高一英语人教版必修二全册课文内容
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Unit 1 Cultural Relics
IN SEARCH OF THE
AMBER ROOM
Frederick William I, the King of
Prussia, could never have imagined that his
greatest gift to the
Russian people would have
such an amazing history. This gift was the Amber
Room, which was
given this name because
several tons of amber were used to make it. The
amber which was
selected had a beautiful
yellow-brown colour like honey. The design of the
room was in the fancy
style popular in those
days. It was also a treasure decorated with gold
and jewels, which took the
country’s best
artists about ten years to make.
In fact,
the room was not made to be a gift. It was
designed for the palace of Frederick I.
However, the next King of Prussia, Frederick
William I, to whom the amber room belonged,
decided not to keep it. In 1716 he gave it to
Peter the Great. In return, the Czar sent him a
troop of
his best soldiers. So the Amber Room
became part of the Czar’s winter palace in
Petersburg.
About four metres long, the room
served as a small reception hall for important
visitors.
Later, Catherine II had the Amber
Room moved to a palace outside St Petersburg where
she
spent her summers. She told her artists to
add more details to it. In 1770 the room was
completed
the way she wanted. Almost six
hundred candles lit the room, and its mirrors and
pictures shone
like gold. Sadly, although the
Amber Room was considered one of the wonders of
the world, it is
now missing.
In
September 1941, the Nazi army was near St
Petersburg. This was a time when the two
countries were at war. Before the Nazis could
get to the summer palace, the Russians were able
to
remove some furniture and small art objects
from the Amber Room. However, some of the Nazis
secretly stole the room itself. In less than
two days 100,000 pieces were put inside twenty-
seven
wooden boxes. There is no doubt that the
boxes were then put on a train for Konigsberg,
which
was at that time German city on the
Baltic Sea. After that, what happened to the Amber
Room
remains a mystery.
Recently, the
Russians and Germans have built a new Amber Room
at the summer palace. By
studying old photos
of the former Amber Room, they have made the new
one look like the old one.
In 2003 it was
ready for the people of St Petersburg when they
celebrated the 300
th
birthday of
their
city.
A FACT OR AN
OPINION
What is a fact? Is it something that
people believe? No. A fact is anything that can be
proved.
For example, it can be proved that
China has more people than any other country in
the world.
This is a fact.
Then what is
an opinion? An opinion is something that someone
believes is true but has not
been improved. So
an opinion is not good evidence in a trial. For
example, it is an opinion if you
say “Cats are
better pets than dogs.” It may be true, but it is
difficult to prove. Some people may
not agree
with this opinion but they also cannot prove that
they are right.
In a trial, a judge must
decide which eyewitnesses to believe and which not
to believe. The
judge does not consider what
each eyewitness looks like or where that person
lives or works.
Heshe only cares about whether
the eyewitness has given true information, which
must be facts
rather than opinions. This kind
of information is called evidence.
Unit 2 AN INTERVIEW
Pausanias, who
was a Greek writer about 2,000 years ago, has come
on a magical journey on
March 18th, 2007 to
find out about the present-day Olympic Games. He
is now interviewing Li
Yan, a volunteer for
the 2008 Olympic Games.
P: My name is
Pausanias. I lived in what you call “Ancient
Greece” and I used to write about the
Olympic Games a long time ago. I’ve come to
your time to find out about the present-day
Olympic Games because I know that in 2004 they
were held in my homeland. May I ask you some
questions about the modern Olympics?
L:
Good heavens! Have you really come from so long
ago? But of course you can ask any
questions
you like. What would you like to know?
P: How
often do you hold your Games?
L: Every four
years. There are two main sets of Games-the Winter
and the Summer Olympics, and
both are held
every four years on a regular basis. The Winter
Olympics are usually held two years
before the
Summer Games. Only athletes who have reached the
agreed standard for their event
will be
admitted as competitors. They may come from
anywhere in the world.
P: Winter Games? How
can the runners enjoy competing in winter? And
what about the horses?
L: Oh no! There are no
running races or horse riding events. Instead
there are competitions like
skiing and ice
skating which need snow and ice. That’s why
they’re called the Winter Olympics.
It’s in
the Summer Olympics that you have the running
races, together with swimming, sailing and
all
the team sports.
P: I see. Earlier you said
that athletes are invited from all over the world.
Do you mean the Greek
world? Our Greek cities
used to compete against each other just for the
honour of winning. No
other countries could
join in, nor could slaves or women!
L:
Nowadays any country can take part if their
athletes are good enough. There are over 250
sports and each one has its own standard.
Women are not only allowed, but play a very
important
role in gymnastics, athletics, team
sports and …
P: Please wait a minute! All
those events, all those countries and even women
taking part! Where
are all the athletes
housed?
L: For each Olympics, a special
village is built for them to live in, a main
reception building,
several stadiums for
competitions, and a gymnasium as well.
P: That
sounds very expensive. Does anyone want to host
the Olympic Games?
L: As a matter of fact,
every country wants the opportunity. It’s a great
responsibility but also a
great honour to be
chosen. There’s as much competition among
countries to host the Olympics as
to win
Olympic medals. The 2008 Olympics will be held in
Beijing, China. Did you know that?
