大学体验英语视听说3

大学体验英语视听说教程 第三册 文本 by ZYX Unit 1 Lesson 1 Audio studio While some visitors to Singapore expect a high-tech city, there are also some parts of the island that still reflect how it used to look before urban development took over. In one of the main Central Nature Reserves, monkeys still roam freely, living side by side with humans. The macaques have grown accustomed to being fed, so they look to humans as a source of food. But this in itself is problematic. As the monkeys depend more on humans for food, they venture further from their natural habitat, a phenomenon that has worried experts. There is just not enough space. Essentially, in much of Southeast Asia we’ve seen a lot of habitat loss where rainforest has been destroyed and converted into human settlement. Singapore is a very urbanized city, and it’s taken a lot of space, so there is not much space left for long-tailed macaques. We really need to stop encroaching into nature reserves. We need to stop building the houses so nearby the reserves, which then causes the problem of the macaques coming into people’s houses and raiding them. These macaques are French species so they live on the edges of the rainforests. If humans keep building the houses so near the reserves, there will definitely be a constant human-macaque conflict issue. After all, the macaques are essential to maintaining the rainforest’s ecosystem. More should be done to protect them. Video studio These creatures are known as statistics by most people. But we are treating them as individuals, trying to capture their personalities. We want to see them face to face, eye to eye, make them unavoidable. The series is now their mission in life, their calling and their passion. For the two photographers, it’s an endless odyssey across America to show the faces of creatures we may never see again. These creatures are in danger. They’re slipping away. But if people can see them, maybe we can make the effort to keep them with us here on earth. “Ok. Make here. Great! Great!” The first Europeans on this continent had a common enemy to conquer. It was called nature. America seemed to be an endless expanse of hostile wildness. Bison wandered along the Potomac. Grizzly bears strolled [along] the beaches of California. Human beings did not even know it was possible for a species to go extinct. But we learned. Hundreds of creatures slipped into extinction. Even our national symbol was disappearing before our eyes. When you are driving across America, you understand why so many plants and animals are endangered. They’re losing their homes. We’re building a human world, and losing a wild one. … Expert: “It’s a sobering fact that there is an extinction crisis. There have always been species going extinct time to time. But now, human activities push them to a hundred to a thousand times. We are in the midst of a biological catastrophe. It is the greatest since the end of the age of dinosaurs, sixty-five million years ago. What I hope you’ll succeed in doing is to make endangered species a vivid presence in the lives of people; make it clear to them that every endangered species has a name, has a million-year history. There is a place in the world — bring us face to face with each one of those species; make us know that they are companions in the biosphere. They are not just something out there you look at once in a while. But they are a part of our existence. They’ re part of us.” Lesson 2 Audio studio During the whole year’s promotion, a series of activities will be held to promote public awareness in protecting biodiversity like summit forums and biodiversity knowledge competitions. Also, the government will conduct supervision to fight illegal hunting and other related conduct in nature reserves nationwide. Wan Bentai, general engineer at the Ministry of Environmental Protection says biodiversity is vital to human life. The Earth is colorful just because of biodiversity. If all the species were gone and there were only us humans left, humans wouldn’t be able to survive. Biodiversity not only refers to all the species, including animals, plants and insects but also the genes and our living environment. However, dozens of species are disappearing on our planet everyday. Currently, 34,000 plants and 5,200 animals are on the edge of extinction. Scientists say many species’ extinction is attributed to human activities. Many animals are endangered because of human activities like hunting and fishing. But many animals have a close connection with humans, so we should treat them as friends. Besides, many plants make great contributions to human life, some of which are even more precious than gold. In recent years, the number of animal and plant species has declined sharply in China due to various reasons. We need policies which protect biodiversity. And we have to find programs which can encourage and provide incentives for people not to cut down the forest, nor to destroy the habitat of rare birds, nor fisheries. We have to do many things. Video studio Scientist: “In nature itself everything is connected. Every species is in some way dependent on others So you have this fabric of life. And to me an endangered species is like critical stitch in that fabric. The longer you study in any one area, the more you realize it if any one item becomes extinct, the whole fabric falls apart. Everything depends on everything else.” Sixty years earlier, another scientist went in search of endangered species deep into the Louisiana swamps, trying to find one of the rarest birds in America. He found it and he filmed it. It was the first time anyone had ever filmed the ivory-billed woodpecker and the last. “We’re finally getting to photograph the ivory-billed woodpecker but it was not the way we had hoped.” The birds’ habitat was decimated by development. In 1996 the ivory-billed woodpecker was finally declared extinct. “It was rare and then it slipped away. The preserve is the best of all is left.” Expert: “Species do not die of old age. Species are killed off. And when a species dies, with it dies this genetic history that can never be recreated. Scientists have even begun to think of how they might be able to reassemble a species, and the lost is permanent.” Plants get ignored. Almost two thirds of the species on the endangered list are plants. They are not big and flashy like the giant panda or the rhino, but they are equally important in how life works. Without plants the animals wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here. Human beings are the masters of this world now. We can take these animals and plants with us as we travel into the future or we can say goodbye and send them into the night. But whether we realize it or not, we depend utterly on other creatures for our very survival. They are a part of our existence. They are a part of us. Home listening 1. flows 2. unusual 3. released 4. expected 5. risk 6. supplies 7. especially 8. decade 9. probably has the closest link between its resource and human livelihood than any other region in the world. 