现代大学英语听力1 Unit07
时间:2018-12-04 作者:英语课 分类:现代大学英语精读
Lesson Seven
TEXT A
Mandela's Garden Nelson Mandela
Pre-class Work I
Read the text once for the main idea. Do not refer to the notes dictionaries or the glossary 1 yet.
In early 1977, the authorities announced the end of manual labor 2 and arranged some type of work for us to do in the courtyard, so we could spend our days in our section. The end of manual labor was liberating 3. I could now spend the day reading, writing letters, discussing issues with my comrades, or preparing legal documents. The free time also allowed me to pursue what became two of my favorite hobbies on Robben Island: gardening and tennis.
To survive in prison, one must develop ways to take satisfaction in one's daily life. One can feel fulfilled by washing one's clothes so that they are particularly clean, by sweeping 6 a hallway so that it is empty of dust, by organizing one's cell to save as much space as possible. Just as one takes pride in important tasks outside of prison, one can find the same pride in doing small things inside prison.
"Almost from the beginning of my sentence on Robben Island, I asked the authorities for permission to start a garden in the courtyard. For years, they refused without offering a reason. But eventually they gave in, and we were able to cut out a small garden on a narrow patch of earth against the far wall.
The soil in the courtyard was dry and rocky. The courtyard had been constructed over a garbage dump, and in order to start my garden, I had to remove a great many rocks to allow the plants room to grow. At the time, some of my comrades joked that I was a miner at heart, for I spent my days in a wasteland and my free time digging in the courtyard.
The authorities supplied me with seeds. I at first planted tomatoes, chilies 8, and onions—hardy plants that did not require rich earth or constant care. The early harvests were poor, but they soon improved. The authorities did not regret giving permission, for once the garden began to flourish, I often provided the warders with some of my best tomatoes and onions.
While I have always enjoyed gardening, it was not until I was behind bars that I was able to tend my own garden. My first experience in the garden was at Fort Hare where, as part of the university's manual labor requirement, I worked in one of my professors' gardens and enjoyed the contact with the soil as an alternative to my intellectual labors 9. Once I was in Johannesburg studying and then working, I had neither the time nor the space to start a garden.
I began to order books on gardening. I studied different gardening techniques and types of fertilizers. I did not have many of the materials that the books discussed, but I learned through trial and error. For a time, I attempted to grow peanuts, and used different soils and fertilizers, but finally I gave up. It was one of my few failures.
A garden was one of the few things in prison that one could control. To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend it and then harvest it, offered a simple but enduring satisfaction. The sense of being the owner of the small patch of earth offered a small taste of freedom.
In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor 10 for certain aspects of my life. Leaders must also look after their gardens; they, too, plant seeds, and then watch, cultivate, and harvest the results. Like gardeners, leaders must take responsibility for what they cultivate; they must mind their work, try to drive back enemies, save what can be saved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.
I wrote Winnie two letters about a particularly beautiful tomato plant, how I made it grow from a tender seedling 11 to a strong plant that produced deep red fruit. But then, either through some mistake or lack of care, the plant began to wither 12 and decline, and nothing I did would bring it back to health. When it finally died, I removed the roots from the soil, washed them, and buried them in a corner of the garden.
I told her this small story at great length. I do not know what she read into that letter, but when I wrote it I had a mixture of feelings: I did not want our relationship to go the way of that plant, and yet I felt that I had been unable to nourish many of the most important relationships in my life. Sometimes there is nothing one can do to save something that must die.
Read the text a second time. Learn the words and expressions listed below.
