英语口语教程(高级) UNIT 14

[00:01.00]Lesson 14 Read D:And you feel that ...um...she doesn't appreciate...;
[00:04.53]B:... appreciate, you know...I even the other day moved her bedroom..,;
[00:09.84]er... (Furniture)... furniture around.;
[00:13.17]D:I did that in   my house...;
[00:16.13]B:I did...I thought   it looked awful   where it was,   you know.;
[00:22.60]A:But I...what annoys me is my room...is my room...;
[00:28.56]If...if it's in a muddle I know where everything is...;
[00:32.78]I like my room to be in a mess.;
[00:35.45]B:But you see,we... I keep that as a sort of main bedroom,;
[00:41.97]you know...Yes, sometimes I don't even sleep in my room,it's so cold.;
[00:48.68]C:Ooh,crumbs! B:How do you feel   on this subject,   Pamels?;
[00:54.35]D: [with a great guffaw] Negative!;
[00:56.51]C:I always know where everything is in my room even if it is untidy,;
[01:02.00]but my mother comes along and I can't find anything anywhere.;
[01:07.62]A:I like it when you get to that age;
[01:11.28]where your parents seem to realize that you' re...;
[01:14.47]you're going off on your own...;
[01:17.19]you've got your own life to lead, so you think,;
[01:21.08]Right,we'll leave all her things, she can do what she likes with them.;
[01:26.52]It's her time, she can do what she likes with her time.;
[01:31.63]B:They start from   a certain point,   don't they?;
[01:35.86]E:Well, I don't think they always do that...;
[01:39.65]They try to remember that you're growing up and then they forget.;
[01:44.81]D:Yes... they try  to protect you...;
[01:48.71]They're treating you like children;
[01:51.05]and telling you where to put things...;
[01:53.63]C: ...going round   tidying up   after you.;
[01:57.15]6. "Intimate Elder Sisters" Allay Teenagers' Worries;
[02:06.39]Xiao Lin,;
[02:08.73]a third year junior high school student from Beijing,;
[02:12.81]packed his books and clothes and left home,with tears in his eyes.;
[02:19.33]He felt his divorced parents never loved him.;
[02:24.21]He felt lonely,but he did not know where to go.;
[02:29.46]He thought of 440779,;
[02:34.48]a phone number to reach the so-called "Intimate Elder Sisters".;
[02:40.01]That day was a day to remember in his whole life.;
[02:45.08]One of the sisters came to see him,;
[02:48.22]and to his utter enjoyment,spent the day playing with him.;
[02:53.57]"She told me 'The world is not as cold as you think it is.;
[02:58.87]There is so much love here.I love you.Your friends love you.'";
[03:04.63]Xiao Lin stayed at home,;
[03:06.98]trying to fill it with the love he got from his Intimate Elder Sister.;
[03:11.90]Actually,the Intimate Elder Sisters;
[03:15.75]are Wu Ruomei, Lu Qin,Ge Shujuan and Huang Xiaopo,;
[03:22.03]editors of the China Children's News.;
[03:25.88]Since they opened the hot line in March 1988,;
[03:30.90]they have received more than 10,000 calls from children across the country.;
[03:37.60]"We hope to ease their troubles;
[03:40.56]through heart-to-heart chats,"said Wu Ruomei.;
[03:44.97]Many of the children they talked to were disturbed by secrets;
[03:49.75]they felt obliged to keep from both their parents and their teachers.;
[03:54.86]Children reach the Elder Sisters every day by phone;
[03:59.22]with a wide range of funny or astonishing questions.;
[04:03.54]"I'm growing into a fatty,sister, and I don't want that,";
[04:08.42]and,"What do children on other planets look like?";
[04:13.34]The questions are not always small and easy to solve.;
[04:18.36]Yet,"Even if we just listen to these children's sobbing,;
[04:23.56]we're helping them out of their loneliness," Wu said.;
[04:28.16]When little Yanni called her Elder Sister in Beijing from Wuhan,;
[04:33.51]she was weeping.;
[04:35.48]"Mama is dying from cancer," she said. "I don't want her to leave me.";
[04:42.37]After comforting little Yanni,;
[04:45.42]her Sisters informed children in other parts of the country,;
[04:49.92]who sent Yanni and her mother letters and gifts,;
[04:54.47]encouraging them to fight the disease courageously.;
[04:58.74]A Beijing boy refused to be identified on the phone.;
[05:04.18]But he told his elder sister;
[05:06.81]his cousin had accidentally injured another child;
[05:11.03]and had to pay all the medical fees.;
[05:14.50]Afraid of informing his parents,;
[05:18.25]he had stolen 110 yuan;
[05:21.06]from a classmate's home and was discovered later.;
