外研版高中英语必修四课文文本.docx

1、外研版高中英语必修四课文文本Module 1 Read ingThe City of the FutureWhat will the city of the future look like? No one knowsfor sure, and making predicti ons is a risky bus in ess. But one thing is certa in they are going to get bigger before they get smaller. In the future, care for the environment will become ve

2、ry important as earths natural resources run out. We will use lots of recycled materials, such as plastic, aluminium, steel, glass,wood and paper, and we will waste fewer natural resources. We will also have to rely more on alter native en ergy, such as solar and wind power. All this seems certa in,

3、 but there are ple nty of things about city life in the future which are not certa in.To find out what young people think about the future of urba n life, a teacher at a university in Texas in the United States asked his students to think how they would runa city of 50,000 people in the year 2025. H

4、ere are some of the ideas they had:Garbage ships To get rid of garbage problems, the city will load huge spaceships with waste materials and send them towards the sun, preventing Iandfill and environmental problems.Batma n Nets Police will arrest crimi nals by firing n ets in stead of guns.Forget sm

5、oking No smoking will be allowed within a future citys limits. Smoking will be possible on ly outside cities, and outdoors.Forget the malls In the future all shopping will be done online, and catalogues will have voice comma nds to place orders.Teleph ones for life Every one will be give n a teleph

6、one nu mber at birth that will n ever cha nge no matter where theylive.Recreati on All forms of recreati on, such as cin emas, bowli ng , softball, con certs and others, will be provided free of charge by the city.Cars All cars will be powered by electricity, solar energy or wind, and it will be pos

7、sible to cha nge the colour of cars at theflick of a switch.Telesurgery Dista nee surgery will become com mon as doctors carry out operatio ns from thousands of miles away, with each city having its own telesurgery outpatient clinic.Holidays at home Senior citizens and people with disabilities will

8、be able to go any where in the world using high-tech cameras attached to their head.Space travel Travelli ng in space by ordinary citize ns will be com mon. Each city will have its own spaceportCultural CornerFamous Last WordsNot all predictions come true. Many of them are wrong, and some are very w

9、rong. Here are just a few of the bad predictions people made in the twentieth cen tury about the twen ty-first cen tury:AIRPLANESNo flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris.Orville Wright, 1908.COMPUTERSI thi nk there is a world market for maybe five computers.Thomas Wasto n, chairman of

10、IBM, 1943.CLOTHESThirty years from now people will be weari ng clothes made of paper whichthey will be able to throw away after wearing them two or three times.Changing Times Magaz ine, 1957.MEN ON THE MOONWith the first moon colonies predicted for the 1970s, work is now inprogress on the types of b

11、uild ing required for men to stay in whe n theyre on the moon.Arnold B. Barach in The Cha nges to Come, 1962.THE BEATLESWe dont like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.Decca Record ing Co. reject ing the Beatles, 1962.ROBOTS IN THE HOUSEBy the year 2000, housewives will probably have a

12、robot shaped like a boxNew York Times, 1966.with one large eye on the top, several arms and han ds, and long n arrow pads on the side for moving about.KEYSBy the mid-1980s no one will ever n eed to hide a keyunder the doormat again, because there wont be anykeys.Computer scie ntist Christopher Eva n

13、s,The Micro Mille nn ium, 1979.Module 2 Read ingGett ing Around in Beiji ngyou ask for a receipt.TaxisTaxis are on the streets 24 hours a day. Simply raise your,and a taxi appears in no time. They are usually red, anddisplay the price per kilometre on the window. Youcheck the cab has a bus in ess pe

14、rmit, and make sureBuses and trolleybusesPublic transport provides a cheap way to get around in Beijing. There are 20,000 buses and trolleybuses in Beiji ng, but they can get very crowded. Its a good idea to avoid public transport during the rush hour (6:30 a.m. -8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. -6:30 p.m.).

