英语高级视听说听力原文 Unit 2 The new space

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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。

新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_Unit+2

Unit 2-Conversation 1Kate: Come in. Hey, Janet.Ja n et: 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, but I bet everything will be fine next term. You'll get used to it. Hey, why don't you do what I do?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 ...!Unit 2-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 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 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 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 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!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 was raised in California. And today, we are going to talk about the differences between IQ and EQ -IQ meaning your intelligence, EQ meaning your emotions. Now, in ... WhenI was, when I was a little, little boy in Korea, I had totake ... 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 Ithink again, you know, now that with Internet and people are communicating so much faster, there's a better mixtureof 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 Statesof America. Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about IQ orEQ - 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 public speaking 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 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 banks 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 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 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 happyand 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 of them.Presenter And what makes you nervous?Monica Every time I teach a new class. Thenight before I'm very nervous. You don't know whatthe kids are going to be like and how they might behave, or if they're going to like you.Presenter Anything else?Monica Doing interviews like this.。

【免费下载】英语高级视听说Unit2The 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 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 ofcarrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise.White Knight andSpaceShipOne 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. "Wehad 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 atrophy 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 pilotsflew 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 awfulthing. 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 VirginAtlantic Airlines. Branson has signed a $120 million deal with Rutan to build fivespaceships 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?"。

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-Unit+1

Unit 1-Conversation 1**〔1〕Janet: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 with 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 tooJanet: I'm not used 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.Unit 1-Conversation 2Janet: 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!Unit 1-Outside ViewVoice-over 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.Alex Harvard 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, or the John F Kennedy School of Government, so, er, we do seek very, very talented students and we have open doors for them.Voice-over We asked five students at Harvard to tell us what kind of social life they have.Ashley Um, 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.Adam It's, it's whatever you want it to be. It's good. 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.Brian Socially, 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.Jodie Not 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.Interviewer 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 forthat. Um, just do, you know, some fun things, onthe weekend.Voice-over 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 thoughe-mail is not officially Internet, we, that's how we communicate a lot at college, so, through the e-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 espn 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.Unit 1-Listening inNews reportStanford University has recently changed its financial aid policy for students to make the university more affordable and accessible. Students who don’t have financial aid pay about $46,000 a year just for tuition. It’s not unusual for students to be forced to decline an offer because they can’t afford to go to their dream school. The new policy means that for students whose families earn less than $125,000, tuition is fully covered by scholarship and grant aid. Those with a family income below $65,000 are not expected to pay for either tuition, or room and board. This is great news for talented students who are concerned about fees.However, Stanford is not the only top university in the United States that makes tuition affordable for students. Ivy League schools, such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale, also offer free tuition plans to students from low-income and middle-class families.Stanford and Ivy League schools can offer generous financial aid packages because they are very wealthy. They receive large annual donations that can be used for specific purposes, such as financial aid.1 What has Stanford University done recently?2 How much is the tuition a year at Stanford if students don’t receive financial aid?3 Why is Stanford University so wealthy? Passage 1Voice-over Hi, 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 get 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 -1 talked about it with my parents and I'm working harder now and getting good 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 5 Uni'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 enough 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 "Oxbridge". 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 modem universities, both Oxford and Cambridge consist of a large number of colleges. Oxford has 39 and Cambridge 31. Many of these colleges have old andvery 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. Cambridge's comedy club Footlights 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, which 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.。

大学英语视听说2Unit2听力原文

Unit2Ⅰ。

Lead-in1.This is a difficult question, for most of us enjoy both. But if you press me with this question, I should say that personally Iprefer watching a DVD at home. It is true that watching a movie at a theater has a number of advantages. For example, the sound effects are much better. When you hear guns firing in a theater, you feel as if you were on a real battlefield.Moreover, the presence of an audience can create a good atmosphere. When you watch a comedy on TV by yourself, you may be amused by the funny words and actions, but you are unlikely to laugh out loud. In a theater, on the other hand, you may laugh heartily when the whole audience bursts into wild laughter. In spite of those pluses for the theater, I have to say that I prefer to stay home and watch the same movie on DVD. In this way I feel more relaxed. I don't have to sit on a chair.Instead, I can lie on a sofa. I can drink tea or coffee while watching the movie. I can also press the PAUSE button, go to the kitchen or toilet, and then come back to continue the movie. More importantly, if I don't understand a section of the movie,I can replay it. Obviously, the advantages of viewing at home outweigh the advantages of viewing it at a theater.2.Different people have different choices, each with their own reasons. Generally, older people prefer old, classic movies,while young people choose contemporary movies, though we can find many exceptions to that pattern. It is reasonable for older people to favor the traditional movies of their time. When they see such movies, their memories of the past will be activated. It is not uncommon for us to observe that when elderly people see things in a movie that they personally experienced, they get excited and even shed tears. Some doctors say this sort of memory stimulation can have healing effects and slow down memory loss. While I understand that older people have good reasons to choose old movies, I prefer movies on contemporary themes. New movies are superior in many respects. First of all, the technology has improved, and therefore we can enjoy better scenes. Second, the directors, actors and actresses have all improved their skills. When you look at Chinese movies of the 1950s, you may find some actors and actresses talk or act somewhat artificially. Third, contemporary movies are often closer to our daily lives, and after seeing them, we can understand our society better. In other words, new movies have better educational value. Of course, the advantages of modern movies are not limited only to those I've just named. But they are reasons enough for me to make my choice.3.Occasionally I do enjoy seeing a foreign movie. It can take my mind off to a distant land. The outlandish setting oftenexcites me, and the different values tend to give me much food for thought. However, my lack of background information often requires me to make too many inferences, and sometimes I cannot understand certain parts of the movie. In such cases I may feel less entertained. By comparison, I feel more at home with Chinese movies. I can easily associate the scene and lines with the historical background. I can readily understand witty conversation and implied meanings. Sometimes I can even predict what is going to happen from the speaker's tone or gesture. Still, it is true that Chinese movies cannot yet compete with Western movies in filming technology. I do hope the next generation of Chinese movies will make further improvement.4.Certainly I want to see the movie first. A movie is meant chiefly to entertain, while a book may have a stronger educationalfunction in addition to its entertainment function. If one reads the book first, one will know the outcome of the movie in advance. With hardly any suspense, the movie will lose much of its appeal in spite of its colorful scenes. On the other hand, if we see the movie first, we can still appreciate the corresponding book. The book is usually longer than the adapted movie, and therefore you can still find a lot of new stuff. What's more, while reading a book, you can stop from time to time to think about the deeper meaning. So you see, after seeing the movie, you can still enjoy the book.Ⅲ.Listening InTask2:A Great ActorThere was once a great actor who could no longer remember his lines. After several years of searching, he finally found a theater that was willing to give him a try. The director said, "This is the most important part, and it has only one line. At theopening you walk onto stage carrying a rose. You hold the rose to your nose with just one finger and thumb, smell it deeply and then say the line in praise of the rose: 'Ah, the sweet smell of my love.'" The actor was excited. All day long before the play he practiced his line over and over again. Finally, the time came. The curtain went up, the actor walked onto the stage, looked at the audience, and with great emotion said the line, "Ah, the sweet smell of my love." The audience exploded in laughter. Only the director was furious! "Ahhhhhh! You damned fool!" he cried. "You've ruined my play! You've ruined me!" The actor was puzzled, "What happened? Did I forget my line?" "No!" shouted the director. "You forgot the rose!"Task3: Movie ReviewsI love movies! And after I see them, I like to comment on them. These are movies I saw this year that I would like to recommend: Among comedies I highly recommend "Monsoon Wedding". It's an Indian movie. The story is about an Indian wedding. Preparations for the wedding bring out funny and sad situations touching on love and a past rape. This movie shows some of the wonderful customs of India, and the importance of family and love. It's great!Among dramas, I like "Adaptation". It is an excellent movie! But for me the first part of the movie was too fast to follow.I hope to see it again on DVD with captions."The Pianist" is set in the Second World War. It's about a young Polish-Jewish pianist, who lives in Warsaw with his family. The Nazis sent his family to die in the concentration camps. He was safe, but would have died without unusually good luck and the kindness of a few non-Jews. This is a powerful movie with thought-provoking themes."Rabbit-Proof Fence" is set in the 1930s in Australia, and it's based on real events. It is about three native girls, who are separated from their families by the racist police who send them to special centers. There the girls are taught practical skills, and the government tries to integrate them into white Australian society. They ran away from the camp and walked 1,500 miles to find their mothers. This is a sad, touching story that you should not miss.Ⅴ.Let’s TalkAlfred HitchcockAlfred Hitchcock was a British director. His movies frequently show innocent people caught up in situations beyond their control or even understanding.Hitchcock preferred the use of suspense to surprise in his movies. In surprise, the director provides the viewer with frightening things. In suspense, the director tells or shows things to the audience which the characters in the movie do not know, and then skillfully builds up tension around what would happen when the characters finally learn the truth.Hitchcock had a great sense of humor. Once at a French airport, a suspicious customs official looked at Hitchcock's passport, which was marked simply PRODUCER. The curious official asked, "And what do you produce?" "Gooseflesh." replied Hitchcock.Alfred Hitchcock always managed to make a brief appearance in his movies: He was sometimes getting on a bus, or crossing a street, or walking in front of a store, or across the courtyard in an apartment. However, for the movie Lifeboat in 1944, he was faced with a difficult problem. The entire movie was set in a lifeboat out at sea, and there were only a few characters in the boat. Originally, he wanted to float by as a dead body, but he was afraid he'd sink! His clever solution was to place a photograph of himself in a newspaper that one of the characters read during the course of the movie.Ⅵ.Further Listening and SpeakingTask1: Only One LinePeter had always wanted to be an actor, but never succeeded because he had a hard time memorizing lines. A friend of his told him about a small part in a play. He promised Peter that he could do it because he'd only have to remember one line. Peter decided to take the part. His only line was, "Listen, I hear the guns roar!" Peter practiced and practiced, "Listen, I hear the guns roar!" On the opening night of the play Peter was very nervous. Backstage, he practiced his line, over and over again, "Listen, I hear the guns roar! Listen, I hear the guns roar!" Finally came his turn, Peter went onto stage. He heard a loud BOOM and cried out in spite of himself, "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"Task3:The Secret of the Next Harry Potter BookThe Harry Potter books rapidly became one of the most in-demand book series among young readers and have earned large sums of money. Movies based on the books won several Oscar nominations. Readers are now keen to know the plot of the next book.Harry Potter movie fans will get a long-awaited treat. The movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is finally about to come out. This time around, Harry discovers a frightening secret at Hogwarts School. Eager readers of the first four Harry Potter books are also trying to discover a secret. The secret plot of the fifth book in the series. Because of the long wait since Book Four, they are guessing many things. Some think that Professor Lupin will die or that Harry and his friend Ron may be related!J. K. Rowling herself has only said that Book Five will be shorter and scarier than Book Four. To make sure her readers hear only rumors, she locks all her ideas for the books in a hidden place. Since the next book does not come out until 2003, for now Harry's secret is safe with her!。

