新概念英语4课文

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NEW CONCEPT ENGLISH (IV)

(new version)

2

Lesson 1 Finding Fossil man

We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellersto another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something aboutmigrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did.

Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesianpeoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these peopleexplain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even theirsagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor

legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, becausethis is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used woodand skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools oflong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have

disappeared without trace.

3

Lesson 2 Spare that spider

Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy somany insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the humanrace. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they woulddevour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protectionwe get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never dothe least harm to us or our belongings.Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them.One can tell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legsand an insect never more than six.How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf ? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, andhe estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry

creatures, not content with only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects

destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.T. H. GILLESPIE Spare that Spider from The Listener

4

Lesson 3 Matterhorn man

Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them goodsport, and the more difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneeringdays, however, this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking forthe easiest way to the top because the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it had never been attained before. It is true that during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped

in a manner which would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement. They had a single aim,a solitary goal--the top!It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Exceptfor one or two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine villages tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheese accompanied by bread often

twelve months old, all washed down with coarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at all, and climbers found shelter wherever they could--sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as poor as his parishioners), sometimes with shepherds or cheesemakers. Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating

seven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the Alps

must have been very hard indeed.

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Lesson 4 Seeing hands

In the Soviet Union several cases have been reported recently of people who can read and detect colours with their fingers, and even see through solid doors and walls. One case concerns an 'eleven-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls. This ability was first noticed by her father. One day she came into his office and happened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe. Suddenly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there, and even described the way they were done up in bundles.Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of UIyanovsk, near where she lives, and in April she was given a series of tests by a special

commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Republic. During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, stranger still, by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto she was able to describe the figures and colours printed on it; and, in another instance, wearing stockings and slippers, to make out with her foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under a carpet. Other experiments showed that her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity. During all these tests Vera was blindfold; and, indeed, except when blindfold she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin. lt was also found that although she could perceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.

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Lesson 5 Youth

People are always talking about' the problem of youth '. If there is one—which I take leave to doubt--then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings--people just like their elders. There is only one difference between an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is. When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain--that I was a new boy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking. I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and the origins of things. It's as if they were in some sense cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may be conceited, illmannered, presumptuous of fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary clichés about respect for elders--as if mere age were a reason for respect. I

accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.

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Lesson 6 The sporting spirit

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet

one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win,

and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win. On the village green, where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved, it is possible to play simply for the fun and exercise: but as soon as the question of

prestige arises, as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose, the most savage combative instincts are aroused. Anyone who

has played even in a school football match knows this. At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations. who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe--at any rate for short periods--that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.

刘晓华 liuxiaohua72@https://www.sodocs.net/doc/3b2897567.html,

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Lesson 7 Bats

Not all sounds made by animals serve as language, and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a case in which the voice plays a strictly utilitarian role.

To get a full appreciation of what this means we must turn first to some recent human inventions. Everyone knows that if he shouts in the vicinity of a wall or a mountainside, an echo will come back. The further off this solid obstruction the longer time will elapse for the return of the echo. A sound made by tapping on the hull of a ship will be reflected from the sea bottom, and by measuring the time interval between the taps and the receipt of the echoes the depth of the sea at that point can be calculated. So was born the echo-sounding apparatus, now in general use in ships. Every solid object will reflect a sound, varying according

to the size and nature of the object. A shoal of fish will do this. So it is a comparatively simple step from locating the sea bottom to locating a shoal of fish. With experience, and with improved apparatus, it is now possible not only to locate a shoal but to tell if it is herring, cod, or other well-known fish, by the

pattern of its echo.

A few years ago it was found that certain bats emit squeaks and by receiving the echoes they could locate and steer clear of obstacles--or locate flying insects on which they feed. This echo-location in bats is often compared with radar, the principle of which is similar.

刘晓华 liuxiaohua72@https://www.sodocs.net/doc/3b2897567.html,

9

*Lesson 8 Trading standards

Chickens slaughtered in the United States, claim officials in Brussels, are not fit

to grace European tables. No,

say the Americans: our fowl are fine, we simply clean them in a different way. These days, it is differences in

national regulations, far more than tariffs, that put sand in the wheels of trade between rich countries. It is not

just farmers who are complaining . An electric razor that meets the European Union’s safety standards must be

approved by American testers before it can be sold in the United States, and an American-made dialysis machine

needs the EU’s okay before it hits the market in Europe.

As it happens, a razor that is safe in Europe is unlikely to electrocute Americans. So, ask businesses on both

sides of the Atlantic, why have two lots of tests where one would do? Politicians agree, in principle, so America

and the EU have been trying to reach a deal which would eliminate the need to double-test many products. They

hope to finish in time for a trade summit between America and EU on May 28th. Although negotiators are

optimistic, the details are complex enough that they may be hard-pressed to get a deal at all.

