外研社新课标必修二课文Module 1 Zhou KaiWhen Zhou Kai’s mother saw him heading towards the front door without a jacket on, she eyed him anxiously.“Zhou Kai, where are you going?” she asked.“To the park. I’m gong to play football,” said Zhou Kai.“But it’s raining! You’ll catch a bad cold,” said his mother.“No, I won’t. I’ll be fine,” said Zhou Kai, as he opened the door.“Zhou Kai, you’ll get ill. You know you will. You can at least go and get your jacket.”“OK, OK” Zhou Kai went and did as he was told.Zhou Kai (2)My mother has always made sure we eat very healthily, and fresh fruit and vegetables are a very important part of our diet. We live near the sea and we have fish about four times a week. We don’t eat much fat or sugar. A lot of my school f riends eat sweets every day but I’m lucky because I don’t have a sweet tooth ----I’d rather eat a nice piece of fruit. And I’m not too heavy, so I never have to diet, or anything like that.I’m quite healthy. I very rarely get colds, although, unusually for me, I had a bad cold and a bit of a fever last week. But that’s because I was stupid enough to play football in the rain. I don’t often get things like flu either. Last winter almost all my class mates got flu ----but I didn’t.I think I don’t get these things because I take a lot of exercise and am very fit. Two years ago I broke my arm playing football. The injury was quite painful and I couldn’t move my arm for month----I hated that.So as you can see from what I’ve said, I’m a normal kind of perso n.But there’s one thing I really love ----I’m crazy about football.I’m captain of the class team at school and I’m also a member of the Senior High team.Because of this, I make sure that I have a good diet, and as I’ve said, this isn’t a problem becaus e my mother feeds us so well.CULTURAL CORNERThe health care system of a country is very important and different countries have different ways of paying for it. Britain was the first country in the world to have a free health care system paid for by the government. Health care is free for everyone living in Britain. Most doctors and nurses work for the government and most hospitals are owned by the government. Until recently this system was very successful but recently there have been problems. This is because the governmenthas not put enough money into the health service. As a result, more people are using private health insurance. They see doctors who work for themselves and pay the doctors through the health insurance company.In America the system is very different. Most people have private health insurance. Doctors work for themselves and hospitals are privately owned. The health insurance company pays the doctors and the hospitals. The problem with this system is that poorer people don’t have to pay for private health insurance. As a result, they often have both health and money problems.Canada has a different system again. Health care is free. Doctors work privately and hospitals are privately owned. When you become ill, medical fees are paid for by the government.Module 2Article 1 No DrugsMy name is Adam Rouse. I'm 19 years old and I used to be a drug addict. I first started using drugs when I was 15. I bought cannabis from a man in the street. I continued to buy cannabis from the same man for about six months. One day, he offered me some crack cocaine.Article 2Cocaine is a powerfully addictive drug. Some drug users inject cocaine, others smoke it. Both ways are dangerous. Users who inject the drug are also in more danger if they share needles with other users.Crack cocaine is the most addictive form of cocaine. Users become addicted to crack cocaine much more easily if they smoke it. Smoking allows cocaine to reach the brain very quickly.When I went back to the man again, I wanted more crack cocaine. But he asked me for a lot of money. I didn't have enough money so he didn't give me any drugs. I was in terrible pain.The next day, I broke into a house and stole a television and a video recorder. I took them to the drug dealer. He told me to take them to a shop in a nearby street. The man in the shop gave me some money. I took the money to the drug dealer and he gave me some more crack cocaine.Using cocaine increases the user's heart rate and blood pressure.As a result, cocaine users sometimes have heart attacks. Smoking crack cocaine also causes anti-social behaviour.By this time, I was addicted to crack cocaine. If I didn't have any drugs, I was in terrible pain. And I had to steal something every day to pay for the drugs. One day, the police took me to the police station.The next day, a doctor came to see me. He told me that I could die if I didn't stop taking crack cocaine, so I took his advice and stopped immediately.Now I work in a centre for drug addicts, helping others to stop taking drugs.CULTURAL CORNERStop Smoking Now—We