Glossary
arrange
v. to make plans about what to do 安排
aspect
n. 方面
cell
n. Here: a small room for a person (persons) in prison
chili 7
n. 干辣椒(粉);Here: pepper 辣椒
construct
v. to build
contact
n. the act or state of touching 13 or meeting 接触
cultivate
v. 种植;栽培
decline
v. to become weaker or worse 变衰弱
document
n. 文件
dump
n. a place for dumping garbage 垃圾倾倒场
eliminate
v. to remove; to get rid of 除去;消灭
eventually
adv. in the end
fertilizer
n. 肥料
flourish
v. to grow quickly in a healthy way 长得好
fulfill 5
v. to perform a duty or a task with satisfaction 完成;实现
hallway
n. the entrance hall of a house
intellectual
adj. mental 脑力的
issue
n. an important problem
manual
adj. using the hands 体力的
metaphor
n. 隐喻
miner
n. a person who works in a mine 矿工
mixture
n. 混合物
nourish
v. to help sth. to grow 培育
onion
n. 洋葱
patch
n. a small area of ground
peanut
n. 花生
permission
n. act of allowing 允许
pursue
v. to go on with; to be busy with 从事;进行
section
n. a part of a larger place; Here: one part of the prison 监狱的一个区
seedling
n. a young plant 幼苗
survive
v. to continue to live 生存下去
tend
v. Here: to take care of; to look after
tender
adj. delicate, easily broken or damaged 娇嫩的
tennis
n. 网球
warder
n. the head of a prison 监狱长;Here: 看守;狱卒
wither
v. to dry up; to be reduced in size and colour 枯萎
TEXT B
Rite 4 of Spring Arthur Miller 15
I have never understood why we keep a garden and why over 36 years ago when I bought my first house in the country, I started digging up a patch for vegetables before doing anything else. When you think how easy and cheap, relatively 16, it is to buy a bunch of carrots or beets 17, why raise them? And root crops especially are hard to tell apart, when store-bought, from our own. There is a human instinct at work here, a kind of back-breaking make-believe that has no reality. Besides, I don't particularly like eating vegetables. I'd much rather eat something juicy and fat. Like hot dogs.
Now, if you could raise hot dogs outside your window, you'd really have something you could justify 18 without a second's hesitation 19. As it is, though, I cannot deny that when April comes I find myself going out to lean on the fence and look at that miserable 20 plot of land, resolving with all my rational powers not to plant it again. But inevitably 21 a morning arrives when, just as I am awakening 22, a scent 23 wafts 24 through the window, something like earth-as-air, a scent that seems to come up from the very center of this planet. And the sun means business, suddenly, and has a different, deeper yellow in its beams on the carpet. The birds begin screaming hysterically 25, thinking what I am thinking—the worms are deliciously worming their way through the melting soil.
It is not only pleasure sending me back to stare at that plot of soil, it is really conflict. The question is the same each year—what method should we use? The last few years we put 36-inch-wide black plastic between the rows, and it worked perfectly 26, keeping the soil moist in dry times and weed-free.
But black plastic looks so industrial, so unromantic, that I have gradually moved over to hay mulch. We cut a lot of hay and, as it rots, it does improve the soil's Composition. Besides, it looks lovely, and comes to us free.
Keeping a garden makes you aware of how delicate, bountiful, and easily ruined the surface of this little planet is. In that 50-by-70-foot patch there must be a dozen different types of soil. Tomato won't grow in one part but loves another, and the same goes for the other crops. I suppose if you loaded the soil with chemical fertilizer these differences would be less noticeable, but I use it sparingly and only in rows right where seeds are planted rather than broadcast over the whole area. I'm not sure why I do this beyond the saving in fertilizer and my unwillingness 27 to aid the weeds.
The attractions of gardening, I think, at least for a certain number of gardeners, are neurotic 28 and moral. Whenever life seems pointless and difficult to grasp, you can always get out in the garden and get something done. Also, your paternal 29 or maternal 30 instincts come into play because helpless living things are depending on you, require training and encouragement and protection from enemies. In some cases, as with beans and cucumbers, your children—as it were—begin to turn upon you in massive numbers, growing more and more each morning and threatening to follow you into the house to strangle you in their vines.