[05:25.47]He was in great distress,but did not know what to do.;
[05:30.68]Wu said to him,"The boy's actions are forgiveable.;
[05:36.12]Once he clears up the situation,he'll win the trust of others.";
[05:41.51]Her sense told her that the boy was talking about himself.;
[05:47.23]After the call,Wu wrote to the boy's father,asking them to help the boy.;
[05:55.16]A few days later,a boy appeared before the editors.;
[06:00.60]It was he who had taken the money.;
[06:03.79]Now,a good student in No 20 Middle School of Beijing,;
[06:08.85]he often visits with his Elder Sisters.;
[06:12.79]During the past year,Wu and her colleagues;
[06:17.20]also opened the hot line for a short period;
[06:20.53]in eight other cities in the country.;
[06:23.72]In Nanning,capital of South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region,;
[06:30.14]they received 509 calls in three days.;
[06:35.77]Lesson 15 Should Smoking Be Prohibited?;
[06:43.13]Text Passive Path to Death for Non-smokers;
[06:50.31]Alice Trillin was 38 and thought she was in excellent health.;
[06:57.16]Then "this completely crazy thing" happened.;
[07:01.61]"I coughed and a tiny,tiny blood clot took me to get a chest X-ray.;
[07:08.51]Ten days later I had my lung removed.";
[07:13.43]Trillin had lung cancer,the kind smokers get.;
[07:18.92]But she had never smoked a cigarette.;
[07:22.44]The cause of her cancer remained a mystery;
[07:26.85]until a doctor friend asked if her parents had smoked. They had.;
[07:34.11]"Nobody had ever said anything about passive smoking.;
[07:38.62]I hadn't worried about the question much," she says.;
[07:43.40]Most scientists hadn't worried about it much either,;
[07:48.42]until studies in recent years showed that passive smoking;
[07:53.77]was causing 3,000 to 5,000 lung cancer deaths a year;
[07:59.02]among American non-smokers.;
[08:02.25]Now a study estimates that the toll from passive smoking,;
[08:08.35]including deaths from heart disease and other cancers, may be 10 times that.;
[08:15.81]Tobacco smoke in the home and workplace;
[08:20.07]could be killing 46,000 non-smokers each year;
[08:24.91]in the United States,the study concludes.;
[08:28.80]That's 3,000 lung cancer deaths,;
[08:32.22]11,000 from other cancers and 32,000 heart disease deaths.;
[08:40.19]That would  make passive smoking;
[08:43.06]the leading preventable cause of death in the United States;
[08:47.51]after alcohol and smoking itself,;
[08:50.84]said Dr.Ronald M.Davis,;
[08:53.84]director of the US Office on Smoking and Health.;
[08:58.25]Smoking kills 390,000;alcohol, 120,000.;
[09:07.07]"No longer are we talking about runny nose or watery eyes;
[09:12.74]or headache or nausea but a fatal disease," Davis Said.;
[09:19.21]Passive smoking has become the principal battleground;
[09:23.67]for the tobacco industry and its opponents in the 1980s.;
[09:28.83]It is no longer merely a health issue,but political and environmental.;
[09:35.63]Cigarette pollution is fouling the air.;
[09:39.57]"We know that the indoor environment;
[09:42.66]is far more polluted than the outdoor environment,";
[09:46.42]said James Repace of the Environmental Protection Agency indoor air programme;
[09:53.03]"We've seen that again and again;
[09:55.75]wherever we've looked all over the United States.";
[10:00.02]Many people believe smokers have the right to smoke.;
[10:05.13]But they also believe that others shouldn't have to pay a prices.;
[10:10.99]"When you talk about an involuntary risk, the society becomes much more cautious,";
[10:18.82]said University of California-San Francisco biomedical engineer;
[10:24.40]Stanton Glantz,an environmentalist and anti-smoking activist.;
[10:31.30]The new estimate of non-smoker deaths is controversial.;
[10:37.30]Researchers agree it is preliminary and needs to be confirmed.;
[10:44.10]A tobacco industry consultant;
[10:47.81]said the emphasis on passive smoking was misplaced.;
[10:52.73]Many public health officials disagree.;
[10:57.23]The risk of tobacco smoke;
[11:00.52]"is greater than the risk of radon gas is to non-smokers", Repaee said.;
[11:07.64]"We're talking maybe 40 per cent greater.;
[11:11.49]And if you're talking about all the carcinogenic air pollutants;
[11:15.88]that EPA regulates, it's 100 times greater.;
[11:22.07]II. Read Read the following passages.;
[11:29.62]Underline the important viewpoints while reading.;