Can Help!In almost every US city and town, there are local organisations to help people stop smoking. Participants learn to recognize smoking triggers (things that start them smoking) and they try to set a date in the future when they will stop smoking.One of the most popular and successful is the California Smokers' Helpline. Here is an extract from one of their leaflets.When you really want a cigarette—try the four Ds:1Delay: Look at your watch and wait for a couple of minutes. If you can wait two minutes, you won't want to smoke.2Distraction: Whatever you're doing when you want to smoke—do something else! For example, if you're alone, find someone to talk to. If you're sitting down, take a short walk.3 Drink water: If you drink water, you reduce the need to have something in your mouth.4Deep breathing: Breathe in slowly and deeply. Count to five when your lungs are full. Then breathe out slowly. Repeat several times.And here are some ideas to help people to give up smoking:1Make a plan: Make a list of friends who smoke and places where you smoke. Don't see those people and don't go to those places!2Set a date when you're going to stop: Choose a time when you will be relaxed but also too busy to think about smoking.3Keep busy: Instead of smoking, make a phone call, take a short walk, talk with a friend.4Develop new interests: Exercise—walking, hiking, jogging, swimming, or taking a gymnastic class—helps you to forget about cigarettes.Module 3 MusicJoseph Haydn (1732--1809) was an Austrian composer and is known as "the father of the symphony". Other composers had written symphonies before Haydn, but he changed the symphony into a long piece for a large orchestra.He was born in a village in Austria, the son of a peasant. He had a beautiful singing voice. After studying music in Vienna, Haydn went to work at the court of a prince in eastern Austria, where he became director of music.Having worked there for 30 years, Haydn moved to London, where he was very successful.Mozart (1756--1791) was a composer, possibly the greatest musical genius of all time. He only lived 35 years and he composed more than 600 pieces of music.Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria. His father Leopold was a musician and orchestra conductor. Wolfgang had musical talent from a very early age. He learned to play the harpsichord when he was four, he started composing music when he was five, and when he was six, he played the harpsichord in a concert for the Empress of Austria.By the time he was 14, Mozart had composed many pieces for the harpsichord, piano and violin, as well as for orchestras. While he was still a teenager, Mozart was already a big star and toured Europe giving concerts. Haydn met Mozart in 1781 and was very impressed with him. "He is the greatest composer the world has known," he said. The two were friends until Mozart's death in 1791.Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) was born in Bonn, Germany. He showed musical talent when he was very young, and learned to play the violin and piano from his father, who was a singer. Mozart met Beethoven and was impressed by him. "He will give something wonderful to the world," he said.Beethoven met Haydn in 1791, but was not impressed by the older man. After they had known each other for many years, Beethoven said, "He is a good composer, but he has taught me nothing." However, it was Haydn who encouraged Beethoven to move to Vienna.Beethoven became very popular in the Austrian capital and stayed there for the rest of his life. As he grew older, he began to go deaf. He became completely deaf during the last years of his life, but he continued composing.CULTURAL CORNERYe XiaogangYe Xiaogang, who was born in 1955,is one of a group of Chinese composers known as the New Tide. He writes symphonies and pieces for smaller groups of musicians. He also writes film music. He showed musical ability at an early age and began studying piano when he was four years old.From 1978 till 1983, he studied at the Central Conservatory of Music of China. After graduation, he worked there as a lecturer.In 1985, there was a concert of Ye Xiaogang's symphonies in Beijing. From that time, he has been one of the leading modern composers of Chinese classical music. In 1986, his album Horizon appeared and his music was played at the First Contemporary Chinese Composers' Festival in Hong Kong. He is famous for mixing Chinese musical traditions with western forms and instrumentation.Ye is a member of the Beijing music group Eclipse. Eclipse is perhaps the first independentmusic group in China which plays works by modern Chinese composers. In November 1996, the group played with Italian musician Enrico Rava at the Beijing International Jazz Festival.Ye Xiaogang has received many prizes, in China and in other countries. Since 1993, he has worked part of the time in Beijing and part of the time in the US. He's a professor of music at the Central Conservatory of Music of China, and composes pieces for the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.MODULE 4 Fine Arts-Western Chinese and Pop Arts A．