全国英语等级考试教材第三级Unit19
[00:00.00] CHAPTER 19 HISTORY
[00:12.90]Unit 19 History
[00:17.55]Conversations
[00:20.90]1 Chang and Hank are in the same university.
[00:27.25]They are talking about the western frntier in America.
[00:32.39]Chang:Recently I have studied American history.
[00:37.43]I am very interested in the western frontier in your country.
[00:42.89]Could you tell me something about it,Hank?
[00:47.26]Yes,of course.
[00:50.60]The life to the frontiersmen in the west
[00:54.96]has always been an attraction to us American people.
[01:00.00]My grandmother often told me stories about her grandfather
[01:05.25]who was a pioneer in the early days.
[01:09.62]Really?Her accounts must be trustworthy.
[01:14.68]In the 1870s,my great-great-grandfather heard that
[01:20.25]gold had been found in the west.
[01:25.11]Like many other easterners,he felt an urge to go west
[01:30.85]And he took the wagon across the plains and deserts.
[01:37.33] Was that a long,risky journey? Yes.It was really a bard journey.
[01:45.27]Did he go to a villalge or a town? Oh,no,the frontier was none of these.
[01:53.14]It was just wild uncultivated land.
[01:58.10]What kind of houses did they live in?
[02:02.78]If they happened to be near a forest,they built log cabins.
[02:08.94]In such a wild place,what did they eat?
[02:14.30]They ate whatever was available.
[02:18.55]Those people were really fearless and self-reliant.
[02:24.80]You are right.
[02:27.85]That's perhaps one reason why we Americans
[02:32.82]still look back upon the past with respect and admiration.
[02:38.15]Thank you very much.
[02:41.78]2 A guide is leading the visitors to visit some historic places.
[02:49.82]Carol and Clive are among them.
[02:54.79]Ladies and gentlemen.
[02:58.44]If you will just pause for a moment on this terrace,
[03:03.90]you will get a good general view of the rains,
[03:08.66]with the Forum in front of you,the Temple of Jupiter to the left,
[03:14.82]and the Baths and the Amphitheatre beyond.
[03:19.37] Hurry up,Clive.I can't hear what the guide is saying.
[03:25.40]Al right.Just let me stay in the shade for a minute while I change the film.
[03:32.04]Is that your last roll?
[03:35.80]No,I've got two more rolls after this.
[03:40.53]Don't worry.We'll have enough slides to bore our friends for months.
[03:47.06]The town of Pompeii was a favourite resort of rich Roman families.
[03:53.43]Emperors often stayed here too.
[03:57.48]As I'm sure,you know,
[04:00.93]it was destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
[04:06.20]which occurred in the year 79 AD.
[04:10.96]The streets and houses were buried under a thick layer of lava.
[04:16.42]Excavation of the site began in 1748 and,as you can see,
[04:24.28]it has uncovered a wonderful picture of life in ancient times.
[04:29.92] It certainly is wonderful.
[04:34.29]You can almost imagine the ancient Romans are still here,
[04:40.24]eating and drinking in their houses.
[04:44.81]If you see any,let me know.
[04:48.57]I haven't got any shots of ancient Romans singing.
[04:53.43]As we walk down towards athe Forum,notice how the streets are designed.
[04:59.89]There are high pavements on either side,
[05:04.01]and pedestrian crossings in the form of stepping stones.
[05:08.87]Between the stones,
[05:12.24]you can see quite clearly the deep marks made by the Chariot wheels.
[05:18.09]Goodness me! It is really a historic site.
[05:23.74]3.A small white Ford shot out in front of a blue car.
[05:29.87]The two lawyers are questioning the driver of the blue car.
[05:36.04]Please tell the court exactly what happened.
[05:40.40]Certainly.I was driving home along Harbour Road.
[05:46.64]I was just going to slow down when I saw a small white Ford in a side road.
[05:54.59]I was sure he was going to wait there until I drover past.
[06:00.02]I had no idea he was going to shoot out in front of me.
[06:05.66]In other words,the driver of the white Ford shot out without any warning,is that right?
[06:13.11]Exactly. It was completely unexpected.
[06:18.57]And you had no idea that was going to happen?
[06:23.84]No! None whatsoever! Thank you.
[06:29.20]Hmm....you say you were going to slow down when the accident happened,
[06:36.15]is that right?
[06:39.10]Yes,it is. I was going to slow down.
[06:43.85]I see. I suppose you were going very fast at the time.
