already handling seven similar cases and believes he has opened a floodgate for potential clients. Man 2:They tell me there’s an a rmy of people out there who are stuck in arranged marriage and want out of them, because they were forced into them against their will. And they now see these particular cases as being a way out of the situation.Woman 4: It took me three years to get wher e I am now. I’m a single person who was forced into that marriage and I was never happy. And I think it was worth it in the end. I’m free and single now.Man 3: Here at the wedding reception in Derby, no one has any doubts about arranged marriages. “They are”, they say, “the best way.” They point to centuries of tradition, which have shown that when two families are joined like this, the foundations on which the partnership is built are more solid than those enjoyed by Western couples.Voice-over: For Suvinder and Bulvinder there are no misgivings. Both will follow tradition willingly. Both believe the right arrangement has been made. But for others, court cases now being prepared may present a way out of marriages which seem to offer little chance of happiness and no hope of escape. Tim Ewart. News mat Ten. Derby.Clip 5 Married relationshipWoman 1: There is no perfect way of bringing up children, but two married parents offer the best chance. Not only do they provide the stability and security which children need, but they offer an example of life-long commitment. Unlike other relationships between men and women which are often based on desire, the exercise of power andflinty[3] passion, a married relationship is based on self-sacrifice and equality and it offers children a link to the wider world of employment and social life in addition to the protection and security which it gives. Man 1: I think it is very important for the children to obviously have a stable family unit surrounding them. I think it can be beneficial for them in the long term as they develop to know that their mother and father were married and that we love one another and continue to love one another.Voice-over: The Watsons have been married for 18 years and have three children. They speak from experience.Woman 2: We always know that we can depend on them, sort of, say, from grandparents and brothers and sisters if, if necessary. I know that if I had a problem, when somebody was sick, when the children were sick or when Stuart was sick, I know that I could ring my mum if you like and my parents certainly. I know they would be in the car and be down hereand they would be supporting us, looking after the children if necessary and I’m sure your parents would too.Man 1: True, and by not saying it.Voice-over:It’s the lifetime commitment of the parents that gives children security and stability and makes wider family support possible. When that is threatened, it affects all.Woman 2:All the children have got friends who’ve been in the situation where parents have got divorced and it affects the children from the marriage but also our children being sort of involved, especially when they’re younger. And as it’s going on it affects family members too. I mean the, it makes them insecure, even if they’re not part of it, for seeing what’s happening to others.Voice-over: Nor can you separate the emotional effects from the financial.Man 1: It would be disastrous financially, from the emotionally and everything else. If I then had to go and set up another home and pay maintenance and all the rest of it, yes it would be devastating financially. Man 2: As far as married people are concerned with children, there are no allowances that a single person with children can also get. And in fact there are no allowances in the tax system at all for somebody having children.Voice-over: Should we now reconsider the framework of law and taxation?Clip 6 Working mothersWoman 1:I’m a mother of three daughters and when I had my first it was very very difficult when I got back to work as I had to work full-time or I basically would have lost my job. And there was no flexibility. Woman 2:I’m a working mother of two children. I’ve never asked for special treatment from my company and I feel that I’ve worked extra hard in order to keep my job.Woman 3:I’m the owner of a couple of small businesses and I don’t choose to employ women of childbearing age because my businesses cannot sustain the costs.Woman 4: So Sylvia, what you are saying is that in your business you wouldn’t have employed women like Sue and like Francis when they were having their children.Woman 3: Not when they were having children and that sounds absolutely awful, but how can I sustain a year’s maternity pay which is what it’s gonna be next year?Woman 2:A lot of people that have come back to work who’ve taken shorter contracts—working hours—and they’ve actually ended upbecause of their work situation staying behind after work. So probably even though their contract is reduced, working almost as long as a week as before, so...Woman 3:But there are also businesses that can’t necessarily sustain you doing work at home.Woman 4: Somebody has to bring up children, haven’t they? And they have to be supported in doing that. Frances, what makes you sort of angry that, that women are expected to take the bulk of the childcare and yet they’re still being discriminated against their work?Woman 1: Yes. Unless yo u earn a huge sum of money, then you’re able to be more flexible with regards to your childcare and your job. But if you’re not, then its’ basically like a draw in most cases. I mean generally we’re all individual cases but I’m sure there is a large portio n of women in society—particularly in the UK—who basically cannot afford to work because for one they can’t afford childcare and for one they are not going to be able to get employment that allows them to work around their children’s school hours.Voice-over: Three women, three very different views.Unit 03 TravellingClip 1 Increased demand for UK holidays and attractions。
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A plan to build the world‘s first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism.The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers ? basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design ? Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world?s first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before.The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They?re part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space."There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will predict that in 12 or 15 years, there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people that fly, and see that black sky," says Rutan.On June 21, 2004, White Knight took off from an airstrip in Mojave, Calif., carrying Rutan?s spaceship. It took 63 minutes to reach the launch altitude of 47,000 feet. Once there, the White Knight crew prepared to release the spaceship.The fierce acceleration slammed Mike Melvill, the pilot, back in his seat. He put SpaceShipOne into a near vertical trajectory, until, as planned, the fuel ran out.Still climbing like a spent bullet, Melvill hoped to gain as much altitude as possible to reach space before the ship began falling back to earth.By the time the spaceship reached the end of its climb, it was 22 miles off course. But it had, just barely, reached an altitude of just over 62 miles ? the internationally recognized boundary of space.It was the news Rutan had been waiting for. Falling back to Earth from an altitude of 62 miles, SpaceShipOne?s tilting wing, a revolutionary innovation called the feather, caused the rocket plane to position itself for a relatively benign re-entry and turned the spaceship into a glider.SpaceShipOne glided to a flawless landing before a crowd of thousands."After that June flight, I felt like I was floating around and just once in a while touching the ground," remembers Rutan. "We had an operable space plane." Rutan?s ?operable space plane? was built by a company with only 130 employees at a cost of just $25 million. He believes his success has ended the government?s monopoly on space travel, and opened it up to the ordinary citizen."I concluded that for affordable travel to happen, the little guy had to do it because he had the incentive for a business," says Rutan.Does Rutan view this as a business venture or a technological challenge?"It's a technological challenge first. And it's a dream I had when I was 12," he says.Rutan started building model airplanes when he was seven years old, in Dyenuba, Calif., where he grew up."I was fascinated by putting balsa wood together and see how it would fly," he remembers. "And when I started having the capability to do contests and actually win a trophy by making a better model, then I was hooked."He?s been hooked ever since. He designed his first airplane in 1968 and flew it four years later. Since then his airplanes have become known for their stunning looks, innovative design and technological sophistication.Rutan began designing a spaceship nearly a decade ago, after setting up set up his own aeronautical research and design firm. By the year 2000, he had turned his designs into models and was testing them outside his office."When I got to the point that I knew that I could make a safe spaceship that would fly a manned space mission -- when I say, 'I,' not the government, our little team -- I told Paul Allen, 'I think we can do this.' And he immediately said, 'Go with it.'"Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft and is one of the richest men in the world. His decision to pump $25 million into Rutan?s company, Scaled Composites, was the vote of confidence that his engineers needed to proceed."That was a heck of a challenge to put in front of some people like us, where we're told, 'Well, you can't do that. You wanna see? We can do this," says Pete Sebold.Work on White Knight and SpaceShipOne started four years ago in secret. Both aircraft were custom made from scratch by a team of 12 engineers using layers of tough carbon fabric glued together with epoxy. Designed to be light-weight, SpaceShipOne can withstand the stress ofre-entry because of the radical way it comes back into the atmosphere, like a badminton shuttlecock or a birdie.He showed 60 Minutes how it works."Feathering the wing is kind of a dramatic thing, in that it changes the whole configuration of the airplane," he explains. "And this is done in space, okay? It's done after you fly into space.""We have done six reentries. Three of them from space and three of them from lower altitudes. And some of them have even come down upside down. And the airplane by itself straightens itself right up," Rutan explainsBy September 2004, Rutan was ready for his next challenge: an attempt to win a $10 million prize to be the first to fly a privately funded spacecraft into space, and do it twice in two weeks."After we had flown the June flight, and we had reached the goal of our program, then the most important thing was to win that prize," says Rutan.That prize was the Ansari X Prize ? an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space.The first of the two flights was piloted, once again, by Mike Melvill.September?s flight put Melville?s skill and training to the test. As he was climbing out of the atmosphere, the spacecraft suddenly went into a series of rolls.How concerned was he?"Well, I thought I could work it out. I'm very confident when I'm flying a plane when I've got the controls in my hand. I always believed I can fix this no matter how bad it gets," says Melville.SpaceShipOne rolled 29 times before he regained control. The remainder of the flight was without incident, and Melvill made the 20-minute glide back to the Mojave airport. The landing on that September afternoon was flawless.Because Rutan wanted to attempt the second required flight just four days later, the engineers had little time to find out what had gone wrong. Working 12-hour shifts, they discovered they didn?t need to fix the spacecraft, just the way in which the pilots flew it.For the second flight, it was test pilot Brian Binnie?s turn to fly SpaceShipOne.The spaceship flew upward on a perfect trajectory, breaking through to space.Rutan?s SpaceShipOne had flown to space twice in two weeks, captured the X Prize worth $10 million, and won bragging rights over the space establishment."You know I was wondering what they are feeling, 'They' being that other space agency," Rutan says laughing. "You know, quite frankly, I think the big guys, the Boeings, the Lockheeds, the nay-say people at Houston, I think they're looking at each other now and saying 'We're screwed!' Because, I'll tell you something, I have a hell of a lot bigger goal than they do!""The astronauts say that the most exciting experience is floating around in a space suit," says Rutan, showing off his own plans. "But I don't agree. A space suit is an awful thing. It constrains you and it has noisy fans running. Now look over here. It's quiet. And you're out here watching the world go by in what you might call a 'spiritual dome.' Well, that, to me, is better than a space suit because you're not constrained."He also has a vision for a resort hotel in space, and says it all could be accomplished in the foreseeable future. Rutan believes it is the dawn of a new era.He explains, "I think we've proven now that the small guys can build a space ship and go to space. And not only that, we've convinced a rich guy, a very rich guy, to come to this country and build a space program to take everyday people to space."That ?rich guy? is Richard Branson, the English billionaire who owns Virgin Atlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build five spaceships for paying customers. Named ?Virgin Galactic,? it will be the world's first ?spaceline.? Flights are expected to begin in 2008."We believe by flying tens of thousands of people to space, and making that a profitable business, that that will lead into affordable orbital travel," says Rutan.Rutan thinks there "absolutely" is a market for this.With tickets initially going for $200,000, the market is limited. Nevertheless, Virgin Galactic says 38,000 people have put down a deposit for a seat, and 90 of those have paid the full $200,000.But Rutan has another vision. "The goal is affordable travel above low-Earth orbit. In other words, affordable travel for us to go to the moon. Affordable travel. That means not just NASA astronauts, but thousands of people being able to go to the moon," he says. "I'd like to go. Wouldn't you?"。