外研版高中英语必修三-课文

1、外研版高中英语必修三 课文3.1 Great European CitiesParisParis is the capital and largest city of France, situated on the River Seine. It is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is visited by more than eight million tourists every year. The most popular place for tourists is the Eiffel Tower, the fam

2、ous symbol of Paris. One of the world's largest art galleries, the Louvre, is also located in Paris. The city is also famous for its restaurants, caf s and theatres. About two-thirds of France's artists and writers live in Paris.BarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city of Spain and is s

3、ituated on the northeast coast, about five hundred kilometres east of the Spanish capital, Madrid. One of Barcelona's most famous landmarks is the Church of the Sagrada Familia, which was designed by an architect called Antonio Gaudi. Gaudi worked on the project from 1882 until his death in 1926

4、. The church hasn't been finished yet!FlorenceFlorence is an Italian city which became famous because of the Renaissance,a great artistic movement which began in the 1300s and lasted for three hundred years. During the Renaissance, some of the greatest painters of all time lived and worked in Fl

5、orence. Many of Florence's most beautiful paintings and sculptures were produced by great artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Florence is visited each year by about a million tourists who come to see the art galleries, churches and museums. The Uffizi Palace is the most famous ar

6、t gallery in the city.AthensAthens, the capital of Greece, is known as the birthplace of western civilisation. Two thousand four hundred years ago, it was the world's most powerful city. Buildings such as the Parthenon on the Acropolis Hill were built during this period. Greece's best writer

7、s lived in ancient Athens. Their works has influenced other writers ever since.3.2 The Human Development ReportIn the year 2000, 147 world leaders agreed to work together to reduce poverty by 2015 or earlier. From this agreement came the Human Development Report.One of the most important sections of

8、 this report is The Human Development Index. This examines the achievements of 175 countries. The index measures a country's achievements in three ways: life expectancy (how long people usually live), education and income. The index has some surprises. Norway is at the top of the list, while the

9、 US is at number 7. The other top five countries are: Iceland (2), Sweden (3), Australia (4), the Netherlands (5). The UK is in the thirteenth position, while China is in the middle of the list. The bottom ten countries are all African countries, with Sierra Leone (in West Africa) at the bottom of t

10、he list.The report describes eight development goals. The most important goals are to:? reduce poverty and hunger;? make sure that all children have education up to the age of 11;? fight AIDS and other diseases;? improve the environment of poor people, e.g. make sure they have safe drinking water; ?

11、 encourage developed countries to give more help to other countries.The 2003 Human DevelopmentReport gives examples of successful developmentFor example,in nine years(1953 T962), China increasedife expectancyby 13 years. In the last ten yearsin China, 150 million people moved out of poverty.However,

12、the challenges are stilgl reat. Every day 799 million peoplein developingcountriesare hungry. Over half of theseare in South Asia or Africa. Although more than 80% of children in developing countriesgo to primary school, about 115 million children are not being educated. More than 1 billion people i

13、n developing countries do not drink safe water. However, in other regions of the world, e.g. Eastern Europe, water is now mostly safe to drink.The report shows that we are making some progress but that we need to make greaterefforts. Although developedcountriesgive somefinancial help, they need to g

14、ive much more. Interestingly, the countries that give the most money are the Netherlands,Norway and Sweden.Theseare amongthe five richest countries in the world, so it is right that they should do so.3.3 The Violence of NatureWhat Is a Tornado?A tornado is a rotating column of air from a thunderstor

15、m to the ground. The most violent have winds of more than 400 kilometres per hour. Almost all of them occur in the US, in the area from Texas in the southeast to South Dakota in the north.Tornadoes can pick up cars, trains and even houses and put them down in the next stree t or even in the next tow

16、n. They can take the fur off the back of a cat and the feathers off a chicken. They can destroy houses, but leave the furniture inside exactly where it was.On average,thereare 800 tornadoesin the US eachyear,causingabout80 deathsand 1,500 injuries. The worst tornadoof all time occurredin 1925, affec

