Horse 2007-2-7 04:08
旧托福听力mp3及脚本——《第八天》（96年10月）
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对话听写训练1
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Hi, Bob. How is your oral presentation coming along?
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What oral presentation? I don't have to give mine until the end of the next week. eV D(i:x ^
You mean you haven't even started working on it yet? UqE2x@U?LV0y
No. I need the pressure of a deadline to get inspired. mv*aP%`I bI~,|
Gee. I'm just the opposite. I can't concentrate unless I know I have plenty of time. Besides I have a big physics test next week so I want to get my presentation out of the way.
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What's your presentation on?
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William Carlos Williams.
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Wasn't he a poet? I thought we were supposed to focus on a short story. TZn Zxm%g e9\3}2Y
He wrote short stories, do you know? 0a.x6?
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Really? I never knew that. I guess I'll learn more on Tuesday. Is that when you are supposed to talk? "Yw n(\w V
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Uh-huh. But I was going to offer you sneak preview. I'm looking for someone to tell me whether I'm talking too fast and whether you can follow what I'm saying. pds?5S
I guess I could do that. When were you thinking of?
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Will tonight be all right? I have a class to go to now but I'll be around after dinner. 5e WKl't^4?
That sounds good. I'll stop by your room. It's probably quieter there than in my hall.
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对话听写训练 2 k#@ m8S` x2\g^
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Have you ever read anything about pseudo sciences? )SH/`zP'je-l EfI
You mean fake sciences? Yes. In fact I was just reading some articles about the brain. I happened to be looking through some of my roommate's science magazines and I came across an article on phrenology. /[%X{ ]hJ$p]`
Phrenology, wasn't that the pseudo science founded by the scientist Franz Gall? 2c4I Ok&N C+W o(K!o
Yes. Gall maintained that people's characters could be determined by the size and the shape of their skulls. For example he thought that a bump in a certain place on the head meant that the person has the ability of a musician. K
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Really? I wonder what phrenologists would say about the bumps on my head. Would they say I have the abilities to be a doctor, or a plumber, or a thief? 8x0Jg/i S/q6{
Well, I'm not sure exactly what the connection is between a person's abilities and the physical characteristics of the head. But although there's no scientific basis for phrenology, it is true that the head is the center of control for the rest of the body. e3|*ih:v/u9O
I guess you are right. Scientists now know that different parts of the brain control different parts of the body.
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Yes. And I wouldn't be surprised that the if scientists one day discover that certain aspects of phrenology have scientific applications.
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演讲听写训练1
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In the early 1800s, the paper industry was still using rags as its basic source of fiber as it had for many centuries. However the rag supply couldn't keep up with the growing demand for paper. The United States alone was using 250 thousand tons of rags each year. And a quarter of that had to be imported. It was clear that a new source of fiber was needed to keep up with the demand for paper. The answer to this problem turned out to be paper made from wood pulp, something that was abundantly available in north America. In Canada, the first wood pulp mill was set up in 1866 and it was immediately successful. But while wood pulp solved the problem of quantity it created a problem of quality. Wood contains a substance called lignin. The simplest way to make large quantities of cheap paper involves leaving the lignin in the wood pulp. But lignin is acidic and its presence in paper has shorten the life expectancy of paper from several centuries for rag paper to less than a century for paper made from wood pulp. This means that books printed less than a hundred years ago are already turning yellow and beginning to disintegrate, even though books printed much earlier maybe in fine condition. This is bad enough for the older books on your bookshelf but it poses a huge problem for libraries and the collections of government documents. DV5^8[;hw7G8y
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演讲听写训练 2
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A recent report has shown that here in the United States, we've experienced an evolution concerning our attitudes towards the workweek and the weekend. Although some calendars still mark the beginning of a week as Sunday, more and more of us are coming to regard Monday as the first day of the week with Saturday and Sunday comprising the two-day period thought as the week-end. In fact the word “weekend” didn't even exist in English until about the middle of last century. In England at that time, Saturday afternoons had just been added to Sundays and holidays as a time for workers to have off from their jobs. This innovation became common in the United States in the 1920s, but as the workweek shortened during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the weekend expanded to two full days--Saturday and Sunday. Some people thought that this trend would continue due to increasing automation and the workweek might decrease to four days or even fewer. But so far this hasn't happened. The workweek seems to have stabilized as forty hours made up of five eight-hour days. After this commercial I'll be back to talk about the idea of adding Monday to the weekend. G S#fwb6]&MW
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演讲听写训练 3
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I don't think I have told you about my trip to Tanglewood's music festival. When I was in college, I won a music competition and the prize was a week at Tanglewood. Anyway it is one of the world's most famous music festivals and the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is located in the beautiful Berkshire Hills in New England. The summer musical season consists of about fifty concerts given over about nine weeks: from July 1st through the first week in September. The biggest stars on the music scene appear here. The year I went I was lucky enough to see Leonard Bernstein conducting. I understand it is sometimes hard to get tickets but of course mine were a part of the prize. If you want to sit inside the tickets are expensive. It's much cheaper to sit outside on the lawn. But it
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might rain, or some nights are really cool even in the summer. Either way the sound system is excellent. So it doesn't really matter where you sit. I seem to recall that the festival got started in the 1930s. Some Berkshire residents invited a symphony orchestra to perform a few outdoor concerts. The concerts were so successful that after a couple of years somebody donated a family estate as a permanent home. After that things really took off. And the festival has gotten bigger and better every year. Attending was such a wonderful experience. I'd love to be able to go again. And I hope that all of you would be able to go too.