[06:49.73]No,not at all! I was doing 30,that's all.
[06:55.48]Well,why were you going to slow down,then?
[07:00.23]That suggests to me,and I'm sure to the court as well,
[07:05.98]that you were going too fast in the first place.
[07:11.02]NO! The reason I was going to slow down was very simple.
[07:16.77]I was going to turn into the next side road.
[07:21.34]Really? Why? Because I live there,that's why!
[07:27.09]Passage The Battle of Britain 1940
[07:32.65]In the summer of 1940,
[07:36.88]the German Air Force attempted to win air superiority
[07:42.73]over southern Britain and the English Channel
[07:47.30]by destroying the Royal Air Force and the British aircraft industry.
[07:54.07]This attempt came to be known as the Battle of Britain,
[07:59.71]and victory over the RAF was seen by the Germans as absolutely essential
[08:07.97]if they were eventually to mount an invasion of the British Isles.
[08:13.82] The Germans had conquered Belgium,
[08:18.26]the Netherlands and northern France in May 1940,
[08:24.32]uning the Blitz("Lightning War") technique that relied,
[08:30.56]among other things,
[08:34.22]on close corrdination between ground troops and the German Air Force.
[08:40.70]Although the German Air Force proved vey competent in this role,
[08:46.65]it was not trained or equipped for the longer-rane operations
[08:52.82]that became part of the Battle of Britain.
[08:57.26]It is widely believed
[09:00.50]that had the Germans succeeded in their aim of destroying the RAF.
[09:07.63]they would have been able to invade Britain relatively easily.
[09:13.40]This was,after all,
[09:17.35]at a time when the country was the only European power resisting Nazi Germany,
[09:25.21]even though she did enjoy massive support from her Commonwealth partners.
[09:31.85] A plan to use the German Air Force as the prelude to the invasion of the UK
[09:38.98]had been discussed in 1939,and was at first rejected.
[09:45.85]However,in view of the strength of the Royal Navy,
[09:51.41]the Germans did eventually decide they had to crush the RAF first.
[09:58.67]They had won convincingly in the Polish campaign in 1939
[10:05.23]and the Scandinavian and French campaigns in 1940,
[10:11.08]but they were now up against a well-organized air defense system,
[10:17.46]and things were going to be more difficult for them.
[10:22.50]The British,on the other hand,over0estimated German strength and competence.
[10:29.58]This was worrying,but not something that would lose them the battle,
[10:35.74]and they also had a new invention -- radar
[10:41.38]-- to help direct the fighters to intercept attacking German aircraft.
[10:48.65]Furthermore,
[10:51.60]the British were starting to get intelligence from intercepting German communications,
[10:59.17]having cracked the Enigma code system.
[11:04.03]The Battle officially began on 13 August,with an all-out assault on "Eagle day".
[11:12.86]The German Air Force lost a total of 1 733 aircraft from July to October,
[11:22.74]the RAF 915.
[11:27.49]The Germans were actually winning the battle of attrition but,
[11:34.26]frustrated by the unexpected numbers of Allied planes opposing them,
[11:40.92]switched in early September to night bombing of cities.
[11:46.98]This was a fatal mistake.
[11:51.24]The earlier dilution of effort was made worse
[11:56.98]as the German Air Force wandered between attacks on transport,
[12:03.25]civilian morale and the aviation industry.
[12:08.22] The Blitz,as it was known,continued after the Battle of Britain had finished.
[12:15.37]During the Blits,between September 1940 and May 1941,
[12:23.11]the Germans dropped more than 35 000 tons of bombs for the loss of 650 aircraft.
[12:32.95]London was attacked 19 times with 18 800 tons of bombs.
[12:42.38]On 17 September,
[12:46.51]two days after the German Air Force's worst day in the Battle of Britain,
[12:53.59]Hitler cancelled his plan for the invasion of Britain.
[12:59.55]The campaign kof city bombing continued,
[13:05.01]but Hitler by now was focusing on Russia-and on 22 June 1941,
[13:14.57]he launched the greatest land-air campaign in the history of war
[13:21.52]and its aim was the invasion of the Soviet Union.
