新视野大学英语视听说第4册听力原文及答案Unit8
心理咨询师三级真题-郭美美微博
Uint8
II. Basic Listening Practice
M
:
Scentists claim the world
population has 99.5% of the same DNA.
W: But
this doesn’t tell us there is no such thing as
race.
Q: What is true of the DNA of difference
races?
1. Script
2. Script
W: With the advent of the
genetic map we know where everything is, but do we
know
where to go with it?
M: Your map
seems to differ largely from my geographical map!
Q: What does the man imply?
3. Script
M: As you know, it has taken millions of years
of evolution and natural selection to
get us
where we are today.
W: Yes, but now that we
have genetic engineering, we seem to have decided
that we
want to be God.
Q: What does the
woman imply?
4. Script
M: I think the
research into cloning will lead us into dangers,
filling us with false
hopes of perfection.
W: It’s too late to turn back the clock. We’ll
just have to depend on common sense to
solve
uncommon problems.
Q: What does the woman
mean?
5. Script
W: In America, many
prisoners are having their cases reviewed, and
some have even
been freed through DNA testing.
M: Except for the ones whose death sentence
has already been carried out.
Q: What can we
learn about DNA testing from the dialog?
Keys:
1.B 2.C 3.D 4.A 5.C
III. Listening In
Task 1: Stem Cell Research
Script
Gregory: The Republican party in America is
opposing stem cell research. I find it
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hard to believe that in this day
and age, someone would do that.
Lillian: Stem
cell research sounds pretty impressive, I’ll
admit. But just what is it?
Gregory: Well, a
stem cell is a special type of cell. It is a
general cell that, when it
devides,
can become any specific type of cell.
Lillian:
You mean, a stem cell can become a heart cell? Or
a brain or a kidney cell?
Gregory: That’s
about it. Stem cells are a part of the body’s
maintenance and repair
system. When
they divide, they can become any cell type.
Lillian: I guess there would be some
tremendous medical advantages in that sort of
research.
Gregory: You’ve said a
mouthful. Recently, scientists were able to help a
man who
lost a jawbone for cancer.
They recreated bone material for his jaw from stem
cells. What it means is that since the new
bone was created out of the
person’s own
cells, there was no problem with rejection because
the DNA
was the same.
Lillian: I bet the
person was delighted. Why would anyone oppose that
sort of
research? It would seem to have
endless potential to benefit the human race.
Gregory: I agree, but there are people who
think we should not interfere with nature
and
manipulate “what is natural”.
Lillian: It’s
easier to hold such a narrow view if you’re not in
a position to need the
benefits of the
research. If you’re missing a jawbone because of
cancer, you
probably support the research.
1. What is the passage mainly
about?
2. Who is against stem cell research?
3. What is special about a stem cell?
4.
When can a stem cell become another cell type?
5. According to the passage, why do some
people oppose stem cell research?
Keys: 1.B
2.A 3.A 4.A 5.D
Task 2: The Improvement of
Rice
Script
Scientists now know
a lot more about a grain that people have eaten
for ten thousand
years. (S1) Research teams
around the world have completed a map of the (S2)
genes
of rices. The findings appeared last
week in the (S3) journal Nature.
The aim is to
speed up the improvement of rice. The scientists
(S4) warn that the
kinds of rice plants used
now have reached the limit of their (S5)
productivity. Yet
world rice production must
(S6) grow by an estimated 30 percent in the next
twenty to
meet demand. By 2025, as many as 4.6
billion people will depend on rice for (S7)
survival. There is a lot of pressure on
breeders to improve the crop, and the rice
genome is a valuable tool to do that. (S8)
Plant breeders have already used
preliminary
information from the rice genome to create
experimental strains of rice
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that better resist cold and pests.
The researchers also say rice is an excellent
choice for genetic mapping and
engineering.
