英语口语教程(高级) UNIT 6-7

[00:01.00]Lesson 6 Is Euthanasia Humane?;

[00:00.85]II.Read;

[00:01.22]5.Legal System Should   Be Established to   Deal with   Euthanasia;

[00:08.72]Many countries have legalized mercy killing.;

[00:13.51]In Uruguay the law states that,;

[00:17.50]"The judges are authorized to forgo punishment of a person;

[00:22.66]whose life has been honorable where he commits a homicide;

[00:27.29]motivated by compassion induced by repeated requests by the victim;

[00:33.83]Switzerland, Norway, and Germany have adopted similar approaches!;

[00:40.86]American law appears in need of revision.;

[00:45.86]However,some feel that legalized euthanasia would invite abuse.;

[00:52.99]Any form of murder might be conveniently dubbed mercy killing;

[00:58.47]by unscrupulous persons.;

[01:01.56]In response,some euthanasia proponents;

[01:05.98]have suggested that our legal system establish an evaluation body;

[01:11.67]to judge which requests for a mercy killing;

[01:15.50]are valid before the act is committed.;

[01:19.65]6.Is There a Way to   Compromise?;

[01:24.97]Medical science is doing all it can to extend human life;

[01:30.77]and is succeeding brilliantly.;

[01:33.54]Living conditions are so much better,;

[01:37.00]so many diseases can either be prevented or cured;

[01:41.63]that life expectation has increased enormously.;

[01:45.94]No one would deny that this is a good thing;

[01:49.82]provided one enjoys perfect health.;

[01:53.39]But is it a good thing to extend human suffering, to prolong life,;

[01:59.51]not in order to give joy and happiness, but to give pain and sorrow?;

[02:06.16]Take an extreme example.;

[02:09.09]Take the case of a man who is so senile he has lost all his faculties.;

[02:16.22]He is in hospital in an unconscious state with little chance of coming round,;

[02:22.50]but he is kept alive by artificial means for an indefinite period.;

[02:28.03]Everyone,his friends relatives and even the doctors;

[02:33.93]agree that death will bring release.;

[02:37.02]Indeed,the patient himself would agree--;

[02:40.85]if he were in a position to give choice to his feelings.;

[02:45.11]Yet everything is done to perpetuate;

[02:48.25]what has become a meaningless existence.;

[02:51.92]The question of euthanasia raises serious moral issues;

[02:57.61]since it implies that active measures will be taken to terminate human life;

[03:03.25]And this is an exceedingly dangerous principle to allow.;

[03:08.26]But might it not be possible to compromise?;

[03:12.62]With regard to senility,;

[03:15.44]it might be preferable to let nature take its course;

[03:19.01]when death will relieve suffering.;

[03:21.61]After all,this would be doing no more than was done in the past,;

[03:27.20]before medical science made it possible;

[03:29.95]to interfere with the course of nature.;

[03:32.52]There are people in Afghanistan and Russia;

[03:36.05]who are reputed to live to a ripe old age.;

[03:39.88]These exceptionally robust individuals are just getting into their stride at 70;

[03:46.96]Cases have been reported of men over 120 getting married and having children.;

[03:54.94]Some of these people are said to be over 150 years old.;

[04:00.95]Under such exceptional conditions,;

[04:04.30]who wouldn't want to go on living forever?;

[04:07.76]But in our societies to be 70 usually means that you are old;;

[04:14.95]to be 90 often means that you are decrepit.;

[04:19.52]The instinct for selfpreservation is the strongest we possess.;

[04:25.22]We cling dearly to life while we have it and enjoy it.;

[04:30.38]But there always comes at time when we'd be better off dead.;

[04:36.23]Lesson 7 Do Examinations Do More Harm,Than Good?;

[04:44.75]Text On Eggs and Exams;

[04:50.60]I've been acting like an egg striking a rock. What is this egg?;

[04:58.00]It's the campaign against the old- fashioned way of teaching;

[05:02.41]Intensive Reading. And what's the rock?;

[05:06.88]It's the old- fashioned way of setting exams.;

[05:11.19]So long as the old type of I.R. examination remains in force,;

[05:17.58]the campaign against the old method of teaching I.R. can't win.;

[05:23.38]It's like an egg striking a rock.;

[05:27.47]Many people agree: Yes,this old- fashioned I.R.(OFIR);

[05:33.86]is certainly intensive;;

[05:36.52]it calls for most intensive work by the students.;

[05:41.09]But it doesn't teach them how to read.;

[05:44.45]The more intensively the students study, the fewer books they read.;

