视觉英语听力2011年期末考试内容

Chapter 1
7 Direct sound: Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking

1. We’ve discovered more about the cosmos in the last century than in all previous human history.

2. We’re living just as it dawns on us that the earth and everything around us was made by the stars.

3. We’ve worked out that the universe is almost unimaginably ancient. About 14 billion years old and that it will continue to exist for at least twice that long.

4 We may only be an advanced breed of monkey, living on a small planet, but we are able to contemplate (v. 思考 ) the universe as a whole, which makes us very special.

5. My goal has always been simple, to work out how the universe works and why it exists at all.

6. But even this tiny sample is enough to find a clue, the key to the past, the present, and perhaps the future, too.

7. If our eyes were more sensitive to color, we could see that the car is actually very slightly blue as it approaches.

8. I admit this sounds strange, but to cosmologists (n. 宇宙学家 ), it’s like winning the lottery (n. 彩票 ), because to work out where the universe came from all we need to do is to stop time and make it run in reverse (n. 颠倒 ).



Advanced listening


1) long-term isolation

2) switched off

3) newlywed

4) be separated from

5) leaving behind

6) Each astronaut will be paid the equivalent of $100,000

7) with their psychological and physiological data recorded throughout the mission

8) All communication with Earth will be via e-mail and will have as much as a 40-minute delay, like on a real Mars mission

9) This experiment is unique because six people will be isolated for a long period of time and will work autonomously

10) and the Earth will tell them whether they did the right thing or not

11) how people of different cultures, of different training can find common language and work on performing their tasks .

12) The current experiment is set to end in November 2011



Chapter 2

7 Direct sound: The cost of doing nothing could be even higher

1. Yes, it is a paradox, but global warming can trigger a cooling trend.

2. But what I do know is that if we do not act soon, it is our children and our grandchildren who will have to pay the price.

3. And who’s going to pay the price of the Kyoto Accord?

4. With all due respect, Mr. Vice President, the cost of doing nothing could be even higher.

5. Perhaps you should keep that in mind before making sensationalist claims.

6. The coldest weather on record has thrown the city into chaos…

7. For years, we operated under the belief that we could continue consuming our planet’s natural resources without consequence.

8. In our time of need, they have taken us in and sheltered us. And I am deeply grateful for their hospitality.




Advanced listening

1) annivers

ary

2) anniversary

3) environmental movement

4) becoming aware of

5) demonstrations

6) for the public to express concern about the environment to federal and state officials

7) The idea immediately received wide popular support

8) It was so popular that his Senate office alone could not deal with the many responses

9) The movement was to be driven by the American public on a “grassroots” or local level

10) The planning for a national protest on the environment soon began to receive national media attention

11) the national day for the environment would be “more than a day of fruitless talking

12) an opportunity for grassroots organizations and community organizations to really focus on

Chapter 3

7 Direct sound: A newborn on his way to the grave

1.This is my last will and testament. I don’t have much to leave, few possessions, no money really.

2. She gave her life for me. And for that, I am forever grateful.

3. -- Oh, the Lord has done something here...!

-- I hope I didn’t hurt it none, stepping on it like that. We best leave that for the police.

4. He shows all the deterioration, the infirmities not of a newborn, but of a man well in his eighties on his way to the grave.

5. God bless you. He’s seven! Now, this is a man with optimism in his heart! Belief in his soul! We are all children in the eyes of God!

6. Now, when I look back on it, it was miraculous.

7. My sense of smell was keener, my hearing more acute. I could walk further and faster. While everybody else was aging, I was getting younger. All alone.

8. Your mother died giving birth to you. I thought you were a monster. I promised your mother I’d make sure you were safe. I should never have abandoned you.




Advanced listening

1) is a heartbeat

2) rules your heart

3) controlling your heart

4) constant temperature

5) magnified a thousand times

6) palm of your hand

7) As the sweat evaporates, it will help cool you down

8) near to the skin and so keep vital heat in

9) Even when we are completely relaxed or asleep, our brains don’t let up

10) 128 sensors detect tiny signals emitted as my brain cells fire

11) Even without a thought in my head, my brainwaves show I’m busy

12) when it seems that nothing ever really



Chapter 7

7. Direct Sound

1. It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time before all this happened when the kids were just kids, and everyone was happy.

2. I'll have to draw some blood and run a few tests.

3. Kate's white cell count's much lower than normal.

4. You remember when the chief's son in our backyard was playing with Jesse and broke his left arm? They put a cast on his right.

5. When Anna Fitzgerald first stepped into my office, I thought s

he was selling Girl Scout cookies.

6. --You've seen my commercials.

--All of them. I mean, that's why I'm here.

7. I want to sue my parents for the rights to my own body.

8. No one can force you to donate if you don't want to, can they?

Advanced Listening

1) scared

2) suggested a link

3) disorders

4) repeated behaviors.

5) Other studies since then have failed to show such a link

6) they have found a simple, low-cost way to store vaccines at high temperatures

7) Oxford 's technology transfer company is working with the inventors to market the idea.

8) the vaccines could be kept at thirty-seven degrees for a year or more with only small losses in the amount of vaccine.