Gardening is a moral occupation, as well, because you always start in spring resolved to keep it looking neat this year, just like the pictures in the catalogues. But by July, you once again face the chaos 31 of unthinned carrots, lettuce 32 and beets. This is when my wife becomes—openly now—mistress of the garden. A consumer of vast quantities of vegetables, she does the thinning and hand-cultivating of the tiny plants. Squatting 33, she patiently moves down each row selecting which plants shall live and which she will cast aside.
At about this time, my wife's 86-year-old mother, a botanist 34, makes her first visit to the garden. She looks about skeptically. Her favorite task is binding 35 the tomato plants to stakes. She is an outspoken 36, truthful 37 woman, or she was until she learned better. Now, instead of saying, "You have planted the tomatoes in the damp part of the garden," she waits until October when she makes her annual trip to her home in Europe; then she gives me my good-by kiss and says casually," Tomatoes in damp soil tend more to get fungi," and walks away to her plane. But by October nothing in the garden matters, so sure am I that I will never plant it again.
I garden, I suppose, because I must. It would be intolerable to have to pass an unplanted fenced garden a few times a day. There are also certain compensations, and these must be what annually 38 turn my mind toward all that work. There are few sights quite as beautiful as a vegetable garden glistening 39 in the sun, all dewy and glittering with a dozen shades of green at seven in the morning. Far lovelier, in fact, than rows of hot dogs. In some pocket of the mind there may even be a tendency to change this vision into a personal reassurance 40 that all this healthy growth, this orderliness and thrusting life must somehow reflect similar movements in one's own spirit. Without a garden to till and plant I would not know what April was for.
As it is, April is for getting irritated all over again at this pointless, time-consuming hobby. I do not understand people who claim to "love" gardening. A garden is an extension of oneself—or selves—and so it has to be an arena 41 where striving does not cease, but continues by other means. As an example: you simply have to face the moment when you must admit that the lettuce was planted too deep or was not watered enough, cease hoping it will show itself tomorrow, and dig up the row again. But you will feel better for not standing 42 on your dignity. And that's what gardening is all about—character building. Which is why Adam was a gardener. (And all know where it got him, too.)
But is it conceivable that the father of us all should have been a weaver 43, shoemaker, or anything but a gardener? Of course not. Only the gardener is capable of endlessly reviving so much hope that this year, regardless of drought, flood, typhoon, or his own stupidity, this year he is going to do it right! Leave it to God to have picked the proper occupation for his only creature capable of such self-delusion.
I suppose it should be added, for honesty's sake, that the above was written on one of the coldest days in December.
- The text is supplemented by an adequate glossary.正文附有一个详细的词汇表。
- For convenience,we have also provided a glossary in an appendix.为了方便,我们在附录中也提供了术语表。
- We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
- He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后,他已经疲惫不堪了。
- Revolution means liberating the productive forces. 革命就是为了解放生产力。
- They had already taken on their shoulders the burden of reforming society and liberating mankind. 甚至在这些集会聚谈中,他们就已经夸大地把改革社会、解放人群的责任放在自己的肩头了。 来自汉英文学 - 家(1-26) - 家(1-26)
- This festival descends from a religious rite.这个节日起源于宗教仪式。
- Most traditional societies have transition rites at puberty.大多数传统社会都为青春期的孩子举行成人礼。
- If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了,你就要履行你的诺言。
- This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。
- The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
- Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗?