This is a painting by the Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, considered to be the greatest western artist of the twentieth century. Picasso and another painter, George Braque, started Cubism, one of the most important of all modern art movements.Cubist artists painted objects and people, with different aspects of the object or person showing at the same time.This painting by contemporary American artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923 -1997) is a world famous example of pop art.Pop art (from the word "popular") was an important modern art movement that aimed to show ordinary twentieth-century city life. For example, it shows things such as soup cans and advertisements.Qi Baishi (1863-1957), one of the China's greatest painters, followed the traditional Chinese style of painting. Chinese painting is known for its brush drawings in black inks and natural colours. Qi Baishi observed the world of nature very carefully, and his paintings are special because of this.Xu Beihong (1895-1953) was one of China's best-known twentieth-century artists.Like Qi Baishi, Xu painted in the traditional Chinese style.Both painters have a beautiful brush line.Xu Beihong believed that artists should show reality, but not just imitate it. Instead, a picture should try to show the "life" of its subject. He is most famous for his lively paintings of horses..I'm studying art at school, and I enjoy it a lot, although I can get tired of looking at pictures all the time. I'm crazy about the paintings of Qi Baishi, and this delightful picture of the little shrimps is such a lovely example of his work. But I can't stand that picture of a golden-haired girl. I think it's stupid.My parents are fond of going to art galleries and often take me with them, so I've developed an interest in art. I must say, I love that picture of the six horses. They look so alive. It's by a Chinese artist, isn't it? I can tell by the style. I think the painting of the young girl is probably by Picasso. I really like him. I think he's an extraordinary artist.CULTURAL CORNERPeople generally agree that Pablo Picasso, who lived from 1881 to 1973, is the twentieth-century's greatest western artist. He was born in Spain and at the age of ten was already an excellent artist. He had his first exhibition at the age of 16. Picasso studied art in Spain, but moved to France, in his early twenties. From 1902 to 1904 he painted a series of pictures where the main colour was blue. These pictures showed poor, unhappy people and are known as Picasso's "blue period". From 1904 to 1906 Picasso painted much happier pictures in the colour pink. This period was known as Picasso's "pink period".With another Spanish artist called George Braque, Picasso then started an important new artistic movement called Cubism. Picasso's first Cubist paintings were all painted in brown and grey. People agree that Picasso's greatest Cubist painting is Guernica, which was painted in Madrid in 1937. Guernica is the name of a town that was destroyed during the 1930s war in Spain. In this painting, Picasso showed his feelings about what had happened to the town.MODULE 5 Newspapers and MagazinesChinese Taikonaut Back on Earth!China's first taikonaut Lieutenant Colonel Yang Liwei landed safely this morning in the Shenzhou V capsule in Inner Mongolia, 300 kilometres northwest of Beijing. Yang was in space for twenty-one and a half hours and made 14 orbits of the earth."It is a great moment in the history of China—and also the greatest day of my life," said Yang. When he was orbiting in the capsule, he took photographs of planet earth."Our planet is so beautiful," he said.The Beijing Space Control Centre said the flight was a "complete success". When Yang landed, Premier Wen Jiabao telephoned the Control Centre to offer his congratulations.When Yang took off from Jiuquan in northwest China at 9 am yesterday, China became the third nation to send a man into space.Yang is the 438th person to travel in space, including astronauts from 32 countries. In total, these astronauts have spent more than 26,000 days in space.While he was travelling in space, Yang spoke to two astronauts aboard the International Space Station, which is orbiting the earth, American astronaut Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. Lu, whose parents were born in China, spoke to Yang in Chinese during his flight. "Welcome to space," he said. Malenchenko said, "I am glad there is somebody else in space with us. It's great work by thousands and thousands of people from