TPO47听力文本

TPO 47 听力文本
Conversation 1
Listen to a conversation between a student and a music director.
Stu: Ms. Harper?
Dir: Yes, can I help you?
Stu: Hi, my name is Eric Paterson, I’m a journalism student, Er, I want to ask you about the orchestra.
Dir: I’m sorry, Eric. But the orchestra is only open to music majors.
Stu: Really? Well, see…
Dir: But the policy’s changing next year. After that, if you’ve taken three music courses, you will be able to audition. Stu: Well, e…, I have taken some music courses and I do play the double bass, so maybe that’s something to think about. But, actually, I was here about something else.
Dir: Oh, sorry, it’s just I... I get that question all the time, so…
Stu: That’s Ok. The thing is, I work for Magna, the school paper, and I’m reporting on last week’s concert. Now I went to it and I really enjoyed it. But now I’m looking for some background knowledge.
Dir: Well, I can refer you to some of the students in the orchestra if you’d like a young musician’s point of view. Stu: Er, I guess that might be helpful, but I’m really looking for a little bit of scholarly perspective, some history of the music that was performed that evening, where it was originated, how it’s developed over time.
Dir: Well, some of our musician’s kind of specialize in Appalachian music. In fact, that’s part of the reason we performed it. So you really should talk to them, too. Er… OK, so we were playing Appalachian music from communities in the Appalachian mountain regions of the United States.
Stu: All right.
Dir: Er…, Do you really think you can keep these all in your head?
Stu: Oh, don’t worry. All I need are a few key facts. I’m sure I can keep them straight until I get back to my dorm. Dir: So the music is generally based on folk ballets and instrumental dance tunes. Er, It starts with Scottish and Irish immigrants who brought over their styles of music. It’s called Anglo-Celtic.
Stu: So, people brought their musical traditions with them.
Dir: Well, this Anglo-Celtic music was considered an important link to the past for these people, which you can see in the way that Appalachian singers sing ballets. They have a sort of nasal quality to them, like in Celtic ballets. In their new land, some of the lyrics were updated. You know, to refer to the new locations, and the occupations the settlers had in America, but at the same time, lots of ballets were still about the castles and royalty, lords and ladies, stuff like that, which is what they were about originally.
Stu: Ok, and was that some sort of banjo I saw on stage during the performance?
Dir: Yes, we are lucky that one of our students Steward Telford has a 19 century banjo, a real antique. He is able to play it in most of the traditional styles. Did you know that banjos are of African-American origin and that settlers in Appalachian adopted banjos for their folk music? They became very common in traditional Appalachian music, along with guitars and violins of course. But if you want to learn about that banjo, talk to Steward.
Stu: That’s great, Ms. Harper. Thanks a lot. Now, can you recommend any sources where I could look up more about this?
Dir: Sure, I have a great book. A student has it today, but you can borrow it tomorrow if you’d like.
Conversation 2
Listen to a conversation between a student and his professor.
Pro: This is not what I had in mind when I assigned a film review.
Stu: It isn’t?
Pro: No. What you wrote is a synopsis, detailed summary of the movie but it’s not a review.
Stu: It’s not? I guess I’m a little confused cause isn’t what a film review does, you know, to describe the film? Pro: Sure, in part. But a good review has to do more. But this is probably not your fault. I’m starting to think that I should’ve explained the assignment better because, well, I got a lot of summaries and very few reviews.
Stu: So, it wasn’t only me?
Pro: Hardly. I just assumed that everyone would know what to do.
Stu: So, er, what else is a review supposed to do?
Pro: Well it should also analyze the film, discuss its strengths and weaknesses, maybe compare to other movies, even mention why the reviewer did or didn’t like it.
Stu: You mean it should have been more personal?
Pro: For starters, or maybe subjective is a better word than personal. Yes, it should have been more subjective. Stu: Maybe I could rewrite it?
Pro: Well, I don’t know about rewriting it. Too many people seem to have missed the point. I think I may have to forgo evaluating this one. Instead, maybe we’ll just devote a class to discussing what it takes to write a good film review or maybe, hum, you know, I have a colleague who writes film reviews for the local paper. Maybe I could ask her to come to class and describe what she does and then have everyone rewrite their reviews.
Stu: So, she will talk about what a film review should be like so we’d know what to do.
Pro: Well, more than that. A professional film reviewer gets to see movie sometimes before they’re even released. They get advanced copies, usually a video or DVD to watch at home or they go a movie as soon as it opens in the theatres.
Stu: Em…, seeing it on a big screen in a theatre. Doesn’t that affect the experience?
