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必修
3 Book3
Module 1
Europe
Great European Cities
Paris
Paris 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
famous 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,
cafes
and
theatres.
About
two-
thirds
of
France’s
arti
sts
and
writers live in Paris.
Barcelona
Barcelona is the
second largest city of Spain and is situated on
the northeast coast, about five hundred kilometers
east
of
the
Spanish
capital,
Madrid.
One
of
Barcelna’s
most
famous
landmarks
is
the
Church
of
the
S
agrada
Familia,
which was designed by an architect called Antonio
Gaudi. Gaudi worked on the project from 1882 until
his death in 1926. The church hasn’t
been finished yet!
Florence
Florence
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 Florence. Many of Florence’s most
beautiful paintings and sculptures were
produce
d 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 Uffiziz
Palace is the most famous art gallery in the
city.
Athens
Athens, the capital of Greece, is known
as the birthplace of western civilization. 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
s
lived
in
ancient
Athens.
Their
work
has
influenced
other
writers
ever
since.
CULTURAL
CORNER
The European Union
What Is the European Union?
The European Union is an organization
of European countries. The countries are
independent and are governed in
different ways. In the United Kingdom,
for example, the head of state is a king or queen.
In France, on the other
hand, the head
of state is a president. But each of them sends
representatives to the European Parliament, which
has some control over what happens in
each of the member countries.
How Did
It start?
The
idea
of
the
European
Union
began
in
the
1950s.
The
first
members
were
France,
Germany,
Belgium,
Luxembourg,
the
Netherlands
and
Italy.
Little
by
little,
the
number
increased
during
the
second
half
of
the
twentieth century. By the year 2000,
there were 15 member countries. The new countries
were Austria, Denmark,
Finland, Greece,
Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United
Kingdom.
How Many Countries Belong to
It Now?
In 2004, the European Union
increased to 25 members. The Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania,
Poland,
the
Slovak
Republic
and
Slovenia,
plus
the
Mediterranean
islands
of
Cyprus
and
Malta
all
became
members. The expanded European Union
has a population of more than half a billion
people, twice as big as the
population
of the United States.
Module 2
Developing and Developed Countries
The Human Development
Report
In 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
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 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 the 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;
·
encourage developed
countries to give more help to other countries.
The
2003
Human
Development
Report
gives
examples
of
successful
development.
For
example,
in
nine
years (1953-1962),
China increased life expectancy by 13 years. In
the last ten years in China, 150 million people
moved
out
of
poverty.
However,
the
Challenges
are
still
great.
Every
day
799
million
people
in
developing
countries
are
hungry.
Over
half
of
these
are
in
South
Asia
or
Afica.
Although
more
than
80%
of
children
in
developing countries go to primary
school, about 115 million children are not being
educated. More than 1 billion
people
in
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
greater
efforts.
Although
developed countries give some financial
help, they need to give much more. Interestingly,
the countries that give
the most money
are the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. These are
among the five richest countries in the world,
so it is right that they should do so.
CULTURAL CORNER
Town Twinning
How are Oxford
in the UK and Grenoble in France similar? Well,
they’re both medium
-sized towns of
between
100,000 and 200,000
inhabitants. They both have universities and
industries. Tourism is important to both of them,
and they are both close to some of the
most beautiful countryside in the region. But they
share something else:
they have a town
twinning agreement.
Town twinning is not a new idea,
bu
t it has become more popular in
recent years because it’s now easier to
find out about and visit other
countries and towns. It’s an agreement between
towns or cities of similar size and
age, and which have similar features
such as tourism, industry, culture and
entertainment.
Town twinning
agreements encourage people from the two towns to
visit each other. There are visits and
exchanges between schools, theatre
groups and sports teams. Visitors from the foreign
town usually stay in the
private homes
of the town they are visiting. There is usually a
big party for the visitors.
Town twinning agreements are perhaps
most useful for students and people who want to
practice speaking
another language.
This is because living with a foreign family for
one or two weeks means that you have to speak
their language, and as a result you
improve fast.
Module 3
The Violence of Nature
What Is a Tornado?