P: Oh, yes!
You must be very proud.
L: Certainly. And
after that the 2012 Olympics will be held in
London. They have already started
planning for
it. A new village for the athletes and all the
stadiums will be built to the east of
London.
New medals will be designed of course and …
P:
Did you say medals? So even the olive wreath has
been replaced! On dear! Do you compete for
prize money too?
L: No, we don’t. It’s
still all about being able to run faster, jump
higher and throw further. That’s
the motto of
the Olympics, you know-- “Swifter, Higher and
Stronger.”
P: Well, that’s good news. How
interesting! Thank you so much for your time.
Unit 3 WHO AM I?
Over time I have been changed
quite a lot. I began as a calculating machine in
France in 1642.
Although I was young I could
simplify difficult sums. I developed very slowly
and it took nearly
two hundred years before I
was built as an analytical machine by Charles
Babbage. After I was
programmed by an operator
who used cards with holes, I could “think”
logically and produce an
answer quicker than
any person. At that time it was considered a
technological revolution and the
start of my
“artificial intelligence”. In 1936 my real father,
Alan Turing, wrote a book about how I
could be
made to work as a “universal machine” to solve any
difficult mathematical problem.
From then on,
I grew rapidly both in size and in brainpower. By
the 1940s I had grown as large as
a room, and
I wondered if I would grow any larger. However,
this reality also worried my
designers. As
time went by, I was made smaller. First as a
PC(personal computer) and then as a
laptop, I
have been used in offices and homes since the
1970s.
These changes only became possible as
my memory improved. First it was stored in tubes,
then
on transistors and later on very small
chips. As a result I totally changed my shape. As
I have
grown older I have also grown smaller.
Over time my memory has developed so much that,
like an
elephant, I never forget anything I
have been told! And my memory became so large that
even I
couldn’t believe it! But I was always
so lonely standing there by myself, until in the
early 1960s
they gave me a family connected by
a network. I was able to share my knowledge with
others
through the World Wide Web.
Since
the 1970s many new applications have been found
for me. I have become very important
in
communication, finance and trade. I have also been
put into robots and used to make mobile
phones
as well as help with medical operations. I have
even been put into space rockets and sent
to
explore the Moon and Mars. Anyhow, my goal is to
provide humans with a life of high quality. I
am now truly filled with happiness that I am a
devoted friend and helper of the human race!
ANDY-THE ANDROID
I’m part of an android football team. About
once a year we are allowed to get together to play
a
game of football. I’m as big as a human. In
fact, I look like one too. On the football team
I’m a
striker so I have to be able to run very
fast. My computer chips help me to move and think
like a
human. For example, I have learned to
signal to my teammates in computer language to
give me
the ball when I am open and have a
good shot for a goal.
My first football
competition was in Nagoya, Japan several years
ago. Last year our team went
to Seattle,
Washington in the USA. We won second place.
Personally, I think the team that won
first
place cheated. They had developed a new type of
program just before the competition. So we
need to encourage our programmer to improve
our intelligence too. We are determined to create
an
even better system. In a way our programmer
is like our coach. She programs us with all the
possible moves she has seen while watching
human games. Then she prepares reliable moves to
use if a new situation arises. In this way I
can make up new moves using my “artificial
intelligence”. I would really like to play
against a human team, for I have been programmed
to act
just like them. After all, with the
help of my electronic brain which never forgets
anything, using
my intelligence is what I’m
all about!
Unit 4 HOW
DAISY LEARNED TO HELP WILDLIFE
Daisy had
always longed to help endangered species of
wildlife. One day she woke up and found a flying
carpet by
her bed. “Where do you want to go?”
it asked. Daisy responded immediately. “I’d like
to see some endangered
wildlife,” she said.
“Please take me to a distant land where I can find
the animal that gave fur to make this
sweater.” At once the carpet flew away and
took her to Tibet. There Daisy saw an antelope
looking sad. It said,
“We’re being killed for
the wool beneath our stomachs. Our fur is being
used to make sweaters for people like you.
As
a result, we are now an endangered species.” At
that Daisy cried, “I’m sorry I didn’t know that. I
wonder what
is being done to help you. Flying
carpet, please show me a place where there’s some
wildlife protection.”
The flying carpet
travelled so fast that next minute they were in
Zimbabwe. Daisy turned around and found that
she was being watched by an elephant. “Have
you come to take my photo?” it asked. In relief
Daisy burst into
laughter. “Don’t laugh.” said
the elephant, “We used to be an endangered
species. Farmers hunted us without
mercy. They
said we destroyed their farms, and money from
tourists only went to the large tour companies. So
the
government decided to help. They allowed
tourists to hunt only a certain number of animals
if they paid the
farmers. Now the farmers are
happy and our numbers are increasing. So good
things are being done here to save
local
wildlife.”
Daisy smiled. “That’s good news.
