听力.docx

1、听力1）。Oscar-winner Hilary Swank stars in a new drama based on the remarkable true story of a woman who spent almost two decades in a quest to prove her brother innocent of the crime for which he has been sent to prison. Heres a look at Conviction.A rough character from a working class New England nei

2、ghborhood, Kenny Waters was no model citizen; but he was no murderer either .or so he claimed .and his sister Betty Anne believed him:You are innocent.Are you sure about that?She was sure and she also reminded Kenny of the promise she made when they were kids being sent to separate foster homes: she

3、 would never abandon him. So when he was convicted in 1983 and sent to prison for murder, Betty Anne, a single mom and high school dropout, set out an ambitious some would say impossible plan.It took 18 years, but Betty Anne did become an attorney, challenged the evidence against Kenny and finally,

4、in 2001, won a reversal of his conviction to free her brother from prison.Its challenging, especially when the person you are playing is still alive; you want to do justice to their story, especially when its a story as magnificent as Betty Annes is, explained Hilary Swank, who stars as Betty Anne W

5、aters. In the beginning I didnt know if I wanted to meet her right away. I knew eventually I wanted to, but I didnt want to just be parodying somebody. I wanted to understand her heart and understand where her passion and drive and unconditional love for her brother came from. So I listened to tons

6、of stories that she had shared.Swank is no stranger to characters drawn from real life. She recently portrayed aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and Swank won the first of her two Best Actress Oscars as murder victim Brandon Teena in 1999s Boys Dont Cry. Swank, also executive producer of Conviction sa

7、ys she is drawn to heroic characters, but she knows she is just playing the part:It is really hard to compare my life to Betty Annes, she added. Im someone who plays heroes like Betty Anne in the movies and its a blessing for me to be able to live my dream while portraying such remarkable people; bu

8、t in the end thats all I am. Im just an actor. My passion lies in playing characters like Betty Anne, so the Academy Award has given me the opportunity, certainly, to continue to explore areas of the human spirit and life that inspire me.Director Tony Goldwyn was also inspired when he first heard th

9、e true story in 2001. Goldwyn then worked for more than eight years to put Conviction on film. It is not a documentary, he points out, but Goldwyn was determined that audiences get an understanding of what did really happen and of what Betty Anne Waters really did achieve.My deep hope is that people

10、 will experience this movie and think about what am I willing to do for the people that I care about most in my life, that Im most connected to, that depend on me and on whom I depend, Goldwyn said. What made me want to make this and to tell this story, beyond the extraordinariness of Betty Annes ac

11、hievement, was what I imagined was the bond between these two people and the extraordinary love that they shared her faith in him and his in her.I think the thing we all crave in our lives is that kind of human connection, so if people come away from the movie thinking about the person next to them

12、who might be their sister or brother or spouse or father .what would I do for this person? I think thats an important question for us all to answer.Betty Anne Waters says she is pleased with how the film portrays the events that became the sole focus of her adult life work that she continues, fighti

13、ng for the rights of prison inmates and to win freedom for those, like her brother, who were wrongfully convicted. But she is also reluctant to accept the label hero.I just did what I did one day at a time, Waters explained. I never knew how long it was going to take or what turn it would take, so I

14、 dont feel like I sacrificed as much as other people think I have.What if the DNA matches Kennys?Get out. Get the hell out of my house right now!No. Youve got to hear this. Even if youre the most amazing fighter, the most brilliant lawyer in the world, there are forces greater than you and you may n

15、ot win.You think I havent thought of that?No, you havent.Minnie Driver plays Betty Annes law school classmate and closest friend through the whole ordeal. Conviction also features Sam Rockwell as her brother Kenny. Melissa Leo plays the local police officer whose investigation puts Kenny behind bars

16、. The screenplay is written by Pamela Gray.parody: to copy the style of somebody/something in an exaggerated way, especially in order to make people laugh（滑稽地模仿；夸张地演义）2）。The US government is conducting its census this year. The count takes place every 10 years to determine how many seats each state

