In-class Listening Materials（1-4）Unit 1 Man and AnimalsPart I In-class ListeningI. Understanding Basic SkillsListening TaskDirections: Listen to the following short conversations and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.1. W: How long do you intend to stay, Mr. Williams?M: I’m not sure. It all depends. Probably I’ll leave as soon as I find another hotel. Q: Where does the man probably stay now?2. W: Tom’s mother told me that Tom was in hospital.M: He left the hospital yesterday and he’ll go to class tomorrow.Q: Where is Tom probably now?3. W: How do you like your new job, Jim?M: Fine. This week I have been reading the financial reports and studying the books. Next week I will probably start to handle some of the accounts.Q: What does the man do for a living?4. W: Your glasses are fine, if you don’t like the frames, perhaps we could change them. M: Actually I was thinking of trying some contact lenses, if you think that I would be able to wear them.Q: To whom is the woman speaking?5. W: Do you believe Jack’s story about being late because his alarm clock had stopped? M: I think he made it up.Q: What does the man mean?6. W: Tom, you really must take school more seriously. If you don’t pass your exam,you’ll have to go out and work.M: I don’t see that it makes much difference. If I have a job, I have to do boring work every day; but if I’m at school, I must listen to boring teachers every day. Q: Which does Tom prefer, work or studying at school?7. W: You still have a social science requirement to fulfill, Jim. You can take history,psychology, anthropology, or sociology. Which do you think you’d like?M: Well, I’ve always been fascinated by the conscious and unconscious reasons people have for acting as they do, and I’d like to learn more about how memory works.Q: Which course will the man probably take?8. W: What time does the library close?M: On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, it closes at five p.m下午. On Tuesday and Thursday, it’s open till nine. It stays open until six on Saturday, but on Sunday it’s closed all day.Q: Which evenings is the library open?9. W: The election will be very close, according to the polls.M: Remember what happened in 1948? At first we all thought that Dewey would win, but, when all the votes were counted, it was Truman instead.Q: What is being discussed?10. W: I never thought I’d see your name on a book cover.M: To tell you the truth, neither did I. I didn’t even get good grades in English.Q: What is the man’s probable profession?II. Understanding a ConversationListening TaskDirections: Listen to the conversation and complete the following sentences.Tim: Today someone said I was a pig. I got angry at first, but then I was told that he was talking about my Chinese Zodiac symbol. I was a pig because I was born in the year of the pig.Zhao Lin: Ha ha, we do have this tradition. I am one year younger than you, so I am a mouse. In China, every year is represented by an animal. There are a total of twelve animals so the zodiac follows a twelve-year cycle.Tim: Those animals are …Zhao Lin: They are the mouse, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.Tim: Interesting, but why these 12 animals instead of others?Zhao Lin: According to the legend, during a Chinese new year celebration, Buddha invited all the animals to his kingdom, but unfortunately, for reasons only known to the animals, a total of 12 turned up. The mouse came first, followed by the ox, the tiger, the rabbit and so on and finally the pig. Out of gratitude, Buddha decided to name the year after each of the animals in their order of arrival, and people born of that year would inherit the traits of that particular animal. Some Chinese consider this superstitious, but many truly believe that the signs reveal the hidden secrets of a person’s character. Some people are very careful about the zodiac when choosing their spouse.Tim: Really? If their zodiacs don’t match, will they break up?Zhao Lin: In fact, people all know that a zodiac match cannot be the deciding factor.But there are still many sayings like, sheep and rabbits are ideal partners for pigs, but monkeys and snakes are bad for pigs.III. Understanding PassagesListening Task 1Directions:Listen to the following passage and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.Jo Shoesmith from Maryland, says the hardest part of her divorce was figuring out what to do with Misha, Nike, Shay, Violet, Momma Kitty and Cotton—the three dogs and three cats she and her ex-husband had cared for during their married years.“The lead-up导致物to the break-up was very rough, especially for Nike, who became so nervous, she would tremble发抖and pace踱步,”Shoesmith told The Christian Science Monitor基督教科学箴言报.“We did not want to put them through any more unnecessary stress.”At the time of the couple’s separation, Shoesmith got sole custody子女单亲监护协议of the cats, with her ex前夫, Martin Stephens from West Virginia, paying “cat support”. The former couple has joint custody共同监护of the dogs. This means that Shoesmith and Stephens travel back and forth between their two homes every other week just to spend time with their pets.The couple separated in 1997, when pet custody监护抚养权was unusual. Today, however, many top law schools, including Harvard, Georgetown and Yale, offer animal law courses on pet custody. The Animal Legal Defense Fund has handled several divorce cases with pet owners, and two law firms in California have partners who specialize in专门研究pet custody.