新概念英语4-课文资料讲解

NEW CONCEPT ENGLISH(IV)(new version)2Lesson1Finding Fossil manWe can read of things that happened5,000years ago in the Near East,where people first learned to write.But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write.The only w ay that they can preserve their history is torecount it as sagas--legends handed down from one generation of story-tellersto another.These legends are useful because they can tell us somethin g aboutmigrations of people who lived long ago,but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesianpeoples now living in th e Pacific Islands came from.The sagas of these peopleexplain that some of them came from Indo nesia about2,000years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that ev en theirsagas,if they had any,are forgotten.So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first'modern men'came from.Fortunately,however,ancient me n made tools of stone,especially flint,becausethis is easier to shape than other kinds.They may also have used woodand skins,but these have rotted away.Stone does not decay,and so the tool s oflong ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.3Lesson2Spare that spiderWhy,you may wonder,should spiders be our friends?Because they destroy somany insects,and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the humanrace.Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world;they woulddevour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds,if it were not for the protectionwe get from insect-eating animals.We owe a lot to the birds and beasts wh o eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover,unlike some of the other insect eaters,spiders never dothe least harm to us or our bel ongings.Spiders are not insects,as many people think,nor even nearly related to them.One can t ell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legsand an insect never more th an six.How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf?One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England,andhe estimated that there were more than2,250,000in one acre,that is something like6,000,000spiders of different kinds on a f ootball pitch.Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects.It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill,but they are hungry creatures,not content wi th only three meals a day.It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spi ders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the c ountry.T.H.GILLESPIE Spare that Spider from The ListeneLesson3Matterhorn manModern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them goodsport,and the moredifficult it is,the more highly it is regarded.In the pioneeringdays,however,this was not the case at all.The early climbers were looking forthe easiest way to the top because the summit was the prize they sought,especially if it had never been attained before.It is true that during their explor ations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilous nature,equipped in a manne r which would make a modern climber shudder at the thought,but they did not go out of their w ay to court such excitement.They had a single aim,a solitary goal--the top!It is hard for us to reali ze nowadays how difficult it was for the pioneers.Exceptfor one or two places such as Zermatt an d Chamonix,which had rapidly become popular,Alpine villages tended to beimpoverished settlements cut off from civilization by the high mountains.Such inns as there were were generally dirty and flea-ridden;the food simply local cheese accompanied by bread often t welve months old,all washed down with coarse wine.Often a valley boasted no inn at all,and cli mbers found shelter wherever they could--sometimes with the local priest(who was usually as p oor as his parishioners),sometimes with shepherds or cheesemakers.Invariably the background was the same:dirt and poverty,and very uncomfortable.For men accustomed to eatingseven-course dinners and sleeping between fine linen sheets at home,the change to the Alps mu st have been very hard indeed.5Lesson4Seeing handsIn the Soviet Union several cases have been reported recently of people who can read and detect colours with their fingers,and even see through solid doors and walls.One case concerns an'ele ven-year-old schoolgirl,Vera Petrova,who has normal vision but who can also perceive things wit h different parts of her skin,and through solid walls.This ability was first noticed by her father.O ne day she came into his office and happened to put her hands on the door of a locked safe.Sudd enly she asked her father why he kept so many old newspapers locked away there,and even desc ribed the way they were done up in bundles.Vera's curious talent was brought to the notice of a s cientific research institute in the town of UIyanovsk,near where she lives,and in April she was giv en a series of tests by a special commission of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federal Repu blic.During these tests she was able to read a newspaper through an opaque screen and,strange r still,by moving her elbow over a child's game of Lotto she was able to describe the figures and c olours printed on it;and,in another instance,wearing stockings and slippers,to make out with h er foot the outlines and colours of a picture hidden under a carpet.Other experiments showed th at her knees and shoulders had a similar sensitivity.During all these tests Vera was blindfold;and, indeed,except when blindfold she lacked the ability to perceive things with her skin.lt was also f ound that although she could perceive things with her fingers this ability ceased the moment her hands were wet.6Lesson5YouthPeople are always talking about'the problem of youth'.If there is one—which I take leave to doubt--then it is older people wh o create it,not the young themselves.Let us get down tofundamentals and agree that the young are after all human bei ngs--people just like their elders.There is only one difference be tween an old man and a young one:the young man has a glorio us future before him and the old one has a splendid future behi nd him:and maybe that is where the rub is.When I was a teena ger,I felt that I was just young and uncertain--that I was a new b oy in a huge school,and I would have been very pleased to be r egarded as something so interesting as a problem.For one thin g,being a problem gives you a certain identity,and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find young people exciting.They have an air of freedom,and they have n ot a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers,and they have no devotion to material things.All this seems to me to link them with life,a nd the origins of things.It's as if they were in some sense cosmi c beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatur es.All that is in my mind when I meet a young person.He may b e conceited,illmannered,presumptuous of fatuous,but I do no t turn for protection to dreary clichés about respect for elders--as if mere age were a reason for respect.I accept that we are e quals,and I will argue with him,as an equal,if I think he is wron g.7Lesson6The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport create s goodwill between the nations,and that if only the common pe oples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket ,they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield.Eve n if one didn't know from concrete examples(the1936 Olympic Games,for instance)that international sporting contes ts lead to orgies of hatred,one could deduce it from general pri nciples.