10. try to narrow down a framework agreement on global emission targets to be negotiated at the end of this year Unit 2 Lesson 1 Audio studio When it comes to intelligence, there has always been one fundamental question: Is intelligence a function of nature? Is it simply encoded in a child’s genes? Or is it a function of nurture? Is it more about the environment that a child grows up in? On the one hand, if we take two people at random from the crowd, it is very likely that their degrees of intelligence will be completely different. However, if we take two identical twins, chances are that they will be as intelligent as each other. Therefore, a conclusion can be drawn that intelligence is to some extent something we are born with. On the other hand, though, if we put identical twins in different environments, we would find differences in their intelligence several years later, which indicates that environment does play a crucial role in people’s intelligence. Recently, data has clearly indicated that nurture is indeed more than 50% of the equation. That is good news for educators, but even better news for society as a whole. Fortunately, President Obama has come out in strong support of early childhood education, particularly for those children most at risk of school failure. Investing in quality pre-school opportunities clearly helps give children from poverty-stricken areas the chance at a stronger start in school and in life. If we are serious about helping our children succeed in school, if we are truly interested in “Leaving No Child Behind,” we will take a hard look at this compelling data and begin investing greater sums at the early childhood level. Video studio Einstein’s destiny as a great physicist was not obvious. As a child, his passion was music, not physics. “I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.” But Einstein’s life changed when he was given a book on geometry. The universe could be tamed through numbers. His life’s work would be to control the music of the universe. During his life, Einstein changed our concept of space and time forever. He harnessed energy, mass and the speed of light in the most famous equation all time — E equals MC squared. What made Einstein’s brain so exceptional? Dr. Jim Al-Khalili, like Einstein, is a physicist and is obsessed by the work of his hero. Brain specialist Mark Lythgoe hunts for secrets of creativity inside the human mind. “My name is Dr. Jim Al-Khalili I believe Einstein’s genius came from his imagination, and no man or no machine can measure that. Am I right?” “My name is Dr. Mark Lythgoe and I believe that Einstein’s genius comes from nerve cells, which can be analyzed. We can find out what made Einstein a genius. Am I right?” So which view is correct? To solve the riddle of Einstein’s genius, Mark and Jim would have to journey to America to hunt down and examine Einstein’s disembodied brain. Nature or nurture? Biology or training? Are geniuses born or are they made? Neurophysiologist Dr. Mark Lythgoe is a keen climber and finds parallels between his hobby and his profession. “Now, there are two scenarios for how the brain works. The first scenario is the brain is like a muscle. Now I’ve trained to develop the stamina in my muscle, hopefully then I can hold on to this hole for a period of time. The second is that the brain is like a skeleton and it doesn’t matter how much I’ve trained, I’m never, ever going to be able to reach that hole right up there. “Now, in Einstein’s day they believed that the brain was like a skeleton that had natural limits, but that view is changing today. Instead, it is now understood that more and more parts of the brain behave like a muscle. They can expand with use. Then, if all of our brains are like muscles, could it be that we all have the ability to become Einstein?” Lesson 2 Audio studio Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist, although most people probably know him as the most intelligent person who ever lived. His name has become part of many languages when we want to say someone is a genius, as in the phrase, “She’s a real Einstein”. He must have been pretty brainy to discover the Theory of Relativity and the equation E=MC2. In 1999, Time Magazine named Einstein as the Person of the Century. No one could have guessed this would happen when he was in school. He was extremely interested in science but hated the system of learning things by rote memory. He said it destroyed learning and creativity. He had already done many experiments but failed the entrance exams to a technical college. He didn’t let this setback stop him. When he was 16, he performed his famous experiment of imagining traveling alongside a beam of light. He eventually graduated from university, in 1900, with a degree in physics. Twelve years later he was a university professor and in 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics. He went on to publish over 300 scientific papers. Einstein is the only scientist to become a cult figure, a household name and part of everyday culture. He once joked that when people stopped him in the street, he always replied, “Pardon me, sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein.” Today, he is seen as the typical mad, absentminded professor, who just happened to change our world. Video studio So Einstein’s brain has given up some of its secrets to Mark and Jim. In the battle of biology versus ideas, Jim and Mark have each scored points. Seemingly, Einstein was born with overlaps in his brain. These overlaps may have meant maths and spatial thinking were more intuitive to him. Thinking like a child let him see the world in a unique way. And his unique, perhaps autistic, level of concentration, forced his brain to expand like a muscle. Extra glial cells were needed to cope with the extra demand, possibly helping make the maths area in the brain more than 15% wider than normal. All these effects united to give Einstein a mind unlike any other, perhaps the greatest mind in history. In the future, could we