China."Many countries around the world sent messages of congratulations. Sean O'Keefe from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) in the US said that Yang's space flight was "animportant historical achievement and NASA wishes China continuing success with its space flight programme". United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the flight "a step forward for the whole world".CULTURAL CORNERDaily Newspapers in Britain and the United StatesNewspapers in Britain can be divided into the quality press (more serious newspapers) and the popular press. Quality newspapers have home and international news, and sports and cultural events. They also carry financial reports, travel news and book and film reviews.Popular newspapers are also known as tabloids. They have large headlines, a lot of big photographs and concentrate on news and events about famous people, and news about the British royal family.The Times is the most famous of the quality newspapers. It began in 1785. It is read by important people such as politicians, lawyers and businessmen. The Sun, founded in 1964, is the most successful of the popular newspapers. Around four million people read it every day and it sells more than any other daily newspaper.In the United States, newspapers usually have the name of the city where they are produced (for example, The New York Times ). You can buy the bigger ones all over the country. The US also has a lot of tabloid newspapers, such as The New York Daily News, which are similar to British tabloids.MODULE 6 Films and TV ProgrammesFilm Review: Crouching Tiger, Hidden DragonMartial arts films are often enjoyable but they are seldom great art. Now, to everyone's surprise, Ang Lee, director of a number of excellent films, has made a martial arts film called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The result is a masterpiece.The film belongs to a type of Chinese story called wuxia.These stories tell of nineteenth-century martial arts masters with unusual abilities. Wuxia films are popular in China, and they are now popular in the west too.The story takes place in the early 1800s in China. A man and a woman, Li Mubai (played by Chow Yun-Fat) and Yu Xiulian (played by Michelle Yeoh), both masters of the martial arts, are in love with each other. But Xiulian had a fiancé who has died. Because this fiancé was a good friendof Mubai, Mubai feels that he cannot marry Xiulian. When someone steals Xiulian's sword, Mubai and Xiulian try to get it back. The action takes place on Peking rooftops, and in places as far away as the deserts of western China. As in the old wuxia stories, characters leap through the air every now and then, with beautiful, graceful movements, while audiences shout in surprise.Unusually, it is the female characters that interest us most. Brave, good and strong, Xiulian is the character we care about most.Beautiful Zhang Ziyi plays the part of Yu Jiaolong, a young woman who is not as good as she seems. The fight scenes between Jiaolong and Xiulian are some of the most exciting moments in modern cinema. But one cannot forget the wonderful Chow Yun-Fat, who is as good with a sword as he is with a gun.His romantic scenes with Yu Xiulian are very moving, as their eyes show all the love that they must not express in words.Film like this rarely reach the cinema.Go and see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.It will make your heart leap with excitement at its beauty.CULTURAL CORNERSteven Spielberg—Film DirectorAsk a young person in the street who the greatest American film director is, and you may get the answer Steven Spielberg. He has certainly made more successful films than any other director in the west.Spielberg was born in the state of Ohio, America, in 1946. He showed that he had unusual abilities when he was very young, completing his first 15-minute home movie at the age of 13. When he was 16 he made a 135-minute home movie called Firelight. This was shown at a local cinema and made $100.At the age of 24, Spielberg made a 26-minute film called Amblin. A Hollywood film studio liked it and employed Spielberg to make a full-length film. This film, Sugarland Express, made in 1974, had some success. Spielberg's next film was Jaws, a film about a shark that ate people. This was one of the most successful films of all time. Other wonderful films followed: E.T.—The Extra Terrestrial (1982), The Indiana Jones Trilogy, Jurassic Park(a film about dinosaurs), and Schindler's List. For this last film Spielberg won an Oscar, Hollywood's highest prize.For many years, Spielberg could not make a mistake. However, in the last fifteen years, some of his films have been less successful. But it is generally agreed, that he, more than anyone else in the history of films, understands the meaning of the word "entertainment".。
