21世纪大学英语视听说教程Book 4 Unit 2 Part D听力原文

21世纪大学英语视听说教程Book 4 Unit 2 Part D听力原文

Book 4 Unit 2 Part D 听力原文

Section A

1. M: Good morning, Madam, could you tell me how old you are?

W: Well, I don’t remember, doctor, but I will try to think. When I married, I was eighteen years old, and my husband was thirty. Now, my husband is seventy, I know.

Q: How old is the lady?

2. W: Hey, have you heard about this? The film star, Janice, was followed by paparazzi all the time. Isn’t it terrible?

M: Everyone’s got a right to some privacy, but if you want to be famous, you have to accept the press and the media.

Q: What does the man mean?

3. W: How did you like the president’s speech tonight?

M: Unfortunately I got home too late to watch it.

Q: What are the two speakers talking about?

4. W: I’ve noticed that you haven’t been talking to your roommate lately.

M: It is supposed to be private, but you’ve got that right. And it’ s going to be a long time before I

feel comfortable with him again.

Q: What does the man mean?

5. W: So, what did you think about the discussion at lunch? I didn’t realize people have such

strong feelings about privacy.

M: Are you kidding? That subject always touches a nerve.

Q: What does the man mean?

6. M: So, you and Julia are no longer roommates. I’m not surprised. You two never did things very compatible.

W: Yeah. Well, it’s not that we didn’t get along. We just didn’t have much in common.

Q: What can be inferred about the woman?

7. W: So how did you make out with your private German lessons last month? Any improvement? M: Let’s just say it was money down the drain.

Q: What does the man mean?

8. M: I can’t seem to find my calculator. Did I lend it to you by any chance?

W: No, but you are welcome to use mine if you want, as long as I get it back by Thursday. Q: What does the woman mean?

Conversation 1

M: Good morning, Professor Harkens. I hope I am not disturbing you.

W: Not at all, Tom. Come right in. I’m always in my office in the morning.

M: I thought I’d get an early start on my research paper and would like to discuss my topic with

you if you have a moment.

W: Of course. I recommend that all my students should discuss their topics with me before they begin their research. What do you want to work on?

M: I was especially interested in your lecture on dinosaurs and the apparent mystery surrounding their extinction. I’d like to explore that question, but I’m not too sure how to go about it.

W: Well, according to the most widely held theory, the dinosaurs died out because of the sudden cooling of the earth’s temperature. Your textbook summarizes the conclusion of several paleontologists on this point.

M: Didn’t you also mention a second theory in your lecture? That dinosaurs may simply have been replaced by mammals gradually and might not die out as a direct response to the cool weather?

W: Yes. Van Vellen and Sloan are proponents of this theory. And I’ve put some of their articles on

reserve in the library.

M: Van Vellen and Sloan? I’d better write that down.

W: Let me know how your work progresses, Tom. If you should run into any problems, be sure to stop by again.

9. Who are the two speakers?

10. What is the main focus of Tom’s research?

11. Who most likely are Van Vellen and Sloan?

Conversation 2

W: Hew! This rowing is hard work. Let’s have the boat toward the old lighthouse now.

M: Good idea. We can rest there for a while and eat our lunch. Then we can climb to the top platform where the light is before we visit the museum at the base of the lighthouse tower. W: Whenever I came out here, I thought about the family who used to live on the little island and take care of the light every night. What a lonely life that must have been! M: Yeah, to help ships find their way along shoreline, at night, they had to constantly make sure that the windows up around the light were clean and free of ice and snow.

W: Dirty soot must have been a problem. Didn’t they burn candles up there?

M: This one used to have a kerosene lamp. But they changed over to electricity around 1920, I think.

W: In New Port, Rode Island, people talked about a woman who was a lighthouse keeper for over 50 years. Ida Louise was her name. She saved a lot of people from dying in ship wrecks.

M: Was her lighthouse out on an island like this one?

W: On one even smaller and further from land. In stormy weathers, it was pretty dangerous for small boats.