[11:34.45]1.Benefits of   Smoking;
[11:39.70]Sir,The essential fact about smoking,;
[11:44.25]which most commentators of recent years;
[11:47.30]seem to have ignored;
[11:49.17]is that cigarettes give a vast number of people;
[11:53.02]a good deal of pleasure a lot of the time.;
[11:57.00]That is why the world smoked almost 5,000,000,000,000 of them last year;;
[12:03.48]approximately 1,200 for every man,woman and child on earth.;
[12:11.78]It is not high pressure advertising;
[12:15.39]that makes the Chinese smoke heavily--;
[12:18.30]any more than it was wicked merchants;
[12:21.30]who persuaded the seventeenth century Persians to smoke,;
[12:25.57]despite the Shah's ingenious punishment;
[12:29.08]of pouring molten lead down their throats when they were caught.;
[12:34.29]There is considerable evidence,;
[12:37.57]surprisingly little publicized by cigarette manufacturers,;
[12:42.17]that smoking produces certain beneficial effects in human beings.;
[12:47.98]Frankenhauser showed that smoking;
[12:51.59]counteracts the decrease in efficiency;
[12:54.88]that typically occurs in boring, monotonous situations,;
[12:59.76]and that smokers improved their performance;
[13:03.09]in complex choice situations while smoking.;
[13:07.21]There is a growing body of evidence;
[13:10.35]that nicotine can produce a tranquilizing effect;
[13:14.11]during high emotional and shock situations,;
[13:17.81]while on the other hand stimulating concentration in tedious situations.;
[13:24.28]None of which proves that smoking may not cause cancer or other illnesses.;
[13:31.41]But,as the late Sir Compton Mackenzie wrote,;
[13:35.54]"If cigarettes vanished from the earth today,;
[13:38.92]I believe the world would go to war again;
[13:42.06]within a comparatively short time.";
[13:45.29]An extravagant exaggeration, perhaps.;
[13:49.09]But certainly tempers would be shorter,nastier and more brutish.;
[13:54.95]Yours faithfully, Winston Fletcher;
[13:59.93]2. Is Smoking a Bad Habit?;
[14:05.65]I,a casual smoker, always wonder if smoking is really a bad habit.;
[14:14.32]If it is,;
[14:16.58]why does our country produce such a large number of cigarettes every year?;
[14:22.48](As you know,China is the largest cigarette producing country in the world;
[14:29.29]If it is,;
[14:31.58]why do so many girls admire handsome boys with a cigarette on their lip?;
[14:37.73]My friends tell me, "Smoking is a waste of money,a cause of disease...";
[14:45.28]Admittedly,these reasons frighten some people into giving up smoking,;
[14:51.47]but can you ensure that non-smokers will live long;
[14:55.59]without dying in an epidemic or getting killed by a drunken driver?;
[15:01.74]Can you say it is not a waste of money for most non-smokers;
[15:06.62]habitually to spend a lot of money on snacks?;
[15:11.26]In my opinion, smoking is only an amusement,;
[15:16.65]like playing cards, reading,etc.;
[15:20.78]Many years ago,when an adult handed me a cigarette;
[15:25.70]and lit it for me, I felt grown up.;
[15:29.79]When I am with friends and have nothing to say,;
[15:34.10]we smoke, consequently we no longer feel embarrassed.;
[15:39.82]Sometimes,I light a cigarette,;
[15:43.90]watching my loneliness,suffering;
[15:47.23]and nervousness vanishing with the smoke,;
[15:51.03]I can't help saying inwardly:;
[15:54.13]Hello,cigarette, my old friend, I'm coming to meet you again.;
[16:01.91]3. Smokers of the World,Unite;
[16:08.85]It can scarcely have escaped the notice of thinking men,I think,;
[16:15.14]being a thinking man myself,;
[16:17.81]that the forces of darkness opposed to those of us who like a quiet smoke;
[16:24.89]are gathering momentum daily;
[16:27.70]and starting to throw their weight about more somewhat.;
[16:32.16]Every morning [ read in the papers a long article;
[16:37.37]by another of those doctors who are the spearhead of the movement.;
[16:42.57]Tobacco,they say, plugs up the arteries;
[16:46.56]and lowers the temperature of the body extremities,;
[16:50.59]and if you reply that you like your arteries plugged up;
[16:55.19]and are all for having the temperature;
[16:57.70]of your body extremities lowered,;
[17:00.14]especially during the summer months, they bring up that cat again.;
[17:05.70]The cat to which I allude is the one that has two drops of nicotine;
[17:12.17]placed on its tongue and instantly passes beyond the veil.;