preserve a genius like Einstein in something better than the jar? Imagine a brave new world, where a genius’ brain could be copied onto silicon using microscopic robots called nanobots. This is the vision of the futurologist Ray Kurzweil. “I think by the 2020s or the late 2020s, we will have completely reverse engineered the brain and understand how all the different regions work. It’ll take us longer to be able to scan the entire brain and get capture of every detail of someone’s personality. The blood vessels of the brain go everywhere, and so if we send billions of nanobots through the capillaries of the brain, they can scan everything in the brain of a specific person at very high resolution. Then you could create a machine, a non-biological entity, that would simulate a specific person’s brain and that simulation will act just like that person, and if you then talk to that simulation, you’d be convinced that it was that person.” Home listening 1. genius 2. scattered 3. conducted 4. permission 5. convinced 6. decades 7. accomplished 8. He would much rather build houses of cards, which he was really good at, or do just about anything else. 9. With a new passion for playing, Einstein continued to play the violin until the last few years of his life. 10. Whether it was while out sailing or at a formal dinner at the white House, Einstein went without socks everywhere. Unit 3 Lesson 1 Audio studio To imagine life in the future, you have to know what might be possible. You also need a lot of imagination. There have been many exhibits, such as those at World’s Fairs and theme parks, showing how future homes might look and work, sponsored by builders, developers or technology companies. Science fiction is another way to predict the future. It’s a kind of writing that blends real science with fantasy. Over the years, science fiction writers, artists and engineers have had many ideas about what life would be like in the future. Here’s a look at what some of the leading scientists are working on today to bring into your homes tomorrow. On the outside a home might look like any other. But inside, it can be high-tech all the way! Computer scientists have found new ways to use technology to make people’s lives easier. For instance, sensors can show if someone is in your home and where they are at all times. You can check in from any computer — anywhere. The stuff of cutting-edge scientific research today is tomorrow’s household technology, and high-tech consumer products could be available in your future home! Video studio Other than to enjoy your personal rocket, in the future you may never wanna leave the house. Your home will be self-sufficient in ways you never dreamed of. To begin with, you won’t have to go shopping. Your house will be able to make whatever you want with a revolutionary new appliance called the Digital Fabricator, or Fabber. “Fabber is a 3D printer, [a] machine that can deposit a variety of materials in order to make 3-dimensional objects.” Hod Lipson’s fab-at-home Fabber will make 3D objects right on your desktop. Just as your computer printer creates 2-dimensional documents and photos, the Fabber takes this process one step further, turning digital data into solid physical objects. Instead of ink, it uses whatever material the desired object is made of. “ We start off with a computerized model of what the target object should look like, and then these different materials are extruded from the syringe layer by layer in order to gradually create the 3-dimensional objects.” Right now, Lipson’s home version of the Fabber only works in simple plastics and metals. The results are still crude and take a long time to complete. “Currently, the fab-at-home printer can fabricate something like a fork in a couple of hours. I think eventually we’ll be able to use these machines to print things in a matter of minutes.” As the technology improves, there is theoretically no limit to what the Fabber can produce. “Recently we’ve been able to use a Fabber to make things like a functional 3-dimensional battery, circuitry, toys, parts of robots, and even food.” Once all the kinks in this computerized cooking are worked out, your Fabber may become an essential kitchen appliance. And expectations for the device don’t stop there. “This is a very universal type of technology that’s applicable to a wide variety of things, and it is conceivable that you could print even large things such as cars or houses.” While printing your own house seems like a stretch, your Fabber could download and print the latest must-haves for your home and eliminate the need for replacement parts. You’ll be your own factory and builder. And with the Fabber, you’ll never again have to make that last-minute run to the home-improvement store. “You could imagine in the future where you shop online for items, and once you find what you want, you’ll essentially purchase the blueprint and print the device you’ve purchased on your own desk at home.” Futuristic homes, humanoid robots, superhuman powers all represent science fiction fantasies come to life. Lesson 2 Audio studio What if we could wear bodysuits to give us super strength? Own an identical robot twin to work for us? What if we could travel through time? Technology is pushing from every direction, getting faster with each passing second. Prepare yourself! The future is closer than you think. A robot conducting a symphony orchestra! Amazing as that is, it’s just one way reality is outpacing science fiction. Every day robots become even more sophisticated, taking on additional human traits. Until now, robots have mostly gotten the toughest jobs. They work at the assembly line and defuse or even detonate explosive devices. The traditional tasks for a robot have always been the 3-D’s: dull, dirty, dangerous. But as technology improves and as researchers are work towards developing these intelligent humanoids, we are going to see our homes and offices occupied by robots. It makes sense that if you are going to build a general-purpose robot that can perform any task that a human can do, you’d like to give it a human shape. It can walk gracefully. His creators study motion-capture video of both humans and animals. I believe that humanoid technologies will improve our lives in the 21st century. Video studio “One of the main goals of claytronics is to improve human-to-human communication even when two people aren’t in the same room. So you can imagine having a call in the future where you pick up your phone and you dial someone, and instead of just