外研版高中英语必修四课文文本

1、Module 1 Reading The City of the FutureWhat will the city of the future look like? No one knows for sure, and making predictions is a risky business. But one thing is certainthey are going to get bigger before they get smaller. In the future, care for the environment will become very important as ea

2、rth's natural resources run out. We will use lots of recycled materials, such as plastic, aluminium, steel, glass, wood and paper, and we will waste fewer natural resources. We will also have to rely more on alternative energy, such as solar and wind power. All this seems certain, but there are

3、plenty of things about city life in the future which are not certain.To find out what young people think about the future of urban life, a teacher at a university in Texas in the United States asked his students to think how they would run a city of 50,000 people in the year 2025. Here are some of t

4、he ideas they had:Garbage ships To get rid of garbage problems, the city will load huge spaceships with waste materials and send them towards the sun, preventing landfill and environmental problems.Batman Nets Police will arrest criminals by firing nets instead of guns.Forget smoking No smoking will

5、 be allowed within a future city's limits. Smoking will be possible only outside cities, and outdoors.Forget the malls In the future all shopping will be done online, and catalogues will have voice commands to place orders.Telephones for life Everyone will be given a telephone number at birth th

6、at will never change no matter where they live.Recreation All forms of recreation, such as cinemas, bowling, softball, concerts and others, will be provided free of charge by the city.Cars All cars will be powered by electricity, solar energy or wind, and it will be possible to change the colour of

7、cars at the flick of a switch.Telesurgery Distance surgery will become common as doctors carry out operations from thousands of miles away, with each city having its own telesurgery outpatient clinic.Holidays at home Senior citizens and people with disabilities will be able to go anywhere in the wor

8、ld using high-tech cameras attached to their head.Space travel Travelling in space by ordinary citizens will be common. Each city will have its own spaceport.Cultural Corner Famous Last WordsNot all predictions come true. Many of them are wrong, and some are very wrong. Here are just a few of the ba

9、d predictions people made in the twentieth century about the twenty-first century:AIRPLANES"No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris."Orville Wright, 1908.COMPUTERS"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."Thomas Waston, chairman of IBM, 1943.CLOTHE

10、S"Thirty years from now people will be wearing clothes made of paper which they will be able to throw away after wearing them two or three times."Changing Times Magazine, 1957.MEN ON THE MOON"With the first moon colonies predicted for the 1970's, work is now in progress on the typ

11、es of building required for men to stay in when they're on the moon."Arnold B. Barach in The Changes to Come, 1962.THE BEATLES"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.ROBOTS IN THE HOUSE"By the year 20

12、00, housewives will probably have a robot shaped like a box with one large eye on the top, several arms and hands, and long narrow pads on the side for moving about."New York Times, 1966.KEYS"By the mid-1980's no one will ever need to hide a key under the doormat again, because there w

13、on't be any keys."Computer scientist Christopher Evans,The Micro Millennium, 1979.Module 2 Reading Getting Around in BeijingTaxisTaxis are on the streets 24 hours a day. Simply raise your hand, and a taxi appears in no time. They are usually red, and they display the price per kilometre on

14、the window. You should check the cab has a business permit, and make sure you ask for a receipt.Buses and trolleybuses Public transport provides a cheap way to get around in Beijing. There are 20,000 buses and trolleybuses in Beijing, but they can get very crowded. It's a good idea to avoid publ

15、ic transport during the rush hour (6:30 a.m.8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.6:30 p.m.). Fares are cheap, starting at 1 yuan. Air-conditioned buses cost more.Buses numbered 1 to 100 are limited to travel within the city centre. Higher numbers have destinations in the suburbs. Tourists shouldn't miss the 1

16、03 bus which offers one of the most impressive routes, past the Forbidden City and the White Pagoda in Beihai Park. If you get on a double-decker bus, make sure you sit upstairs. You'll have a good view of the rapidly changing city.Most buses run from about 5:00 a.m. to midnight. However, there

17、is also a night bus service, provided by buses with a number in the 200s.MinibusesMinibuses with seats for 12 passengers offer an alternative to expensive taxis and crowded public transport in some areas. They run regular services and follow the same routes as large public buses. And in a minibus yo

18、u always get a seat even in rush hours.UndergroundThere are four underground lines in Beijing, and several lines are under construction. Trains are fast and convenient, but rush hours can be terrible. A one-way trip costs 3 yuan. Station names are marked in pinyin. The underground is open from 5:00

19、a.m. to 11:00 p.m.PedicabsTourists like these human-pedalled "tricycle taxis", but they can be expensive. You should talk to the driver, and make sure you know the price before you begin the journey, for example, if it is per person, single or return. Tricycles are worth using if you want

20、to explore the narrow alleys (hutong) of old Beijing.Cultural Corner The London Congestion ChargeBeijing isn't the only city with traffic problems. You can get stuck in a traffic jam anywhere in the world. The worst problems occur in cities which are growing fast, such as Sao Paolo in Brazil and

