TPO3 listening 听力文本

TPO 03

–

Listening Part

Section 1

Conversation

Narrator

Listen to a conversation between a student and a receptionist at the Registrar’s Office on the first

day of the semester.

Student

Excuse me, I’m supposed to be having my physics class in the science building, but no one’s in

the classroom. Could you tell me where the class is? Physics 403

—

has it been moved?

Receptionist

Well, there’s a room assignment sheet on the bulletin board outside this office.

Student

Yeah, I know, but my class isn’t

listed there. There must be some kind of mistake or something.

Could you look it up, please?

Receptionist

Hmmm... ok, let me check on the computer. It’s physics, right? Wait, did you say physics 403?

Student

Yeah.

Receptionist

Er…I’m

sorry,

but

it

says

here

that

it

was

cancelled.

You

should

have

got

note

letter

from

the

registrar’s office about this.

Student

What? I’ve never got it.

Receptionist

Are you sure? ‘Cause it says on the computer that the letter was sent out to students a week ago.

Student

Really? I should have got it by now. I wonder if I threw it away with all the junk mail by mistake.

Receptionist

Well, it does happen. Er… let me check something. What’s your name?

Student

Woodhouse, Laura Woodhouse.

Receptionist

Ok,

hmmm…Woodhouse,

let

me

see…

ah,

it

says

here

we

sent

it

to

your

apartment

on

er…

Center Street.

Student

Oh, that’s my old apartment. I moved out of there a little while ago.

Receptionist

Well, and I suppose you haven’t changed your mailing address at the adm

inistration office. Well

that would explain it.

Student

Yeah, I guess that’s it. But how can they cancel the class after offering it. If I’d known this was

going to happen, I would have taken it last semester.

Receptionist

I

know,

it’s

really

inconvenient

for

you,

I

understand

that,

but

er…

if

we

don’t

have

enough

students sign up for the course, the college can’t offer it. You know, it’s a practical issue, like we

can’t have an instructor when there’re only a few students in the class. You see what I m

ean?

Student

I guess, but now I don’t know what course I should take instead.

Receptionist

Ok, let’s see. Do you have any courses you’re going to take next semester? If you do, you might

want to take them now and sign up for physics 403 next semester.

Student

Yeah, I guess I could do that. I

just hope it won't be cancelled again. Do you know how many

people have to be enrolled in order to keep a class from being cancelled?

Receptionist

Well, it depends on the class, but for that class, you have to h

ave er… let’s see, usually it’d be at

least ten people, but since it was cancelled this semester, they might even do it with less. But do

you know what you should do? Give the physics department a call a couple of weeks before the

semester

starts.

They’ll

be

able

to

tell

you

if

they’re

planning

to

go

through

with

it.

It's

their

decision, actually.

Student

Oh, ok, I will do that. Thanks for the info.

Receptionist

No problem. Sorry about the class. Oh, why aren’t you to go change a mail address now. It lo

nely

takes a minute.

Student

Oh, oh, sure, I will do that right way.

Lecture

Narrator

Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental science class.

Professor

Now,

we’ve

been

talking

about

the

loss

of

animal

habitat

from

housing

developments,

uh

…,

growing cities

–

small habitat losses. But today I wanna begin talking about what happens when

habitat is reduced across a large area. There are, of course, animal species that require large areas

of

habitat,

and

some

migrate

over

very

long

distance

s.

So

what’s

the

impact

of

habitat

loss

on

those animals

–

animals that need large areas of habitat?

Well,

I’ll

use

the

humming

birds

as

an

example.

Now you

know

a

humming

bird

is

amazingly

small, but even though it’s really tiny, it migrates over very lo

ng distances, travels up and down

the western hemisphere

–

the Americas, back and forth between where it breeds in the summer

and the warmer climates where it’s spent the winter.

So you would say that this whole area over which it migrates is its habitat because on this long-

distance

journey,

it

needs

to

come

down

to

feed

and

sleep

every

so

often,

right?

Well,

the

humming bird beats its wings

–

get this

–

about 3 thousand times per minute. So you think, wow,

it must need a lot of energy, a lot of food, right?

Well,

it

does.

It

drinks

a

lot

of

nectar

from

flowers

and

feeds

on

some

insects,

but

it’s

energy

-

efficient too. You can’t say it isn’t. I mean, as it flies all the way across the Mexico Gulf, it uses up

none of its body fat. But that doesn’t mean it

doesn’t need to eat. So humming birds have to rely

on plants in their natural habitat.

And it goes without saying, but the opposite is true as well, plants depend on humming birds too.

There are some flowers that can only be pollinated by the humming birds. Without its stopping

to feed and spread pollen from flower to flower, these plants would cease to exist.

