新标准大学英语 视听说教程第一册Listening in听力原文.docx

1、新标准大学英语 视听说教程第一册Listening in听力原文Unit 1 Starting outListening inPassage 1Interviewer Can you tell me something about the Ivy League? Youre a professor at Harvard, is that right?Professor Thats right, yes.Interviewer Tell me how many universities are there? How many institutions?Professor In total the

2、re are eight institutions: Theres Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania.Interviewer Ah, OK. And whats the sporting . I believe theres some link with sports.Professor There certainly is, yes. Originally the Ivy League referred to the sports

3、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

4、 wider range of students because it wasnt possible to be both world-famous for research and also top class in sport.Interviewer And what about their academic importance? I gather theyre academically very, very important, theyre very well-known.Professor Absolutely at the top. Theyre near or at the t

5、op of the USA colleges and university rankings. And theyre almost always in the top one per cent of the worlds academic institutions for financial resources.Interviewer And what does it mean socially to go to an Ivy League university?Professor Certainly if youve been to one of these institutions, yo

6、u 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 . whys it called

7、the Ivy League, whats the origin of the name?Professor There are a number of stories, derivations, but possibly its based on four universities, and IV, the letters IV, thats the Roman numeral for four. Another more likely story is that ivy plants, which are symbolic of the age of the universities, y

8、ou 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, thats

9、 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 Dart

10、mouth 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

11、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.Passage2Andy Did you see the film on television last night?Jane No, I was out. What was it?Andy A Beautiful Mind. Its about Jo

12、hn Forbes Nash, the mathematician who won the Nobel Prize.Jane Ive heard about that film, yes. Hes played by Russell Crowe, isnt he? I like Russell Crowe, hes great.Andy Thats the one, yes.Jane Whats it about?Andy Well, the story begins in the early years of Nashs life at Princeton University as a g

13、raduate student.Jane Thats one of the Ivy League schools, isnt it?Andy Yes, its all set in New England, lovely old buildings, beautiful autumn colours. Its lovely to look at. Anyway, Nash meets his roommate Charles, a literature student, who soon becomes his best friend. Nash admits to Charles that

14、he is better with numbers than people, and the main thing hes looking for is a truly original idea for his thesis paper.Jane So hes not interested in having fun?Andy Well, yes, but hes not very good with people or successful with women, thats all. But, you know, its one of these bad experiences with

15、 people which ultimately inspires his brilliant work in mathematics.Jane No good at relationships, so he becomes a genius at maths?Andy Thats 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,

16、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 hes been asked to work by William Parcher for the US Department of Defense on breaking Soviet codes. At one point hes chased by the Russians, and its after t

17、his that he becomes mentally ill.Jane I think Ive seen this in the trailer to the film.Andy So when hes put in a psychiatric hospital, he thinks the Soviets have captured him. Hes given this painful treatment which affects his relationship with his wife. And his intellectual skills. So he stops taki

18、ng the medicine.Jane It sounds quite hard to watch.Andy Well, it is, but its well acted and directed, and so, you know, theres a-bit of distance between the audience and whats happening on film.Jane So what happens next?Andy Well, then his illness returns, so he and his wife decide to try and live w

19、ith it. It all gets a bit complicated, because were 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 Nashs mind.Jane That sounds awful. He must have been so ill,Andy Actually, Im kind of giving away the twist in the stor

20、y. Anyway, later in his life, while hes 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 L

21、earning to thinkListening inPassage 1Interviewer With us today is Martin Downes, a carpenter, whos 51. A year ago, Martin had a stroke. But hes been lucky enough to make a full recovery from it. Can you tell us how it all began, Martin?Martin Im very happy to - not that I remember much at all. I was

22、 at a customers house, building a cupboard, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in hospital with people in white coats bending over me.Interviewer It must have been very frightening.Martin It was. But what was really frightening was that I couldnt speak. I couldnt say a word. And I couldnt understa

23、nd much that people said to me.Interviewer How awful!Martin Yeah! I dont know what would have happened to me if I hadnt 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 th

24、ey 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, Id also forgotten the nam

25、es 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. Hi, Yes and No. That was

26、all. And there were a lot of words I couldnt 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 th

27、at 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? Its not that common, is it?Martin I was lucky. I was given the right drug at the ri

28、ght time. And I had 12 weeks of therapy, five days a week. Thats very important, apparently.Interviewer And now that youre better how do you feel about your life?Martin What can I say? Im just grateful to have my life back.Passage 2Interviewer In 1907 an Italian educator called Maria Montessori open

29、ed a school in Rome that taught young children using methods that were very different from traditional teaching. Today, the Montessori method, as its known, is used in nursery schools in countries such as America, Canada, Britain and Germany. Recent research shows that children educated at a Montess

30、ori 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 cl

31、ean. Everything stays in the same place. So the children are calm and quiet as a result.Interviewer So theyre not encouraged to be noisy.Sarah No, definitely not.Interviewer Claudia?Claudia Yes, the classrooms very important. Another important principle is that children direct their own learning. Th

32、ey choose what they want to do.Interviewer So the teacher doesnt 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? Its often made of wood, isnt it?Sarah Yes, and a piece of equipment is often designed for one activity only.Claudia Right. Its so that the ch