-
精品文档
Unit 1
Women of achievement
Reading
A STUDENT OF AFRICAN WILDLIFE
It is 5:45 am and the sun is just rising over Gombe National Park in East Africa.
Following Jane’s way of studying chimps, our group are all going to visit them in the forest.
Jane has studied these families of chimps for many years and helped people understand how
much they behave like humans.
Watching a family of chimps wake up is our first activity of
the day.
This means going back to the place where we left the family sleeping in a tree the
night before.
Everybody sits and waits in the shade of the trees while the family beings to
wake up and move off.
Then we follow as they wander into the forest.
Most of the time,
chimps either feed or clean each other as a way of showing love in their family.
Jane warns
us that our group is going to be very tired and dirty by the afternoon and she is right.
However, the evening makes it all worthwhile.
We watch the mother chimp and her babies
play in the tree.
Them we see them go to sleep together in their nest for the night.
We
realize that the bond between members of a chimp family is as long as in a human family.
Nobody before Jane fully understood chimp behaviour.
She spent years observing and
recording their daily activities.
Since her childhood she had wanted to work with animals in
their own environment.
However, this was not easy.
When she first arrived in Gombe in
1960, it was unusual for a woman to live in the forest.
Only after her mother came to help
her for the first few months was she allowed to begin her project.
Her work changed the
way people think about chimps.
For example, one important thing she discovered was that
chimps hunt and eat meat.
Until then everyone had thought chimps ate only fruit and nuts.
She actually observed chimps as a group hunting a monkey and then eating it.
She also
discovered how chimps communicate with each other, and her study of their body language
helped her work out their social system.
Four forty years Jane Goodall has been outspoken about making the rest of the world
understand and respect the life of these animals.
She has argued that wild animals should be
left in the wild and not used for entertainment or advertisements.
She has helped to set up
special places where they can li
ve safely.
She is leading a busy life but she says: “
Once I
stop, it all comes crowding in and I remember the chimps in laboratories.
It’s terrible.
It
affects me when I watch the wild chimps.
I say to myself, ‘Aren’t they luck?’
And then I
think about small chimps in cages though they have done nothing wrong.
Once you have
seen that you can never forget…
”
She has achieved everything she wanted to do: working with animals in their own
environment, gaining a doctor’s degree and showing that women can l
ive in the forest as men
can.
She inspires those who want to cheer the achievement of women.
Using language
精品文档
精品文档
WHY NOT CARRY ON HER GOOD WORD?
I enjoyed English, biology, and chemistry at school, but which one should I choose to
study at university?
I did not know the answer until one evening when I sat down at the
computer to do some research on great women of China.
By chance I came across an article about a doctor called Lin Qiaozhi, a specialist in
women’s diseases.
She lived from 1901 to 1983.
It
seemed that she had been very busy in
her chosen career, traveling abroad to study as well as writing books and articles.
One of
them caught my eye.
I was a small book explaining how to cut the death rate from having
and caring for babies.
She gave some simple rules to follow for keeping babies clean,
healthy and free from sickness.
Why did she write that?
Who were the women that Lin
Qiaozhi thought needed this advice
？
I looked carefully at the text and realized that it was
intended for women in the countryside.
Perhaps if they had an emergency they could not
reach a doctor.
Suddenly it hit me how difficult it was for a woman to get medical training at that time.
That was a generation when girl’s education was always placed second to boys’.
Was she
so
much cleverer than anyone else?
Further reading made me realize that it was hard work and
determination as well as her gentle nature that got her into medical school.
What made her
succeed later on was the kindness and consideration she showed to all her patients.
There
was story after story of how Lin Qiaozhi, tired after a day’s work, went late at night to deliver
a baby for a poor family who could not pay her.
By now I could not wait to find out more about her.
I discovered that Lin Qiaozhi had
devoted her whold life to her patients and had chosen not to have a family of her own.
Instead she made sure that about 50,000 babies were safely delivered.
