发布时间 : 星期四 文章新标准大学英语-视听说教程第一册Listening-in听力原文更新完毕开始阅读
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Unit 1 Starting out Listening in Passage 1
Interviewer Can you tell me something about the Ivy League? You're a professor at Harvard, is that right? Professor That's right, yes.
Interviewer Tell me how many universities are there? How many institutions?
Professor In total there are eight institutions: There's Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton,
and the University of Pennsylvania.
Interviewer Ah, OK. And what's the sporting ... I believe there's some link with sports.
Professor There certainly is, yes. Originally the Ivy League referred to the sports teams from the universities which
competed against each other, especially in football, basketball and ice hockey. Now sometimes these universities, institutions, chose their students on the basis of their skills at these particular sports. But in the last 50 years, Ivy League schools have accepted a wider range of students because it wasn't possible to be both world-famous for research and also top class in sport.
Interviewer And what about their academic importance? I gather they're academically very, very important, they're very
well-known.
Professor Absolutely at the top. They're near or at the top of the USA colleges and university rankings. And they're
almost always in the top one per cent of the world's academic institutions for financial resources. Interviewer And what does it mean socially to go to an Ivy League university?
Professor Certainly if you've been to one of these institutions, you are presumed or assumed to be at the top end of
the scale. The Ivy League institutions have a reputation for social elitism, many of the students are rich, intellectual, white Anglo-Saxon, protestants. Not all of them of course, but quite a lot of them. Interviewer And do you know ... why's it called the Ivy League, what's the origin of the name?
Professor There are a number of stories, derivations, but possibly it's based on four universities, and IV, the letters IV,
that's the Roman numeral for four. Another more likely story is that ivy plants, which are symbolic of the age of the universities, you know, would be grown at the walls of these universities, these institutions, they cover the walls of the buildings. The term was created by a sports journalist, I think in the 1930s. Interviewer Right, OK. And which is the oldest university?
Professor The oldest goes back to the 17th century, that's Harvard which was founded in 1636. And the youngest of
the institutions is Cornell which was founded in 1865. Interviewer And which has the largest number of undergraduates?
Professor Cornell has the largest number, about 13,000, 13,500 undergraduates. The institution with the smallest
number is Dartmouth College with a little over 4,000.
Interviewer And what about the acceptance rate? Is it hard to get into? Professor That ranges from about seven per cent to 20 per cent. Interviewer And any famous alumni? Famous old boys?
Professor Hundreds! Hundreds of them. But I suppose worldwide, the two that would be definitely known all over the
world would certainly be George Bush who went to Yale, and John F Kennedy, President Kennedy, who was at Harvard.
Interviewer Thank you. Passage2
Andy Did you see the film on television last night? Jane No, I was out. What was it?
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Andy A Beautiful Mind. It's about John Forbes Nash, the mathematician who won the Nobel Prize. Jane I've heard about that film, yes. He's played by Russell Crowe, isn't he? I like Russell Crowe, he's great. Andy That's the one, yes. Jane What's it about?
Andy Well, the story begins in the early years of Nash's life at Princeton University as a graduate student. Jane That's one of the Ivy League schools, isn't it?
Andy Yes, it's all set in New England, lovely old buildings, beautiful autumn colours. It's lovely to look at. Anyway,
Nash meets his roommate Charles, a literature student, who soon becomes his best friend. Nash admits to Charles that he is better with numbers than people, and the main thing he's looking for is a truly original idea for his thesis paper.
Jane So he's not interested in having fun?
Andy Well, yes, but he's not very good with people or successful with women, that's all. But, you know, it's one of
these bad experiences with people which ultimately inspires his brilliant work in mathematics. Jane No good at relationships, so he becomes a genius at maths?
Andy That's about right, yes. So when he finishes his studies at Princeton, he accepts a job at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology. Five years later, he meets Alicia, a student who he falls in love with and eventually marries. Jane Ah! At last, the love interest!
Andy Yes, but wait a moment. Nash believes that he's been asked to work by William Parcher for the US Department
of Defense on breaking Soviet codes. At one point he's chased by the Russians, and it's after this that he becomes mentally ill.
Jane I think I've seen this in the trailer to the film.
Andy So when he's put in a psychiatric hospital, he thinks the Soviets have captured him. He's given this painful
treatment which affects his relationship with his wife. And his intellectual skills. So he stops taking the medicine. Jane It sounds quite hard to watch.
Andy Well, it is, but it's well acted and directed, and so, you know, there's a-bit of distance between the audience and
what's happening on film. Jane So what happens next?
Andy Well, then his illness returns, so he and his wife decide to try and live with it. It all gets a bit complicated, because
we're no longer sure if Charles, you know, his old friend, or even Parcher were real, or if they were just people that existed only in Nash's mind.
Jane That sounds awful. He must have been so ill,
Andy Actually, I'm kind of giving away the twist in the story. Anyway, later in his life, while he's using the library at
Princeton again, he asks his rival Martin Hansen if he can start teaching again. And so the story ends when he goes on to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. Jane Well, it sounds like a great film. Andy Yes, you should see it sometime.