Rice genes have only about 390 million chemical
bases. That maight
sound like a lot. But other
major food grains have thousands of millions. (S9)
The
new map could better explain more than
just rice. Rice shares a common ancestor
with
other cereal crops. Because rice is the first
cereal crop to be fully analyzed,
researchers
expect that sufficient knowledge of its genetic
information will reveal the
heredity of more
complex grains, including corn, wheat and barley.
(S10) While significant progress has been made
in the analysis of the rice genome, the
mapping of human genes is also making headway.
When scientists can identify and
manipulate
genes that cause certain diseases, mankind will
cure them easily. The
human genetic map may
help us control a person’s height, weight,
appearance and
even length of life.
Task3: The First Cloned Cat
Script
In the age-old battle of cats and dogs, score
one for the cats. Researchers at Texas
A&M
University recently announced that they have
successfully cloned a cat name
Rainbow—the
first pet ever cloned—after several years of
unsuccessful efforts to
clone a dog name
Missy.
The ork, financed by a company hoping
to provide pet-cloning services to wealthy
owners, adds cats to a growing list of
successfully cloned animals that includes pigs,
sheep, cattle and mice.
The success
demonstrates cloning is a technology that could be
transferred to other
animal families as well.
The accomplishment may provide new tools for
studying
diseases such as cats’ AIDS, a
valuable research model for AIDS in humans.
Research into animal cloning remains an
important scientific alternative until the
issue of human cloning is settled. And that
seems unlikly in the immediate future, for
it
involves religious and moral principles. There
are, for example, groups that insist no
one
should be allowed to take on the role of God the
Creator.
To create cloned cat embryos for the
experiment, researchers transferred DNA from
adult cat cells into egg cells stripped of
their own genetic information. Out of 82
attempts with cloned embryos, one attempt
resulted in a failed pregnancy, and another
yielded a kitten named CC, delivered from a
surrogate mother on December 22. The
kitten’s
name refers to “Carbon Copy” and “Copycat”, the
name of the cloning
project.
Cloning
attempts with dogs have proven unsuccessful in
part because
dogs’reproductive cycles are more
complicated.
The technique may also work with
endangered cats such as the African wildcat,
fishing cat and blackfooted cat.
Ironically, the increased knowledge of cat
reproduction may best be suited for
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developing cat contraceptives to
control the U.S. cat population.
of the
following would be the best title for the passage?
1. What did researchers at Texas A&M
University recently announce?
2. Which animals
are NOT mentioned in the passage as having been
cloned?
3. According to the passage, why is
human cloning unlikely to happen in the near
future?
4. What does the passage say about
the pregnancy and birth in cat cloning?
Keys:
1.A 2.B 3.C 4.B 5.C
IV. Speaking Out
MODEL 1 Why are people protesting against
genetically modified foods?
Susan: With so many people suffering from
malnutrition around the world, why are
people
protesting against genetically modified foods?
Chris: Some people are protesting about
genetically modified foods, but even more
people are protesting the fact that processed
foods containing these
ingredients aren’t
labeled.
Susan: But why should they be
labeled?
Chris: Not everyone is sure that
genetically modified foods are safe. They want to
be
certain that biotech foods have the sme
composition as organic foods.
Susan: But there
are more urgent problems in this world. Many
people are dying of
starvation.
Chris: But
those who aren’t starving may want genetically
modified foods to be
labeled so they know what
foods they should andd shouldn’t eat.
Susan:
You know, I heard of a genetically modified fish
that grew to be ten times its
normal size.
Chris: That sure sounds abnormal.
Susan:
Yeah, it does sound a bit strange , but that fish
could feed ten times as many
people.
Chris: You’re right; genetically modified food
might help solve world hunger. But I
think we
have a right to know what we are eating.
MODEL2 Do you think the cloning of humans
should be forbidden by law?
Script
Susan: After the cloning of Dolly
the sheep, I think human cloning is next.
John: Whoa. I have some reservations about it.