Why? One difficulty is to construct the agreements. The Americans would happily reach one accord on

standards for medical devices and then hammer out different pacts covering, say, electronic goods and drug

manufacturing. The EU-following fine continental traditions—wants agreement on general principles, which

could be applied to many types of products and have extended to other countries. 刘晓华 liuxiaohua72@https://www.sodocs.net/doc/3b2897567.html,

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Lesson 9 Royal espionage

Alfred the Great acted as his own spy, visiting Danish camps disguised as a minstrel. In those days wandering minstrels were welcome everywhere. They

were not fighting men, and their harp was their passport. Alfred had learned many of their ballads in his youth, and could vary his programme with acrobatic tricks and simple conjuring.

While Alfred's little army slowly began to gather at Athelney, the king himself set out to penetrate the camp of Guthrum, the commander of the Danish invaders. These had settled down for the winter at Chippenham: thither Alfred

went. He noticed at once that discipline was slack: the Danes had the selfconfidence of conquerors, and their security precautions were casual. They lived

well, on the proceeds of raids on neighbouring regions. There they collected women as well as food and drink, and a life of ease had made them soft.

Alfred stayed in the camp a week before he returned to Athelney. The force

there assembled was trivial compared with the Danish horde. But Alfred had deduced that the Danes were no longer fit for prolonged battle : and that their commissariat had no organization, but depended on irregular raids.

So, faced with the Danish advance, Alfred did not risk open battle but harried the enemy. He was constantly on the move, drawing the Danes after him. His patrols halted the raiding parties: hunger assailed the Danish army. Now Alfred began a long series of skirmishes--and within a month the Danes had surrendered. The episode could reasonably serve as a unique epic of royal espionage!

刘晓华 liuxiaohua72@https://www.sodocs.net/doc/3b2897567.html,

11

*Lesson 10 Silicon valley

Technology trends may push Silicon Valley back to the future. Carver Mead, a pioneer in integrated circuits

and a professor of computer science at the California Institute of Technology, notes there are now workstations

that enable engineers to design, test and produce chips right on their desks, much the way an editor creates a

newsletter on a Macintosh. As the time and cost of making a chip drip to a few days and a few hundred dollars,

engineers may soon be free to let their imaginations soar without being penalized by expensive failures. Mead

predicts that inventors will be able to perfect powerful customized chips over a weekend at the

office—spawning a new generation of garage start-ups and giving the U.S. a jump on its foreign rivals in

getting new products to market fast. ‘We’ve got more garages with smart people,’Mead observes. ‘We really

thrive on anarchy.’

And on Asians. Already, orientals and Asian Americans constitute the majority of the engineering staffs at

many Valley firms. And Chinese, Korean, Filipino and Indian engineers are graduating in droves from

California’s colleges. As the heads of next-generation start-ups, these Asian innovators can draw on customs

and languages to forge tighter links with crucial Pacific Rim market. For instance, Alex Au, a Stanford Ph.D.

from Hong Kong, has set up a Taiwan factory to challenge Japan’s near lock on the memory-chip market.

India-born N. Damodar Reddy’s tiny California company reopened an AT&T chip plant in Kansas City last

spring with financing from the state of Missouri. Before it becomes a retirement village, Silicon Valley may

prove a classroom for building a global business.

新概念英语第四册课文word版

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Lesson1 We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago. But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.

新概念英语4-课文

NEW CONCEPT ENGLISH (IV) (new version) 2 Lesson 1 Finding Fossil man We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only w ay that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellersto another. These legends are useful because they can tell us somethin g aboutmigrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesianpeoples now living in th e Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these peopleexplain that some of them came from Indo nesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that ev en theirsagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient me n made tools of stone, especially flint, becausethis is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used woodand skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tool s oflong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace. 3 Lesson 2 Spare that spider Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy somany insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the humanrace. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they woulddevour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protectionwe get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts wh o eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never dothe least harm to us or our bel ongings.Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them.One can t ell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legsand an insect never more th an six.How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf ? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, andhe estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a f ootball pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content wi th only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spi ders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the c ountry.T. H. GILLESPIE Spare that Spider from The Listene Lesson 3 Matterhorn man Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them goodsport, and the more