Pro: Of course. Having other people there can affect their review too. So, for the next assignment, I might ask everyone to review one of the films the film club shows every weekend at the theatre on campus. There is no admission charge. They are free to students, and the movies are shown on Friday and Saturday nights, plus Sunday afternoon, so everyone should be able to see one. Yeah, that should work.
Stu: But for this time, will we have to rewrite our reviews?
Pro: Well, let’s take it one thing at a time. Let me talk to my colleague.
Lecture 1
Listen to part of a lecture in a literature class.
So, um, in France, you have the French Academy, which was created to uphold the standards of literary taste. Was it a very conservative organization? It tried to keep things a certain way, resist change. It dictated that French play should be neoclassic in form, you know, have 5 acts, sophisticated language, etc. But try as it might, it couldn’t stop change. French drama was changing. Though the transition from neoclassical drama to romantic drama was itself pretty, er, dramatic.
Let’s look at a play by Victor Hugo, called Hernani, or the French would say Hernané. Although Hugo was a truly brilliant writer of, er, essays, poems, novels, and plays. Er, his play Hernani isn’t a great play in a novel of itself. It’s got a really confusing, convoluted storyline. Critics back then were unimpressed by it, though it’s likely that their own feelings about how play should be, neoclassical or romantic, affected their opinions about it. But it’s premier in Paris in 1830 was anything but ordinary. Hernani s opening night was probably one of the most important literary events in nineteen century France. What happened was, ok, Hugo was a romanticist, right? He was part of a growing movement of er…, young authors and artists, who were rebelling against neoclassicism, against the conventions of neoclassicism. And, and what this meant is that Hugo opposed the neoclassical unities, that French
theatre had inherited from Greek drama. These unities were basically the unity of time, space and action, meaning that the entire play consisted of just one main event that was unfolding in just one specific place, usually in the course of one day. And Hugo found this to be too constraining. He looked for inspiration in, well, ok. Hugo is from the nineteen century, but he looked to Shakespeare, several centuries in the past, long before neoclassicism. For example, in Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the play moves from indoors to outdoors, from the city to the forest, and back again. So there was a kind of mobility in the use of space, and well, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of course the action in that play takes place on a single summer’s night. But in Shakespeare’s other plays, in Hamlet, for example, time elapses, people travel, they go to other destinations, and the action is not limited to one plot.
Hugo also opposed the neoclassical insistence on the separation of genres. For neoclassicists, a play could only be dramatic and high art, or comic, the light-hearted, and in neither case, there was still a sense of decorum, characters might make jokes, and get into silly situations, but there are still regular people, like not in disguise or anything. There is still a certain amount of restraint in a neoclassical comedy. Again, earlier works by Shakespeare provided very different models that Hugo found more appealing. Many of Shakespeare’s plays, even the tragedies, contain scenes with ridiculous outlandish characters, like clowns. So that many of the plays have both qualities, a serious dramatic side, and comedic scenes, with the clowns that break the drama.
And Hugo, like other Romantics, was also opposed to the artistic rules that neoclassicists had inherited from enlightenment. The Romantics wanted a more passionate kind of theatre, and it was more rooted in the individual and the individual sensibility.
Romanticism was political as well, claiming that individuals, people, could govern themselves, without the need for kings and queens. There was an ideological struggle between a lot of young people, artists, people who want to change and people who didn’t. So of course Romanticism was controversial. Now, Hernani was a play that incorporated these romantic conventions. Hugo suspected that neoclassical audiences would be hostile to this new form and the ideas that it represented. So, to protect himself, he rounded up his friends for opening night and hundreds of them came to the theatre that night. And Hugo writes about this arrival of the Romantics, these wild and bizarre characters and their outlandish costumes, which stupefied and infuriated the more conventional theatre goers. So the play that night took forever to finish because it was interrupted many times. And there were these debates in the audience, between Hugo’s friends and supporters, the Romantics, and the neoclassicists, the supporters of the old school, lots of interruptions. And afterward, what had been a debate inside the theater spilt out onto the street there and were fistfights. It was a complete free-for-all. And this went on for the next forty five nights. Every night that the play was performed, there was this excitement and controversy that was really an expression the kinds of passions that differences of statics and political opinions and tastes could give rise to.
Lecture 2
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.
Pro: Now usually when we talk about birds flying long distances, we are discussing seasonal migration, but there are some species that fly long distances not as part of a migration, but as part of their regular foraging for food. A great example is the albatross. Albatross are seabirds that nest on islands, and, er, forage for food out in the open sea. And, you have one species that forages in an average of a thousand miles from its nest. And I read in another study where one albatross left a chick in its nest and went out and search of food, and by the time it got back to the nest, it had flown nine thousand miles. Yes, Bob.