9) Adding water returns the vaccine to a liquid.

10) Each year, many vaccines must be destroyed because they became too warm or too cold.

11) Opening and closing it changes the temperature too much

12) standard-sized refrigerators without a freezer outperformed smaller ones like those popular with college students.








chapter5.4 Close-on: The human family tree

Script:

Deep inside each one of us, a story is waiting to be told. A story of sex, adventure and survival. It begins in Africa with the dawn of humanity （人类起源之初） , careens through epic droughts and Ice Ages, and climaxes only when we’ve reached the ends of Earth. Now we tell this story with a bold experiment.

On a single day, on a single street, with the DNA of just a handful of people, we set out to trace the ancient journeys of every person alive today, reveal how we all connect on the Human Family Tree. It’s the quintessential melting pot. Hundred masses from all over the globe have come here for centuries in search of a better life. And up the East River, just across form Manhattan , we find they’ve never stopped coming. This is one of the most diverse spots on Earth. Queens, New York, USA . ( 美国纽约皇后区 ). People are flocking to the 30th Avenue Street Fair, here in Queens Astoria District, where geneticist Spencer Wells ( 遗传学家斯宾塞 · 韦尔斯 ) and his team are on a mission. “Just on one side, that’s fine.” They are scraping DNA off the cheeks of this kaleidoscope (n. 万花筒，千变万化） of people and attempting to retrace humanity’s journey to all corners of the Earth on this single street. “Scrape up and down. That’s it.”

This place is really a microcosm (n. 缩影，微观世界 ) of the world. You’ve got people from all over the planet, just walking around on this one street. I mean, today, we’ve been talking to people form Bangladesh ( 孟加拉国 ), people from Thailand, people form Pakistan, Ecuador, all over the Africa-Caribbean region ( 非洲加勒比海地区 ). I mean it’s an amazing opportunity.

The swabbing here today is part of a much larger effort by Nationa

l Geographic and IBM called the Geographic Project ( 基因地理工程 ). The project has spent the last four years collecting DNA from 350,000 people around the world. If we look back through the generations at the roots of the human family tree, we find we are all related.

Scientists reveal that by around 150,000 years ago, our founding population had split in two. It is the first branch on our family tree, the earliest major movement of people our genes have measured. One group became the ancestors of the San ( 圣布希曼人 ), the other the ancestors of the Hadzabe ( 哈扎比人 ) and other African groups, and ultimately, the entire rest of the world. “The lineages that define the San versus the Hadzabe only join up right near the base, okay, basically back at the root of the tree. And that is because the San were isolated from the main line of human evolution for about 100,000 years.” No one knows exactly what led to this split, but all signs point to climate.



7 Direct sound: Let’s decide on gender

Script:

Narrator: I’ll never understand what possessed my mother to put her faith in God’s hands rather than those of her local geneticist ( 遗传学家 ). Ten fingers, ten toes. That’s all that used to matter. Not now. Now, only seconds old the exact time and cause of my death was already known.

Doctor 1: Neurological conditions: 60% probability （患精神病的机率是六 成） . Manic depression: 42% probability （患躁郁症的机率是四成二） . Attention deficit disorder: 89% probability （注意力不集中的机率是八成九） . Heart disorder: 99% probability. Early fatal potential, life expectancy: 30.2 years （早衰机率偏高） .

Father: Thirty years?

Doctor 1: The name for the certificate?

Mother: Anton.

Father: No! Vincent Anton. Yeah. That’s a good name.

Mother: I know he’ll do something ( 他一定会出人头地的 ). You will do something.

Vincent: From an early age I came to think of myself as others thought of me chronically ill. Every skinned knee and runny nose was treated as if it were life-threatening.

Staff: I’m sorry. The insurance won’t cover it. If he fell…

Mother: But I was told that everything,

Staff: I really wish there was something I could do.

Vincent: Like most other parents of their day, they were determined that their next child would be brought into the world in what has become the natural way.

Doctor 2: Your extracted eggs, Marie, have been fertilized with Antonio’s sperm. After screening, we are left, as you see, with two healthy boys and two very healthy girls.

Naturally, no critical predispositions to any major inheritable diseases, all that remains is to select the most compatible candidate. First, we need you to decide on gender. Have you given it any thought?

Mother: We would want Vincent to have a brother, you know, to play with.

Doctor 2: Of course, you would. Hello, Vincent.

You have specified hazel eyes, dark hair and fair skin. I’ve taken the liberty of eradicating any potentially prejudicial conditions, premature baldness, myopia, alcoholism, addictive susceptibility, propensity for violence, obesity, etc..

Mother: We didn’t want, I mean, diseases, yes, but…

Father: We were just wondering if it’s good to just leave a few things to chance.

Doctor 2: You want to give your child the best possible start. Believe me, we have enough imperfection built in already. Your child doesn’t need any additional burdens. Keep in mind, this child is still you, simply the best of you. You could conceive naturally a thousand times and never get such a result.

Vincent: That’s how my brother, Anton, came into the world, a son my father considered worthy of his name.



9 Staging a play: I’m going to clone you

Script:

Michael: Griffin .