新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_Unit+1

Unit 1-Conversation 1**（1）Janet: 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 with 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 tooJanet: I'm not used 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.Unit 1-Conversation 2Janet: 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!Unit 1-Outside ViewVoice-over 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.Alex Harvard actuallyseeks students fromaround theworld, the best students thatwe can find, tostudy chemistry,or study literature, or studygovernment, orbusiness. Our business school isparticularlywell-known aroundthe world,as is the medical school and lawschool, so, um, and,and theKennedy School of Government,or the John FKennedySchool of Government, so, er,we do seek very,very talented students and we have open doorsfor them.Voice-over We asked fivestudents at Harvardto tell uswhat kind of social life theyhave.Ashley Um, 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.Adam It's, it's whateveryou want it to be.It's good. Ifyou wanna go out party, doanything you can.If you wannasit in your room and study allnight like myfriend over here, you can also do that.Brian Socially, like yousaid, it's, it's alot of what you make it. Um, we don't havefraternities here,and so, youknow, that's, it's obviouslynot as social.There's not as many parties as there would be onanother campus. Um,but on aFriday or Saturday night, there,there, there willbe a party.Usually we end up studyinguntil about 10o'clock. And then we, and then we'll go out andhave fun maybe, orjust watch amovie with friends, or, youknow, whatever isgoing on for the night.Jodie Not everyone would agree with me,obviously, but it's, I thinkit's a fun place to be. Interviewer Have you made a lot of friends?Jodie Oh, definitely. Interviewer Mm. Jodie Many.Interviewer What, what do you do with your friends? Jodie Um, well, I like togo to concerts. I'min threemusic groups, so I have lots ofrehearsals duringthe week forthat. Um, just do, you know,some fun things, on the weekend.Voice-over We asked theHarvard students ifthey use the Internet.Ashley Um, I, I use it afairly good amount.Um, ourlibrary system is online, so Iuse that a lot. Anda lot of my classes, you know, have to doresearch papers.You can find alot 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 theInternetactually. Well, I do a lot ofresearch throughthe Internet, follow my stocks on theInternet. Um, well,even thoughe-mail is not officiallyInternet, we,that's how we communicate a lot at college,so, through thee-mail.John Um, I use theinternet mostly for,er, I'd say,sort of leisure purposes. Imean, I play, um, Iuse it for a lot of, I don't, we don't have TV inmy room, so I use it,uh, uh,go to the CNN website, keep upon current events,things likethat. Uh, I also, uh, you know,there's some littlegames toplay over the Internet. Um,just um, I go to to see what's happening, follow theBoston Red Sox,things likethat. Um, I think a lot ofcourses use it topost things, but I,Idon't usually use it that muchfor research, orthings. I tend to use the libraries for suchthings, so.Unit 1-Listening inNews reportStanford University has recently changed its financial aid policy for students to make the university more affordable and accessible. Students who don’t have financial aid pay about $46,000 a year just for tuition. It’s not unusual for students to be forced to decline an offer because they can’t afford to go to their dream school. The new policy means that for students whose families earn less than $125,000, tuition is fully covered by scholarship and grant aid. Those with a family income below $65,000 are not expected to pay for either tuition, or room and board. This is great news for talented students who are concerned about fees.However, Stanford is not the only top university in the United States that makes tuition affordable for students. Ivy League schools, such as Harvard, Princeton and Yale, also offer free tuition plans to students from low-income and middle-class families.Stanford and Ivy League schools can offer generous financial aid packages because they are very wealthy. They receive large annual donations that can be used for specific purposes, such as financial aid.1 What has Stanford University done recently?2 How much is the tuition a year at Stanford if students don’t receive financial aid?3 Why is Stanford University so wealthy? Passage 1Voice-over Hi, 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 1 It's cool. It's everything I hoped it would be. I'm very ambitious, I want to be a journalist and I want to get 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 2 I'm working hard and the teaching is as goodas I expected. And I've made some good friends. But I'mvery homesick. I'm Nigerian and my family's so far away. I wenthome 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 notperfect,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 -1 talked about it with my parents and I'm working harder now and getting good grades.Speaker 4 Actually, I've been quite lonely to be honest. I'm a bit shy ... everyone else seemed to find it so easy tomakefriends straight away. But things have been better recently - yeah, they have. I've joined a couple of clubsand like, it really helps to get to know people when you haveshared interests. So, yeah - I'm feeling a lot happier now.Speaker 5 Uni's great, I love it. My only problem -andit'squite a big problem - is money.My parents are both unemployed so, you know, they can't help mefinancially. Mygrant just isn't - it's just not enough for me to liveon, so I'vetaken a part-time job as a waitress — a lot ofpeople I know,like a lot, have had to do the same. I don't want tohave hugedebts at the end.Speaker 6 I love my subject.History, and I'm, I'mgettingfantastic teaching here. I want to be a universitylecturer andthat means I have to get a first.I have a good social lifebut work definitely comes first for me.Passage 2Oxford and Cambridge - two universities so similar that they are often spoken of together as "Oxbridge". 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 modem 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. Cambridge's comedy club Footlights 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, which 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.。