[17:17.38]"Look,"they say. "I place two drops of nicotine on the cat's tongue.;
[17:23.66]Now watch it wilt." I can't see the argument.;
[17:29.01]Cats,as Charles Stuart Calverley said,;
[17:33.14]may have their goose cooked by tobacco juice,;
[17:37.12]but are we to deprive our-selves of all our modest pleasures;
[17:42.23]just because indulgence in them would be harmful to some cat;
[17:46.92]which is probably a perfect stranger?;
[17:50.44]Take a simple instance such as occurs every Saturday;
[17:55.46]on the Rugby football field.;
[17:57.81]The ball is heeled out,the serum half gathers it,;
[18:02.73]and instantaneously two fourteen-stone forwards;
[18:07.28]fling themselves on this person, grinding him into the mud.;
[18:12.44]Must we abolish Twickenham and Murrayfield;
[18:16.52]because some sorry reasoner insists;
[18:19.71]that if the serum half had been a cat;
[18:22.52]he would have been squashed flatter than a Dover sole?;
[18:26.22]And no use,of course to try to drive into these morons heads;
[18:31.95]that serum halves are not cats.;
[18:34.57]Really,one feels inclined at times to give it all up;
[18:40.01]and turn one's face to the wall.;
[18:43.25]It is pitiful to think that that is how these men spend their lives,;
[18:48.92]putting drops of nicotine on the tongues of cats day after day.;
[18:54.41]Slaves to a habit, is the way I look at it.;
[18:58.96]But if you tell them that and urge them to pull themselves together;
[19:04.45]and throw off the shackles,;
[19:06.79]they just look at you with fishy eyes;
[19:09.89]and mumble something about it can't be done.;
[19:13.92]Of course it can be done.All it requires is will power.;
[19:19.74]If they were to say to themselves,;
[19:23.16]"I will not start putting nicotine on cats' tongue till after lunch";
[19:29.35]it would be a simple step to knocking off during the afternoon,;
[19:34.56]and by degrees they would find that they could abstain altogether.;
[19:40.18]The first cat of the cats is the hard one to give up.;
[19:45.58]Conquer the impulse for the after- breakfast cat,;
[19:49.52]and the battle is half won.;
[19:52.89]4. Common Sense about Smoking;
[19:59.65]It is often said, "I know all about the risk to my health,;
[20:05.88]but I think that the risk is worth it.";
[20:10.06]When this statement is true it should be accepted.;
[20:15.45]Everyone has the right to choose what risks they take,;
[20:20.24]however great they may be.;
[20:23.33]However,often the statement really means,;
[20:28.16]"I have a nasty feeling that smoking is bad for my health,;
[20:32.85]but I would rather not think about it.";
[20:36.74]With some of these people the bluff can be called;
[20:41.25]and they can be asked;
[20:42.71]to explain what they think the risk to their own health is.;
[20:47.09]When this is done few get very far in personal terms.;
[20:53.56]The bare fact;
[20:55.86]that 23,000 people died of lung cancer last year in Great Britain;
[21:01.81]often fails to impress in individual.;
[21:05.61]When it is explained that this is the equivalent;
[21:09.78]of one eyery twenty-five minutes;
[21:12.74]or is four times as many as those killed on the roads,;
[21:17.19]the significance is more apparent.;
[21:20.99]The one-in-eight, risk of dying of lung cancer;
[21:25.54]for the man who smokes twenty-five or more cigarettes a day;
[21:30.09]may be better appreciated if an analogy is used.;
[21:35.63]If when you boarded a plane,;
[21:38.72]the girl at the top of the steps;
[21:40.83]were to welcome you aboard with the greeting,;
[21:43.93]"I am pleased that you are,coming with us;
[21:46.88]--only one in eight of our planes crashes.";
[21:50.68]how many would think again,and make other arrangements?;
[21:55.98]Alternatively, the analogy of Russian Roulette may appeal.;
[22:01.98]The man smoking twenty-five or more a day;
[22:06.30]runs the same risk between the ages of thirty and sixty;
[22:11.22]as another who buys a revolver with 250 chambers;
[22:16.57]and inserts one live bullet and each of his birthdays spins the chamber,;
[22:23.37]points the revolver at his head,and pulls the trigger.;
[22:28.67]One of the difficulties in impressing these facts on people;
[22:33.97]is that,despite the current epidemic, of lung cancer,;
[22:38.70]because it is a disease which kills relatively quickly,;
[22:43.35]there are many who have as yet;
[22:46.21]no experience of it among their family or friends.;