[05:50.89]And OFIR doesn't teach them language well either.;

[05:57.32]Learning a language means learning to use it. OFIR doesn't do that.;

[06:05.89]It teaches mainly about the language.;

[06:09.99]Well,if so many teachers and students agree;

[06:14.56]that OFIR doesn't teach people how to read,;

[06:18.87]why aren't they willing to give it up?;

[06:22.01]Because of that rock -- the rock of the old examination system.;

[06:27.87]If that rock is not smashed,the egg is smashed.;

[06:33.19]The campaign against OFIR can't be won.;

[06:38.67]Many I.R. exams, until now,;

[06:42.77]have actually included reading material studied during the term.;

[06:49.04]Does that examine how well the students have learnt to read?;

[06:53.73]No.It examines how well they have learnt by heart;

[06:58.78]the reading texts and explanations the teacher has given them.;

[07:04.37]A student might get high marks on such a test;

[07:08.84]without having learnt to read much better than before she took the course.;

[07:14.53]A true test would consist of unseen passages.;

[07:19.69]That would show how well a student could read and how much she had learnt.;

[07:26.08]Is that so important?;

[07:28.74]Yes.A college student should know how to read;

[07:33.10]and should learn to read much and fast.;

[07:37.15]He should on graduation have read hundreds and hundreds of pages,;

[07:44.01]dozens and dozens of books.;

[07:47.20]How else can our students inherit the knowledge;

[07:51.41]that mankind has gained through the ages?;

[07:55.18]For that is what China must do in order to modernize.;

[08:00.83]Of course,reading in itself is not enough.;

[08:05.56]We must think-- think about what we read and analyze its content,;

[08:11.57]ideas and approach "Cultivate the habit of analysis.";

[08:18.07]That is the aim of education.;

[08:21.47]But we must have something solid to analyze.;

[08:25.84]We must have some knowledge of the world,;

[08:29.29]of nature,of society past and present, Chinese and foreign.;

[08:36.42]So we must read much Therefore we must learn to read fast.;

[08:43.87]Naturally,we do need to know something about the language.;

[08:49.87]We do need to know some grammar.;

[08:52.80]But grammar is only a means to an end, not an end in itself;

[08:59.35]For grammar after all,is theory.;

[09:03.18]And "what is theory for and where does it come from?;

[09:08.13]It comes from practice and serves practice.";

[09:12.49]The same applies to grammar.;

[09:15.68]So we need to do some intensive reading for the sake of extensive reading;

[09:21.75]for the sake of reading whole articles,whole books.;

[09:26.75]A little theory goes a long way. The final test is practice.;

[09:33.51]True, reading is far from the only source of knowledge.;

[09:40.05]Reading without observing life and taking part in life,;

[09:45.69]without experimenting,will produce bookworms, not modernizers.;

[09:52.45]This does not show that all kinds of I.R.;

[09:57.35]are absolutely useless and should be scrapped.;

[10:01.50]Some I.R. should be kept --but it should be kept within limits.;

[10:07.88]It should not be "the super-power course",;

[10:12.14]riding roughshod over the language curriculum;

[10:15.92]and taking over most of the timetable.;

[10:19.48]And what I.R.we keep and teach should not be so long;

[10:24.43]and so hard that the teacher is forced to use the duck-stuffing,;

[10:29.86]lecturing method.;

[10:32.09]And it should not just focus on "words,words,words".;

[10:37.15]It should focus on meaning,on ideas,on understanding,;

[10:43.32]on communication -- on forests as well as on trees.;

[10:49.65]But as long as students are forced to get good marks;

[10:54.87]in order to get good jobs and as long as teachers want their students;

[11:01.04]to get good marks so that they themselves can gain fame as good teachers,;

[11:07.48]then everything depends on examinations.;

[11:11.42]It depends on what sort of exams we teachers set;

[11:16.10]and the educational authorities demand.;

[11:20.04]Until we reform our exams we can hardly reform our teaching methods.;

[11:27.59]So let's launch a new campaign,to discuss and reform the exam system;

[11:35.73]and at the same time continue the campaign against OFIR,the super power;

[11:43.88]We need to fight on two fronts at once. Otherwise we'll be eggs striking rocks.;

[11:52.71]II.Read;

[11:57.29]Read the following passages.Underline the important view- points while reading;

[12:05.43]1.Different Views   about Examinations;

[12:12.34]John:Examinations do   more harm than   good!;

[12:17.56]Michael:I agree.We  spend so much time  revising for  examinations;