视听说答案及录音原文unit2

视听说答案及录⾳原⽂unit2视听说课程第⼆单元II. Basic Listening Practice1.ScriptM: Now we have satellite and high-powered microscope, it’s easy to think we know everything about the world; but we still don’t understand EI Nino.W: Right. Scientists all over the world over are even uncertain about the cause of the warm Pacific current that brings storms or drought—the mysterious EI Nino.Q: Which of the following is true according to the conversation?2. ScriptM: Everyone is talking about environmental problem: acid rain, the greenhouse effect, holes in the ozone layer. We should think positively. What can we do to improve things?W: I agree. We could do a lot more to harness the sun’s energy for heating and lighting in our homes. In Japan 43,000 solar roofs were installed in 2002.Q: How do the man and the woman view the environment?3. ScriptW: We lived in Beijing some years ago. It was always difficult to keep the house clean with wind from the north blowing sand from the desert at us.M: That’s why the Chinese government has been encouraging people to plant trees along the edges of the Gobi Desert. Now those trees act as wind barriers.Q: What did the government encourage people to do?4. ScriptM:Many old refrigerators and cars are environmental hazards because they contain CFCs that destroy the ozone layer.W: Yes, but government or organizations are helping people to safely dispose of old refrigerators or, in the case of cars, to upgrade their air conditioning.Q: What are government departments helping people to do?5. ScriptM:Hey, that’s an aerosol spray you’re using on your hair! Build a bomb or set fire to the apartment to kill us quickly instead of making holes in the ozone, so we die of cancer.W: Cool it, man. This spray doesn’t contain CFC s. And you’d better read a little more. In 2003 the hole in the ozone layer shrank by 20 percent, so there’s no reason to panic.Q: What does the man mean?Keys: 1.B 2.D 3. A 4.A 5.CIII. Listening InTask 1: We should have proper respect for nature!ScriptMartha: Do you think most people in your culture respect nature?Ed:I think so. Umm…more now than before.Martha: What do you think is the most serious environment problem in the world today?Ed: Today…I think damage to the ozone layer is a big problem; and another problem is pollution in big cities and things like that.Martha: How do you learn about environmental problems?Ed: Umm…through school. A lot of clubs promote environmental safely, and some TV programs, too. They talk about environmental safely and stuff like that.Martha:Do you think students should learn more about the environment at school?Ed: I think so. So, as they grow older, they can be more aware of all the problems that are going on. And also to prevent more problems from occurring.Martha: If you could create a new law to help the environment, what would it be?Ed: A new law for the environment? Umm…I’d probably say that when people throw away their cigarette butts, they have to throw them into the garbage bin, not just throwthem everywhere because it’s just littering and I hate that. So they should be fined ifthey throw them on the floor on the ground.Martha:That’s a good idea. What do you personally do to help protect the environment? Ed: I’ m so against littering. I never litter. If I see somebody litter, I get really angry. So I always throw my trash into the garbage bin.While being interviewed by Martha, Ed said more people in his culture respect nature ever before. When asked about the most serious environmental problem in the world today, he mentioned the damaged ozone layer and the pollution in big cities.Ed learned about environmental problem at school. A lot of clubs and some TV programs promote environmental safely. He believes that students should learn more about the environment at school. Then they can be more aware of all the problems and prevent more problems from occurring.When asked about a new law he would like to create to help the environment, he said that when people throw away their cigarette butts, they have to throw them in the garbage bin. They should be fined if they throw them on the floor. Personally, Ed is so set against littering that he never litters. He always throws his trash into the garbage bin.Task 2 River pollutionIf you see dead fish floating on the river or notice that the water is discolored and smelly, you know the river has been polluted, and there are four main possible causes for it.First, fertilizer. If large amounts of fertilizer or farm waste drain into a river, the concentrations of nitrate and phosphate in the water increase considerably. Algae use these substances to grow rapidly, turning the water green. This massive growth of algae leads to pollution. When the algae die, they are broken down by the action of the bacteria, which quickly multiply, using up all the oxygen in the water and therefore causing the death of fish.Second, industrial waste. Factories sometimes discharge chemical waste into rivers. Examples of such pollutants include cyanide, lead, copper, and mercury. These substances may enter the water in such high concentrations that fish and other animals are killed immediately. Sometimes the pollutants enter the food chain and accumulate until they reach toxic levels, eventually killing fish and other animals.Third, oil pollution. If oil enters a slow-moving river, it forms a rainbow-colored film over the entiresurface, preventing oxygen from entering the water.Fourth, warm water. Industry often uses water for cooling processes, sometimes discharging large quantities of warm water back into rivers. A higher temperature of the water lowers the level of dissolved oxygen and upsets the balance of life in the water.Questions and key1. What is the passage mainly about?D) The causes of river pollution.2. Why does the river water turn green?A) Because nitrate and phosphate in the water increase.3. What harm does industrial waste cause?B) Poisoning.4. Which of the following is true of oil pollution?C) It prevents oxygen from entering the water.5. What harm can warm water in a river bring?D) Lack of oxygen.Task3: Curbing Carbon emissionsScriptAlthough it is not an easy task, China is striving to fulfill the promise to cut its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 40 to 45 percent in the next 10 years.Zhang Guobao, Director of the National Energy Administration, said, "The government puts great emphasis on seeking harmonious development between cities and the environment, and is readjusting the energy structure by giving priority to the development of clean and low-carbon energies, including hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar power."Government authorities have closed small, coal-fired plants with a total capacity of 60.06 million kilowatts in the past four years. This year's target of closing 10 million kilowatts of capacity will be achieved by August. "We have promised to the international community that 15 percent of our power will be generated from non-fossil sources by 2020," Director Zhang said. At present, non-fossil energy accounts for only 7.8 percent.China is making efforts to increase the proportion of clean energy in its total energy consumption. Statistics show that China invested US$34.6 billion in clean energy last year, exceeding the United States which invested US$18.6 billion. Thus, China has become the world leader in generating clean energy. Five years earlier, China's investment in clean energy was only US$2.5 billion.However, China's carbon emission reduction target cannot be achieved easily. The shift to a low-carbon economy might be met at a cost to society. For instance, more than 400,000 people were laid off as a result of the shutdown of small coal-fired power plants in the past four years. Many studies indicate that the effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions may delay China's development, affect people's income, and lead to unemployment.Questions and key1. What is the passage mainly about?D) Cutting carbon dioxide emissions: China's achievements and problems.2. From four years ago until August this year, how many kilowatts of coal-fired plant capacity will have been closed?D) More than 70 million.3. By 2020, what will be the proportion of non-fossil energy in the total power in China?A) 15%.4. Which of the following is true of the investment by China and the United States in clean energy last year?B) China's investment was almost twice as large as the United States'.5. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a problem arising from curbing greenhouse gas emissions?C) Causing more strikes.。