Unit 3 Learning to think Listening in Passage 1
Interviewer With us today is Martin Downes, a carpenter, who's 51. A year ago, Martin had a stroke. But he's been
lucky enough to make a full recovery from it. Can you tell us how it all began, Martin?
Martin I'm very happy to - not that I remember much at all. I was at a customer's house, building a cupboard, and the
next thing I knew, I woke up in hospital with people in white coats bending over me.
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Interviewer It must have been very frightening.
Martin It was. But what was really frightening was that I couldn't speak. I couldn't say a word. And I couldn't
understand much that people said to me. Interviewer How awful!
Martin Yeah! I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't had my family. But they were there for me,
they really were. I had something called aphasia, where the part of your brain gets damaged that affects your speech and language. But they started treatment for the condition almost immediately. This speech and language therapist came to see me every day for 12 weeks. They made me do all these exercises. Interviewer What kind of exercises?
Martin I had to match words and pictures and say their names. You see, I'd also forgotten the names of a lot of things.
She had this thing called a word board and I could point to words and phrases on it that I wanted to say. I had to repeat words up to 20 times - boy, it was hard, so hard. Interviewer Could you say anything to begin with?
Martin I could say three words. \\and \That was all. And there were a lot of words I couldn't
understand -1 had to learn their meanings all over again. Interviewer It must have been very frustrating.
Martin It was, but I was determined to get better. I was in hospital for three and a half months. When I got home I got
a special computer programme that I worked with every day. And slowly my language came back to me. It was a struggle, a big struggle. I had to learn to read and write again too.
Interviewer Why do you think that you were able to recover completely? It's not that common, is it?
Martin I was lucky. I was given the right drug at the right time. And I had 12 weeks of therapy, five days a week. That's
very important, apparently.
Interviewer And now that you're better how do you feel about your life? Martin What can I say? I'm just grateful to have my life back. Passage 2
Interviewer In 1907 an Italian educator called Maria Montessori opened a school in Rome that taught young children
using methods that were very different from traditional teaching. Today, the Montessori method, as it's known, is used in nursery schools in countries such as America, Canada, Britain and Germany. Recent research shows that children educated at a Montessori nursery do better later on at school than other children in all subjects. We asked two Montessori teachers, Claudia Rosella and Sarah Harrington, to explain what makes their nursery school different. Sarah...
Sarah I think the first thing to say is that a Montessori classroom is very quiet, very clean. Everything stays in the same
place. So the children are calm and quiet as a result. Interviewer So they're not encouraged to be noisy. Sarah No, definitely not... Interviewer Claudia?
Claudia Yes, the classroom's very important. Another important principle is that children direct their own learning.
They choose what they want to do.
Interviewer So the teacher doesn't tell the child what to do?
Sarah Not at all. While a child is doing an activity we observe them. Then we work with the child for a short time and
then leave them to work on their own.
Interviewer That sounds excellent. And what about your equipment? It's often made of wood, isn't it? Sarah Yes, and a piece of equipment is often designed for one activity only.
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Claudia Right. It's so that the child can see if they're getting something right or wrong. Interviewer So they don't need the teacher so much\
Sarah That's right. Another Montessori principle is the importance of physical activity. Children learn by doing, so
when they're learning to read, for example, the letters are made of sandpaper so that children can feel the shape of the letter.
Interviewer Do you think there are disadvantages with Montessori methods?
Claudia Yes, there are. Maria Montessori didn't understand how important it is for children to use their imagination. If
she was alive today, she would recognize that. But still, the fact is, her methods are very successful.
Unit 4 Person to person Listening in Passage 1
John Are you packed? Mike Yup. Everything's there. John Sure you've packed your mobile? Mike I'll look again, John ... yes.
John Well, we've got another ten minutes before we need to leave, so we might as well relax. You know someone told
me an amazing story yesterday about these Australians who got completely lost in some national park. Mike And don't tell me, they used their mobile to get help? John That's right! Mike So what happened?
John Well, it was this guy with his son and niece -I think she was about 14 - and they were hiking in this really rugged
country and they got completely lost - no idea where they were at all. Mike That's not going to happen to us.
John No, it isn't. Anyway, the guy had his mobile and he phoned the emergency services — it wasn't dark yet - and
they sent out a search party, but they couldn't find them. And then -this is the interesting bit - the guy sent photos of the place where they were. Mike I'd have thought of that.
John Yes, well it's pretty obvious, really. And in the photos there were mountains in the background, and the staff at
the emergency service centre were able to identify exactly which mountains they were. And they used the photos to pinpoint their location, you know, to get the exact location. Mike How did they do that? John They used mapping software. Mike Right.
John Anyway, by then it had got dark and really freezing. So they slept behind this ridge and covered themselves with
leaves. And you know what the young girl said afterwards? She said, \ Mike Really, wasn't she frightened? John I don't think so.
Mike So - is there a happy ending?
John Yes, well they sent out helicopters as soon as it was daylight and the helicopter hovered over the area, and the
man kept talking to them till they were able to pinpoint his location. And when they finally found them they were only 400 metres away from where they'd expected them to be. Mike Amazing!
John And that's because they'd moved 400 metres away from where they'd taken their photos because the ground was
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