17、tingthreeUS states:Missouri,Illinois andIndiana.By the time it ended, more than 700 people had been killed and 2,700 had been injured.What Is a Hurricane?Hurricanes are strong tropical storms, and they usually occur insothuethern Atlantic Ocean,the CaribbeanSeaand the Gulf of Mexico. There are viole

18、nt winds of 120 kilometres per hour or more, which cause huge waves, heavy rain and floods. There are on averagesix Atlantic hurricaneseach year and they usually affect the east coast of the US from Texas to Maine.The worst hurricane disaster of all time occurred on the 8th September 1900 in Galvest

19、on, Texas. Winds of 200 kilometres per hour and five-metre-high waves hit the city. The disasterkilled 6,000 peoplein a populationof 37,000 and destroyed 3,600 buildings.An Extraordinary EventThis is a story about the 1900 Galveston hurricane.CharlesCoghlanwas a nineteenth-centurIyrish actor who wen

20、t to live in Canada.He then movedto New York, wherehe becamefamous.By the late 1890s,he had movedto Galveston,wherehe died in 1899, a year beforethe hurricane struck. The cemetery where Coghlan was buried was destroyed by the hurricane and Coghlan's coffin ended up in the sea.Eight years later,

21、the coffin was found by fishermen in the sea near his home onPrince Edward Island in the east of Canada. The Gulf Stream had carried it 3,000 kilometresup the easternUS coastto PrinceEdwardIsland. Coghlantravelled back to Canad aafter he had been buried in Texas.3.4 Sandstorms in AsiaSandstorms have

22、 been a major disaster for many Asian countries for centuries. Scientists have tried many ways to solve this problem and in China, a mass campaign has been started to help solve it.Sandstorms are strong, dry winds that carry sand. They are often so thick that you cannot see the sun, and the wind is

23、sometimes strong enough to move sand dunes. The four main places in the world where there are sandstorms are Central Asia, North America, Central Africa and Australia. Ren Jianbo, from Inner Mongolia described a terrible sandstorm he experienced as a child in the desert. "To have been caught in

24、 a sandstorm was a terrible experience," he said. "There was nothing to be done. It was the most frightening and the most dangerous situation I've ever been in. You just had to hope you'd survive. I thought I was going to disappear under the sand."Northwest China is part of th

25、e sandstorm centre in Central Asia. Sandstorms begin in desert areas. Sandstorms in China appear to have increased in recent years as a result of "desertification". This is a process that happens when land becomes desert because of climate changes and because people cut down trees and dig

26、up grass.Sandstormssometimes affect Beijing. Citizens wake up to an orange sky and strong winds that cover the city in a thick, brown-yellow dust. The storms sometimes continue all day and traffic moves very slowly because the thick dust makes it difficult to see.The Chinese Central Weather Station

27、can forecast a sandstorm some weeks before it arrives in Beijing, but the strength of the storm sometimes surprises people. When a sandstorm arrives in the city, weather experts advise people not to go out. Huang Xiaomei, who lives in Beijing says, "To be cycling in a sandstorm is frightening.

28、The winds are very strong. It's difficult to breathe and the dust makes me ill. So if you want to go out, you'd better wear a mask."The desert is only 250 kilometres away to the west of Beijing. Toprevent it coming nearer, the government is planting trees. Already the government has pla

29、nted more than 30 billion trees and plans to continue planting for the next five years.3.5 Philosophers of Ancient ChinaAncient China was a place where states were often at war with each other. But it was also a time when there were many great philosophers.Confucius (551 BC W79 BC) is the philosophe

30、r whose influence has been the greatest. He stressed the importance of kindness, duty and order in society. Chinese society was influenced by these ideas for more than 2,000 years.Mencius was a thinker whose teachings were very similar to those of Confucius. Mencius was born in 372 BC. His father di

31、ed when he was young, and he was brought up by his mother. He became a student of Confucius's ideas, and was then given an important position in the government of a state. However, when he saw that the ruler was not following his advice, he resigned. For many years he travelled from state to state, teaching the principles of Confucius. He then became an adviser to another