There are stll many scientific
problems
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to solve before human
cloning starts.
Susan: There’s an easier way.
The Clonaid Company says they’ve cloned humans.
John: Oh, my God! These guys claim aliens from
another planet taught them human
cloning.
Susan: A woman gave them half a million
dollars to clone her dead daughter.
John:
Clearly that woman doesn’t know much about
cloning. How risky it is!
Susan: I know it’s
inefficient. It took 276 tries to produce Dolly.
But why is it risky?
John: Cloned animals grow
abnormally large and age unnaturally fast.
Susan: In other words, that woman may not be
happy with her cloned daughter.
John: Then
there are the emotions. No one knows if cloning
damages the mind.
Susan: Do you think the
cloning of humans should be forbidden by law?
John: To my mind, the cloning of human organs
shouldn’t be prohabited. It may help
solve medical problems.
Susan: I see your
point: cloning should be regulated if it’s to
benefit humanity.
MODEL3 Is it
interfering with nature?
Script
Nora: Some
religious groups are opposed to genetic research.
They believe it’s
interfering with nature.
John: I know. But nature can be pretty hard-
nosed too, so we often need to interfere
with
her—we build dams to control flooding.
Nora:
There’re many diseases that are a part of nature,
and they cause people a great
deal of misery:
cancer and diabetes, for example.
John: A
better understanding of the genetic code that
controls our body would be a
great help in
curing many diseases.
Nora: The project to map
the human genetic code…what’s that called?
John: The genome project. As you say, it has
tremendous promise to make our lives
better—just in the ability to identify and
correct genetically-caused diseases
like
Alzheimer’s.
Nora: Some diseases like cancer
are also believed to have a genetic switch.
John: That’s right, and once researchers
identify the switch, perhaps they can turn off
cancer or Alzheimer’s.
Nora: People are
also concerned that science will enable us to
determine such
qualities as intelligence and
height.
John: You know it’s going to
happen—it’s just a matter of when.
Nora:
Imagine if everyone was a combination of Yao Ming
and Albert Einstein.
John: But what if they
get it wrong, and you wind up with Yao Ming’s
knowledge of
nuclear physics and Albert
Einstein’s height?
Nora: All those religious
groups would say that it served you right.
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Now Your Turn
Task 1
SAMPLE DIALOG
Jane: Some countries are
suffering from crop failure and famine, but why do
they
refuse genetically modified crops and
foods?
Bob: And many Europeans insist that
processed foods containing GM ingredients be
labeled.
Jane: Why should they be labeled?
Bob: Not everyone is sure that genetically
modified foods are safe. They want to
certain
that biotech foods have the same composition as
traditional foods.
Jane: But there are more
urgent problems in this world. Many people are
dying of
famine.
Bob: But those who aren’t
hungry may want all genetically modified products
to be
labeled so they know exactly what
they’re eating.
Jane: You know, I’ve heard of
a GM fish that was ten times larger than a normal
fish.
Bob: That really sounds abnormal.
Jane: Some famine-stricken people are afraid
GM crops will overpower and eliminate
their
native crops.
Bob: Sounds alarming.
Jane:
Yeah, but GM foods can feed many people.
Bob:
You’re right; they could solve the problem of
starvation in the world. But I think
we have a
right to know what we are eating. GM food should
be labeled.
V. Let’s Talk
Script
Correspondent: In the U.S. what percentage of
people support biotech crops? And do
those who
support biotech crops also eat biotech foods? What
percentage of food on the market has
genetically modified
ingredients?
Professor: U.S. consumers have been exposed
to a very effective
anti-biotechnology
propaganda campaign for the last few years, but
according to polls, over 70% support
biotechnology. For example, in
a recent
referendum in Oregon, voters rejected a proposal
to require
special labels on all products
containing biotech ingredients by an
overwhelming 73% to 27%. That’s probably
because consumers
know that we have an
effective administrative system. Many may
also
know that 70-80% of the processed food products on
supermarket shelves contain one or more
ingredients from biotech
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crops. All Americans eat biotech foods
unless they deliberately seek
out products
that are labeled otherwise. Evidence suggests that
this
is less than 5% of consumers.