21、 Lagos in Nigeria. But even cities in developed countries such as the US suffer. Los Angeles, which was built with the motor car in mind, and is famous for its six-lane highways, is now the USA's most congested city.In Europe most capital cities were planned and built before cars, and city centr

22、e traffic jams have been part of daily life for a long time. The situation in central London, where drivers spent fifty percent of their time in queues, became so bad that the local government decided to do something about it. In February 2003 the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, introduced a "

23、;congestion charge"a tax for cars entering the centre of the city.The idea is simple: every car coming into the centre has to pay £5 a day. Drivers can pay the charge at any of 10,000 pay points in the capital before 10 p.m. As the cars come into the centre, video cameras record their regi

24、stration numbers, and these are checked with a list of drivers who have paid the charge for that day. People who do not pay the charge will face a fine of £80.Most Londoners are not happy with the idea. They agree that London has a traffic problem, but the congestion charge is expensive, and li

25、mits their freedom .But does the congestion charge work? A survey carried out at the end of 2003 suggests it does. After only six months, traffic coming into central London was reduced by about 30 percent, and journey times by 15 percent. More people used public transport to get to work, and bicycle

26、s were suddenly very popular. What's more, central London shops did not lose business even though there were fewer cars.But there are a few people who think the charge should be much higher, for example rich businessmen who work in the city centre and can easily afford it. This would keep even m

27、ore cars out of central London, and the roads would be nearly empty. However, there are no plans to increase the charge.Module 3 Reading Greetings Around the WorldIf you say the word "communication", most people think of words and sentences. Although these are very important, we communicat

28、e with more than just spoken and written words. Indeed, body positions are part of what we call "body language". We see examples of unconscious body language very often, yet there is also "learned" body language, which varies from culture to culture.We use "learned" bod

29、y language when we are introduced to strangers. Like other animals, we are on guard until we know it is safe to relax. So every culture has developed a formal way to greet strangers, to show them we are not aggressive. Traditionally, Europeans and Americans shake hands. They do this with the right h

30、andthe strongest hand for most people. If our right hand is busy greeting someone, it cannot be holding a weapon. So the gesture is saying, "I trust you. Look, I'm not carrying a threatening weapon." If you shake hands with someone, you show you trust them. We shake hands when we make

31、a deal. It means, "We agree and we trust each other."Greetings in Asian countries do not involve touching the other person, but they always involve the hands. Traditionally in China, when we greet someone, we put the right hand over the left and bow slightly. Muslims give a "salaam&qu

32、ot;, where they touch their heart, mouth and forehead. Hindus join their hands and bow their heads in respect. In all of these examples, the hands are busy with the greeting and cannot hold a weapon.Even today, when some people have very informal styles of greeting, they still use their hands as a g

33、esture of trust. American youths often greet each other with the expression, "Give me five!" One person then holds up his hand, palm outwards and five fingers spread. The other person raises his hand and slaps the other's open hand above the head in a "high five". Nowadays, i

34、t is quite a common greeting.Body language is fascinating for anyone to study. People give away much more by their gestures than by their words. Look at your friends and family and see if you are a mind reader!Cultural Corner ClappingWhy do we clap? To show we like something, of course. But we don&#

35、39;t clap at the end of a television programme or a book, however good they are. We clap at the end of a live performance, such as a play, or a concert, to say thank you to the performers. First they give, and then we give. Without usthe audiencethe performance would not be complete.The custom of cl

36、apping has early beginnings. In classical Athens, applause meant judgement and taking part. Plays were often in competition with each other, and prolonged clapping helped a play to win. The theatre was largeit could hold 14,000 people, half the adult male population of the city, which meant that the

37、 audience could make a lot of noise.Applause was a sign of being part of the community, and of equality between actors and audience. The important thing was to make the noise together, to add one's own small handclap to others. Clapping is social, like laughter: you don't very often clap or

38、laugh out loud alone. It is like laughter in another way, too: it is infectious, and spreads very quickly. Clapping at concerts and theatres is a universal habit. But some occasions on which people clap change from one country to another. For example, in Britain people clap at a wedding, but in Ital

39、y they sometimes clap at a funeral.Module 4 Reading The Student Who Asked QuestionsIn a hungry world rice is a staple food and China is the world's largest producer. Rice is also grown in many other Asian countries, and in some European countries like Italy. In the rice-growing world, the Chines

40、e scientist, Yuan Longping, is a leading figure.Yuan Longping was born and brought up in China. As a boy he was educated in many schools and was given the nickname, "the student who asks questions".From an early age he was interested in plants. He studied agriculture in college and as a yo

41、ung teacher he began experiments in crop breeding. He thought that the key to feeding people was to have more rice and to produce it more quickly. He thought there was only one way to do thisby crossing different species of rice plant, and then he could produce a new plant which could give a higher