新标准大学英语视听说教程(2)听力原文_Unit+1

高级实用英语视听说(2)1-12单元听力原文

1 A Courtesy CampaignBob Edwards, host: Nearly half of all American adults have wireless telephones. People are buying them at a rate of 46,000 a day. The rise of portable phones has been accompanied by a rise in complaints about mobile phone manners. A few cities have passed laws restricting their use. But San Diego‘s trying a different approach, appealing to cell phone users with a courtesy campaign.From member station KPBS, Scott Horsley reports.Scott Horsley Reporting: It seems to be happening more and more, in restaurants, movie theaters, even in church.Soundbite of Cell Phone Ringing Horsley: When it comes to the shrill interruption of a ringing cell phone, no place it seems is sacred.Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell: Well, if we‘re in the middle of prayer and meditation, I usually just ignore it. And I may make a comment afterwards, something like, ―Well, you know, maybe the spirit of God is truly calling us and wanting our attention.‖\\Horsley: Not everyone is as forgiving as Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell of San Diego‘s Church of Today. And not everyone views the cell phone as an instrument of divine intervention. When San Diego Mayor Susan Golding conducted an Internet survey last year, thousands of people responded calling for restrictions on cell phone use, especially in movie theatres.Mayor Susan Golding: I know that I‘ve been in the movies. And it‘s at the quiet time when everyone‘s on the edge of their seat and the phone rings next to you and the person starts to talk in a very loud voice.Horsley: But rather than proposing regulation, Mayor Golding has launched a voluntary courtesy campaign, urging wireless phone users to mind their mobile manners. The campaign includes stickers that business can display, reminding customers they‘re in a quite zone. The mayor herself posted a sticker outside one movie theatre as Doug Cohen looked on in approval. Cohen is a real estate broker whose own cell phone gets plenty of use, but he agrees there ought to be limits. Doug Cohen: I have a very good friends that I won‘t eat lunch with. They just can‘t get away from it. So it‘s … there‘s an etiquette. It‘s just like driving or anything else, you know. Some people will subscribe to a certain politeness and some people won‘t. But it‘s nice that there‘s an issue raised here. \\Horsley: San Diego might seem like an unlikely place to raise the issue of rude cell phone use since the cell phone industry is one of the city‘s biggest employers, with companies like Qualcomm and Nokia. But Nokia is actually sponsoring the mayor‘scourtesy campaign. Vice President Larry Paulson says customers should set phone is vibrate rather than ring in certain settings, and sometimes even turn their phones off.Larry Paulson: Certainly, I think everyone agrees with this. In certain public areas such as movie theaters, plays, churches, museums, and libraries, talking can be very disruptive and, essentially, it‘s a violation of basic courtesy.Horsley: Cell phone companies realize a public backlash isn‘t good for their business. And with communities in Ohio and New Jersey already banning cell phone use behind the wheel, the industry may see a courtesy campaign as a way to head off further government regulation, like the beer companies urging their customers to drink responsibly. \\Instead of a strict enforcer, Mayor Golding hopes to play a gentle Miss Manners. The real Miss Manners, newspaper columnist Judith Martin, thinks that might work better, anyway.Judith Martin: If you use the heavy hand of the law for everyday trivial things, you create this state where everybody is angry at everybody else, where the courts are clogged up. This is a very simple thing we‘re talking about: don‘t disturb people, you know. Don‘t talk at eh movies. Don‘t talk on the phone in the movies. Don‘t talk to the person next to you in the movies.Horsley: Martin says it‘s not unusual when new technologies develop for people to believe they‘re in an etiquette-free zone. But gradually, a consensus develops about how the tools should be used. With cell phones, she says, we‘re halfway there. \\ People agree that others shouldn‘t annoy them with their phones, but they don‘t necessarily apply the same rules with themselves. That will be the challenge, as Mayor Golding demonstrated during a news conference kicking off her courtesy campaign.Mayor Golding: I think we will influence a great number of people to stop and think.Soundbite of Cell Phone RingingMayor Golding: For example, my phone is ringing right now. But I think we will influence a lot of people to turn off their cell phones or to put them or vibrate. Clearly, there are places…and this doesn‘t even hang up well. But because I want to be courteous and not answer it during this press conference.Horsley: The mayor later explained that hers was a new phone, and she hadn‘t figured out all the settings. She got a quick lesson from the Nokia vie president in how to turn of the ringer. For NPR News, I‘m Scott Horsley in San Diego.1.Reverend Wendy Craig-Purcell: Well, if we‘re in the middle of prayer andmeditation, I usually just ignore it. And I may make a comment afterwards, something like, ―Well, you know, maybe the spirit of God is truly calling us and wanting our attention.‖2. Mayor Susan Golding: I know that I‘ve been in the movies. And it‘s at the quiettime when everyone‘s on the edge of their seat and the phone rings next to you and the person starts to talk in a very loud voice.3.Doug Cohen: I have a very good friends that I won‘t eat lunch with. They justcan‘t get away from it. So it‘s …there‘s an etiquette. It‘s just like driving or anything else, you know. Some people will subscribe to a certain politeness and some people won‘t. But it‘s nice that there‘s an issue raised here.4. Larry Paulson: Certainly, I think everyone agrees with this. In certain public areassuch as movie theaters, plays, churches, museums, and libraries, talking can be very disruptive and, essentially, it‘s a violation of basic courtesy.5. Judith Martin: If you use the heavy hand of the law for everyday trivial things,you create this state where everybody is angry at everybody else, where the courts are clogged up. This is a very simple thing we‘re talking about: don‘t disturb people, you know. Don‘t talk at eh movies. Don‘t talk on the phone in the movies. Don‘t talk to the person next to you in the movies.2 Give me my place to smokeMy name is Michael, and I‘ve been smoking for fifteen years.My name is Peggy, and I‘ve been smoking for probably thirty and thirty-five years.Peggy and Michael sit in a smoky neighborhood bar in Washington D.C., a cigarette perched in each other‘s hands. They say there are fewer and fewer places like this, where they feel completely comfortable lighting up, and they expect the EPA report on secondhand smoke to contribute to further restrictions on smoking in public places. They both say they are keenly aware of the reception they get when they smoke, and how that has changed over the years.Thirty-five years ago you really didn‘t give a lot of thought to smoking. Now you do. And of course you‘re finding that it‘s much less acceptable, much less popular, shall we say, to be smoker. And I don‘t know how much of that is basically political, and how much is apolitical. I don‘t like the atmosphere today, not only for smoking, but I find that that‘s true in many other areas of freedom. //How do you experience it? How do you get that feeling from other people?Well, fifteen years ago you didn‘t think about it. You walked in to someone‘s house and they would offer you an ashtray. You don‘t do that anymore. I don‘t even ask anymore. ―Is it OK if we smoke?‖because for a while there it was. ―Well, I really wish you wouldn‘t.‖And that was awkward?No, it wasn‘t awkward; it‘s just that you learn not to ask anymore, and just assume that it‘s not right.I found it awkward.You go to parties now. You know, where it used to be that everybody was standing around with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other and blabbing, and now you see the smokers, kind of … if it‘s an apartment, furtively standing around an open window, or if it‘s a house, standing outside in groups. It‘s pretty common. //Has it changed your smoking habits in any way?That‘s hard to say. I will say this: I know that I‘m much more cognizant of my surroundings. For example, if I walk into someone else‘s office any more, I would never think to take a cigarette. And like he said, in someone‘s home, you wouldn‘t automatically sit down and have a cigarette. So in that regard, yes.Yeah. I mean, I‘ve develop a whole body language about smoking in groups and in places where it is permissible to smoke.Oh, yes.It‘s … take a drag.As you are doing right now.Right, blow it straight up in the air so that it doesn‘t get in anybody‘s face, then try to hold your cigarette so that the wind catches, whatever wind there is catches it so that it goes away from the group. So after a while, you look like a factory. You‘re blowing smoke straight up, and you‘ve got this cigarette flying out in the air there, //it‘s whole body language.And you do look a bit strange, you‘re right, now that you say that. Do you feel anydefiance?I don‘t think I do. I‘ve never felt a desire to inflict my habit on anybody else.I guess I don‘t mean inflict your habit. I think when I mean defiance, what I mean by that is, if you are in an area where it is totally acceptable to smoke, that…but you know that there is someone there who doesn‘t really want you to smoke.Yes, yes. Actually, one afternoon I was coming home from work. I was walking up Connections Avenue and I had my Walkman on. It had been kind of a rough day, and I was puffing away on a cigarette and walking up the street, and someone came around in front of me and pointed behind me. So I took my Walkman off, and turned around, and there was this man standing there, and he was going, ―Excuse me, your cigarette is in my eyes.‖And you were outside.I was outside, on the sidewalk. And I looked at him, and I said, ―Well, then walk in front of me.‖ And I just felt like he was his own private smoking patrol. It had nothing to do with any kind of physical discomfort I was causing him.And did you wonder if, the next day, he was part of the fur patrol? That‘s what I think I mean about defiance. I find that in myself, that when they make a judgment, and that‘s basically what they‘re doing, they‘re making a judgment on my behavior. //Do you understand at all, though, this strong feeling that people have about smoking, that if they‘re not a smoker, they don‘t want to be around it, they don‘t want to inhale the smoke?Yes, I can understand it. Sure. I mean, I‘ve really knuckled under… I have changed my habits to respect the rights of people who don‘t want smoke around them, and I‘m much more cognizant of how my smoking might be affecting the general area. If I'm in a smoking section, I feel that I‘m entitled to smoke. If they take away that smoking section, I won‘t smoke in there anymore.I wouldn‘t go there anymore, If it‘s a matter of spending my money in a restaurant, for example, I wouldn‘t spend my money there. But in regard to that, yes, I understand it, but I also feel, again, back to equity. Give me my place to smoke. That‘s all I ask. Peggy and Michael both live in Washington, D.C. //3 Kids and the mediaThe excesses of the media came under scrutiny this month over how young people are used as sources in news stories. ABC News has been under fire for airing an interview with six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, as many other networks for airing a home videotape of the child. Last year, CNN was criticized when it broadcast phone calls from students at Columbine High School as the shootings there were taking place. NPR‘s Rick Karr reports on the choices journalists make in dealing with children in the news. //When ABC‘s Diane Sawyer introduced her interview with Elian Gonzalez, she referred to one of the bedrock rules of the craft of journalism: Get the story straight from the source.And even though the media has had him under twenty-hour-a-day surveillance and written, by our calculation, 11,984 articles about the politics of all this, not one of us has sat down and looked in to his eyes.Just looking into his eyes would have been fine, according to Bob Steel. E‘s a journalistic ethicist at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.The problem is when he was interviewed. For Diane Sawyer or any other journalist to ask him questions of the weight that were asked of him about his mother and the loss of his mother, about whether he wants to stay in Florida, in the United States, or return to Cuba- these are questions that are beyond the grasp of a six-year-old in terms of taking with a journalist in a meaningful way. //Steel says journalists need, first and foremost, to consider whether or not a child is mature enough to actually shed light on a story. An immature child may not know fact from fantasy and while that‘s no big deal if the story is on, say, Chicagoans‘ hopes for this year‘s White Sox, where a six-year-old might have as much to say as any other pundit, it‘s much more pressing a concern when international relations or criminal allegations are at stake. It‘s not solely a matter of chronological age, Steel says; trauma can make even adults regress to childhood. Steele says journalists need to step back and fight the urge to get it done right this second.Slow down enough that you can assess the situation and assess the individuals who may be the witnesses and may be the interview sources in a particular story, and to ascertain the best we can at hat moment what kind of vulnerability they may have. // Sometimes witnesses to a crime can be vulnerable in terms of the perpetrator going after those witnesses.Bob, is it outside the school right now or are they still inside, can you tell?They‘re inside….they‘re inside the building. I haven‘t seen…CNN and a local Denver television station were criticized last year when they broadcast this tape and others like it: cell phone calls from students hiding in and around Columbine High School, which Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris could, in theory, have used to pinpoint the locations of their intended victims.They‘re OK. One of my friends is still in the school, though.Really?I guess his mother paged hi. He called her back, said that he‘s … I guess he‘s in the choir room.Suzanne McCarroll was on the scene at Columbine High School that day. She‘s a reporter with KCNC, Denver‘s CBS station. She says in breaking news situations, judging right from wrong is a matter of gut instinct.A lot of time I look at the those kid s‘ faces I think, ―Oh, my God, this could be one of my kids and am I doing something that‘s OK if this were my child, if somebody came up and started interviewing my child about whatever given topic or grilling my child with those questions?