Correspondent: Chinese scientists have used
biotechnology to create a new type of
tomato,
which contains the vaccine against hepatitis B.
What’s your
take on this?
Professor:
It’s a great example of how this technology can be
used to save lives,
ease pain and suffering
and improve the human condition. How can
anyone be opposed to that? My only hope is
that the clinical trials of
this new tomato go
well, and that it is quickly delivered to
health-care providers who will use it to
vaccinate people against
hepatitis. By the
way, please note that I do think that such new
pharmaceutical foods need to be handled as
medicines by
professionals and not as
conventional foods. You will never see
these
tomatoes in the supermarket. In a sense, the
tomato plant is
just being used to manufacture
a vaccine in a very safe and
economical
manner.
U.S. Consumer’s attitude to
Over 70% of ers support
Biotech
biotechnology.
Examples
In a recent
referendum in Oregon, voters rejected
a
proposal to require special labels on all products
containing biotech ingredients by an
overwhelming 73% to 27%.
Chinese
scientists have used biotechnology to
create a
new type of tomato, which contains the
vaccine
against hepatitis B.
This technology can be
used to save lives,ease
pain and suffering and
improve the human
condition.
Chinese
Progress in Biotech
Significance of the
Progress
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The Professor’s
Advice
I do think that such new
pharmaceutical foods
need to be handled as
medicines by professionals
and not as
conventional foods.
VI. Further Listening and
Speaking
Task1: Confident enough to control
your fate?
Script
Some people are born
with the belief that they are masters of their own
lives. Others
feel they are at the mercy of
fate. New research shows that part of those
feelings are in
the genes.
Psychologists
have long known that people confident in their
ability to control their
fates are more likely
to adjust well to growing old than those who feel
they drift on
the currents of fate.
Two
researchers who questioned hundreds of Swedish
twins report that such
confidence, or lack of
it, is partly genetic and partly drawn from
experience.
They also found that the belief in
blind luck—a conviction that chance plays a big
role in life—is something learned in life and
has nothing to do with heredity.
The research
was conducted by Nancy Pedersen, a professor of
psychology at the
University of Southern
California in Los Angeles. The results were
recently published
in the United States in the
Journal of Gerontology.
People who are
confident of their ability to control their lives
have an “internal locus
of control”, and have
a better chance of being well adjusted in their
old age, said
Pedersen. An “external locus of
control”,believing that outside forces determine
the
course of life, has been linked to
depression in latter years, she said.
“We are
trying to understand what makes people different.
What makes some people
age slowly and others
have a more difficult time?” she said.
The
study showed that while people have an inborn
tendency toward independence
and self-
confidence, about 70 percent of this personality
trait is affected by a person’s
environment
and lifetime experiences.
Pedersen’s studies,
with various collaborators, investigate the aging
process by
comparing sets of twins, most of
whom were separated at an early age.
The
subjects were drawn from a list first compiled
about 30 years ago, registering all
twins born
in Sweden since 1886. The complete list, which was
extended in 1971, has
95,000 sets of twins.
1. Which of the following is
concerned with blind luck?
2. Which of the
following is related to an external locus of
control?
3. According to the passage, what is
true of one’s inborn tendency towards
self-
confidence?
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4. What subjects
were mostly used in Pedersen’s studies?
5.
What is the main idea of the passage?
Keys: 1.A 2.B 3.C 4.C 5.D
Task 2: Is
it moral to clone humans?
Script
Laura:
Did you hear about that peculiar cult that claimed
to have created the world’s
first human clone?
Ian: Yeah, I did! They also said that it was
aliens that created life on earth over
25,000
years ago. What are they on?