[13:27.58]Words and Expressions
[13:31.13]attempt superiority channel absolutely
[13:34.76]尝试 优越;优势 海峡 完全地
[13:38.39]essential mount invasion conquer
[13:41.81]必需的;基本的 开始，着手 侵略 征服
[13:45.23]coordination competent invade range
[13:48.67]协调 有能力的 侵略 范围
[13:52.10]resist massive commonwealth prelude
[13:55.38]抵抗 巨大的 英联邦 前奏，序幕
[13:58.66]bomb reject in view of crush
[14:02.14]轰炸 拒绝 考虑到 压倒;摧毁
[14:05.61]convincingly campaign over-estimate fighter
[14:09.40]令人信服地 战役 过高估计 战斗机
[14:13.19]intercept furthermore communication crack
[14:16.75]拦截 另外 交流;通信 破解
[14:20.32]enigma code assault frustrated
[14:23.74]密码 密码 袭击 沮丧的
[14:27.16]unexpected allied oppose switch
[14:30.64]出其不意的 同盟的 反对，对抗 转换
[14:34.11]fatal dilution civilian morale
[14:33.61]致命的 削弱 平民 士气
[14:33.11]aviation cancel launch
[14:35.84]航空 取消 发动
[14:38.57]Exercises Section I Listening Comprehension
[14:45.23]Listen to the record.
[14:49.20]Answer each question by choosing A,B,C or D from the four possible choices.
[14:58.94]A 1.W:Where did you and your friend go on your vacation?
[15:06.21]M:We spent two days in Spain,four days in Sweden and five days in Scotland.
[15:14.36]2.W:I wonder what's happened to Jane.
[15:19.79]She has been absent for almost two weeks.
[15:24.62]M:She took a leave to see her father in Canada.
[15:29.59]3.W:Hi,Jack.So glad to see you!
[15:35.05]M:Likewise.I remember the last time we met was eight months ago
[15:41.81]at John's wedding party.How are you doing?
[15:46.57]4.W:Did you see last night's film?
[15:51.61]M:Well,I meant to see it,but one of my classmates came.
[15:57.25]We had a long talk about our schooling.
[16:01.51]5.W:Did you visit the Bell Tower when you had your vacation in Xi'an last year?
[16:09.97]M:I couldn't make it last time.I plan to visit it next month.
[16:15.72]6.W:How did you like the program last night?
[16:21.78]M:Unfortunately,I came back too late to watch it.
[16:27.24]7.W:How did you like the play?
[16:32.88]M:Generally speaking,it was good.
[16:37.35]The part of the lady was played well,
[16:42.00]but I thought the man who played the husband was too dramatic to be realistic.
[16:48.48]8.W:How did you enjoy your trip to China?
[16:53.83]M:It was a wonderful trip.
[16:57.98]We went to Beijing to see the Great Wall,to Xi'an to see the Dayan Pagoda,
[17:05.04]and then flew to Shanghai.
[17:09.11]B M:Well,this is it!What do you think of it?
[17:14.99]W:I can hardly believe it's real.
[17:19.43]I've dreamed of seeing it ever since I saw it in books when I was a child.
[17:26.51]Just think of all this being built by hand more than 2000 years ago!
[17:34.37]No wonder it is one of the wonders of the world.
[17:39.94]M:Actually it was started more than 2500 years ago,
[17:46.28]when China was divided into various states.
[17:51.25]Three of the northern states built defensive walls along their borders
[17:57.78]to keep off the enemies.
[18:01.75]W:But I thought the wall had always been built by Qin Shihuang,
[18:08.52]the first emperor of China.
[18:12.67]M:Well,yes.You see,he united the whole country in the third century BC,
[18:20.43]and one of the things he did was to join the separate walls into one wall
[18:26.98]and to build more walls from the East Coast
[18:31.63]right across the length of North China to the west.
[18:36.70]W:It is certainly something any nation could be proud of.
[18:42.63]I hear this is the only human construction on earth
[18:48.20]that can be seen from the moon.
[18:52.04]By the way,how high is the wall?
[18:56.89]M:The average hewight is 7.8 metres,
[19:02.04]the average width is 6.5 meters at the base and 5.8 meters at the top.
[19:10.58]Would you like to go up to the top?
[19:14.42]W:Yes!I'd like to have a look from the top.
[19:19.28]C Today,I want to tell you about my life in the past.
[19:26.23]Twenty years ago,I was a boy.At that time,things were different.
[19:32.99]Usually I had to get up at six every morning.
[19:38.45]That was not very bad in summer,but in winter it was cold.
[19:44.70]And we didn't have any hot water in the house.We had to wash in cold water.
[19:51.54]We didn't have a bathroom.My mother had many chickens.
[19:57.60]I had to feed them every morning
[20:01.47]and then I had to walk to school with other classmates.