‖McCarroll says when she‘s interviewing kids, parental consent doesn‘t mean much. Sometimes parents are more confused than kids and sometimes they give their consent for the wrong reasons. Suzanne McCarroll won praise from media critics for her sensitive handling of Columbine. But journalism is a deeply competitive field and sometimes the urge to scoop the competition trumps the gut check. So had she been in Diane Sawyer‘s shoes, would she have interviewed Elian?I don‘t know…I…you know, I would hat to…I don‘t know. I…truthfully, I uses, I don‘t think I would‘ve, but I‘m not in her position.Suzanne McCarroll says the bottom line of practicing ethical journalism where children are concerned is context. What‘s going on around the kid in question? How has the reporter couched the interview?Bob Steel of the Poynter Institute says it would be hard to confuse the tape of Elian Gonzalez, provided to the media on Thursday by his Miami relatives, with journalism. The question is: When it showed up on the evening news, how was it presented? Steel says the listeners, readers, and viewers need to keep questions like that in mind. Rick Karr, NPR News.4 Is it a sculpture，or is it foodIn the near future, you might be able to buy a tomato in the supermarket that has been genetically designed and engineered, a tomato that would stay ripe much longer, strawberries that are not so fragile in freezing temperatures, vegetable oil that‘s lower in fat. Already on the market: a gene-spliced product that‘s used in cheese making. There are impressive claims being made for genetic manipulation of food, including production increases that could help alleviate world hunger. But there‘s also concern, and indeed some fear, about the use of gene-splicing techniques; and last week more than 1,000 chefs from restaurants all around the country made a pledge they will mot serve such foods, and they‘ll work to see that genetically engineered foods are labeled as such. It was announced back in May that no special labeling would be required. Joyce Goldstein has joined the boycott. She‘s the owner of Square One Restaurant in San Francisco. //When I first heard about it, I thought, well, they‘re not even talking about flavor. The only thing they‘re talking about is how long they can keep the damn thing in the shelf. You are talking about tomato, basically.Basically the tomato. You know, you worry how long they want to keep it. Is it a sculpture or is it food? And I just kept thinking, I hope that we will get to find out more about this, and that they‘ll do some testing. For example, if they‘re using these trout genes in other products, and we have customers with fish allergies, are they going to get sick?There‘s the idea that they would use a fish gene to make tomatoes more frost-resistant.Right, well I mean, will people with fish allergies have responses to this, or will that be so sublimed that they won‘t have any effect? I guess the thing is, when a new product comes on the market like this, number one, you‘d like to be aware that it‘s being sold to you, and number two, you‘d like to know that they have checked out all of these ramifications before they put it on the shelf. //It sounds like your concerns are more practical than others‘. Other people are talking about science fiction food; and I‘ve heard it referred to as ―Franken food‖ in the past. Well, you know, it‘s very easy to poke fun at—and I want to put this in quotes—―progress.‖I mean, those of us that were attached to typewriters, I think, poked fun at people using computers until we started using them. So I don‘t want to sound like I‘m some old fogey saying, ―In the old days we didn‘t do it that way.‖ If they would come up with a wonderful product through genetic—I mean, they‘ve done wonderful roses with genetic breeding that are perfectly beautiful and still have somescent- If they could do this and prove it was safe to the public, I‘m not going to say it‘s a bad thing. All I‘m saying is, right now we have a lot of nonknowledge about this stuff, and until things are tested and until we know what they taste like and how they are, we don‘t want to put them on the menu.There‘s an argument that‘s being made that this could be, I‘ve seen one quotation, ―the biggest boon to corporate profits since frozen food.‖ that this could be that big a breakthrough in the food area.Well, they‘re always worrying about corporate profit. What if the stuff turns out not to be good?I got a letter from a lady the other day, who said she‘s the wife of a scientist, and she would prefer to serve genetically engineered food to her children, and I shouldn‘t worry because it‘s under the wonderful eye of the Food and Drug Administration, and she will boycott my restaurant as long as I boycott these foods. And I started thinking, God, with an attitude like that I certainly don‘t want her eating in my restaurant anyway.But also, I mean the Food and Drug Administration has not been foolproof. I think we just need to see a little bit more data on this, and I think it‘s too soon to tell. //Now you‘re very concerned, I‘m sure, about pesticide residue in the foods that would reduce the dependence on pesticides in the field.I think that‘s a good thing. I‘m just concerned when they start crossing trout with tomatoes as to what happens. I‘m concerned. I will be delighted if they can make something taste wonderful and not have chemicals and pesticides. When you read that the first person that it‘s good for is agribusiness, and that they will put these things at the market or try to sell it to use without letting us know, I thin we are the right to know. I think when we have the choice to say I‘m going to buy it, or I‘m not going to. Joyce Goldstein, the owner and head chef of Square One Restaurant in San Francisco.5 What‘s happening to Home?Hey, come on in.My work came home last week. It‘s not that I‘ve never worked at home, but this was different. This job means out daughter‘s bedroom has been turned into a mini-studio and our house suddenly seems like the Bethesda bureau of NPR. During my recent vacation to get ready to come over to this show, an interview was arranged with Maggie Jackson. Her new book is called What’s happening to home? Balancing Work,life, and refuge in the Information Age. She came into NPR‘s New Work studio while my engineer came to me.The fusion of work and home is not a new phenomenon. In earlier centuries, many families lived above the store. But Maggie Jackson says that while there are similarities, there are also major differences.//Because of technology, we are able to have our bodies at home, but our minds in a different place. When you‘re on the laptop, you mind is in somewhere else, usually. Your body might be home. So you have a different relationship with the people at home. You are doing work that separates you mentally from the home.Your book actually began with your own exploration, right? I mean, as I writer an interviewer…Yes.…and raising two small children, your won lines began to blur at home. You wrote about, for example, trying to hurry your kids to bed so you could get back to work.Yes, that was, although I can‘t say it only happened just once, that was a sort of eureka moment. For me, I was writing about the world of the workplace, the work/ life balance, and noticing that the lines were blurring and also, at the same time at home, I was gaining the technology to be more flexible in my work. O could come home for dinner, put the kids to bed, finish a story or interview people in California- and I‘m on the East Coast- and I had a lot of flexibility. At the same time, I felt as though my work was seeping and leaking and bleeding into the rest of my house. //Let me tell you my situation here. I love the fact that I‘m sitting at home right now. I‘ve had a cup of coffee, I‘m sitting in a very comfortable armchair. I have a beautiful view. Now that being said, I do have a home office now and I feel as if, if I close the door, the officer is going to be…there. How else can one set psychological boundaries in the home to keep work from interfering, aside from a physical boundary?Well, I think that boundary is the perfect word to use because I am certainly not saying that all technology automatically means the work takes over your life or that, in this day and age, all the changes that are going on are bad, I think that the—you know, are making is important, and I think that in this age we don‘t make enough boundaries. //I‘m looking at page 123 of your book, and you quote Olivier Marc, ―Home allows us to create an area of peace, calm and security, for once we have crossed the threshold and shut the door behind us, we can be at one with ourselves, and we‘re notnecessarily talking about architecture and physical doors.Exactly. And I just found so many pieces of the picture al around me that show that that kind of experience of home is being lost if we continue down the road. Not everyone lives in futuristic households. I wrote about an apartment in New York City where a currency trader has video monitors all around the apartment, including in the arm of a sofa, so he can watch the markets. Now this is the kind, again, of sort of scifi apartment that few of us will ever have. But at the same time, I think that we are marching down that road in little daily decisions that we make.Are all Americans facing these sorts of issues? What about those who are not in these maybe high-tech, high-creative, high-paying jobs? Are they facing these same issues?I think in many ways they are, and many more people will be facing these issues as technology, computers, etc., gadgets become smaller and less expensive. I interviewed secretaries all around the country and just in the last few years they have gotten cell phones and they‘re checking their voice mail and e-mail on vacations, on sick days. They really felt often as if their home wasn‘t a refuge as a result, and I think that we are going to find more and more people are going to be facing the kinds of problems and dilemmas I describe.Maggie Jackson, thanks a lot.You‘re welcome. Thank you.Maggie Jackson is the author of What’s happening to home? Balancing Work, life, and refuge in the Information Age.//6 Create Controversy to Generate publicity Benetton has produced a set of controversial ads which, even in these hard times for advertising revenues, magazines are turning down. The three controversial ads depict a very young nun kissing a priest, a newborn baby only seconds old, and a little blonde white girl next to a little black boy whose hair is fashioned into something that looks a little bit like horns. Our own bob Garfield, in his other life, is the advertising critic for Advertising Age magazine, and since he has opinions about practically everything, and professionally he has opinions about advertising, we called in. //Bob, what about these ads? What do nuns and priests and newborns and little toddlers blonde and black have to do with selling T-shirt?Well, they have everything to do with us doing this interview right now. An important element of this whole campaign is to create controversy and to generate publicity, which not only has an immediate value all of its won, it also enhances every consumer exposure to Benettom ads in their natural habitat, so that when you‘re paging through some magazine and run across a picture of this newborn baby covered with the blood and the vernix and with the umbilicus still attached, instead of casually passing it, being aware of the controversy, you‘re apt to look at it more seriously and to react one way or another-probably with anger or disgust, is my guess. //I think that if you were paging through a magazine and saw this picture, you wound stop could, even if you‘d never heard of the ad or Benetton…because it is such an arresting picture, this baby, you could stop cold, even if you‘d never heard of the ad or Benetton…Because it is such an arresting picture, this baby.Well, it is that,…uh, arresting, some would say disgusting. And I suppose the Benetton people would say that it‘s magnificent and natural. Uh I think a large intestine is natural and kind of magnificent in its way, but I sure don‘t want too see it in the middle of a fashion magazine, though I suppose that‘s next. //Essence and Child magazines did not take the ad with the two children. Self, which published the baby, refused the nun. Cosmo decided it did not see itself with a newborn baby in its pages. Now, were you surprised? I mean. I‘m surprised by that. This is a double page ad, and magazines are awfully skinny; it seems to me they‘re being awfully touchy about it.Oh, I don‘t know if awfully touchy is right. I mean, I frankly don‘t think Benetton really expected these ads to be accepted by anyone. I‘m little surprised that the newborn one was in the pages of Self, which published the baby in its pages. The ads were created for the express purpose of ticking people off, for creating controversy, for inflaming consumer outrage, and so forth and so on, an it‘s really very cunning advertising, Linda, for a lot of reasons. Not only is there the publicity benefit, they also are a great example of what I call distraction marketing. And it‘s distracting, because, rather than focus on trying to come up with some sort of rational benefit for buying a $49 cotton T-shirt, which Benetton knows is not a rational kind of consumer behavior, they‘re kind of playing a little three-card monte in creating a distraction over here so you won‘t pay attention to the facts of the matter over on the other side, the facts of the matter being that a $119 cardigan sweater is not a particularly good buy.Thanks very much.My pleasure.Bob Garfield, when he is not appearing on national Public Radio, is the advertising。