新概念英语4-课文

NEW CONCEPT ENGLISH(IV) (new version) 2 Lesson1Finding Fossil man We can read of things that happened5,000years ago in the Near East,where people first learned to write.But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write.The only w ay that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellersto another.These legends are useful because they can tell us somethin g aboutmigrations of people who lived long ago,but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesianpeoples now living in th e Pacific Islands came from.The sagas of these peopleexplain that some of them came from Indo nesia about2,000years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that ev en theirsagas,if they had any,are forgotten.So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first'modern men'came from.Fortunately,however,ancient me n made tools of stone,especially flint,becausethis is easier to shape than other kinds.They may also have used woodand skins,but these have rotted away.Stone does not decay,and so the tool s oflong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace. 3 Lesson2Spare that spider Why,you may wonder,should spiders be our friends?Because they destroy somany insects,and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the humanrace.Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world;they woulddevour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds,if it were not for the protectionwe get from insect-eating animals.We owe a lot to the birds and beasts wh o eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover,unlike some of the other insect eaters,spiders never dothe least harm to us or our bel ongings.Spiders are not insects,as many people think,nor even nearly related to them.One can t ell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legsand an insect never more th an six.How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf?One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England,andhe estimated that there were more than2,250,000in one acre,that is something like6,000,000spiders of different kinds on a f ootball pitch.Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects.It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill,but they are hungry creatures,not content wi th only three meals a day.It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spi ders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the c ountry.T.H.GILLESPIE Spare that Spider from The Listene Lesson3Matterhorn man Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them goodsport,and the more

小度写范文新概念第四册课文_新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记【Lesson40、41、42】模板

新概念第四册课文_新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记 【Lesson40、41、42】 新概念英语网权威发布新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记【Lesson40、41、42】，更多新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记【Lesson40、41、42】相关信息请访问新概念英语网。 【导语】新概念英语作为一套世界闻名的英语教程，以其全新的教学理念，有趣的课文内容和全面的技能训练，深受广大英语学习者的欢迎和喜爱。为了方便同学们的学习，大范文网为大家整理了最全面的新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记，希望为大家的新概念英语学习提供帮助! Lesson40 【课文】 First listen and then answer the following question. 听录音，然后回答以下问题。 What false impression does an ocean wave convey to the observer? Waves are the children of the struggle between ocean and atmosphere, the ongoing signatures of infinity. Rays from the sun excite and energize the atmosphere of the earth, awakening it to flow, to movement, to rhythm, to life. The wind then speaks the message of the sun to the sea and the sea transmits it on through waves -- an ancient, exquisite, powerful message. These ocean waves are among the earth”s most complicated natural phenomena. The basic features include a crest (the highest point of the wave), a trough (the lowest point), a height (the vertical distance from the trough

新概念英语第四册第二十单元课文原文

新概念英语第四册第二十单元课文原文 Lesson 20 Snake poison 蛇毒How it came about that snakes manufactured poison is a mystery. Over the periods their saliva, a mild, digestive juice like our own, was converted into a poison that defies analysis even today. It was not forced upon them by the survival competition; they could have caught and lived on prey without using poison just as the thousands of non-poisonous snakes still do. Poison to a snake is merely a luxury; it enables it to get its food with very little effort, no more effort than one bite. And why only snakes ? Cats, for instance, would be greatly helped; no running rights with large, fierce rats or tussles with grown rabbits just a bite and no more effort needed. In fact it would be an assistance to all the carnivorae--though it would be a two-edged weapon -When they fought each other. But, of the vertebrates, unpredictable Nature selected only snakes (and one lizard). One wonders also why Nature, with some snakes concocted poison of such extreme potency. In the conversion of saliva into poison one might suppose that a fixed process took place. It did not; some

新概念英语1册-课文-完整版

新概念英语1册课文完整版 学习新概念英语计划建议： 1、第一步：先背单词，不要去看课文。 2、第二步：听录音，看看自己是否能听懂，是否能用英文把课文写出来。 3、第三步：通过自学导读理解课文的关键语句。 4、第四步：做完教材中的所有练习。 5、学新概念最有效的方式就是背诵课文了。建议能将整个课文背诵出来。也不需要完全背诵，只要能照着中文背诵出来就可以了。 Lesson 1 Excuse me! 对不起！ Excuse me! Yes? Is this your handbag? Pardon? Is this your handbag? Yes, it is. Thank you very much. 参考译文 对不起 什么事？ 这是您的手提包吗？ 对不起，请再说一遍。 这是您的手提包吗？ 是的，是我的。 非常感谢！ Lesson 3 Sorry, sir. 对不起，先生。

My coat and my umbrella please. Here is my ticket. Thank you, sir. Number five. Here's your umbrella and your coat. This is not my umbrella. Sorry sir. Is this your umbrella? No, it isn't. Is this it? Yes, it is. Thank you very much. 参考译文 请把我的大衣和伞拿给我。 这是我（寄存东西）的牌子。 谢谢，先生。 是5号。 这是您的伞和大衣 这不是我的伞。 对不起，先生。 这把伞是您的吗？ 不，不是！ 这把是吗？ 是，是这把 非常感谢。 Lesson 5 Nice to meet you 很高兴见到你。