[12:23.09]that we haven't enough time for new work!;

[12:26.29]Joan:I don't agree.  Without exams,no  one would do any  revision.;

[12:32.88]We would soon forget everything.;

[12:36.02]Linda:That's right.;

[12:38.10]The only time I do any work is when there's going to be an exam!;

[12:43.84]That's true of everyone,isn't it?;

[12:47.14]John:No,I don't  think so.;

[12:50.44]Many people work steadily all the time,and they remem- ber what they learn.;

[12:56.30]That's better than doing no work for weeks;

[12:59.49]and then working all night before the examination.;

[13:03.27]If there were no exams,more people would work like that don't you agree?;

[13:09.33]Joan:No,I don't  think so.;

[13:12.37]I think many people wouldn't do any work at all. I know I wouldn't.;

[13:18.17]Linda:Of course not.  Besides,without  exams,;

[13:24.23]how could an employ- er decide whether to give us jobs?;

[13:28.60]John:The teachers  could write reports  about us.;

[13:32.43]Examinations can be unreliable,don't you think so?;

[13:37.32]Our teachers know as well,don't they?;

[13:41.21]Linda:Yes,they do.  That's why I would  rather have  an  examination!;

[13:47.75]2.The General   Certificate of   Education at   O Level;

[13:56.74]When people discuss education;

[14:00.57]they insist that preparation for examinations is not the main purpose.;

[14:07.71]They are right in theory, but in practice,;

[14:13.08]we all realize how important examinations are.;

[14:17.82]What do you know ab- out the examinations taken at English secondary schools?;

[14:24.68]Here are a few facts about some of them.;

[14:28.67]Pupils who remain at school until they are sixteen normally take what is called;

[14:36.23]the General Certificate of Education at Ordinary level.;

[14:41.39]The examination is a subject examination.;

[14:46.39]This means you can take a number of subjects.;

[14:50.86]Some pupils take as many as ten.;

[14:55.22]The more subjects the better chance a pupil has;

[15:00.33]of getting a job on leaving school.;

[15:03.90]3.Homework Row Led   to the Death of   a Girl;

[15:11.40]A nine-year old girl was beaten to death;

[15:15.55]by her mother for failing to finish the day's homework in time.;

[15:21.35]Liu Lin was a third- year pupil in a primary school;

[15:26.46]in a Tibetan autonomous prefecture in Northwest Qinghai Province.;

[15:32.36]She was one of the best students in her school,;

[15:36.20]according to yesterday's Workers' Daily.;

[15:39.60]But on July 10,she did not do her arithmetic homework when Sun Fengxia,;

[15:47.00]her mother,got home from work at 16:00 p.m.;

[15:53.28]Sun severely beat her daughter with a rolling pin, the newspaper said.;

[16:00.73]By 19:30 p.m. that evening,;

[16:04.29]she found that her daughter had done only part of the homework;

[16:09.24]and she became even more angry.;

[16:12.43]Sun slapped her daughter in the face and kicked her, according to the paper;

[16:19.56]Lin became unconscious and later died despite efforts of doctors to save her.;

[16:27.97]Such cases are not rare in China.;

[16:32.17]In December last year in the province;

[16:36.64]Wu Yuxia beat her nine-year old son Xia Fei to death.;

[16:42.55]She later committed suicide in a prison.;

[16:46.91]In Dalian of Northeast Liaoning Province,;

[16:51.81]Li Liansheng beat his 14 years old son Li Guobin to death in March last year;

[17:00.16]because the boy was playing truant.;

[17:03.14]In Nanjing,capital of coastal Jiangsu Province,;

[17:08.41]19-year old Wang Lin killed his parents at home;

[17:13.15]because they forced him to try to get good marks in examinations.;

[17:18.84]4.Examinations Are   Primitive Methods   of Testing Knowle-   dge and Ability;

[17:27.62]We might marvel at the progress made in every field of study;

[17:33.63]but the methods of testing a person's knowledge and ability;

[17:38.32]remain as primitive as they ever were.;

[17:42.04]It really is extraordinary that after all these years,;

[17:47.63]educationists have still failed;

[17:50.80]to devise anything more efficient and reliable than examinations.;

[17:56.73]For all the pious claim that examinations test what you know,;

[18:03.01]it is common knowledge that they more often do the exact opposite.;

[18:09.60]They may be a good means of testing memory,;

[18:13.38]or the knack of working "rapidly under extreme pressure,;

[18:18.33]but they can tell you nothing about a person's true ability and aptitude;

[18:25.14]5.Examinations Are   Anxiety-makers;