42、yield than either of the original plants.First Yuan Longping experimented with different types of rice. The results of his experiments were published in China in 1966. Then he began his search for a special type of rice plant. It had to be male. It had to be sterile. Finally, in 1970 a naturally ste

43、rile male rice plant was discovered. This was the breakthrough. Researchers were brought in from all over China to develop the new system. The research was supported by the government.As a result of Yuan Longping's discoveries Chinese rice production rose by 47.5 percent in the 1990's. There

44、 were other advantages too. 50 thousand square kilometres of rice fields were converted to growing vegetables and other cash crops. Following this, Yuan Longping's rice was exported to other countries, such as Pakistan and the Philippines.In Pakistan rice is the second most important crop after

45、wheat and will be grown in many parts of the country. The new hybrid rice has been developed by the Yuan Longping Hightech Agricultural Company of China. Its yield is much greater than the yield of other types of rice grown in Pakistan.Cultural Corner RocketsToday rockets are very advanced machines

46、which we can use to send astronauts into space. They are also used in firework displays to celebrate great events, such as the end of the Olympic Games or the beginning of the new millennium in the year 2000.Rockets were probably invented by accident about 2,000 years ago. The Chinese had a form of

47、gunpowder which was put in bamboo tubes and thrown into fires to make explosions during festivals. Perhaps some of the tubes jumped out of the fire instead of exploding in it. The Chinese discovered that the gas escaping from the tube could lift it into the air. The idea of the rocket was born.The f

48、irst military use of rockets was in 1232. The Song Dynasty was at war with the Mongols. During the battle of Kaifeng, the Song army shot "arrows of flying fire". The tubes were attached to a long stick which helped keep the rocket moving in a straight direction. Soon the Mongols learned ho

49、w to make rockets themselves and it is possible that they introduced them to Europe. Between the 13th and 15th centuries there were many rocket experiments in England, France and Italy. They were used for military purposes. One Italian scientist even invented a rocket which could travel over the sur

50、face of water and hit an enemy ship.But not everybody wanted to use rockets in battles. Wan Hu, a Chinese government official, invented a flying chair. He attached two big kites to the chair, and 47 rockets to the kites. The rockets were lit, there was a huge explosion and clouds of thick smoke. Whe

51、n the smoke cleared Wan Hu and his chair had disappeared. No one knows what happened. Did Wan Hu die in the explosion? Or was he carried miles into space, becoming the world's first astronaut?Module 5 Reading A Trip Along the Three GorgesIn August 1996, Peter Hessler, a young American teacher of

52、 English, arrived in the town of Fuling on the Yangtze River. He and a colleague were to spend two years there teaching English at a teacher training college. They were the only foreigners in the town. The first semester finished at the end of January and they had four weeks off for the Spring Festi

53、val. They could go anywhere they wished. They decided to take a boat downstream.We decided to buy tickets for the Jiangyou boat. Our colleagues said, "You shouldn't go on those ships. They are very crowded. They are mainly for goods and people trading along the river. They don't stop at

54、 the temples and there won't be any other foreigners." That sounded fine to me. We just had to show our passports and they let us get on the boat.We left the docks on a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining brightly as we sailed downstream through a hilly region. Men rode bamboo rafts al

55、ong the river's edge and coal boats went past. As the sun set we docked at Fengdu. We could see the sun setting behind the white pagoda. It was beautiful.We slept through the first gorge, which is called the Qutang Gorge. The gorge narrows to 350 feet as the river rushes through the two-mile-hig

56、h mountains. "Oh, well," my friend said, "at least we have two more left."At Wushan we made a detour up the Daning River to see some of the smaller gorges. The next day we went through the big gorges on the Yangtze River. It was a lovely morning as we went through the Wu Gorge. W

57、e passed the Xiang River, home of Qu Yuan, the 3rd century BC poet. There was so much history along the Yangtze River. Every rock looked like a person or animal, every stream that joined the great river carried its legends, every hill was heavy with the past.As we came out of the third gorge, the Xi

58、ling Gorge, we sailed into the construction site of the dam. All the passengers came on deck. We took pictures and pointed at the site, but we weren't allowed to get off the boat. The Chinese flag was blowing in the wind. On a distant mountain was a sign in 20-foot characters. "Build the Th

59、ree Gorges Dam, Exploit the Yangtze River," it said.Cultural Corner Postcards to MyselfIn 50 years of travelling Colin McCorquodale has visited every country in the world, except three. And everywhere he goes, he sends himself a postcard. He always chooses a postcard with a beautiful view, and

60、sticks on an interesting stamp. Usually he writes just a short message to himself. His latest one, from the Malvinas islands, reads Good fishing.On a wall in his home in London there is a large map of the world. There are hundreds of little red pins stuck in it. "It's good to get a pin in the map," says Mr McCorquodale, "but I follow the rules. I'm allowed to stick one in only if I've been in a place for more than 24 hours." Naturally, Mr McCorquodale has his favourite places. New Ze