新概念英语第四册课文：Lesson4

新概念英语第四册课文：Lesson4 【课文】 First listen and then answer the following question. 听录音，然后回答以下问题。 How did Vera discover she had this gift of second sight? Several cases have been reported in Russia recently of people who can read and detect colours with their fingers, and even see through solid doors and walls. One case concerns an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, Vera Petrova, who has normal vision but who can also perceive things with different parts of her skin, and through solid walls. This ability was first noticed by her father. One day she came into his office and happened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe. Suddenly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there, and even described the way they were done up in bundles. Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a scientific research institute in the town of Ulyanovsk, near where she lives, and in April she was given a series of tests by a special commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Republic. During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and, stranger still, by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto she was able to describe the figures and colours printed on it; and, in another instance, wearing stockings and slippers, to make out with her foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under a carpet. Other experiments showed that her knees and

新概念英语第四册课文翻译：Lesson9

新概念英语第四册课文翻译：Lesson9【课文】 Alfred the Great acted as his own spy, visiting Danish camps disguised as a minstrel. In those days wandering minstrels were welcome everywhere. They were not fighting men, and their harp was their passport. Alfred had learned many of their ballads in his youth, and could vary his programme with acrobatic tricks and simple conjuring. While Alfred's little army slowly began to gather at Athelney, the king himself set out to penetrate the camp of Guthrum, the commander of the Danish invaders. These had settled down for the winter at Chippenham： thither Alfred went. He noticed at once that discipline was slack： the Danes had the self-confidence of conquerors, and their security precautions were casual. They lived well, on the proceeds of raids on neighbouring regions. There they collected women as well as food and drink, and a life of ease had made them soft. Alfred stayed in the camp a week before he returned to Athelney. The force there assembled was trivial compared with the Danish horde. But Alfred had deduced that the Danes were no longer fit for prolonged battle： and that their commissariat had no organization, but depended on irregular raids. So, faced with the Danish advance, Alfred did not risk open battle but harried the enemy. He was constantly on the move, drawing the Danes after him. His patrols halted the raiding parties： hunger assailed the Danish army. Now Alfred

新概念英语4课文

1 NEW CONCEPT ENGLISH (IV) (new version) 2 Lesson 1 Finding Fossil man We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellersto another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something aboutmigrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesianpeoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these peopleexplain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even theirsagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, becausethis is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used woodand skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools oflong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace. 3 Lesson 2 Spare that spider Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy somany insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the humanrace. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they woulddevour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protectionwe get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never dothe least harm to us or our belongings.Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them.One can tell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legsand an insect never more than six.How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf ? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, andhe estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry

新概念英语第四册课文word版

Lesson1 We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago. But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.

新概念英语第四册第十一单元课文原文

新概念英语第四册第十一单元课文原文 Lesson 11 How to grow old 如何安度晚年 Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it so at least it seems to me----is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river--small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And it, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done. (NCE Book Four)

新概念第四册 第三课课文

Lesson 3 Matterhorn man 马特霍恩山区人 First listen and then answer the following question. 听录音，然后回答以下问题。 What was the main objective of early mountain climbers? Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport, and the more difficult it is, the more highly it is regarded. In the pioneering days, however, this was not the case at all. The early climbers were looking for the easiest way to the top, because the summit was the prize they sought, especially if it and never been attained before. It is true that during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature, equipped in a manner with would make a modern climber shudder at the thought, but they did not go out of their way to court such excitement. They had a single aim, a solitary goal -- the top! It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers. Except for one or two places such as Zermatt and Chamonix, which had rapidly become popular, Alpine village tended to be impoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains. Such inns as there were generally dirty and flea-ridden; the food simply local cheese accompanied by bread often twelve months old, all washed down with coarse wine. Often a valley boasted no inn at all, and climbers found shelter wherever they could -- sometimes with the local priest (who was usually as poor as his parishioners), sometimes with shepherds or cheese-makers. Invariably the background was the same: dirt and poverty, and very uncomfortable. For men accustomed to eating seven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home, the change to the Alps must have been very hard indeed. WALTER UNSWORTH Matterhorn Man New words and expressions 生词和短语 Matterhorn n. 马特霍恩峰（阿尔卑斯山之一，在意大利和瑞士边境） alpinist [??lpinist] n. 登山运动员 pioneer v. 开辟，倡导； n. 先锋，开辟者 summit n. 顶峰 attain v. 到达 perilous adj. 危险的['peril?s]