高中英语人教版高三1 14

[00:04.41]Lesson 53            1 Reading comprehension 1

[00:11.47]Read the text fast to find answers to these questions

[00:17.95]1 What happened to Kunta in this story?

[00:23.59]2 What do you think happened to many of the black people on the ship?

[00:29.36]JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN

[00:33.52]Kunta wondered why the white people had done this to him.

[00:38.97]Born a free man,he was now in chains.

[00:44.54]Heavy iron  chains around his feet and hands were fixed 3 to a metal bar

[00:51.91]that ran round the hall about ten centimetres off the ground.

[00:57.47]He was just able to lie down on the ground,but could not stand up.

[01:03.74]He sat in the darkness and listened to the people around him.

[01:09.20]One man had a head wound 4 and was in pain.

[01:13.95]Another,whose language Kunta understood,was crying softly 5 to himself.

[01:21.50]Kunta knew it was the middle of the night,

[01:25.34]for through the small open window high in the wall he could see stars.

[01:31.69]He could also hear night insects and the sound of waves on the shore.

[01:38.17]Kunta had been seized in the forest and then hit on the head with a hard object.

[01:45.53]When he woke up,his hands and feet had already been tied together.

[01:51.78]What shocked him most was that the men who carried him were black.

[01:57.45]He reasoned with them,and tried to persuade them to set him free.

[02:03.30]But they would not listen to him.

[02:06.64]When they came to the river,seemed,in a language that Kunta did not understand.

[02:19.39]Finally,Kunta was thrown into th bottom of the boat

[02:24.74]and covered with a old smelly 7 cloth.

[02:28.82]The men took him in their boat to the castle on the coast

[02:33.68]where he was now held prisoner 8.

[02:37.13]Another thing which shocked Kunta was that women were held in the castle too.

[02:43.66]He could hear their cryint,also children's voices.

[02:48.93]What was to become of them all,he wondered.

[02:52.77]For all his life,he had known 2 that people suddenly disappeared from their villages.

[02:59.44]He had known that it was not safe to travel alone in the forest near the coast.

[03:05.39]But why did white people want to catch Africans and put them in chains?

[03:11.45]Would they be killed or even eaten?

[03:15.53]The situation seemed hopeless and he knew his life was in danger.

[03:21.40]Worse was to come.A few days later about 140 black people

[03:29.06]were taken and put on a tall sailing 9 ship waiting off the coast.

[03:35.12]Once on the boat,they were taken below

[03:39.66]and their chains were fixed to two bars that ran the length of the ship.

[03:45.02]Their feet were fixed to one bar and their hands to another bar.

[03:50.87]Thus they lay on hard wooden boards,unable to stand up or move around.

[03:57.92]The sea journey lasted over sixty days and nights.

[04:03.88]They had rough 6 weather,

[04:06.83]and Kunta's back bled 10 from rolling over on the hard wooden boards.

[04:13.00]Many of the men fell sick with fever.

[04:17.75]They sighed and cried out for more water,

[04:22.01]but food and water were only given out once a day.

[04:26.97]Once in a while sailors came sown,Kunta thought,

[04:31.33]to carry sick men upstairs for treatment.

[04:35.41]When the ship finally arrived in a port,

[04:39.98]the wooden cover was opened wede and Kunta could see in daylight for the first time

[04:46.93]across the part of the ship where he had been chained.

[04:50.69]About a third of the people who had been chained up below

[04:55.44]at the beginning of the journey were missing 11.

[04:59.52]Lesson 54

[05:07.77]1 Reading comprehension

[05:11.30]Read the text fast to find answers to these questions

[05:17.47]1 Where did Haley's ancestor 12 come from?

[05:23.11]2 What were Haley's"roots"?

[05:27.78]ROOTS

[05:30.63]There is a journalist and writer living in America whose name is Alex Haley.

[05:37.40]In his youth,his father and grandfather

[05:42.05]often told him stories about their family history

[05:46.91]A long time ago,one of his ancestors 13 who lived in Africa

[05:52.68]went into the forest to cut down a tree to make a drum.

[05:57.93]He was caught,put in chains,and sent to America as a slave 14.

[06:04.88]On his arrival 15 he was sold to a farmer and worked in the fields.

[06:11.54]He tried to escape but was followed and caught.

[06:16.89]The farmer cut off part of his foot to make sure he could not run away again.

[06:24.76]When he became a writer,Haley up his mind to find out more about his ancestors.

[06:32.12]"I want to find cut more about my 'roots',"he said.

[06:37.48]He did a lot of research and travelled around the USA

[06:43.12]looking for information about his ancestors.

[06:47.77]In this way he was able to find out where they lived,how many children they had,

[06:55.03]and where they died and were buried.

[06:58.87]He collected letters and made copies of people's diaries.

[07:04.44]But Haley was not satisfied 16.

[07:07.89]He did not know from which pqrt of Africa his ancestor had come.

[07:13.82]All he knew was that his African ancestor taught his son

[07:21.57]and grandson the words in his own language for "river"and "guitar".

[07:28.13]One day Haley met an African who was from Gambia,

[07:33.77]a small country on the west coast of Africa.

[07:38.21]This persom recognized the words for"river"and"guitar",

[07:43.36]and so Haley thought that his ancestor must have come from Gambia.

[07:47.93]His newspaper provided 17 him with some money

[07:52.08]in order that he might travel to Gambia for his research.

[07:57.34]The moment he reached the country,he started his search.

[08:02.32]He discovered that there was a group in the east of the country

[08:07.18]that shared the same family name--Kinte.

[08:11.91]So he travelled there to find out more.

[08:15.67]In Gambia,as in most parts of Africa,

[08:20.32]there are few written records of family history.

[08:24.58]All the stories of families,heroes,wars and journeys

[08:31.35]are passed down from generation to generation.

[08:35.89]A few people in each group

[08:39.44]are given the task of remembering the group's family history

[08:44.59]that goes back over centuries.

[08:48.35]One of these men was found and he began to tell the story of this family group.

[08:55.48]After speaking for about half an hour he came to a sad part of the family history.

[09:02.62]One day,a young man named Kunta Kinte went off into the forest

[09:09.38]to cut down a tree as he wanted to make a drum a drum.

[09:14.24]He was never seen agfain.Haley jumped up and cried,"That was my ancestor".

[09:21.50]He had found his family,and his"roots"at last!