Bob: er, but why don’t they just build their nest close to the food supply? I mean, for one thing, they must burn up
a lot of energy flying back and forth, and also the parents are gonna to have to be away from the nest that much. Aren’t the chicks gonna be pretty hungry most of the time?
Pro: Ok. Good question. The chicks are capable of going for long periods of time without food, which works out nicely since as you point out, they may not get to eat that often. As far as the parents go, well, um, first, they typically can’t get enough food in a single location, so they have to visit several places on the same foraging trip. And the locations of good foraging grounds tend to be very far apart. As second, they can’t always nest on an island that is closest to the best feeding ground because some of those islands have too many predators on them. Predators that would just love some little chicks to snack on. So I don’t think they have much choice, but it still works out because albatross fly using a technique called dynamic soaring, which enables them to cover very long distances while expending very little energy. If it weren’t for that, you would be right. They would probably burn up all their energy just flying back and forth. Another factor is albatross lay only one egg at a time. So when the parent returns with the food, that one chick doesn’t have to share it with a lot of other chicks. Yes, Nancy.
Nancy: So you are saying that they might easily fly a thousand miles over the open ocean when they are looking for food?
Pro: That’s right.
Nancy: Then how do they know how to get to the food? I mean, which direction to take to get to the food, and how do they find their way back home?
Pro: Good point. And the truth is we’re not sure. It’s very difficult to keep seabirds in captivity where you can study them. And it’s very difficult to study them in the wild, you know. But we think that a lot of what we’ve learned about songbirds probably applies to seabirds as well. So we are thinking that albatross could make use of two different kinds of compasses, if you… well, magnetic compass and celestial compass. The magnetic compass somehow makes use of earth’s magnetic field, much the way a standard compass does. But to prove this, we would have to find some kind of magnetic accessory organ in birds. And we are not sure that we have. We have found in birds a mineral, called magnetite, which we think might be somehow related to this, because magnetite is a natural magnet. But the problem is that we’ve also found magnetite in non-migratory birds, which suggests that it may in fact serve a completely different function, not related to navigation at all. Um, and the other compass, the celestial compass, makes use of the stars, more or less the same way humans have starkly used the stars to navigate in the open sea. So that’s the way we think albatross navigate. So anyway, you know, think about it, how about if you had to go a thousand miles every time you wanted to get a bite to eat.
Stu: Yeah, and we complained about having to walk all the way across campus to get to the cafeteria.
Pro: Yeah.
Lecture 3
Listen to part of a lecture in a sports management class.
Pro: So, I want to end today with a topic that many of you’ve questioned about when you’ve come to see me during my office hours. A lot of you have told me you are specifically interested in careers as coaches. Now, it doesn’t matter what’s sports you’re interested in coaching, volleyball, basketball, swimming. There are some considerations for all new coaches to think about as they plan their careers. A recent study, a survey of high school head coaches helped identify some obstacles, some things that head coaches felt they were not prepared for as they began their
careers. They were surveyed to determine what things they would do differently if they were starting their careers over again. Based on their responses, several things emerged. The largest number of responses was in the area of relationships. 79% of the coaches indicated that if they had to do it over again, they would do things differently in this area. They said they dealt differently with assistant coaches, parents, student athletes, school administration, and pay more attention to those relationships.
The second most critical area for these coaches was organization and administration. To them, this means things like better managing their budgets, and delegating responsibilities, making sure that even minor things were taken care of, like pregame meals, those sorts of things.
Kenny: Excuse me, professor? I know good nutrition is important, but organizing pregame meals, isn’t really something you consider when you thinking about going at the coaching as a career.
Pro: No, I guess not, Kenny. But it’s more an example of paying attention to the details, being organized. I do want to emphasize that the profession of coaching is about more than just wins and losses. In fact, wining is probably stressed too much, at its best, I’d say coaching, especially in high school and college is about teaching life skills through game strategy. Of course, coaching requires a specialized body of knowledge. If you coach tennis you need to know the rules of tennis. If you are a football coach, you need to know all about football strategies. And those are the sorts of things that you will get in your classes here at the university. But if coaches spend too much of your time on game strategy, well, you see, maybe that’s secondary, too, to the knowledge and skills you’ll need for the other roles you undertake as a coach, especially, as that survey emphasized, skills in dealing with people and administration.
Kenny: But, how do you, how do you improve in those areas. I mean, I’m going be an assisting coach at a high school, beginning next month, and …
Female Stu: Really? Nice going, Kenny.