- He helped himself to another two small spoonfuls of chili oil.他自己下手又加了两小勺辣椒油。
- It has chocolate,chili,and other spices.有巧克力粉,辣椒,和其他的调味品。
- Some people like to harvest the plants, when the chilies are green. 一些人喜欢在辣椒长成绿色的时候就采摘。 来自互联网
- Sprinkle with scallions and sliced chilies and served hot. 洒上葱粒、辣椒丝,趁热上桌。 来自互联网
- He was tiresome in contending for the value of his own labors. 他老为他自己劳动的价值而争强斗胜,令人生厌。 来自辞典例句
- Farm labors used to hire themselves out for the summer. 农业劳动者夏季常去当雇工。 来自辞典例句
- Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方,我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
- In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。
- She cut down the seedling with one chop.她一刀就把小苗砍倒了。
- The seedling are coming up full and green.苗长得茁壮碧绿。
- She grows as a flower does-she will wither without sun.她象鲜花一样成长--没有太阳就会凋谢。
- In autumn the leaves wither and fall off the trees.秋天,树叶枯萎并从树上落下来。
- The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
- We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。
- Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
- The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。
- The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
- The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。
- Beets are Hank's favorite vegetable. 甜菜根是汉克最爱吃的蔬菜。
- In this enlargement, barley, alfalfa, and sugar beets can be differentiated. 在这张放大的照片上,大麦,苜蓿和甜菜都能被区分开。
- He tried to justify his absence with lame excuses.他想用站不住脚的借口为自己的缺席辩解。
- Can you justify your rude behavior to me?你能向我证明你的粗野行为是有道理的吗?
- After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天,他终于直说了。
- There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。
- It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他,这是可耻的。
- Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。
- In the way you go on,you are inevitably coming apart.照你们这样下去,毫无疑问是会散伙的。
- Technological changes will inevitably lead to unemployment.技术变革必然会导致失业。
- the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
- People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。
- The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
- The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。
- A breeze wafts the sweet smell of roses. 微风吹来了玫瑰花的芬芳(香味)。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
- A breeze wafts the smell of roses. 微风吹送玫瑰花香气。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
- The children giggled hysterically. 孩子们歇斯底里地傻笑。
- She sobbed hysterically, and her thin body was shaken. 她歇斯底里地抽泣着,她瘦弱的身体哭得直颤抖。
- The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
- Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
- Her unwillingness to answer questions undermined the strength of her position. 她不愿回答问题,这不利于她所处的形势。
- His apparent unwillingness would disappear if we paid him enough. 如果我们付足了钱,他露出的那副不乐意的神情就会消失。
- Nothing is more distracting than a neurotic boss. 没有什么比神经过敏的老板更恼人的了。
- There are also unpleasant brain effects such as anxiety and neurotic behaviour.也会对大脑产生不良影响,如焦虑和神经质的行为。
- I was brought up by my paternal aunt.我是姑姑扶养大的。
- My father wrote me a letter full of his paternal love for me.我父亲给我写了一封充满父爱的信。
- He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
- The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。
- After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后,城市一片混乱。
- The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。
- Get some lettuce and tomatoes so I can make a salad.买些莴苣和西红柿,我好做色拉。
- The lettuce is crisp and cold.莴苣松脆爽口。
- They ended up squatting in the empty houses on Oxford Road. 他们落得在牛津路偷住空房的境地。
- They've been squatting in an apartment for the past two years. 他们过去两年来一直擅自占用一套公寓。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- The botanist introduced a new species of plant to the region.那位植物学家向该地区引入了一种新植物。
- I had never talked with a botanist before,and I found him fascinating.我从没有接触过植物学那一类的学者,我觉得他说话极有吸引力。
- The contract was not signed and has no binding force. 合同没有签署因而没有约束力。
- Both sides have agreed that the arbitration will be binding. 双方都赞同仲裁具有约束力。
- He was outspoken in his criticism.他在批评中直言不讳。
- She is an outspoken critic of the school system in this city.她是这座城市里学校制度的坦率的批评者。
- You can count on him for a truthful report of the accident.你放心,他会对事故作出如实的报告的。
- I don't think you are being entirely truthful.我认为你并没全讲真话。
- Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
- They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。
- Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼里闪着晶莹的泪花。
- Her eyes were glistening with tears. 她眼睛中的泪水闪着柔和的光。 来自《用法词典》
- He drew reassurance from the enthusiastic applause.热烈的掌声使他获得了信心。
- Reassurance is especially critical when it comes to military activities.消除疑虑在军事活动方面尤为关键。
- She entered the political arena at the age of 25. 她25岁进入政界。
- He had not an adequate arena for the exercise of his talents.他没有充分发挥其才能的场所。