15、 Fares are cheap, starting at 1 yuan. Air-conditioned buses cost more.Buses numbered 1 to 100 are limited to travel within the city centre. Higher nu mbers have dest in ati ons in the suburbs. Tourists should nt miss the 103 bus which offers one of the most impressive routes, past the Forbidden City

16、 and the White Pagoda in Beihai Park. If you get on a double-decker bus, make sure you sit upstairs. Yo ull have a good view of the rapidly cha nging city.Most buses run from about 5:00 a.m. to midni ght. However, there is also a ni ght bus service, provided by buses with a nu mber in the 200s.Min i

17、busesMin ibuses with seats for 12 passe ngers offer an alter native to expe nsive taxis and crowded public tran sport in some areas. They run regular services and follow the same routes as large public buses. And in a min ibus you always get a seat eve n in rush hours.Un dergr oundThere are four und

18、erground lines in Beijing, and several lines are under con structi on. Trai ns are fast and convenient, but rush hours can be terrible. A on e-way trip costs 3 yuan. Station names are marked in pinyin. The underground is open from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.PedicabsTourists like these huma n-pedalled tr

19、icycle taxis, but they can be expe nsive. You should talk to the driver, and make sure you know the price before you beg in the jour ney, for example, if it is per pers on, sin gle or retur n. Tricycles are worth using if you want to explore the narrow alleys (hutong) of old Beijing.Cultural CornerT

20、he London Con gesti on ChargeBeijing isnt the only city with traffic problems. You can get stuck in a traffic jam any where in the world. The worst problems occur in cities which are grow ing fast, such as Sao Paolo in Brazil and Lagos in Nigeria. But even cities in developed coun tries such as the

21、US suffer. Los An geles, which was built with the motor car in mind, and is famous for its six-lane highways, is now theUSAs most con gested city.In Europe most capital cities were planned and built before cars, and city centre traffic jams have been part of daily life for a long time. The situation

22、 in central London,where drivers spe nt fifty perce nt of their time in queues, became so bad that the local gover nment decided to do someth ing about it. In February 2003 the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, introduced a congestion charge a tax for cars entering the centre of the city.The idea is

23、 simple: every car coming into the centre has to pay 5 a day. Drivers can pay the charge at any of 10,000 pay points in the capital before 10 p.m. As the cars come into the centre, video cameras record their registration numbers, and these are checked with a list of drivers who have paid the charge

24、for that day. People who do not pay the charge will face a fine of 80. Most Londoners are not happy with the idea. They agree that London has a traffic problem, but the con gestio n charge is expe nsive, and limits their freedom .But does the congestion charge work? A survey carried out at the end o

25、f 2003 suggests it does. After only six mon ths, traffic coming into cen tral London was reduced by about 30 percent, and journey times by 15 percent. More people used public tran sport to get to work, and bicycles were sudde nly very popular. Whats more, cen tral London shops did not lose bus in es

26、s eve n though there were fewer cars.But there are a few people who think the charge should be much higher, for example rich bus in essme n who work in the city centre and can easily afford it. This would keep even more cars out of central London, and the roads would be nearly empty. However, there

27、are no pla ns to in crease the charge.Module 3 Read ingGreeti ngs Around the WorldIf you say the word communication, most people thinkofwords and sentences.Although these are very important, we com muni cate with more tha n just spoke n and writte n words. In deed, body positi ons are part of what w

28、e call body Ian guage. We see examples of uncon scious body Ian guage very ofte n, yet there is also lear ned body Ian guage, which varies from culture to culture.We use lear ned body Ian guage whe n we are in troduced to stra ngers. Like other animals, we are on guard until we know it is safe to re

29、lax. So every culture has developed a formal way to greet strangers, to show them we are not aggressive. Traditi on ally, Europea ns and America ns shake han ds. They do this with the right hand the stro ngest hand for most people. If our right hand is busy greeti ng some one, it cannot be hold ing

30、a weap on. So the gesture is say in g, I trust you. Look, Im not carry ing a threate ning weap on. If you shake hands with some one, you show you trust them. We shake hands whe n we make a deal. It means, We agree and we trust each other.Greetings in Asian countries do not involve touching the other

31、 person, but they always in volve the han ds. Traditi on ally in Chi na, whe n we greet some one, we put the right hand over the left and bow slightly. Muslims give a salaam, where they touch their heart, mouth and forehead. Hin dus join their hands and bow their heads in respect. In all of these ex

32、amples, the hands are busy with the greeting and cannot hold a weap on.Eve n today, whe n some people have very in formal styles of greet ing, they still use their hands as a gesture of trust. American youths often greet each other with the expression, Give me five! One person then holds up his hand, palm outwards and five fin gers spread. The other pers on raises his hand and slaps the others ope n hand above the head in a high five. Nowadays, it is qu