Pro: Yes, that’s wonderful.
Kenny: Thanks. I’m excited.
Pro: So, congratulations. Ok, well, to get better organized, one thing is take courses in business management, and not just the sports management courses in the physical education department, other business in finance courses. Oh, but wait a minute, you said you were starting next month? What sport will you be coaching?
Kenny: Er, gymnastics, mainly.
Pro: Ok, in my career, I’ve learned, well, as part of building and maintaining strong relationships in working on administrative skills, you’ve got to consider the other needs of your team, beyond the sport itself. Remember, the team members are athletes, and students. Er, and remember that if you’re enthusiastic about what you are doing, well, enthusiasm is its catching, right? You want team members to enjoy participating.
Kenny: Right, but what about setting rules for your team? And is it better to be strict or not so strict?
Pro: Actually, I don’t believe in having a lot of rules and coaches often do have too many. I think that can get in the way of leadership and box you in. I think people sometimes set rules just to make things easier for themselves. That way, maybe later, they just can refer to the rule and avoid making a choice. You know that kind of person I’m talking
about, right? But, that’s not to say the team shouldn’t have any rules at all. Of course they need some, so early in the season, or when you first take a new job, establish a few basic ground rules, for what is acceptable and non-acceptable behavior.
Female Stu: So, what are some good ones?
Pro: Well, er, a couple of rules a coach should have are insist that players be on time, and insist that they practice hard and give their best effort. And when you do establish a rule, stick to it.
Lecture 4
Listen to part of a lecture in a meteorology class.
Pro: Now, earth’s atmosphere is, sort of like a giant weather machine, right? It has air, and water being its key components, a machine powered by energy from the sun. So, we need to consider the role that air, or more specifically, wind plays in this machine. So wind is really nothing more than moving air, right? Now the air is heated and becomes warmer, it expands and becomes less dense. When air in a particular area is heated, you get a concentration of warm air in an area of low pressure. Now likewise, when you get a concentration of cold air, that air can be very dense, so it’s going to create an area of high pressure. If you have an area of high pressure, next to an area of low pressure, the colder high pressure air was staring moving towards the area of low pressure, right? And the warmer air will move away, rising above the cooler air, ok? Yes, Linda.
Linda: So wind is actually generated by the sun?
Pro: Well, earth rotation plays a role, and there are other factors, we’ll come back to all that. But principally, yes, the sun creates the temperature differential that creates the areas of high pressure and low pressure that create wind. Linda: Er, I don’t get what, how it causes a temperature differential?
Pro: Right, good, this will take us to the role of wind in the climate. The key is that the sun warms up different parts of earth at different rates and to different degrees. For example, at sunrise, the land heats up faster than the ocean. That’s why you get morning sea breezes, the air over the water heats more slowly than air of land. So during the early morning, it’s cooler and denser than air over land. So it moves in toward land, a sea breeze. Er, what else? Um, the sun’s energy is more intense near the equator than it is near the poles. So you’ve got masses of warmer air over the equatorial regions and masses of cooler air over polar regions. And these masses are constantly interacting with each other, which is critically important for earth’s climate.
One result of these interactions is that equatorial air masses move away from the equator, and in the process, those equatorial winds actually take heat away from the equator and transfer it to some cooler part of earth. And by redistributing this energy, the sun’s energy really, winds play a critical role in maintaining a temperature balance from the poles to the equator. Now, winds also help earth maintain its balance in another way by transporting water from one part of earth to another. Waters contained in the air in the form of vapor, mostly through evaporation, mostly from the oceans. And so when the air moves, it carries the vapor with it to some other parts of earth, where can deposit it as rain or snow or some other form of precipitation.
Actually, the transfer of heat and water by wave of wind are very closely related because a primary wave that heat energy is transferred by the wind is mediated by the process of evaporation. What happens is that a certain amount
of heat energy is required to convert liquid water into vapor. So when water evaporates from the ocean, it takes energy to convert that water into a gas form, into water vapor. But that heat energy, that conversion energy, doesn’t raise the temperature of the water vapor, or of the air. It’s just stored in the water vapor, then later when the water vapor converts back to liquid water, that energy is released.
So, when water evaporates, energy is taken from the ocean and it’s stored in the water vapor in the air. Then the air, the wind, transports the water vapor to some other part of earth. Then the water vapor converts back into liquid water. It rains in other words. And the heat energy that was stored in the water vapor is released into the new environment, ok? So, the transfer of heat and the transfer of water are very closely related. And what’s the primary vehicle for this transfer? The wind. So wind is a critical element in the redistribution of both the sun’s energy and earth’s water.。