But the problem, well, as natural habitat along these migration routes is developed by humans for

housing

or

agriculture

or

cleared

for

raising

cattle,

for

instance,

there

is

less

food

available

for

migrating

humming

birds.

Their

nesting

sites

are

affected

too,

the

same

by

the

same

sorts

of

human activities. And all of these activities pose a real threat to the humming bird population.

So help them survive, we need to preserve their habitats. And one of the concrete ways people

have

been

doing

this

is

by

cleaning

up

polluted

habitat

areas

and

then

replanting

flowers,

um,

replanting native flowers that humming birds feed on.

Promoting ecological tourism is another way to help save their habitat. As the number of visitors,

eco-tourists

who

come

to

humming

bird

habitats

to

watch

the

birds,

the

more

the

number

of

visitors grows, the more local businesses’ profit, so ecological tourism can bring financ

ial rewards,

all the more reason to value these beautiful little creatures in their habitat, right?

But to understand more about how to protect them to support the humming birds the best we can,

we’ve got to learn more about their breeding, nesting sites

and migration routes, and also about the

natural habitats we find there. That just helps us determine how to prevent further decline in the

population.

A good research method, a good way to learn more, is by running a banding study. Banding the

birds

allo

ws

us

to

track

them

over

their

lifetime.

It’s

been

a

practice

that’s

been

used

by

researchers

for

years.

In

fact,

most

of

what

we’ve

known

about

humming

birds

comes

from

banding studies, where we capture a humming bird and make sure all the information about it, like

its weight and age and length, are all recorded and put into an international information database.

And then we place an extremely lightweight band on one of its legs, well, what looks like a leg,

although technically it’s considered part of the bird’s foot. Anyway, these bands are perfectly safe,

and some humming birds have worn them for years with no evidence of any problems. The

band is labeled with tracking number, oh, and there is a phone number on the band for people to

call for free, to report a banded bird to be found or recaptured.

So when a banded bird is recaptured and reported, we learn about its migration route, its growth,

and

how

long

it

has

been

alive,

its

lifespan.

One

recaptured

bird

was

banded

almost

12

years

earlier

–

she was one of the oldest humming birds on record. Another interesting thing we

learned is that some humming birds no longer use a certain route. They travel by a different route

to reach their destination.

And

findings

like

these

have

been

of

interest

to

biologists

and

environmental

scientists

in

a

number of countries who are trying to understand the complexities of how changes in a habitat

affect the species in it.

Lecture

Narrator

Listen to part of a lecture in a film history class.

Professor

Okay

, we’ve been discussing films in the 1920s and 30s, and how back then film categories, as we

know them today, had not yet been established. We said that by today’s standards, many of the

films of the 20s and 30s would be considered hybrids, that is, a mixt

ure of styles that wouldn’t

exactly fit into any of today’s categories, and in that context.

Today we are going to talk about a film-maker who began making very unique films in the late

1920s. He was French, and his name was Jean Painlevé

.

Jean Painlevé

was born in 1902. He made his first film in 1928. Now in a way, Painlevé’s films

conform to norms of the 20s and 30s, that is, they don’t fit very neatly into the categories we use

to classify films today. That said, even by the standards of the 20s and 3

0s, Painlevé’s films were

unique, a hybrid of styles. He had a special way of fusing, or some people might say confusing,

science and fiction.

His

films

begin

with

facts,

but

then

they

become

more

and

more

fictional.

They

gradually

add

more and more fictional elements. In fact, Painlevé

was known for saying that science is fiction.

Painlevé

was

a

pioneer

in

underwater

film-making,

and

a

lot

of

his

short

films

focused

on

the

aquatic animal world. He liked to show small underwater creatures, displaying what seemed like

familiar human characteristics

–

what we think of as unique to humans.

He might take a clip of a mollusk going up and down in the water and set it to music. You know,

to make it look like the mollusk were dancing to the music like a human being

–

that sort of thing.

But then he suddenly changed the image or narration to remind us how different the animals

are, how unlike humans. He confused his audience in the way he portrayed the animals he filmed,

mixing up on notions of the categories of humans and animals.

The

films

make

us

a

little

uncomfortable

at

times

because

we

are

uncertain

about what

we

are

seeing. It gives him films an uncanny feature: the familiar made unfamiliar, the normal made

suspicious. He liked twists, he liked the unusual. In fact, one of his favorite sea animals was the

seahorse because with seahorses, it’s the male that carries the eggs, and he thought that was great.

His first and most celebrated underwater film is about the seahorse.

Susan, you have a question?

Student 1

But

underwater

film-

making

wasn’t

that

unusual,

was

it?

I

mean,

weren’t

there

other

people

making movies underwater?

Professor

Well, actually, it was pretty rare at that time. I mean, we are talking about the early 1920s

Student 1