“Certainly there is a giggle factor,” says lawyer David Wolfson, “but this area of the law needed to change to reflect that people do form special bonds with their pets.”Questions:1. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT true?2. How often does the former couple travel between their homes to spend time with their pets?3. Which of the following is true about pet custody nowadays?4. What can we learn from the passage?Listening Task 2Directions: Listen to the following passage and fill in the blanks with the exact words or sentences you hear.Lawmakers in Northwest China’s Shaanxi Province enacted a law on Saturday that is intended to improve protection of the Qinling Mountains, a habitat of endangered giant pandas.The law is aimed at preserving biodiversity,preventing soil erosion水土流失and promoting harmony between man and nature in the mountain range.It requires all future development projects in the Qinling Mountains to be assessed for their possible impact on the ecology and bans real estate projects and polluting industries in nature reserves, where the ecology is more vulnerable. The law also ban s mining采矿and resource exploration in nature reserves and forest parks. According to the law, local governments must ensure immediate demolition of existing projects that are potentially harmful to the ecology.The Qinling range is home to approximately 300 Qinling pandas, a sub-species of giant pandas on the verge of extinction, and many other rare animals稀有动物under state protection, such as golden monkey s, the red ibis and antelopes.Unit 2 GeographyPart I In-class ListeningI. Understanding Basic SkillsListening TaskDirections: In this section, you will hear some information about geography. Listen carefully and decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).1. The atmosphere of the Earth is quite thin compared to the radius半径. A very fragile脆弱的layer of gases protects us from the vacuum真空，空间of space. We must be very careful in the way we treat the atmosphere.2. The focus of the earthquake is directly below the epicenter震中. The epicenter is the point directly above the focus on the surface. The focus焦点中心is the true origin of the earthquake.3. Much of our energy is received from the Sun. You will feel the days warm and the nights cool because you are either facing or not facing the Sun. Other energy comes from within the planet. We have a molten iron core融化的铁芯that creates a magnetic field磁场to protect the Earth. There is also molten rock熔岩just below the surface that releases energy into our atmosphere and heats the oceans.4. Climate and weather are very different ideas. Weather describes the current水流conditions. Your weather might be rainy, cloudy, or hot. Climate describes the region’s environment over long periods. While snow is not something you would expect in the climate, variations in weather happen all of the time.5. The biosphere is all about life. Physical geographers地理学者use the term biosphere to describe our living world. This is where all of the trees, bugs臭虫, and animals live in. It also reaches deep into the ground at a dark cave洞穴or to the bottom of the ocean at hydrothermal vents深海热泉.II. Understanding a ConversationListening TaskDirections: Listen to the following conversation and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.W: Dr. Smith, I’ve got a question here. Well, we talks about erosion侵蚀and the deposit 沉淀of sediment on the deep sea floor, but I’m confused. For that to happen, there would have to be some kind of force down there moving the mud 泥土or sand or whatever, right? But I thought there weren’t any waves orcurrents 水流that deep in the ocean.M: Tha t’s not exactly correct. It’s true that deep down on the ocean floor we won’t have the same kinds of currents we find in shallow er更浅的parts. But we do find what we call turbidity currents浊流. This wasn’t in the book but the term came up in class. Do you remember what it means?W: Umh, turbidity currents? Oh, yeah! Isn’t that when sediment沉淀物like sand or mud gets stirred up激起，搅拌and mixes with water? And then this mixture flows through the water around it, right?M: Good!W: Uh, but I thought that only happened in rivers.M: Well. Yes. This does occur in rivers, but we see turbidity currents deep in the ocean as well.W: But how do they get started there?M: Earthquakes mostly. When an earthquake occurs under water, it throws up抛起tremendous巨大的amounts of mud or sand that becomes suspended悬浮in a layer of water near the bottom of the ocean. This layer is so much dense r and heavier than other ocean water that it flows right down the slopes斜坡of the ocean floor and gains more and more speed as it moves along. Then it’s just like the winds blowing across the desert沙漠picking up扬起from one place and moving it along and finally dropping it somewhere else.Questions:1. What is the main topic of the conversation?2. What does the professor ask the student to explain?3. According to the professor, how do earthquakes cause turbidity currents?4. Why does the professor mention desert winds?III. Understanding PassagesListening Task 1Directions: Listen to the passage and decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).Advice on how much fertilizer to use will soon be just a phone call away for rice farmers in the Philippines. The Philippine Department of Agriculture and the International Rice Research Institute plan to launch a free service next month. Farmers will call a number and a recorded voice will ask them simple questions. For example, farmers will be asked about the size of their field and how many bags of rice it produced last year. About