【一起听英语】蜘蛛恐惧症

 Kate: Welcome to this week's 6 Minute English. I'm joined today by Rebecca. Hi

Rebecca. Now a bit of a scary question to start the programme with today –

how do you feel about ….spiders….?

Rebecca: Eurrgh…..

Kate: I can't say I'm delighted to find them lurking¹ around the house either but I

do think that the poor old spider does get some bad press. People think

they're much worse than they really are when most of them in the UK

anyway, are not dangerous and are completely harmless.

Rebecca: Well they might be harmless but they seem to strike more fear in people

than any other creature. In fact the fear of spiders even has a name –

arachnophobia. We'll hear more about that later in the programme.

Kate: There has recently been some bad news for anyone who has a phobia of

spiders because experts have told us that we could be facing an invasion of

them in the next few weeks. Autumn is typically the season when spiders

turn up in houses and gardens but this year, we could be finding far more

than usual…..urghh!!! 

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

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Rebecca: Yes, a combination of environmental factors has led experts to predict a

mass influx² of spiders this autumn. Mass influx means the arrival of

something in large numbers. Researchers say that last year's wet autumn and

this year's temperate³ summer (which means it's been neither too hot, nor

too cold) have been excellent insect breeding conditions and there is a good

chance to see lots of fantastic spiders in homes and gardens.

Kate Well, 'fantastic' a matter of opinion! But, on to my question for today. Are

you ready? How many known spider species⁴ are there in the world today? Is

it:

a) 2000

b) 20 000

c) 40 000

Rebecca: answers

Kate: OK – we'll check your answer at the end of the programme. Now, we heard

earlier that the word is to describe the phobia or fear of spiders is

arachnophobia.

Rebecca: That's right and we call people who have this condition arachnophobes.

Kate: Well, we're going to hear from a former arachnophobe, Dave Clark who

works at London Zoo. He's not afraid of spiders anymore and in fact works

with them every day. We're going to hear how he got over his

arachnophobia. Listen to the following extract⁵ – what rather strange

expression does he use?

 

Extract 1

What I had to do was go cold turkey and I did something called 'flooding' when I put a big

spider on my hand and that sudden exposure managed to get me over my fear. 

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

Page 3 of 4

Rebecca: He said he went cold turkey. This is an expression we use when talking

about doing something we don’t really want to do. It is often used when

giving up something we know is bad for us, drinking alcohol or smoking for

example. Instead of gradually stopping, we stop completely and suddenly –

we go 'cold turkey'. In this context⁶, going cold turkey means that instead of

gradually trying to overcome our phobia, we face our fear head on and in

this case Dave held a big spider in his hand and confronted⁷ his fear. He also

called this technique 'flooding'.

Kate: Well, this technique certainly seemed to work because now Nick runs

special workshops to help people get over their fear of spiders. Listen to the

next extract – how long does it take to rid someone of their fear and what

type of therapy does he use?

Extract 2

We do it a lot more gently now. The course we run at London Zoo is for people to come along

in one afternoon and within 3 hours, we can get rid of their fear. Hypnosis - just half an hour's

hypnosis and we can get rid of a fear forever.

Rebecca: Dave said he uses hypnosis. Hypnosis is a mental state like sleep, in which a

person's thoughts can be easily influenced by someone else. Using this method

he can cure someone of their arachnophobia within 3 hours. That's quite

impressive!

Kate: Yes, it is. Let's listen to the final extract and listen out for what the success rate

of his courses are. How many people are cured of their phobia?

Extract 3

We have over 80% success rate – it's been pretty much 100% this year and we've had such big

demand at the moment because there's a lot of spiders around, that's we've added an extra date.

 

6 Minute English © bbclearningenglish.com 2008

Page 4 of 4

Rebecca: Wow – over 80% success rate. I suppose the last 20% are just people whose

fear of spiders is a little deeper than average!

Kate: Do you think you need to go on a course to prepare you for this autumn's influx

of house spiders? You know who to call now…

Rebecca: answers

Kate: Now on the question I asked you earlier. I asked you how many species of

spiders do you think there are.

Rebecca: And I said….

Kate: There are in fact about 40,000 known spider species, and potentially thousands

more we haven't even discovered yet.

Rebecca: Wow – I had no idea there were so many.

Kate: Would you mind giving us a quick re-cap of the vocabulary we've heard today?

Rebecca: Of course. First we had mass influx, temperate, arachnophobia,

arachnophobes, cold turkey and hypnosis.

Kate: Thanks Rebecca – that's all we've got time for. Bye! 

1 lurking   

潜在

参考例句：

• Why are you lurking around outside my house? 你在我房子外面鬼鬼祟祟的，想干什么？
• There is a suspicious man lurking in the shadows. 有一可疑的人躲在阴暗中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

2 influx   

n.流入，注入

参考例句：

• The country simply cannot absorb this influx of refugees.这个国家实在不能接纳这么多涌入的难民。
• Textile workers favoured protection because they feared an influx of cheap cloth.纺织工人拥护贸易保护措施，因为他们担心涌入廉价纺织品。

3 temperate   

adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的

参考例句：

• Asia extends across the frigid,temperate and tropical zones.亚洲地跨寒、温、热三带。
• Great Britain has a temperate climate.英国气候温和。

4 species   

n.物种，种群

参考例句：

• Are we the only thinking species in the whole of creation?我们是万物中惟一有思想的物种吗？
• This species of bird now exists only in Africa.这种鸟现在只存在于非洲。

5 extract   

vt.取出，提取，获得，摘录；n.摘录，提出物

参考例句：

• The article was a choice extract from her writings.这篇文章是从她的著作中摘录出来的精粹。
• We can extract oil from olive.我们可以从橄榄中榨油。

6 context   

n.背景，环境，上下文，语境

参考例句：

• You can always tell the meaning of a word from its context.你常可以从上下文中猜出词义来。
• This sentence does not seem to connect with the context.这个句子似乎与上下文脱节。

7 confronted   

面对( confront的过去式和过去分词 )； 使面对； 使对质； 处理

参考例句：

• When we confronted him, he denied everything. 我们与他当面对质时，他什么都不承认。
• The writer confronted his pile of work with determination. 那作家下决心面对成堆的工作。