[18:32.38]As anxiety-makers, examinations are second to none.;

[18:38.76]That is because so much depends on them.;

[18:43.45]They are the mark of success or failure in our society.;

[18:49.14]Your whole future may be decided in one fateful day.;

[18:55.05]It doesn't matter that you weren't feeling very well,;

[18:59.20]or that your mother died.;

[19:01.59]Little things like that don't count: the exam goes on.;

[19:08.35]No one can give of his best when he is in mortal terror,;

[19:13.72]or after a sleepless night,;

[19:16.44]yet this is precisely what the examination system expects him to do.;

[19:22.98]The moment a child begins school,he enters a world of vicious competition;

[19:29.85]where success and failure are clearly defined and measured;

[19:35.11]Can we wonder at the increasing number of "drop-outs":;

[19:40.06]young people who are written off as utter failures;

[19:44.53]before they have even embarked on a career?;

[19:48.36]Can we be surprised at the suicide rate among students?;

[19:54.38]6.The Examination  System Never Trains  You to Think for  Yourself;

[20:04.11]A good education should among other things,;

[20:09.49]train you to think for yourself.;

[20:12.68]The examination system does anything but that.;

[20:17.63]What has to be learnt is rigidly laid down by a syllabus,;

[20:23.48]so the student is encouraged to memorise.;

[20:27.37]Examinations do not motivate a student to read widely,;

[20:33.17]but to restrict his reading;

[20:35.77]they do not enable him to seek more and more knowledge,;

[20:40.51]but induce cramming.;

[20:43.01]They lower the standards of teaching,;

[20:46.36]for they deprive the teacher of all freedom.;

[20:50.25]Teachers themselves are often judged;

[20:53.92]by examination results and instead of teaching their subjects,;

[20:59.66]they are reduced to training their students;

[21:03.39]in exam techniques which they despise.;

[21:07.17]The most successful. Candidates are not always the best educated;;

[21:13.77]they are the best trained in the technique of working under duress.;

[21:19.88]7.Exam Is a   Subjective   Assessment by Some   Anonymous Examiner;

[21:29.57]The results on which so much depends are often nothing more;

[21:36.06]than a subjective assessment by some anonymous examiner.;

[21:41.27]Examiners only human They get tired and hungry,they make mistakes.;

[21:49.68]Yet they have to mark stacks of hastily scrawled scripts;

[21:54.90]in a limited amount of time.;

[21:58.09]They work under the same sort of pressure as the candidates.;

[22:03.62]And their word carries weight.;

[22:06.60]After a judge's decision you have the right of appeal,;

[22:11.50]but not after an examiner's.;

[22:14.48]There must surely be many simpler and more effective ways;

[22:19.37]of assessing a person's true abilities.;

[22:23.63]Is it cynical to suggest;

[22:26.77]that examinations are merely a profitable business;

[22:30.71]for the institutions that run them?;

[22:33.69]This is what it boils down to in the last analysis.;

[22:39.22]The best comment on the system is this illiterate message;

[22:44.24]recently scrawled on a wall:;

[22:47.10]"I were a teenage drop-out and now I are a teenage millionaire.";

[22:54.33]Lesson 8 Should We Diet in Order to Keep Fit?;

[23:02.16]Text How Does It Feel to Lose Weight?;

[23:08.49]Here is a conversation between a heart specialist and a heart patient.;

[23:15.78]Vic:I've been   feeling very   lonely.;

[23:19.61]I can't explain it, I'm in a crowd but I feel lonely.;

[23:25.51]And,so today,I tried to get in touch with it.;

[23:30.89]The loneliness and sadness are there because several things are going on.;

[23:37.27]One,I don't like my body.;

[23:41.11]Two,I am very angry with my body for having heart disease.;

[23:47.49]Dean:Do you want to   do an imagery   exercise? Vie: Yes.;

[23:52.33]Dean: Okay,Please   close your eyes;

[23:55.52]and put yourself in a meditative state.;

[23:58.88]If at any time you feel like this is not something you want to do,;

[24:04.04]I'll rely on you to tell me that. Begin by visualizing your body.;

[24:10.48]What kind of image do you get?;

[24:13.24]Vic: Just mounds of   flesh.A wall of   fat.;

[24:18.56]Dean: Imagine that   your body has a   voice of its own.;

[24:22.77]Tell it hello. Ask it to just say hello to  you,;

[24:28.25]just to identify itself. Does it?;

[24:32.77]Vie:[pause] it says   "hello" back.   I'm amazed!;