[22:51.88]5.On Smoking --   Its History   and Harm;
[22:59.81]Tobacco smoking is believed to have started in Central and South America.;
[23:07.17]Nearly 500 years ago explorers who went there with Columbus;
[23:13.36]brought back to Europe the habit of pipe smoking,;
[23:17.40]which they had learned from the New World Indians.;
[23:21.76]It was introduced into China from Luson during the Ming dynasty.;
[23:28.98]Until the 1900's tobacco was used mainly for cigars,;
[23:34.98]chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco and snuff.;
[23:39.91]Cigarettes may first have been made by the Aztecs of Mexico.;
[23:46.33]They smoked shredded tobacco rolled in corn husk covering.;
[23:51.87]Cigarette smoking gained some popularity in Europe;
[23:56.32]during the 1800's.;
[23:58.67]It increased sharply after World War I and again after World War II.;
[24:05.70]For centuries the smoking of tobacco in cigarettes, cigars and pipes;
[24:12.69]has produced controversy over possible health hazards.;
[24:17.38]Scientific investigations of smoking and health;
[24:22.26]gained impetus after the beginning of the 20th century,;
[24:26.52]when an increase in lung cancer was noted.;
[24:30.89]But only since the 1950's;
[24:34.17]has sufficient scientific evidence accumulated;
[24:38.01]to make possible a thorough evaluation of the health risk.;
[24:43.13]Although some gaps in knowledge still exist,;
[24:47.16]the information now available;
[24:49.65]is sufficient to permit making sound judgements.;
[24:54.05]Since cigarettes have steadily become more popular than cigars and pipes,;
[25:00.71]investigators have directed their,principal consideration;
[25:05.46]to cigarette smoking.;
[25:08.00]As we now know, tobacco contains an organic compound--nicotine.;
[25:15.88]It is the principal alkaloid of tobacco, occurring throughout the plant.;
[25:22.49]Nicotine,one of the many substances;
[25:26.24]pharmacologically active in tobacco smoke,;
[25:29.71]exerts an effect on the heart and nervous system in particular.;
[25:35.67]The effect on the nervous system;
[25:38.53]is predominantly tranquilizing and relaxing.;
[25:42.70]There is little doubt;
[00:00.00]http://enook.cn [00:01.00]that the physiological effects strengthen the habit.;
[25:49.17]So for centuries, some people obstinately believed;
[25:54.15]tobacco smoking possessed medicinal properties.;
[25:58.27]It reduced tension and was pleasurable.;
[26:02.63]But in reality, it has turned out to be tragedy.;
[26:07.70]When you smoke, you're breathing in close to a gram;
[26:12.25]of dirty brown tar a day.;
[26:15.63]Even the smoking of only a few cigarettes a day;
[26:20.22]causes many dangerous ailments.;
[26:23.74]An American scientist estimated that smokers;
[26:28.38]who average a package a day for 20 years;
[26:32.27]will lose about eight years of their lives.;
[26:36.92]Along with the increase in cigarette smoking,;
[26:41.04]many scientific investigations have been undertaken.;
[26:46.02]Overwhelming evidence proves the danger and harm of smoking.;
[26:52.53]Experimental, clinical- pathological,;
[26:56.94]and epidemiological evidence indicates that cigarette smoking;
[27:02.48]is the main cause of lung cancer.;
[27:05.81]The risk of developing lung cancer;
[27:09.65]increases with the number of cigarettes smoked per day;
[27:13.78]and the duration of the smoking habit,;
[27:16.97]and it diminishes with the cessation of smoking.;
[27:21.70]Cigarette smoking was also found to be connected with other types of cancer,;
[27:29.35]it isconsidered a major factorin causing cancer of the larynx;
[27:35.45]and is associated with cancer of the esophagus.;
[27:39.95]Smoking is a significant factor in the development of oral cancer,;
[27:46.98]and pipe smoking alone or with other tobacco use,;
[27:51.63]is causally related to lip cancer.;
[27:55.80]Cigarette smoking is the greatest cause of chronic bronchitis.;
[28:02.41]A person suffering from chronic bronchitis;
[28:06.31]may have the disease and the cough connected with it,;
[28:09.96]for many years, perhaps for the rest of his life.;
[28:15.03]Cigarette smoking has also been found;
[28:18.83]to be connected with putmonary emphysema,;
[28:22.95]a disabling disease of the lungs.;
[28:27.15]The smoking  of cigarettes;
[28:29.64]increases the risk of dying from chronic bronchitis;
[28:33.72]and from pulmonary emphysema.;