ten minutes later the farmer will get a text message文字信息. The message will advise what kind of fertilizer to use and how much. The grower will also get suggestions about when to plant and harvest收割the rice.Roland Buresh at the International Rice Research Institute says the service couldhelp farmers in the Philippines increase their yields产量and their profits收益. Danielle Nierenberg at the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental research group, says the system could also help reduce pollution.The technology could also be copied for crops in other places. Danielle Nierenberg has been traveling across sub-Saharan Africa. She says the cost of a cell phone there is low enough that most farmers have their own or borrow someone else’s.In Zambia, for example, farmers without bank accounts can use their phones to buy seeds and fertilizers. They can also get information on how much their crop is selling for in city markets. They can decide whether they want to travel all the way from their village to the city, because sometimes farmers get there and prices are too low.Listening Task 2Directions:Listen to the passage and fill the blanks with the information you’v e heard.The Japanese archipelago is located in an area where several continental and oceanic plates meet. This is the cause of frequent earthquakes and the presence of many volcanoes and hot springs across Japan.Many parts of the country have experienced devastating earthquakes in the past. The Great Kanto Earthquake, the worst in Japanese history, hit the Kanto plain around Tokyo in 1923 and resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 people. In January 1995 a strong earthquake hit the city of Kobe and surroundings. Known as the Southern Hyogo Earthquake or Great Hanshin Earthquake, it killed 6,000 and injured 415,000 people. 100,000 homes were completely destroyed and 185,000 were severely damaged.As to the earthquake measurement, the Japanese “shindo” scale for measuri ng earthquakes is more commonly used in Japan than the Richter scale to describe earthquakes. Shindo refers to the intensity of an earthquake at a given location.Every household should keep a survival kit with a flashlight, a radio, a first aid kit and enough food and water to last for a few days. Avoid placing heavy objects in places where they could easily fall during an earthquake and cause injury or block exits. Have a fire extinguisher. Familiarize yourself with the designated evacuation area in your neighborhood.Unit 3 OceanPart I In-class ListeningI. Understanding Basic SkillsListening Task 1Directions: Listen to the following sentences and try to grasp the meaning of each sentence with falling tone or rising tone.1. I beg your pardon.I beg your pardon.2. This is mine.This is mine.3. Are you coming?Are you coming?4. What is your name?5. What an exquisite piece of art.6. I can’t wait that long.7. Don’t go back now.8. I won’t continue the story.9. Thank you for your coming to see me off.10.Are you pleased?Listening Task 2Directions: Listen to the following short conversations and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.1. W: Where do you want to eat?M: Is there anything wrong with the coffee shop?Q: What does the man mean?2. M: I’m sorry I’m late, but I just couldn’t help it I got here as soon as I could.W: Well,it’s not soon enough, is it?Q: What does the woman mean?3. M: Mom, I can’t finish math homework, it’s too difficult to do.W: You know what to do, if there is a problem.Q: What does the woman mean?4. W: Look. I’m sorry, I didn’t turn up for the match yesterday, Bob. B ut I couldn’t,I’m afraid.M: Well, it is a bit late to be sorry now, isn’t it?Q: What does the man mean?5. M: Let’s see if the basket ball game has started yet?W: Started?It must be clear who is going to win.Q: What does the woman mean?6. W: I hear Jane has been pretty successful in her job.M: Pretty successful? That is understatement of the year.Q: What does the man imply about Jane?7. W: Mr. Smith’s briefing seems to go on forever. I was barely able to stay awake. M: How could you sleep through that! It is very important.Q: What does the man imply?8. M: I bought a few books at the new bookstore. Would you like to have a look atthem?W: A few! It looks like you bought out the store.Q: What does the woman mean?9. W: Do you enjoy majoring in mathematics?M: Enjoy? If I could choose again, I would study biology.Q: What conclusion can be drawn from the man’s reply?10.W: Would you like a cup of coffee to help you wake up?M: A cup of coffee? I need three or four.Q: What does the man mean?II. Understanding a ConversationListening TaskDirections: Listen to the following conversation and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.A student is interviewing a weatherman Li Hua.M: Hello, Li Hua. I’m interested in hurricanes飓风whose matchless无比的无敌的power and the loss they cause are often reported in TV news. I wonder how a hurricane form.W: OK! In the second half of each year, many powerful storms are born in the tropical热带的Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea加勒比海. About half of them generate strong circle盘旋的winds of 75 miles per hour or more. At first, these great storms travel aimlessly漫无目的over the sea, hit the coast海岸and form circling disturbance干扰骚乱hundreds even thousands of miles out to the sea. M: Is such a circle disturbance called hurricane?W: No. When the conditions are just right, moist air湿空气flows in at the bottom of such a disturbance, the moisture in the warm air produces rain and with the moisture, the