经典：英语视听说Unit2-The-New-Space-Race

9
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Astro-Tourism
Also known as space tourism. The term refers to a fledging industry involving sending paying customers on a tour into the space aboard spaceships.
We’re like radio. We’re advertising-supported.
He is totally comfortable with putting on his site a stolen piece of material.
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5 thousands of users of P2P networks?
Is Movielink a good business model? What are the odds of its winning the war against illegal downloading?
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• In February 2013, Tito announced his intention to send a privately financed spaceflight to Mars by 2018. Stating that the technology is already in place and that the issues that need to be overcome are only the requirements of the rigor of a 501 day trip on a psychological and physical level for the human crew. However, in November 2013, Tito and other Mars Inspiration team members admitted that their plan was impossible without significant levels of assistance and funding from NASA.

上外版英语高级视听说上册听力原文

Unit 1Pirates of the InternetIt’s no secret that online piracy has decimated the music industry as millions of people stopped buying CDs and started stealing their favorite songs by downloading them from the internet. Now the hign-tech thieves are coming after Hollywood. Illegal downloading of full-length feature films is a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s becoming easier and easier to do. The people running America’s movie studios know that if they don’t do something----and fast---they could be in the same boat as the record companies. Correspodent: “What’s really at stake for the movie industry with all this privacy?”Chernin: “Well, I think, you know, ultimately, our absolute features.”Peter Chernin runs 20th Century Fox, one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. He knows the pirates of the Internet are gaining on him. Correspont: “Do you know how many movies are being downloaded today, in one day, in the United States?”Chernin: “I think it’s probably in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.”Correspondent: “And it’s only going to grow.”Chernin: “It’s only going to grow. √Somebody can put a perfect digital copy up on the internet.A perfect digital copy, all right. And with the click of mouse,send out a million copies all over the world, in an instant.”5And it’s all free. If that takes hold, kiss Hollywood goodbye. Chernin recently organized a “summit”between studio moguls and some high school and college kids---the people most likely to be downloading. Chernin: “And we said, ‘Let’s come up with a challenge. Let’s give them five movies, and see if they can find them online.’And we all sat around and picked five movies, four of which hadn’t been released yet. And then we came back half an hour later. They had found all five movies that we gave them. ”Correspondent: “Even the ones that hadn’t even been released yet?”Chernin: “Even the ones that hadn’t even been released yet.”Correspondent: “Did these kids have any sense that they were stealing?”Chernin: “You know it’s…it’s a weird dichotomy. I think they know it’s stealing, and I don’t think they think it’s wrong. I think they have an attitude of, ‘It’s here.’”The Internet copy of last year’s hit Signs, starring Mel Gibson, was stolen even before director M. Night Shyamalan could organize the premiere. Correspondent: “The movie was about to be released. When did the first bootleg copy appear?”6Shyamalan: “Two weeks before it or three weeks before it. Before the Internet age, when somebody bootlegged a movie, the only outlet they had was to see it to those vendors on Times Square, where they had the boxes set up outside and they say, ‘Hey, we have Signs---it’s not even out yet.’And you walk by and you know it’s illegal. But now, because it’s the digital age, you can see, like, a clean copy. It’s no longer the kind of the sleazy guy in Times Square with the box. It’s just, oh, it’s on this beautiful site, and I have to go, ‘Click.’”Correspondent: “How did those movies get on the Internet? How did that happen?”Chernin: “Through an absolute act of theft. Someone steals a print from the editor’s room; someone steals a print from the person; the composer who’s doing the music…absolute physical theft, steals a print, makes a digital copy, and uploads it.”Correspondent: “And there you go.”Digital copies like this one of The Matrix Reloaded have also been bootlegged from DVDs sent to reviewers or ad agencies, or circulated among companies that do special effects, or subtitles. Chernin: “The other way that pre-released movies end up (stolen) is that people go to …there are lots of screenings that happen in this industry…People go to those screenings with a camcorder, with a digital camcorder, sit inthe back, turn the camcorder on…”Correspondent: “And record it.”This is one of those recorded-off-the-screen copies of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Not great quality, but not awful either. And while it used to take forever to download a movie, anyone with a high-speed Internet connection can now have a full-length film in an hour or two.Saaf: “Well, this is just one of many websites where basically people, hackers if you will, announce their piracy releases.”Randy Saaf runs a company called Media Defender that helps movie studios combat online piracy. Correspondent: “Look at this, all these new movies that I haven’t even seen yet, all here.”Saaf: “Yep.”Correspondent: “Secondhand Lions that just came out. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only person in this country who has never downloaded anything. But maybe there is a few others of us out there. So I’m going to ask you to show us Kazaa, that’s the biggest downloading site, right?”Saaf: “Right. This is the Kazaa media desktop. Kazaa is the largest peer-to-peer network.”It’s called peer-to-peer because computer users are sharing files8with each other, with no middleman. All Kazaa do es is provide the software to make that sharing possible. When we went online with Randy Saaf, nearly four million other Kazaa users were there with us, sharing every kind of digital file. Saaf: “Audio, documents, images, software, and video. If you wanted a movie, you would click on the video section, and then you would type in a search phrase. And basically what this is doing now, it is asking the people on the peer-to-peer network, ‘Who has Finding Memo’?”Within seconds, 191 computers sent an answer: “We have it.”This is Finding Memo, crisp picture and sound, downloaded free from Kazaa a month before its release for video rental or sale. If you don’t want to watch it on a little computer screen, you don’t have to. On the newest computers, you can just “burn”it onto a DVD and watch it on your big-screen TV. 5.And that’s a dagger pointed right at the heart of Hollywood.Chernin: “Where movies make the bulk of their money is on DVD and home videos. 50 percent of the revenues for any movie come out of home video…”Correspondent: “15 percent?”Chernin: “50 percent so that if piracy occurs and it wipes out your home video profits or ultimately your television profits, you are out of business. No movies will get made.”Even if movies did getmade, Night Shyamalan says that wouldn’t be any good, because profits would be negligible, so budgets would shrink dramatically. Shyamalan: “And slowly it will degrade what’s possible in that art form.”Rosso: “Technology always wins. Always. You can’t shut it down.”Wayne Rosso is Hollywood’s enemy. They call him a pirate, but officially he’s the president of Grokster, another peer-to-peer network that works just like Kazaa. Correspondent: “Ok, I have downloaded your software.”Rosso: “Right.”Correspondent: “Ok, did I pay to do that?”Rosso: “No, it’s free.”Correspondent: “So who pays you? How do you make money?”Rosso: “We’re like radio. We are advertising-supported.”Correspondent: “And how many people use Grokster?”Rosso: “Ten million.”Correspondent: “Ten million people have used it.”Rosso: “A month.”Correspondent: “Every month, ten million people?”Rosso: “Uh-huh, uh-huh. And growing.”10Correspondent: “Use it to download music, movies, software, video games, what else?”Rosso: “I will assume. See, we have no way of knowing what people are downloading.”Correspondent: “That’s just a fig leaf. You are facilitating, allowing, helping people steal.”Rosso: “We have no ideawhat the content is, and whatever it is…”Correspondent: “Well, you may not know the specifics, but you know that’s what your site…”Rosso: “And we can’t stop it. We have no control over it.”Correspondent: “But you are there for that purpose, that is why you exist, of course it is.”Rosso: “No, no, no, no, no, no.”Correspondent: “Come on, this is the fig leaf part.”Rosso: “No, no, no, no, no.”Shyamalan:“He is totally conformable with putting on his site a stolen piece of material. Am I wrong in that? If my movie was bootlegged, he’d be totally comfortable putting it on his site?”Correspondent: “Because I have nothing to do with it.”Shyamalan:“Yeah, right.”Correspondent: “Because I just provided the software.”Shyamalan:“Yeah, right. So, immediately, how can you ever have a11conversation with him? Because he’s taken a stolen material and he is totally fine with passing it around in his house. All these, all these are illegal activities. So, I’m not, it’s just my house, I’m not doing anything wrong.”But it is Rosso who has the law on his side. A federal judge has ruled that Grokster