[20:07.03]It was two miles to school and two miles back in the evening.
[20:12.78]But it always seemed longer in the morning when we were going to school.
[20:19.15]There was a bus,but I had no money.
[20:24.12]And we had to go to bed at eith o'clock every night.
[20:29.08]We couldn't watch TV because there wasn't any.
[20:34.04]On Sundays we had to go to cut grasses for pigs two times-morning and afternoon.
[20:42.51]In our free time we could go out and our parents didn't have to worry about us.
[20:48.85]At that time there weren't so many motors on the roads,
[20:54.73]so the streets were safe to play in.
[20:58.99]And there were not many robbers and thieves in those days.
[21:03.85]We had to work hard
[21:07.38]and we were no able to have enough money to buy things which we needed.
[21:12.94]Life was hard,but it was simple and people were happier.
[21:19.00]I often look back to the past.
[21:23.13]Supplementary Reading
[21:27.36]The civil War
[21:30.60]American slavery,or Negro slavery,existed before the War of Independence.
[21:39.06]During the drafting of the Declaration of Independence
[21:44.81]and again in the drawing up of the Constitution,
[21:50.37]opposition to slavery was put aside for a greater objective.
[21:56.54]In the early 1800's,the Northern Stated,especially those in New England,
[22:03.80]turned from farming to manufacturing.
[22:08.66]Black slavery soon disappeared in the North.
[22:14.51]One reason was that the Africans could not stand cold winters in the North.
[22:21.88]Another was the high price of slaves.
[22:26.84]Finally,as the North turned toward industry,
[22:32.17]mechanics but not farmhands were needed.
[22:37.50]But,conditions were different in the South.
[22:42.77]Farming remained the most important way of making a living.
[22:48.94]To meet a rising worldwide demand fo rcotton and tobacco,
[22:55.42]the planters farmed large areas of land.
[23:00.98]Slave labor seemed best suited for producing these crops.
[23:07.23]By 1850,when the total population of the country was over 23 million,
[23:15.06]the total number of slaves was 3.2 million.
[23:20.81]In South Carolina and Mississippi,
[23:25.56]their number was preater than that of whites and in Louisiana,
[23:31.91]they nearly equaled the whites.
[23:36.27]The slave population was greatest where the climate was hot,
[23:42.62]the soil flat and rich,and cotton,sugar and rice were grown.
[23:50.28]With the territorial expansion towards the west,
[23:55.73]the problem of whether slavery should be allowed to spread into these areas arose again.
[24:03.60]It became a serious political issue
[24:08.25]because it might tip the balance of power in the Senate.
[24:13.60]After much debate and fierce struggle,
[24:18.28]the Compromise of 1850 was passed
[24:23.84]which allowed California to be accepted as a free state,
[24:29.30]New Mexico and Utah to be organized as territories without legislation
[24:36.85]either for or against slavery
[24:41.21]and a more efficient machinery to be set up for returning runaway slaves to their masters.
[24:49.55]When Abraham Lincoln was elected president,
[24:54.20]the southern states broke away and formed a new nation,
[25:00.07]the Confederate States of America.
[25:04.93]However,Lincoln was determined to maintain the Union,
[25:11.18]so war broke out on April 12,1861.
[25:17.24]At the beginning of the war,the Union army suffered a lot of setbacks.
[25:24.50]Lincoln realized that he could win support for the Union at home
[25:30.56]and abroad by making the war a just war against slavery.
[25:37.33]So he issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation.
[25:43.07]Thus England and France stood by the Union's side.
[25:48.19]Later the Union army under the command of Ulysses S.Grant
[25:55.56]defeated the Confederate army at Gettysburg,Pennsylvania.
[26:01.72]This victory was the turning point of the Civil War.
[26:07.29]On November 19,1863,Abraham Lincoln made a short speech
[26:15.44]on the occasion of dedicating the national cemetery at Getysburg.
[26:21.89]He ended his speech with these memorable words:
[26:26.85]"That government of the people,by the people,
[26:33.12]for the people,shall not perish from the earth."
[26:38.77]After a series of battles,Robert E.Lee could no longer hold Richmond.
[26:46.13]He surrendered on April 9,1865.The war that cost America 618000 lives was over.
[26:57.78]Five days later,on April 14,Lincoln was shot dead by John Wikes Booth.
[27:06.93]The Thirteenth Amendment,which banned slavery,
[27:12.49]was added to the Constiution in December,1865.