It shows the importance of wildlife protection,
but I’d like to help as the
WWF suggests.” The
carpet rose again and almost at once they were in
a thick rain-forest. A monkey watched
them as
it rubbed itself. “What are you doing?” asked
Daisy. “I’m protecting myself from mosquitoes,” it
replied.
“When I find a millipede insect, I
rub it over my body. It contains a powerful drug
which affects mosquitoes. You
should pay more
attention to the rain-forest where I live and
appreciate how the animals live together. No
rain-forest, no animals, no drugs.”
Daisy was amazed. “Flying carpet, please take me
home so I can tell WWF and we can begin producing
this
new drug. Monkey, please come and help.”
The monkey agreed. The carpet flew home. As they
landed, things
began to disappear. Two minutes
later everything had gone-the monkey, too. So
Daisy was not able to make her
new drug. But
what an experience! She had learned so much! And
there was always WWF…
ANIMAL EXTINCTION
Many animals have
disappeared during the long history of the earth.
The most famous of these animals are
dinosaurs. They lived on the earth tens of
millions of years ago, long before humans came
into being and their
future seemed secure at
that time. There were many different kinds of
dinosaur and a number of them used to live
in
China. The eggs of twenty-five species have been
found in Xixia County, Nanyang, Henan Province.
Not long
ago a rare new species of bird-like
dinosaur was discovered in Chaoyang County,
Liaoning Province. When
scientists inspected
the bones, they were surprised to find that these
dinosaurs could not only run like the others
but also climb trees. They learned this from
the way the bones were joined together.
Dinosaurs died out suddenly about 65 million years
ago. Some scientists think it came after an
unexpected
incident when a huge rock from
space hit the earth and put too much dust into the
air. Others think the earth got
too hot for
the dinosaurs to live on any more. Nobody knows
for sure why and how dinosaurs disappeared from
the
earth in such a short time.
We know
many other wild plants, animals, insects and birds
have died out more recently. According to a UN
report, some 844 animals and plants have
disappeared in the last 500 years. The dodo is one
of them. It lived on
the Island of Mauritius
and was a very friendly animal. Please listen to a
story of the dodo and how it disappeared
from
the earth.
Unit 5 Music
Have you ever wanted to be part
of a band as a famous singer or musician? Have you
ever
dreamed of playing in front of thousands
of people at a concert, at which everyone is
clapping and
appreciating your music? Do you
sing karaoke and pretend you are a famous singer
like Song
Zuying or Liu Huan? To be honest, a
lot of people attach great importance to becoming
rich and
famous. But just how do people form a
band?
Many musicians meet and form a band
because they like to write and play their own
music.
They may start as a group of high-
school students, for whom practising their music
in someone’s
house is the first step to fame.
Sometimes they may play to passers-by in the
street or subway so
that they can earn some
extra money for themselves or to pay for their
instruments. Later they may
give performances
in pubs or clubs, for which they are paid in cash.
Of course they hope to make
records in a
studio and sell millions of copies to become
millionaires!
However, there was one band
that started in a different way. It was called the
Monkees and
began as a TV show. The musicians
were to play jokes on each other as well as play
music, most
of which was based loosely on the
Beatles. The TV organizers had planned to find
four musicians
who could act as well as sing.
They put an advertisement in a newspaper looking
for rock
musicians, but they could only find
one who was good enough. They had to use actors
for the
other three members of the band.
As some of these actors could not sing well
enough, they had to rely on other musicians to
help
them. So during the broadcasts they just
pretended to sing. Anyhow their performances were
humorous enough to be copied by other groups.
They were so popular that their fans formed clubs
in order to get more familiar with them. Each
week on TV, the Monkees would play and sing
songs written by other musicians. However,
after a year or so in which they became more
serious
about their work, the Monkees started
to play and sing their own songs like a real band.
Then they
produced their own records and
started touring and playing their own music. In
the USA they
became even more popular than the
Beatles and sold even more records. The band broke
up about
1970, but happily they reunited in
the mid-1980s. They produced a new record in 1996,
with
which they celebrated their former time
as a real band.
FREDDY THE
FROG(II)
Not long after Freddy and the band
became famous, they visited Britain on a brief
tour. Fans
showed their devotion by waiting
for hours to get tickets for their concerts.
Freddy was now quite
confident when he went
into a concert hall. He enjoyed singing and all
the congratulations
afterwards! His most
exciting invitation was to perform on a TV
programme called “Top of the
Pops.” He had to
go to London, wear an expensive suit and give a
performance to a TV camera. It
felt very
strange. But as soon as the programme was over,
the telephones which were in the same
room
started ringing. Everybody was asking when they
could see Freddy and his band again. They
were
truly stars.
Then things went wrong. Freddy
and his band could not go out anywhere without
being
followed. Even when they wore sunglasses
or beards people recognized them. Fans found them
even when they went into the toilet. They
tried to hide in the reading rooms of libraries,
but it was
useless. Someone was always there!
Their personal life was regularly discussed by
people who did
not know them but talked as if
they were close friends. At last feeling very
upset and sensitive,
Freddy and his band
realized that they must leave the country before
it became too painful for
them. So they left
Britain, to which they were never to return, and
went back to the lake.