大学英语听力(四) 期末考试听力原文

Reason and Emotion

Script

Emotion is sometimes regarded as the opposite of reason; s is suggested by phrase such as” appeal to emotions rather than reason” and “don’t let your emotions take over”. Emotional reactions sometimes produce consequences or thoughts which people may later regret or disagree with; but during an emotional state, they could not control their actions. Thus, it is generally believed that one of the most distinctive facts about human beings is a contradiction between emotion and reason.

However, recent empirical studies do not suggest there is a clear distinction between reason and emotion. Indeed, anger or fear can often be thought of as an instinctive response to observed fact. The human mind possesses many possible reactions to the external world. Those reactions can lie on a continuum, with some of them involving the extreme of pure intellectual logic, which is often called “cold”, and others involving the extremes of pure emotion not related to logical agreement, which is called “the heat of passion”. The relation logic and emotion merits careful study. Passion, emotion, or feeling can reinforce an argument, event one based primarily on reason. This is especially true in religion or ideology, which frequently demands an all-or-nothing rejection or acceptance. In such areas of thought, human beings have to adopt a comprehensive view partly backed by empirical argument and partly by feeling and passion. Moreover, several researchers have suggested that typically there is no “pure” decision or thought; that is, no thought is based “purely”” on intellectual logic or “purely” on emotion—most decisions are founded on a mixture of both.

A Blizzard

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A blizzard is a sever weather condition characterized by low temperatures and strong winds, greater than 15

miles per hour, bearing a great amount of snow.

Because the factors for classifying winter storms are complex, there are many different definitions of what a blizzard truly is. But it is generally agreed that in order to be classified as a blizzard, as opposed to merely a winter storm, the weather must meet several conditions. The storm must decrease visibility to a quarter of a mile for three hours running. Include snow or ice as precipitation, and have wind speed of at least 32 miles per hour, which means Force 7 or more on the Wind Scale.

Another standard, according to Environment Canada, is that the winter storm must have winds of 40 kilometers per hour or mi=ore, plenty of snow, visibility less than 1 kilometer, a temperature of less than -25 degrees Celsius, and all of these conditions must last for 4 hours or more, before the storm can properly be called a blizzard. When all these conditions continue after snow has stopped falling, the storm is referred to as a ground blizzard. An extensive form of blizzard is a whiteout, when the downdrafts, together with snowfall, become so sever that it is impossible to distinguish the ground from the air. People caught in a whiteout can quickly become disoriented, losing their sense of up and down as well as their sense of direction. Severe blizzard can also occur along with arctic cyclones.