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Unit 1
Women of
achievement
Reading
A STUDENT OF AFRICAN WILDLIFE
It is 5:45 am and the sun
is just rising over Gombe National Park in East
Africa.
Following Jane’s
way of studying chimps, our group are all going to
visit them in the forest.
Jane has studied these families of
chimps for many years and helped people understand
how
much they behave like humans.
Watching a family of chimps
wake up is our first activity of
the
day.
This means going back
to the place where we left the family sleeping in
a tree the
night before.
Everybody sits and waits in the shade
of the trees while the family beings to
wake up and move off.
Then we follow as they wander into the
forest.
Most of the time,
chimps either feed or clean each other
as a way of showing love in their family.
Jane warns
us
that our group is going to be very tired and dirty
by the afternoon and she is right.
However, the evening makes it all
worthwhile.
We watch the
mother chimp and her babies
play in the
tree.
Them we see them go
to sleep together in their nest for the night.
We
realize that
the bond between members of a chimp family is as
long as in a human family.
Nobody before Jane fully
understood chimp behaviour.
She spent years observing and
recording their daily activities.
Since her childhood she had
wanted to work with animals in
their
own environment.
However,
this was not easy.
When she
first arrived in Gombe in
1960, it was
unusual for a woman to live in the forest.
Only after her mother came
to help
her for the first few months
was she allowed to begin her project.
Her work changed the
way
people think about chimps.
For example, one important thing she
discovered was that
chimps hunt and eat
meat.
Until then everyone
had thought chimps ate only fruit and nuts.
She actually observed
chimps as a group hunting a monkey and then eating
it.
She also
discovered how chimps communicate with
each other, and her study of their body language
helped her work out their social
system.
Four forty years Jane Goodall
has been outspoken about making the rest of the
world
understand and respect the life
of these animals.
She has
argued that wild animals should be
left
in the wild and not used for entertainment or
advertisements.
She has
helped to set up
special places where
they can li
ve safely.
She is leading a busy life but she
says: “
Once I
stop, it all
comes crowding in and I remember the chimps in
laboratories.
It’s
terrible.
It
affects me when I watch the wild
chimps.
I say to myself,
‘Aren’t they luck?’
And
then I
think about small chimps in
cages though they have done nothing wrong.
Once you have
seen that you can never
forget…
”
She has
achieved everything she wanted to do: working with
animals in their own
environment,
gaining a doctor’s degree and showing that women
can l
ive in the forest as men
can.
She
inspires those who want to cheer the achievement
of women.
Using language
WHY NOT CARRY ON HER GOOD WORD?
I enjoyed English, biology,
and chemistry at school, but which one should I
choose to
study at university?
I did not know the answer
until one evening when I sat down at the
computer to do some research on great
women of China.
By chance I came across
an article about a doctor called Lin Qiaozhi, a
specialist in
women’s diseases.
She lived from 1901 to
1983.
It
seemed
that she had been very busy in
her
chosen career, traveling abroad to study as well
as writing books and articles.
One of
them caught my eye.
I was a small book
explaining how to cut the death rate from having
and caring for babies.
She gave some simple rules to follow
for keeping babies clean,
healthy and
free from sickness.
Why did
she write that?
Who were
the women that Lin
Qiaozhi thought
needed this advice
？
I looked carefully at the
text and realized that it was
intended
for women in the countryside.
Perhaps if they had an emergency they
could not
reach a doctor.
Suddenly it hit me how difficult it was
for a woman to get medical training at that time.
That was a generation when
girl’s education was always placed second to
boys’.
Was she
so
much cleverer than anyone else?
Further reading made me
realize that it was hard work and
determination as well as her gentle
nature that got her into medical school.
What made her
succeed later on was the kindness and
consideration she showed to all her patients.
There
was story
after story of how Lin Qiaozhi, tired after a
day’s work, went late at night to deliver
a baby for a poor family who could not
pay her.
By now I could not wait to
find out more about her.
I
discovered that Lin Qiaozhi had
devoted
her whold life to her patients and had chosen not
to have a family of her own.