heat is converted into energy in form of strong wind. As the heat increases, the young hurricane begins to swirl旋转in a counter-clockwise逆时针motion.M: How long does a hurricane exist?W: Its average life is only nine days. But it is difficult to imagine how great energy it produces in a single day.M: How great?W: The energy released by a hurricane’s rainfall in a single day would satisfy the entire electrical needs of the United States for six months.M: Wow! How much rain does a hurricane bring?W: A typical hurricane brings 6-12 inches downpours倾盆大雨, resulting in sudden flood. The water level rises at 15 feet above the normal as it moves toward shore.M: And there, it causes millions of dollars of damage and brings death to large number of people.W: Yeah.M: Thank you very much!W: You’re welcome!Questions:1. When do hurricanes often occur?2. When is a tropic storm considered to be a hurricane?3. In what motion do hurricanes usually begin to swirl as the heat increases?4. On an average how long does a hurricane exist？5. What a rainfall does a hurricane bring?III. Understanding PassagesListening Task 1Directions:Listen to the following passage and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.The Atlantic Ocean is only half as big as the Pacific Ocean, but it is still very large. It is more than 4,000 miles wide where Columbus crossed it. Even its narrowest is about 2,000 miles wide.Two things make the Atlantic rather unusual. For so large an ocean it has very few islands. Also it is the world’s saltiest ocean.There is so much water in the Atlantic that it is hard to imagine how much water there is. But suppose no more rain fell into it and no more water were brought to it by rivers, it would take the ocean about 4,000 years to dry up.One of the largest mountain ranges山脉of the world rises from the floor of the Atlantic. This mountain range runs north and south down the middle of the ocean. The tops of a few mountains reach up露出来above the sea and make islands.Ocean currents海洋洋流are sometimes called “rivers in the sea”. One of these “rivers”in the Atlantic is called “the Gulf Stream”. It is a current of warm water. Another is “Labrador Current拉布拉多寒流”. It is a current of cold water. The cold water comes from the Arctic Ocean current北冰洋洋流.Today the Atlantic is a great highway交通干线. However it is not always a smooth and safe one. Storms暴风雨sweep across it and pile up积累great waves. Icebergs float down from the north across of the path of ships.Questions:1. How wide is the Atlantic Ocean where Columbus crossed?2. Which of the following makes the Atlantic Ocean unusual?3. Which of the following is sometimes called “River in the sea”?4. Where does one of the largest mountain ranges of the world rise from?5. What does the “High Way” mean in this passage？Listening Task 2Directions: Listen to the passage and fill in the blanks with the words you have heard.The Arctic Ocean is located in the Northern Hemisphere, and almost in the Arctic North polar region. It’s the smallest and shallowest of the world’s five major oceans.The Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of 14 million sq. km, almost the size of Russia. The coast line is over 45 thousand km.The Arctic Ocean’s salinity varies seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes. Its salinity is the lowest on average of the five major oceans, due to the low evaporation, heavy freshwater inflow from rivers and streams, and limited connection and outflow to surrounding oceanic water with higher salinity.The Arctic Ocean holds 25% or more of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources. Fish, seals, whales hares, polar bears, sea gulls can be found in abundance in the area. However, it has a fragile ecosystem which is slow to change and slow to recover from disruption or damage.Unit 4 Environmental ProtectionPart I In-class ListeningI. Understanding Basic SkillsListening TaskDirections: Listen to the following short conversations and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.1. M: Do sit down, please. Would you like something to drink?W: Yes, please. That’ll be nice.Q: What is the probable relationship between the two speakers?2. M: A terrible day again, I wonder when this will end.W: Well, the weatherman predicts it won’t last long. Better weather is on the way. Q: What will the weather be like in the near future?3. W: I wonder if I could use your phone.M: Oh, I’m sorry. You see, it’s out of order again.Q: What can we learn from the conversation?4. M: Your power of concentration is amazing. Didn’t you hear me come in?W: Are you talking to me?Q: What can be inferred from this conversation about the woman?5. W: I’ve got time to buy a magazine, haven’t I?M: The train is about to leave.Q: What does the man mean?6. M: Aren’t we supposed to have a literature test this afternoon?W: It’s postponed because the teacher has to attend a conference.Q: What can we learn from this conversation?7. W: I am afraid this research work is really beyond me.M: Oh, why not come to Dr. Scott?Q: What does the man mean?8. W: I wonder if a problem like this can be solved by Linda.M: Well, if she can’t solve it, no one can.Q: What can be concluded from the conversation?9. M: The play should have begun ten minutes ago. What’s holding things up?W: The main actor is caught in a traffic jam.Q: What can we learn from the conversation?10. M: Do you like Professor Zhang’s class?W: I never miss her class, you know.Q: What can we learn from the conversation?II. Understanding a ConversationListening TaskDirections: Listen to the conversation and complete the following sentences. (Emma and Michael are talking about tropical rain forests.)W: Hi, Michael, how did you enjoy your trip to Brazil?M: Oh, very well. We’ve been to different parts of the country.W: What do you like most about Brazil?M: Its forests. Brazil has one of the largest tropical rain forests in the world. There are many different kinds of trees there. It’s wonderful.W: I can imagine. It’s said that the area is the heaven for plants. Is that true?M: Yes. It has an average rainfall of about 400 inches a year, and the average temperature is about 28℃. It’s just the right condition for trees to grow.W: But a recent report says that tropical rain forests will disappear soon. Is it true?Why is it happening?M: It’s true. It is because of the destruction of forests. Men are over cutting down trees for money.W: It’s really stupid to do so. They don’t know such destruction may even change the climate.M: That’s what we are worried about. Trees are closely related to climate. Climate changes may also lead to decrease in trees. The result will be terrible.III. Understanding PassagesListening Task 1Directions:Listen to the following passage and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.There are many stories about global warming. You cannot pick up a newspaper or watch TV without hearing about it. There are different opinions on it. A small number of people think that global warming is not real. They say that the earth’s climate has been changing for as long as anyone can remember. Why worry about the changes that are happening today?Most people, on the other hand, take the problem very seriously indeed. Scientists have shown that for the past twenty years the temperature of the earth has been increasing by 0.1℃every year. As the earth gets hotter, ice caps in the North Pole and the South Pole will slowly melt. The level of the oceans will rise. A recent report says the sea will rise by 70 meters in the next five generations.But there will be many more changes. Certain areas of the earth will become wetter, while others will become drier. Areas which today are green and fertile will turn into deserts. Summers will become warmer. Tropical diseases such as malaria will be common in areas where today that are unknown.Why is this happening? For many people the answer is simple—greenhouse gases are allowing more of the infrared heat from sun to reach us on earth. They believe the solution is also simple and lies with each one of us—stop producing greenhouse gases. In other words, stop using your car!Questions:1. What changes will be brought about by global warming?2. Which of the following is true?3. What should we do to stop global warming?4. Which of the following is the most probable title for the passage?Listening Task 2Directions: Listen to the following passage and fill in the blanks with the exact words or phrases you hear.On July the 4th, 2010, Chinese actress Li Bingbing, was designated in Shanghai as the first national Goodwill Ambassador in China for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).As Goodwill Ambassador, Li Bingbing will help UNEP in its mission to generate awareness and understanding of environmental causes, as well as inspire positive action.The new Goodwill Ambassador will help focus attention on some of the biggest threats facing the planet, climate change and environment.“I am honored to have this opportunity to work with UNEP on the environment. I am an environmentalist in my personal life and I try to share this passion with my fans and the wider public,” she said.Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director said: “Li Bingbing is our first G oodwill Ambassador in China and UNEP is delighted to welcome her on board. UNEP commends her personal commitment to a greener lifestyle and her passion to influence the public.”Test OneI. Understanding Basic SkillsDirections: Listen to the passage and fill in the blanks with the exact words, phrases or sentences you hear.All big cities are quite similar. Living in a modern Asian city is not very different from living in an American city. The same cannot be said about living on farms, however.In many parts of the world, farmers and their families live in villages or towns. In the United States, however, each farm family lives on its own fields, often beyond the sight of any neighbors. Instead of traveling from a village to the fields every morning, American farmers stay on their land throughout the week. They travel to the nearest town on Saturdays for shopping or on Sundays for church. The children ride on buses to large schools which serve all of the farm families living in the area. In some areas, there are small schools serving a few farm families, and the children walk to school.Of course life keeps changing for everyone, including farmers. Today there are cars, good roads, radios and television sets. And of course there are modern machines for farming. All of these have changed farm life.For many years, however, farming in America was often a lonely way of living. Farmers had to deal with their own problems, instead of getting help from others. They learned to try new methods, and to trust their own ideas instead of following older ways.II. Understanding ConversationsDirections: Listen to the following ten short conversations and choose the best answers to the questions you hear.1. M: The lock on my front door is broken.W: Why don’t you have Mr. Smith fix it? He’s very good.Q: What does the woman suggest the man do?。