Laura: I know! It
was so obviously just part of an elaborate hoax to
bring publicity to
their crazy movement. But I
don’t think the truth can be far off. Scientists
have
been working on it for years.
Ian:
Sure, but most scientists are working on cloning
human cells or body parts
that can be used to
repair or replace damaged organs. Not complete
human
beings! That’s just science fiction!
Laura: Well, the science may seem to be very
advanced, but the idea is not a new one.
In A
Journey to the West, Sun Wu-kung, the Monkey King,
can clone himself
from the hairs on his head.
He just plucks a few hairs, chews them a bit, and
when he spits them out, they change into
replicas of him!
Ian: Really? Now that would
be cool! You could send your clone to school while
you went to the cinema, and then it could do
your homework! Wow! Now that
I think of it, it
would be kind of fun to have a clone!
Laura:
You would say that! Don’t you think it’s slightly
immoral? I mean, it’s just
like having a
slave. Doesn’t the clone deserve a life of his
own?
Ian: Sure, but human beings must learn
to strike a balance between the welfare of
a
patient and of a clone.
Keys: 1.T 2.T 3.F
4.F 5.T
Task3: A Drunkard’s
Argument
Script
Here’s drunkard’s argument
in favor of heavy drinking.
We would learn
more about human bihavior if we paid closer
attention to the laws at
work in the animal
kingdom.
“Only the fittest survive” is a law
that is apparent everywhere in the natural world.
Human beings could certainly benefit from a
close study of how this law operates
among,
for example, the wild buffalo.
A herd of
buffalo moves only as fast as the slowest buffalo.
When the herd is hunted,
it is the slowest and
weakest animals at the back that are killed first.
This is natural
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selection,
and it is good for the herd. The general speed and
health of the group keeps
improving with
regular killing of the weaker memebers.
The
same process of survival of the fittest is to be
observed by looking closely at the
human
brain, which can operate only as fast as the
slowest brain cells. Excessive
consumption of
alcohol, as we all know, kills brain cells. Just
like the less vigorous
buffalo at the back of
the herd, the weakest and slowest brain cells are
destroyed first.
In this way the principles of
natural selection become evident. Regular
consumption
of large amounts of beer
eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the
brain a faster
and more efficient machine. It
is therefore not suprising that one also feels
smarter
after drinking several glasses of
beer.
News Report
Bioinformatics
Script
It’s a complex name for a complex
subject. Bioinformatics is the key to figuring out
the wealth of information in the human genome
project.
Researchers have nearly mapped out
all of the 30,000 genes that make up human
DNA, but making sense of useful data is not
easy.
The company Double Twist is a pioneer in
the business of bioinformatics.
［SOUND BITE］
Double Twist works mainly with information
that is also available to the
public,sifting
through data to find what may help link a
biological
problem like cancer, to its
possible cure.
［SOUND BITE］
The company
then sells software and data to pharmaceutical
companies, biotech
companies, and academic
institutions, which use them in their work. This
provides a
solution to help people better
understand data from the human genome project.
［SOUND BITE］
Bioinformatics speeds up
drug development and provides more accurate
research.
［SOUND BITE］
Human Genome
Sciences takes the process one step further. It
uses bioinformatics to
develop drugs using its
own genomic information.
［SOUND BITE］
Right now, Human Genome Sciences has four new
drugs being tested that are the
results of
genomic research. Bioinformatics systems developed
within the company
played an important role in
discovering these drugs.
［SOUND BITE］
Bioinformatics can also bring much quicker returns
for investors.
［SOUND BITE］
10 11
Even though its role is crucial,
bioinformatics if only a small part of the overall
$$305
billion biotech sector, accounting for
only about $$2.23 billion.
But some investors
believe that bioinformatics has great potential.
［SOUND BITE］
So unless drug companies
start developing their own bioinformatics systems
or
partner with companies that can provide
them, they may get left behind in the race
to
discover new drugs.
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