M: I understand the United States Coast Guard takes care of the most modern lighthouses. W: Yeah, but the light is automatic nowadays. The lighthouse is still a friendly sight at night though.

M: Here we are. This lighthouse is the friendliest sight I’ve seen today. I’m exhausted.

12. What are the people doing?

13. What was a major problem for every lighthouse keeper?

14. Why was Ida Louise famous?

15. How does the man feel at the end of the conversation?

Section B

Passage 1

More and more electronic devices and services in our daily life mean we have too many passwords and numbers to remember. Passwords help us protect our wealth and privacy; however, they also bring us a lot of troubles.

Every day I need to remember much useless information. Every morning I turn on my cellphone — it needs a password. I get to work and I have to have access to my computer with a password. Like many people in Britain, I have two bank accounts. One needs a five-digit number and a password; the other needs a six-digit number and a memorable place name. I have an online

savings account that needs a different password from the password for my bank account.

Even if you never use a computer, you can be hit by the password overload. Look in your wallet. You probably carry four or five credit cards. In these days of chip and pin, these are virtually useless if you do not have the magic four-digit numbers. The banks tell you not to have the same number for all your cards. Give me a break. Am I going to carry five different random four-digit numbers in my

head? After all, I’m not Good Will Hunting.

I’ve tried systems to help me remember — such as using the names of favorite films or

members of my extended family; but none seems to work. So what is the solution?

16. What do passwords bring to us?

17. Which of the following does NOT need a password?

18. What has the speaker tried to do to remember his passwords?

Passage 2

Internet is threatening our privacy. In the past, if a shop manager wanted to know you better, he had to rely on a good memory for detail. They came out from behind the counter to give you personalized service, browsed the shelves with you and made recommendations.

In this digital marketplace, the “shop manager” may actually be a machine. It searches in its memory of information about you, analyzes it and creates a clear portrait of what you are likely to buy and do in the future. Not all companies

approach personalization in the same way. For some

websites, the approach is direct: they ask you to take a survey about what you like, and then make offers that match your interests. Another way is through IP addresses, the electronic place from which you browse the Web.

Amazon.com and many other sites also compare individual’s browsing and buying habits to those of thousands and millions of other consumers in their databases. Using a technique called collaborative filtering, they can find out your likely interests. This is based on what they know

about what like-minded people buy or do.

But this new use of Internet begins to trouble some computer users. They worry that advertisers can track their private information without their knowledge, and that files about them might be put to ill use somehow, or shared with wrong people. Sometimes they just don’t like being watched.

19. Which of the following do traditional shop managers NOT do to know their customers? 20. In the digital market, which of the following does the “shop manager” NOT do?

21. How does Amazon.com know about its customers?

22. Which of the following troubles some computer users?

Passage 3

Every day you share personal information about yourself with others. It’s so routine that you may not even realize you’re doing it. You may write a check at the grocery store, charge tickets to a ball game, rent a car, mail your tax returns, buy a gift online, call home on your cell phone, schedule a doctor’s appointment, or apply for a credit card. Each transaction requires you to share

personal information: your bank and credit card account numbers; your income; your Social Security Number (SSN); or your name, address, and phone numbers.

It’s important to find out what happens to the personal information you and your children provide to companies, marketers, and government agencies. These organizations may use your information simply to process your order; to tell you about products, services, or promotions; or to share with others.

And then there are unscrupulous individuals, like identity thieves, who want your information to commit fraud. Identity theft — the fastest-growing white-collar crime in America — occurs

when someone steals your personal identifying information, like your SSN,

birth date, or mother’s maiden name, to open new charge accounts, order merchandise, or borrow money. Consumers targeted by identity thieves usually don’t know they’ve been victimized. But when the fraudsters

fail to pay the bills or repay the loans, collection agencies begin pursuing the consumers to cover debts they didn’t even know they had.

23. In which of these actions may people NOT reveal their private information? 24. What may organizations use your private information to do?

25. When will the consumers notice that their private information was stolen?

Section C

26. launched

27. previously

28. critical

29. seminars

30. genetic

31. collaboration

32. perform

33. accusing him of

34. added a clause to

35. walk out