Instead she made sure that about 50,000
babies were safely delivered.
By this time I was
very
excited.
Why not study at
medical college like Lin Qiaozhi and carry on her
good work?
It was still not
too late for me to improve my studies, prepare for
the university entrance
examinations,
and…
Unit 2
Working the land
A PILNEER FOR ALL PEOPLE
Although he is one of China’s most
famous scientists, Yuan Longping considers
h
imself a
farmer, for he
works the land to do his research.
Indeed, his sunburnt face and arms and
his
slim, strong body are just like
those of millions of Chinese farmers, for whom he
has
struggled for the past five
decades.
Dr Yuan Longping
grows what is called super hybrid
rice.
In 1974, he became the
first agricultural pioneer in the world to grow
rich that has a
high output.
This special strain of rice
makes it possible to produce one-third more of the
crop in the same fields.
Now more than 60% of the rice produced
in China each year is from
this hybrid
strain.
Born in
1930, Dr Yuan graduated from Southwest
Agricultural College in 1953.
Since
then, finding ways to
grow more rice has been his life goal.
As a young man, he saw the
great need for increasing the rice
output.
At that time,
hunger was a disturbing problem in
many
parts of the countryside.
Dr Yuan searched for a way to increase
rice harvests without
expanding the
area of the fields.
In
1950, Chinese farmers could produce only fifty
million
tons of rice.
In a recent harvest, however, nearly
two hundred million tons of rice was
produced.
These
increased harvests mean that 22% fo the world’s
people are fed from just
7% of the
farmland in China.
Dr Yuan
is now circulating his knowledge in India, Vietnam
and many other less developed countries
to increase their rice harvests.
Thanks to his
research, the
UN has more tools in the battle to rid the world
of hunger.
Using his hybrid
rice, farmers are producing harvests
twice as large as before.
Dr Yuan is
quite satisfied with his life.
However, he doesn’t care about being
famous.
He feels it gives
him less freedom to do his research.
He would much rather keep time for
his hobbies.
He
enjoys listening to violin music, playing mah-
jong, swimming and reading.
Spending money on himself or leading a
comfortable life also means very little to him.
Indeed, he believes that a
person with too much money has more rather than
fewer troubles.
He
therefore gives millions of yuan to equip others
for their research in agriculture.
Just dreaming for things,
however, costs nothing.
Long ago Dr Yuan had a dream about
rice plants as tall as a peanut.
Dr Yuan awoke from his
dream with the hope of producing a
kind
of rice that could feed more people.
Now, many years later, Dr Yuan has
another
dream: to export his rice so
that it can be grown around the globe.
One dream is not always
enough, especially for a person who
loves and cares for his people.
Using Language
CHEMICAL OR ORGANIC FARMING?
Over the past half century, using
chemical fertilizers has become very common in
farming.
Many farmers
welcomed them as a great way to stop crop disease
and increase production.
Recently, however, scientists have been
finding that long-term use of these fertilizers
can
cause damage to the land and, even
more dangerous, to people’s health.
What are some of the problems caused by
chemical fertilizers?
First, they damage the
land
by killing the helpful bacteria and pests as well
as the harmful ones.
Chemicals also
stay in the
ground and underground water for a ling time.
This affects crops and,
therefore,
animals and humans, since
chemicals get inside the crops and cannot just be
washed off.
These chemicals
in the food supply build up in people’s bodies
over t
ime.
Many
of these
chemicals can lead to cancer
or other illnesses.
In
addition, fruit, vegetables and other food
grown with chemical fertilizers usually
grow too fast to be full of much nutrition.
They may
look
beautiful, but inside there is usually more water
than vitamins and minerals.
With these discoveries, some farmers
and many customers are beginning to turn to
organic
farming.
Organic farming is simply farming
without using any chemicals.
They focus on
keeping their
soil rich and free of disease.
A healthy soil reduces disease and
helps crops
grow strong and healthy.
Organic farmers, therefore,
often prefer using natural waste from
animals as fertilizer.