By this time I was
very excited.
Why not study at medical college like Lin Qiaozhi and carry on her good work?
It was still not too late for me to improve my studies, prepare for the university entrance
examinations, and…
Unit 2
Working the land
A PILNEER FOR ALL PEOPLE
Although he is one of China’s most famous scientists, Yuan Longping considers h
imself a
farmer, for he works the land to do his research.
Indeed, his sunburnt face and arms and his
slim, strong body are just like those of millions of Chinese farmers, for whom he has
struggled for the past five decades.
Dr Yuan Longping grows what is called super hybrid
rice.
In 1974, he became the first agricultural pioneer in the world to grow rich that has a
high output.
This special strain of rice makes it possible to produce one-third more of the
crop in the same fields.
Now more than 60% of the rice produced in China each year is from
this hybrid strain.
精品文档
精品文档
Born in 1930, Dr Yuan graduated from Southwest Agricultural College in 1953.
Since
then, finding ways to grow more rice has been his life goal.
As a young man, he saw the
great need for increasing the rice output.
At that time, hunger was a disturbing problem in
many parts of the countryside.
Dr Yuan searched for a way to increase rice harvests without
expanding the area of the fields.
In 1950, Chinese farmers could produce only fifty million
tons of rice.
In a recent harvest, however, nearly two hundred million tons of rice was
produced.
These increased harvests mean that 22% fo the world’s people are fed from just
7% of the farmland in China.
Dr Yuan is now circulating his knowledge in India, Vietnam
and many other less developed countries to increase their rice harvests.
Thanks to his
research, the UN has more tools in the battle to rid the world of hunger.
Using his hybrid
rice, farmers are producing harvests twice as large as before.
Dr Yuan is quite satisfied with his life.
However, he doesn’t care about being famous.
He feels it gives him less freedom to do his research.
He would much rather keep time for
his hobbies.
He enjoys listening to violin music, playing mah-jong, swimming and reading.
Spending money on himself or leading a comfortable life also means very little to him.
Indeed, he believes that a person with too much money has more rather than fewer troubles.
He therefore gives millions of yuan to equip others for their research in agriculture.
Just dreaming for things, however, costs nothing.
Long ago Dr Yuan had a dream about
rice plants as tall as a peanut.
Dr Yuan awoke from his dream with the hope of producing a
kind of rice that could feed more people.
Now, many years later, Dr Yuan has another
dream: to export his rice so that it can be grown around the globe.
One dream is not always
enough, especially for a person who loves and cares for his people.
Using Language
CHEMICAL OR ORGANIC FARMING?
Over the past half century, using chemical fertilizers has become very common in farming.
Many farmers welcomed them as a great way to stop crop disease and increase production.
Recently, however, scientists have been finding that long-term use of these fertilizers can
cause damage to the land and, even more dangerous, to people’s health.
What are some of the problems caused by chemical fertilizers?
First, they damage the
land by killing the helpful bacteria and pests as well as the harmful ones.
Chemicals also
stay in the ground and underground water for a ling time.
This affects crops and, therefore,
animals and humans, since chemicals get inside the crops and cannot just be washed off.
These chemicals in the food supply build up in people’s bodies over t
ime.
Many of these
chemicals can lead to cancer or other illnesses.
In addition, fruit, vegetables and other food
grown with chemical fertilizers usually grow too fast to be full of much nutrition.
They may
look beautiful, but inside there is usually more water than vitamins and minerals.
With these discoveries, some farmers and many customers are beginning to turn to organic
farming.
Organic farming is simply farming without using any chemicals.
They focus on
精品文档
精品文档
keeping their soil rich and free of disease.
A healthy soil reduces disease and helps crops
grow strong and healthy.
Organic farmers, therefore, often prefer using natural waste from
animals as fertilizer.
They feel that this makes the soil in their fields richer in minerals and
so more fertile.
This also keeps the air, water and crops free from chemicals.