[24:38.04]Its voice is different from mine.;

[24:41.23]Dean: Ask it if it   has a name. Vie:It says,"Fat.";

[24:47.03]Dean:Ask "Fat" what   is its purpose in   your life.;

[24:51.88]Vie: [pause]It says,   "To give me   support.To shield   me.To protect me.";

[25:00.44]Dean: Ask it what it   is shielding you   from.;

[25:04.75]Vie:It says,"From   everyone. I'm your   best friend.";

[25:10.44]Dean:In what way is   it your friend?;

[25:13.69]Vic:It says,"I've   been protecting   you.";

[25:18.27]Dean:Ask it what it  has been protecting  you from.;

[25:22.47]Vie:It says,"You  don't have to do a  lot of things  because you're fat.";

[25:29.60]Dean:Ask it if it's  protecting you from  anything else?;

[25:35.19]Vic:[pause]Yes,it  says it's been  protecting me from  my feelings.;

[25:41.20]Dean:Okay--ask it if  it's protecting you  from any feelings  in particular.;

[25:47.85]Vie:[pause]It says,   "From loneliness.";

[25:52.38]Dean:When it says  that,;

[25:55.09]do any other images or feelings come to your awareness?;

[26:00.04]Vie:Somehow I  remember getting  fat when I was  seven.;

[26:05.20]I see myself going into a room feeling like I was all right,;

[26:10.84]and finding out I was not all right. So my life has been about justification.;

[26:18.34]Justification about being all right. Being accepted.;

[26:25.05]So I used food as a friend.My fat says it protects me from feeling bad.;

[26:33.56]I have a lot of resistance to change.;

[26:37.44]I have a lot invested in this fat.;

[26:41.43]And to give it up is like giving up a friend.;

[26:46.17]It's been a barrier but it's also a friend.;

[26:50.91]It's a friend that gets in the way sometimes,;

[26:55.00]but it also serves me really well.;

[26:58.41]But my size limits me in what I want to do now.;

[27:03.46]Dean: Stay with  those feelings now.  Ask "Fat" what it  needs from you now.;

[27:10.54]Vic:[pause]It says  that it needs to be  told it's all right  the way it is.;

[27:16.34]Dean:Maybe you could  start by thanking  it for shielding,;

[27:20.38]protecting you from loneliness all these years.;

[27:24.06]Vie:[pause]All right Dean:Does the wall  say anything in  reply?;

[27:29.91]Vie:It agrees.It  says, "It's about  time.";

[27:34.38]Dean:Good.Now ask if  it would be willing  to open up.;

[27:39.70]to stop shielding you all the time.;

[27:42.79]If you could find a different way to shield yourself when you need it--;

[27:47.58]one that is easier to open and close.;

[27:51.25]Vic: A replacement--  is that what you  are saying?;

[27:55.50]Dean:Yes.Something  that you could use  to shield yourself  when you need it,;

[28:00.88]but isn't there all the time when you want to open up. See what it says.;

[28:07.74]Vic:[pause]It says,   "Yes.";

[28:10.77]Dean:Ask it what you  need to do for it  to begin opening up;

[28:16.26]Vic:[pause]To get   massaged.;

[28:19.13]To be,perhaps,more vulnerable.To allow myself to be touched;

[28:26.15]Dean:What images or  feelings come to  mind of your body  in that way?;

[28:31.90]Vic:I'd feel freer.;

[28:34.72]Dean:How would you  look?;

[28:37.22]Ask "Fat",the one that protects you and shields you,;

[28:41.48]if it would give you a different image of your body.;

[28:45.04]How your body would look if you were more open and less shielded all the time.;

[28:50.95]Vie:Okay. Dean: What does it  say?;

[28:54.20]Vic:[pause]If I'm  willing,it's  willing.;

[28:57.12]Dean:Good.What image  do you see?;

[29:00.37]You can always go back to the fat image if you need it.;

[29:04.36]Vic:I see a thinner   body. Dean: What does it   look like?;

[29:09.09]Vic:It looks thinner   But it looks   disfigured.The fat   is very disfigured;

[29:16.17]Dean:How so? Vic:It's full of  stretch marks,  Saggy skin.;

[29:22.45]Dean:Okay.What does  that body have to  say?;

[29:26.55]Vic:[pause]To try  and attain it  anyway.To try to  achieve it.;

[29:32.29]That it's okay to have a thinner body that's not perfect.;

[29:37.29]Dean:Do any other  images or feelings  come to your  awareness?;

[29:42.78]Vic:I feel   uncomfortable and   sad...;