A tornado is a rotating column of air
from a thunderstorm 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 street
–
or even in the next
town. 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, there are 800 tornadoes in
the US each year, causing about 80 deaths and
1,500 injuries. The
worst tornado of
all time occurred in 1925, affecting three US
states: Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. 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 in the southern Atlantic
Ocean, the Caribbean
Sea and the Gulf
of Mexico. There are violent winds of 120
kilometres per hour or more, which cause huge
waves,
heavy rain and floods. There are
on average six Atlantic hurricanes each year and
they usually affect the east coast
of
US from Texas to Maine.
The worst hurricane
disaster of all time occurred on the
8
th
September 1900 in
Galveston, Texas. Winds of 200
kilometres per hour and five-metre high
waves hit the
city. The disaster killed
6,000 people in a population of
37,000
and destroyed 3,600 buildings.
An
Extraordinary Event
This is a story
about the 1900 Galveston hurricane.
Charles
Coghlan
was
a
nineteenth-
century
Irish
actor
who
went
to
live
in
Canada.
He
then
moved
to
New
York, where he became
famous. By the 1890s, he had moved to Galveston,
where he died in 1899, a year before
the
hurricane
struck.
The
cemetery
where
Coghlan
was
buried
was
destroyed
by
the
hurricane
and
Cohglan’s
coffin ended up in
the sea.
Eight years later, the coffin
was found by fishermen in the sea near his home on
Prince Edward Island in the
east of
Canada. The Gulf Stream had carried it 3,000
kilometres up the eastern US coast to Prince
Edward Island.
Coghlan traveled back to
Canada
–
after he had been
buried in Texas!
CULTURAL
CORNER
Earthquakes Around the Pacific
About 400 earthquakes occur worldwide
every day, more than a hundred thousand in a year.
China is situated in one of the most
active earthquake regions in the world and there
have been many terrible
earthquakes.
The
most
serious
of
these
occurred
in Hua
County
in
Shaanxi Province
in
1556.
the
earthquake
affected eight
provinces in Central China. It covered an area of
800 square kilometers. In some communities, 60
percent of the population were killed.
In all, 830,000 people lost their lives.
The California Earthquake of the
18
th
of April 1906 is the
worst earthquake that has ever happened in the
United
States.
It
took
place
at
5:15
a.m.,
and
lasted
for
only
a
minute.
However,
it
caused
the
worst
natural
disaster in the
nation’s history.
Fires caused by the California
Earthquake did the most
damage. The fires burned for three
days, destroying
a total of 25,000
buildings. About 500 people were killed in the
city of San Francisco and 250,000 were made
homeless. In the whole of California,
the earthquake and fires caused about 3,000
deaths.
The
1906
earthquake
was
caused
by
a
movement
on
the
San
Andreas
Fault.
One
hundred
years
later,
movements on the San
Andreas Fault continue to cause problems for the
whole of California.
Module 4 Sandstorms in Asia
Sandstorms in Asia
Sandstorms
have
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
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 a sandstorm was a
terrible experience,” he said. “There
was nothing t
o 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
the
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
up
grass.
Sandstorms sometimes 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 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. Huan
g
Xiaomei, who lives in Beijing says, “To be cycling
in a sandstorm is frightening. 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.
To prevent it coming nearer, the government is
planting trees. Already the government
has planted more than 30 billion trees and plans
to continue planting for
the next five
years.
CULTURAL CORNER
The
Green Movement
Some countries are
better than others at looking after the
environment. In Europe, Germany and the northern
European countries work very hard to
improve the environment. People in countries such
as Germany put their
garbage into
different bags
–
paper in
one bag, plastic in another bag, etc. the garbage
is then taken away and, if
possible,
recycled. CFCs (chlorofluro-carbons), chemicals
which are found in refrigerators and aerosol cans
are
not allowed. There are laws that do
not allow people to burn too much coal.
I
n the 1970s, as people
learnt more about environmental problems, the
“Green” movement began and soon
spread
all over Europe. The “Green” movement tries to get
governments to think seriously about the
environment
and how to look after it.
It collects information about how industry is
damaging the environment and gives this
information to newspapers.
Module 5
Great
People and Great Inventions of Ancient China
Philosophers of Ancient
China
Ancient 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-479
BC)
is
the
philosopher
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..