17、will have in the House of Representatives. But in 72 years, when the 2010 census becomes public, its very likely that average Americans will use the information to search for their family roots.A popular hobbyFor two days in April, more than 2,000 people came to the National Archives for the Sixth A

18、nnual Genealogy Fair, a free event with dozens of experts offering advice to Americans researching their family history.We get more people every year, says Constance Potter. An archivist who specializes in documents of interest to genealogists, Potter says the first genealogy fair attracted about 50

19、0 people. Last year, there were 1,500.It was the fifth genealogy fair for Shirley Jones. You want to know where you came from, who (were) your parents, who your forefathers were. I wanted to know where I came from.Lisa Roy says having children got her interested in genealogy. When they were born, es

20、pecially my oldest, I thought I really want my kids to understand their heritage. I knew some of it, but it has been interesting to do the background on it.TV launches a crazeMany Americans began to search for their ancestors after seeing the 1977 TV program Roots, which dramatized author Alex Haley

21、s family history, from Africa, through slavery in America, to freedom.That was the first thing that created roots mania in America. Now were experiencing a whole new wave, a fresh influx. Professional genealogist Megan Smolenyak is an advisor on two new television series reflecting the renewed inter

22、est in genealogy.Both Who Do You Think You Are? and Faces of America explored the family histories of celebrities.Already a big hit in the United Kingdom, where it originated, Who Do You Think You Are? has been renewed for a second season on American TV.Smolenyak hopes the new shows will spark some

23、fresh recruits to family history, but she says the current surge of interest has more to do with the internet.Connecting to the past through the webYou can get a running start with what is online. She notes that A, one of the paid membership sites researchers can use, has over four billion records.

24、Its nice, you can sit at home and search in your pjs (pajamas), go through census records and that sort of thing. People spend millions of hours on that site every single month.As chief family historian for A, Smolenyak has researched the family histories of President Barack Obama and First Lady Mic

25、helle Obama among others, but she says you cant find everything online, which is why people often end up at the National Archives.The Archives has digitized more than 100,000 records, which are available on its website for free, but archivist Constance Potter says, thats just a fraction of the 10 bi

26、llion it holds. There are not only census records, but military records, passenger lists for immigrants arriving by ship between 1820 and 1959, and naturalization records. For the most part, if a researchers ancestor hand interaction with the US government, there is likely to be a record of it in th

27、e National Archives.Carol Ann Summer came to the National Archives with her friend Bobbie Bold. She is searching for the family cabinet for military records, dating back to the 18th century, when the United States was becoming a new nation.Having found the right spool of film, she takes it to a dark

28、ened room and read it on a viewer. There he is. We found him. I wanted to get that last relative, Summer says, and that was this one from the Revolutionary War, so Im tickled. I dont think I can go back any farther with my fathers family, but Ill keep trying.Genealogy can be addictive, notes Archivi

29、st Constance Potter. Its like a detective story. It really is. And you just keep adding on the clues. And those clues often leads the researchers back to the National Archives, thus they dig deeper into their family history.3）。Sepsis is a severe infection that can often be fatal, particularly in obe

30、se patients. Now, a new study suggests why obese patients are at greater risk and suggests a possible new approach to treatment.Sepsis is seven times more likely to kill patients who are obese, and one possible reason is that the typical Western diet over-stimulates the bodys immune response to the

31、sepsis infection.To test the theory, Louisiana State University professor Chantal Rivera fed a Western style diet to laboratory mice.It was high in saturated fat, high in cholesterol, high in sugar, she said in a telephone interview. And then we exposed them to a model of sepsis and tried to figure

32、out why the inflammatory response in these septic mice that had been fed long-term with this high-fat, high-calorie diet, whether or not the inflammation would be worse and it was and then we tried to go after what would make the inflammatory response worse.In her study, Rivera found a clue in a particular protein that flourished in the mice that got the Western diet.And what we found is that, you get this increase in proteins on the cell surface called rec