Griffin : Here.

Michael: What are you doing?

Griffin : Yours. Yours.

Michael: Griffin , what’s the matter?

Griffin : My wife, Katherine, is dead.

Michael: Oh, Jesus Christ. Griffin , I don’t know... I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.

Griffin : Don’t start with "sorry" with me. Don’t start! Don’t start! Don’t start with "sorry"! Now I know about the congenital defects ( 先天性缺陷 ) you’ve been imbedding (v. 埋入 ) into the clone DNA. There’s my wife, Johnny Phoenix and the others. But, Michael, why my wife? Why?

Michael: You’re right, Griffin . It’s a security protocol I implemented (v. 贯彻、执行 ). I didn’t tell you about it, because I knew you wouldn’t understand.

Griffin : What should I understand? The only thing I understand is that you gave my wife cystic fibrosis ( 囊肿性纤维化 ) !

Michael: Griffin , calm down. Someone made a mistake. Alright? This was never meant to hurt Katherine.

Griffin : It didn’t hurt her. It just killed her.

Michael: Listen to me. Suppose we clone a senator who had agreed to support us, but he goes back on his word ( 食言、违背诺言 ).

Griffin : What’s the point? What’s the point?

Michael: Or Johnny Phoenix wants to double the salary by giving them shorter life spans we guarantee on our leverage.

Griffin : What’s the point?

Michael: The point is, if they betray us, they’re dead. If they stay on the team, we clone them again and no harm done. And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do with Katherine. I’m sure she’s being cloned as we speak.

Griffin : No, she’s not.

Michael: No. She’s... Griffin , it was a mistake. If you’re concerned about her DNA, go through it yourself, make sure it’s clean. And obviously there won’t be any charge for the cloning.

Griffin : No charge. Thank you very much. Thank you. What you don’t understand is she does not want to be cloned.

Michael: So, you do it anyway.

Griffin : Do it anyway. I see. Let me explain something to you. It’s very simple. I l

oved my wife very much. So much so that I promised I would never bring her back again. And I won’t. And if I can’t bring her back again, I’ll never bring back anyone ever again. That’s how much I loved her. So, it’s over, it’s finished…and I quit.

Michael: Well, I can’t let you quit.

Griffin : Yeah. Well. I’ve looked the other way too often. I’ve justified too much, so…I’m finished. It’s over.

Michael: You know what I’m gonna do for you, Griffin ?

Griffin : What are you gonna do for me?

Michael: I’m gonna give you the greatest gift you can possibly imagine.

Griffin : A gift?

Michael: I’m gonna save your life. I’m gonna save Katherine’s life. I’m gonna save our friendship. And I’m gonna save your marriage.

Griffin : Michael, what are you talking about?

Michael: I’m gonna kill you now and I’m going to clone you using your latest syncorde. Then I’m gonna clone Katherine using her last syncorde. You understand? Do you see what I’m doing for you? You and Katherine will be back together, and neither one of you will remember that you promised not to clone her or that she even died. And obviously you won’t remember this conversation. You’re welcome.





Key to Dictation



1) emotionally strong

2) in the journal

3) a short version

4) the normal length

5) transporter

6) desire for

7) captured attention among mental health professionals and popular culture.

8) They report finding no link between the serotonin transporter gene and the risk of depression.

9) the earlier study gained so much recognition, it became – in his words -- "fixed in many people’s minds as true."

10) The scientists examined the data using the same measures as the two thousand three study. They found that the risk of depression was not higher among those with the shorter gene.

11) He has criticized the new study as incomplete.

12) After many years of trying to figure out what is going on with the genetic cause of depression, we’re still not there yet






7. Direct Sound

1. She's in the most difficult position of feeling she should mourn the death of your son.

2. So all her grief goes undigested. Henry, your son may be beyond our science, but it's your wife who can still be reached.

3. And...in this individual’s case, a family tragedy that may qualify him above the rest.

4. -- Don’t kill me.

-- Henry, what are you doing?

5. -- I can't accept this! There is no substitute for your own child!

-- You don't have to accept it or even try, it's not too late to take him back!

6. -- I mean, inside he's like all the rest, isn't he?

-- A hundred miles of fiber, yeah.

-- But outside he just looks so real... like he is a child.

7. The sure faith my company has placed on me...on us, is extraordinary. Now there are a f

ew simple procedures we need to follow if and when you decide to keep David.

8. A robot child’s love would be sealed, in a sense, hardwired, and we’d be part of him forever.

Advanced Listening
1) higher-level thinking skills

2) like stock market activity

3) self-guiding vehicles

4) These robots can also help doctors operate

5) was proposed as a two-month study

6) just marked the fiftieth anniversary of that summer study

7) These two researchers, and two others, wrote a proposal for the summer research project

8) The idea was that every part of human intelligence could be described in such detail that a machine could be made to copy it.

9) it is true that computers are being built that operate in some ways like the brain.

10) humans should expect to find more and more smart machines

11) Research into artificial intelligence includes areas like learning, reasoning and action.

12) Using language correctly requires a knowledge of countless social and cultural situations and conditions