Organic farmers also use many other methods to keep the soil fertile.
They often change
the kind of crop in each field every few years, for example, growing corn or wheat and then
the next year peas or soybeans.
Crops such as peas or soybeans put important minerals back
into the soil, making it ready for crops such as wheat or corn that need rich and fertile soil.
Organic farmers also plant crops to use different levels of soil, for example, planting peanuts
that use the ground’s surface followed by vegetables that put down deep roots.
Some
organic farmers prefer planting grass between crops to prevent wind or water from carrying
away the soil, and then leaving it in the ground to become a natural fertilizer for the next
year’s crop.
These many different organic farming methods have the same goal: to grown
good food and avoid damaging the environment or people’s health.
Unit 3
A state of English humour
Reading
A MSTER OF NONVERBAL HUMOUR
As Victor Hugo once said, “Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face”,
and up to now nobody has been able to do this better than Charlie Chaplin.
He brightened
the lives of Americans and British through two world wars and the hard years in between.
He made people laugh at a time when they felt depressed, so they could feel more content
with their lives.
Not that Charlie’s own life was easy!
He was born in a poor family in 1889.
his parents
were both poor music hall performers.
You may find it astonishing that Charlie was taught
to sing as soon as he could speak and dance as soon as he could walk.
Such training was
common in acting families at this time, especially when the family income was often
uncertain.
Unfortunately, his father died, leaving the family even worse off, so Charlie spent
his childhood looking after his sick mother and his brother.
By his teens, Charlie had,
through his humour, become one of the most popular child actors in English.
He could
mime and act the fool doing ordinary everyday tasks.
No one was ever bored watching
him
—
his subtle acting made everything entertaining.
As time went by, he began making films.
He grew more and more popular as his
charming character, the little tramp, became known throughout the world.
The tramp, a poor,
homeless man with a moustache, wore large trousers, worn-out shoes and a small round black
hat.
He walked around stiffly carrying a walking stick.
This character was a social failure
精品文档
精品文档
but was loved for his optimism and determination to overcome all difficulties.
He was the
underdog who was kind even when others were unkind to him.
How did the little tramp make a sad situation entertaining?
Here is an example from one
of his most famous films, The Gold Rush.
It is the mid-nineteenth century and gold has just
been discovered in California.
Like so many others, the little tramp and his friend have
rushed there in search of gold, but without success.
Instead they are hiding in a small hut on
the edge of a mountain during a snowstorm with nothing to eat.
They are so hungry that
they try boiling a pair of leather shoes for their dinner.
Charlie first picks out the laces and
eats them as if they were spaghetti.
Then he cuts off the leather top of the shoe as if it were
the finest steak.
Finally he tries cutting and chewing the bottom of the shoe. I he eats each
mouthful with great enjoyment.
The acting is so convincing that it makes you believe that it
is one of the best meals he has ever tasted!
Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed and produced the films he starred in.
In 1972 he was
given a special Oscar for his outstanding work in films.
He lived in English and the USA
but spent his last years in Switzerland, where he was buried in 1977.
He is loved and
remembered as a great actor who could inspire people with great confidence.
Using language
ENGLISH JOKES
1. There are thousands of jokes which use “play on words” to amuse us.
One person asks
a question which expects a particular reply.
Instead, what he gets is another kind of answer
which makes the situation funny.
Now read some of these customer and waiter jokes.
Can
you match the joke with the explanation?
1. C: What’s that fly doing in my soup?
W: Swimming, I think!
2. C: What’s that?
W: It’s bean soup.
C: I d
on’t want to know what it’s been.
I want to know what it is now.
3. C: Waiter, will the pancakes be long?
W: No, sir. Round.
Explanation
A
The first person is asking for information about time.
The second person treats it as a
question about shape.
精品文档
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
本文更新与2021-01-25 04:14，由作者提供，不代表本网站立场，转载请注明出处：https://www.bjmy2z.cn/gaokao/564029.html