They feel that this makes the soil in
their fields richer in minerals and
so
more fertile.
This also
keeps the air, water and crops free from
chemicals.
Organic farmers also use
many other methods to keep the soil fertile.
They often change
the kind of crop in each field every
few years, for example, growing corn or wheat and
then
the next year peas or soybeans.
Crops such as peas or
soybeans put important minerals back
into the soil, making it ready for
crops such as wheat or corn that need rich and
fertile soil.
Organic
farmers also plant crops to use different levels
of soil, for example, planting peanuts
that use the ground’s surface followed
by vegetables that put down deep roots.
Some
organic
farmers prefer planting grass between crops to
prevent wind or water from carrying
away the soil, and then leaving it in
the ground to become a natural fertilizer for the
next
year’s crop.
These many different organic farming
methods have the same goal: to grown
good food and avoid damaging the
environment or people’s health.
Unit 3
A state of English humour
Reading
A MSTER OF NONVERBAL
HUMOUR
As Victor Hugo once said,
“Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the
human face”,
and up to now nobody has
been able to do this better than Charlie Chaplin.
He brightened
the lives of Americans and British
through two world wars and the hard years in
between.
He made people
laugh at a time when they felt depressed, so they
could feel more content
with their
lives.
Not that Charlie’s
own life was easy!
He was
born in a poor family in 1889.
his parents
were both poor
music hall performers.
You
may find it astonishing that Charlie was taught
to sing as soon as he could speak and
dance as soon as he could walk.
Such training was
common in
acting families at this time, especially when the
family income was often
uncertain.
Unfortunately, his father
died, leaving the family even worse off, so
Charlie spent
his childhood looking
after his sick mother and his brother.
By his teens, Charlie had,
through his humour, become one of the
most popular child actors in English.
He could
mime and act the
fool doing ordinary everyday tasks.
No one was ever bored watching
him
—
his subtle
acting made everything entertaining.
As
time went by, he began making films.
He grew more and more popular as his
charming character, the little tramp,
became known throughout the world.
The tramp, a poor,
homeless
man with a moustache, wore large trousers, worn-
out shoes and a small round black
hat.
He walked around stiffly
carrying a walking stick.
This character was a social failure
but was loved for his optimism and
determination to overcome all difficulties.
He was the
underdog who was kind even when others
were unkind to him.
How did the little
tramp make a sad situation entertaining?
Here is an example from one
of his most famous films, The Gold
Rush.
It is the mid-
nineteenth century and gold has just
been discovered in California.
Like so many others, the
little tramp and his friend have
rushed
there in search of gold, but without success.
Instead they are hiding in
a small hut on
the edge of a mountain
during a snowstorm with nothing to eat.
They are so hungry that
they try boiling a pair of leather
shoes for their dinner.
Charlie first picks out the laces and
eats them as if they were spaghetti.
Then he cuts off the
leather top of the shoe as if it were
the finest steak.
Finally he tries cutting and chewing
the bottom of the shoe. I he eats each
mouthful with great enjoyment.
The acting is so convincing
that it makes you believe that it
is
one of the best meals he has ever tasted!
Charlie Chaplin wrote,
directed and produced the films he starred in.
In 1972 he was
given a special Oscar for his
outstanding work in films.
He lived in English and the USA
but spent his last years in
Switzerland, where he was buried in 1977.
He is loved and
remembered as a great actor who could
inspire people with great confidence.
Using language
ENGLISH JOKES
1. There are
thousands of jokes which use “play on words” to
amuse us.
One person asks
a question which expects a particular
reply.
Instead, what he
gets is another kind of answer
which
makes the situation funny.
Now read some of these customer and
waiter jokes.
Can
you match the joke with the
explanation?
1. C: What’s that fly
doing in my soup?
W: Swimming, I think!
2. C: What’s that?
W: It’s bean
soup.
C: I d
on’t
want to know what it’s been.
I want to know what it is
now.
3. C: Waiter, will the
pancakes be long?
W: No, sir. Round.
Explanation
A
The first person is asking for
information about time.
The
second person treats it as a
question
about shape.