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive.You pl ay to win,and the game has little meaning unless you do your u tmost to win.On the village green,where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved,it is possible to play si mply for the fun and exercise:but as soon as the question of pr estige arises,as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose,the most savage combative instinct s are aroused.Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this.At the international level sport is frankly mim ic warfare.But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the p layers but the attitude of the spectators:and,behind the specta tors,of the nations.who work themselves into furies over theseabsurd contests,and seriously believe--at any rate for short per iods--that running,jumping and kicking a ball are tests of nation al virtue.刘晓华liuxiaohua72@8Lesson7BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language,and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a case in which thePeople are always talking about'the problem of youth'.If there is one—which I take leave to doubt--then it is older people wh o create it,not the young themselves.Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human bei ngs--people just like their elders.There is only one difference be tween an old man and a young one:the young man has a glorio us future before him and the old one has a splendid future behi nd him:and maybe that is where the rub is.When I was a teena ger,I felt that I was just young and uncertain--that I was a new b oy in a huge school,and I would have been very pleased to be r egarded as something so interesting as a problem.For one thin g,being a problem gives you a certain identity,and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find young people exciting.They have an air of freedom,and they have not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers,and they have no devotion to material things.All this seems to me to link them with life,a nd the origins of things.It's as if they were in some sense cosmi c beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatur es.All that is in my mind when I meet a young person.He may b e conceited,illmannered,presumptuous of fatuous,but I do no t turn for protection to dreary clichés about respect for elders--as if mere age were a reason for respect.I accept that we are e quals,and I will argue with him,as an equal,if I think he is wron g.7Lesson6The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport create s goodwill between the nations,and that if only the common pe oples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket ,they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield.Eve n if one didn't know from concrete examples(the1936 Olympic Games,for instance)that international sporting contes ts lead to orgies of hatred,one could deduce it from general pri nciples.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive.You play to win,and the game has little meaning unless you do your u tmost to win.On the village green,where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved,it is possible to play si mply for the fun and exercise:but as soon as the question of pr estige arises,as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose,the most savage combative instinct s are aroused.Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this.At the international level sport is frankly mim ic warfare.But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the p layers but the attitude of the spectators:and,behind the specta tors,of the nations.who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests,and seriously believe--at any rate for short per iods--that running,jumping and kicking a ball are tests of nation al virtue.刘晓华liuxiaohua72@8Lesson7BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language,and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a case in which thePeople are always talking about'the problem of youth'.If there is one—which I take leave to doubt--then it is older people wh o create it,not the young themselves.Let us get down tofundamentals and agree that the young are after all human bei ngs--people just like their elders.There is only one difference be tween an old man and a young one:the young man has a glorio us future before him and the old one has a splendid future behi nd him:and maybe that is where the rub is.When I was a teena ger,I felt that I was just young and uncertain--that I was a new b oy in a huge school,and I would have been very pleased to be r egarded as something so interesting as a problem.For one thin g,being a problem gives you a certain identity,and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.I find young people exciting.They have an air of freedom,and they have n ot a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers,and they have no devotion to material things.All this seems to me to link them with life,a nd the origins of things.It's as if they were in some sense cosmi c beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatur es.All that is in my mind when I meet a young person.He may b e conceited,illmannered,presumptuous of fatuous,but I do no t turn for protection to dreary clichés about respect for elders--as if mere age were a reason for respect.I accept that we are e quals,and I will argue with him,as an equal,if I think he is wron g.7Lesson6The sporting spiritI am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport create s goodwill between the nations,and that if only the common pe oples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket ,they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield.Eve n if one didn't know from concrete examples(the1936 Olympic Games,for instance)that international sporting contes ts lead to orgies of hatred,one could deduce it from general pri nciples.Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive.You pl ay to win,and the game has little meaning unless you do your u tmost to win.On the village green,where you pick up sides and no feeling of local patriotism is involved,it is possible to play si mply for the fun and exercise:but as soon as the question of pr estige arises,as soon as you feel that you and some larger unit will be disgraced if you lose,the most savage combative instinct s are aroused.Anyone who has played even in a school football match knows this.At the international level sport is frankly mim ic warfare.But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the p layers but the attitude of the spectators:and,behind the specta tors,of the nations.who work themselves into furies over theseabsurd contests,and seriously believe--at any rate for short per iods--that running,jumping and kicking a ball are tests of nation al virtue.刘晓华liuxiaohua72@8Lesson7BatsNot all sounds made by animals serve as language,and we have only to turn to that extraordinary discovery of echo-location in bats to see a case in which the。