and other file-swapping networks are not liable for what their downloaders are doing. Rosso: “So we are completely legal,and unfortunately this is something the entertainment industry refuses to accept. They seem to think the judge’s decision was nothing but a typo.”The studios are appealing that court ruling. And they may follow the music industry and begin to sue individuals who download movies. And they are fighting the pirates in other ways, with ads about people whose jobs are at risk because of the piracy---people like the carpenters and painters who work on film sets. At the same time, Hollywood is trying to keep copies of movies from leaking in the first place. Chernin: “You will very seldom go to an early screening of a movie right now where, probably you don’t notice until you pay attention, someone’s not in the front of that auditorium with infrared binoculars looking for somebody with a camcorder.”12And once a movie is released, or copies do begin to leak, the studios hire people like Randy Saaf to hack the hackers. Saaf: “What we’re just trying to do is make the actual pirated content difficult to find. And the way we do that is by, you know, serving up fake files.”It’s called “spoofing.”Saaf and his employees spend their days on Kazaa and Grokster, offering up thousands of files that look like copies of newmovies, but aren’t. Correspondent: “So if I had clicked on any number of those Finding Nemo offerings, I could have clicked on one of yours, or somebody like you. And what would I have found after my hour and a half of downloading?”Saaf: “it might just be a blank screen or something. You know, typically speaking, what we push out is just not the real content.”Correspondent: “What you are trying to do is make this so impossible, so infuriating that people will just throw up their hands and say it’s just easier for me to go rent this thing, buy the DVD or whatever, it’s just easier.”Saaf: “Right.”Correspondent: “That’s your goal.”Saaf：：“Right.”13Correspondent: “Does that work? Is that a good idea?”Rosso: “No. It doesn’t work. I mean I don’t blame them but it doesn’t work because what happens is that the community cleanses itself of the spoofs.”He means that downloaders quickly spread the word online about how to tell the fake movie files from the real thing. Correspondent: “It’s like an arms race(军备竞赛）, isn’t it?”Chernin: “That’s exactly what it’s like. It’s like an arms race. There will be, you know, they’re gonna get a step ahead. We’re gonna try and get that step back.”Rosso: “But I’ll tell you one thing: I’ll bet on thehackers.”Correspondent: “That they will break whatever…”Rosso: “The studios come up with.”Correspondent: “The companies throw at them.”Hollywood knows that downloading off the Internet is the way millions of consumers want to get their entertainment---and that isn’t going away. Chernin: “The generally accepted estimate is that more that 60 million Americans have downloaded file-sharing software onto their computers.”Correspondent: “60 million.”14Chernin: “At 60 million Americans, that’s a mainstream product. That’s not a bunch of college kids or, you know, a bunch of computer geeks. That’s America.”So, instead of trying to stop it entirely, the studios are looking for ways to embrace it, but get paid too. Wayne Rosso says the best way is to negotiate some kinds of licensing deal with him. Rosso: “If the movie industry acts now and starts exploring alternatives and solutions with guys like me, hopefully they won’t have a problem.”Correspondent: “What if they try to buy you?”Rosso: “I’d sell it in al heartbeat.”Correspondent: “You would sell, Grokster would sell to a movie studio?”Rosso: “Sure, call me.”The idea of making deals with what PeterChernin calls “a bunch of crooks”doesn’t appeal to Hollywood. Instead, Fox and other studios have just launched their own site, Movielink, where consumers can download a film for a modest fee, between three and five dollars. Chernin: “I think you would love the idea that you don’t have to go to the video store. You can do this. And that’s what we’re working15on. But in order for that to be effective, we have to stop privacy, because the most effective business model in the world can’t compete with free.”Not that Peter Chernin is interested, but he won’t have the chance to buy Grokster, at least not from Wayne Rosso. A few days ago, Rosso announced that he is leaving Grokster to take over as president of another file-swapping software company, this one based in Spain. Grokster will continue under new management.Unit 2A 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, astrotourism.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 beforeThe 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 upset 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 explains.By 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?"By Harry RadliffeUnited 3For 300 years, the sea has been closing in on New Orleans. As the coastal erosion continues, it is estimated the city will be off shore in 90 years. Even in good weather, New Orleans is sinking. As the city begins what is likely to be the biggest demolition project in U.S. history, the question is, can we or should we put New Orleans back together again?Life has been returning to high and dry land on Bourbon Street, but to find the monumental challenge facing the city you have to visit neighborhoods you have never heard of. On Lizardi Street, 60 Minutes took a walk with the men in charge of finishing what Katrina started.Correspondent Scott Pelley reports.Before Katrina, "There would be noise and activity and families and people, and children, and, you know, I haven't seen a child in a month here," says Greg Meffert, a city official who, with his colleague Mike Centineo, is trying to figure out how much of the city will have to be demolished.Meffert, who is in charge of city planning, says it is "very possible" up to 50,000 houses will have to be bulldozed. Right now, most of the homes in the city are uninhabitable.Meffert faces a difficult task. Every time he goes to a house site here, he says, "It's one more knife in me that says, 'She did another one. She did another one,'" explains Meffert, "she" meaning Hurricane Katrina.When you walk through these neighborhoods and you see the houses, you get a sense of the pain of the individual families. But you don't get a sense of what has happened to the city of New Orleans itself.It is estimated that there were 200,000 homes in New Orleans, and 120,000 of them were damaged by the flood.The part of the city known as the lower Ninth Ward received some of the heaviest flooding. The houses are splintered block after block after block, almost as if the city had been carpet-bombed in war.Meffert says that before the storm, New Orleans had a population of 470,000-480,000 people. Realistically, he thinks that half of those residents won't be coming back.The possessions of thousands of families, the stuff collected over lifetimes is suddenly garbage, clawed up into mountains in city parks. With so much gone already, should New Orleans pick up right where it was?"We should be thinking about a gradual pullout of New Orleans, and starting to rebuild people's homes, businesses and industry in places that can last more than 80 years," says Tim Kusky, a professor of earth sciences at St. Louis University.Kusky talks about a withdrawal of the city and explains that coastal erosion was thrown into fast forward by Katrina. He says by 2095, the coastline will pass the city and New Orleans will be what he calls a "fish bowl.""Because New Orleans is going to be 15 to 18 feet below sea level, sitting off the coast of North America surrounded by a 50- to 100-foot-tall levee system to protect the city," explains Kusky.He says the city will be completely surrounded by the Gulf of Mexico just 90 years from now.Since this story aired on Nov. 20, there has been considerable discussion about whether New Orleans really is sinking, including on CBS News' blog, Public Eye."That's the projection, because we are losing land on the Mississippi Delta at a rate of 25 to 30 square miles per year. That's two acres per hour that are sinking below sea level," says Kusky.That process could only be slowed, in theory, by massive restoration of wetlands. In the meantime, while Kusky's advice is to head for the hills, some New Orleans residents are hoping to head home.Vera Fulton has lived most of her 81 years on Lizardi Street and returned to her home recently for the first time since being evacuated."When they say 'storm,' I leave. I can't swim and I can't drink it. So what I do, I leave," says Vera, who has lost her home to two hurricanes.Vera is intent on coming back. "I don't have no other home, where I'm going?"Three generations of Fultons, Vera's son Irvin Jr., his wife Gay and their son Irvin, 3rd, live around Lizardi Street.Irvin says his house is "just flat" and he didn't have insurance.That's the dilemma. The only thing they have left is land prone to disaster. They want to rebuild, and the city plans to let them.At Vera's house, Mike Centenio, the city's top building official, told 60 Minutes homes can go up as long as they meet what is called the "100-year flood level."The federal government had set a flood-level, but didn't figure on a levee failure that would flood parts of the city.The official level is several feet off the ground. If people meet the requirement, they can rebuild their homes, despite the fact that we saw, for example, a refrigerator lifted to the top of a carport by the floodwaters.。

视听说2听力原文及答案

Unit1II. Listening Skills1. M: Why don’t we go to the concert today?W: I’ll go get the keys.Q: What does the woman imply?2. W: I can’t find my purse anywhere. The opera tickets are in it.M: Have you checked in the car?Q: What does the man imply?3. M: Are you going to buy that pirated CD?W: Do I look like a thief?Q: What does the woman imply?4. M: Do you think the singer is pretty?W: Let’s just say that I wouldn’t/t vote for her in the local beauty contest.Q: What does the woman imply about the singer?5. M: Have you seen Tom? I can’t find him anywhere.W: The light in his dorm was on just a few minutes ago.Q: What does the woman mean?1.B2.B3.D4.C5.AIII. Listening InTask 1: Encore!As soon as the singer completed the song, the audience cried, “Encore! Encore!” The singer was delighted and sang the song again. She couldn’t believe it when the audience shouted for her to sing it again. The cycle of shouts and songs was repeated ten more times. The singer was overjoyed with the response from the audience. She talked them and asked them why they were so much audience in hearing the same song again and again. One of the people in the audience replied, “We wanted you to improve it; now it is much better.”1.F2.T3.F4.T5.FTask 2: The CarpentersW: They play “Yesterday Once More” all the time on the campus radio. Do you like it?M: I do. I never get tired of it. I like the Carpenters. Their voices are so beautiful and clear. I guess that’s why they’re so popular.W: I like the way their voices blend. There were just two of them, brother and sister, right?M: Yes, Richard and Karen I think they were. She died I think.W: Yes, anorexia. It is hard to believe that someone so beautiful would starve herself to death.M: It’s a problem everywhere in the world, including China, I’m afraid. Women worry too much about their appearances, and are so crazy about losing weight.W: Well, let’s go for lunch before we go to the concert.1. beautiful and clear2. blend well3. sister4. worry too much5. more importantTask 3: MozartMozart was a fascinating musician and composer whose fame continues to grow more than two centuries after his death. He was born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756. Before the age of four, he had shown great musical talent. His father then decided to let him start taking harpsichord lessons. The boy’s reputation as a musical talent grew fast. At five,he was composing music. Form that time on, Mozart was performing n concerts and writing music. By his early teens, he had mastered the piano, violin and harpsichord, and was writing symphonies and operas.His first major opera was performed in Milan in 1770, when he was only fourteen. At fifteen, Mozart became the conductor for an orchestra in Salzburg. In 1781, he left for Vienna, where he was in great demand as both a performer and a composition teacher. His first opera was a success. But life was not easy because he was a poor businessman, andhis finances were always in a bad state. His music from the next decade was not very popular, and he eventually fell back on his teaching jobsfor a living. In 1788 he stopped performing in public, preferring onlyto compose. He died in 1791 at the age of thirty-five. Although he lived only a short life, he composed over 600 works.1. Which of the following is true of Mozart? D2. How long has Mozart’s fame lasted? A3. Which of the following is true of the four-year-old Mozart? B4. What could Mozart do at the age of six? C5. Which of the following is not mentioned as one of Mozart’s accomplishments while he was in his earlyteens? CIV. Speaking OutModel 1 Do you like jazz?Laura: Hey!Bob: Hello!Laura: Do you like jazz, Bob?Bob: No, not much. Do you like it?Laura: Well, yes, I do. I’m crazy about Wynton Marsalis.Bob: Oh, he’s a piano player, isn’t he?Laura: No, he’s a trumpet player. So, what kind of music do you like?Bob: I like listening to rock.Laura: What group do you like best?Bob: E r, The Cranberries. They’re the greatest. What about you? Don’t you like them?Laura: Ugh! They make my stomach turn!SAMPLE DIALOGA: Do you like classical music?B: No, I don’t like it at all.A: What type of music do you like?B: I’m a real fan of pop songs.A: Who’s your favorite singer or group?B: Jay Chou. What do you think about him?A: I can hardly bear pop songs. They are all noise to me.Model 2 Do you like punk rock?Max: What kind of music do you like?Frannie: Well, I like different kinds.Max: Any in particular?Frannie: Er, I especially like punk rock.Max: Punk rock? You don’t seem like the punk rock type.Frannie: You should have seen me in high school. I had my hair dyed blue.Max: Wow, that must have been a sight!Fra nnie: It sure was. What about you? What’s your favorite music?Max: I guess I like jazz best. Hey, I’m going shopping for CDs tomorrow. Would you like to come along?Frannie: Sure, that sounds great.。

高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本(2020年九月整理).doc

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 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 your figures 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 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 in the 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 alltogether 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 80.4 years whereas for men it is only 74.5 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 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 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 ofimmigration 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 era of 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 ofimmigrants 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 UnitedStates. 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 to 74.5 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 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 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 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 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 improved greatly.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 Europeanworkers 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 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 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 surprisingto 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-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. 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 andself-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 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. 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。

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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 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"。

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