英语听力：自然百科 圣河之旅 Yangtze 长江—20

It generates vast amounts of hydroelectricity, equivalent of more than half a dozen nuclear power stations. It's longer than 25 football pitches and higher than a 40-story building. Since the 1950s, the Chinese have built more than 22,000 large dams, but this is by far the largest. The government here says it's an engineering miracle. Critics say it's unstable¹ and unprecedented² environmental disaster. Mao Zedong, the founder³ of Communist China, championed the dam, partly because deadly floods here regularly claimed tens of thousands of lives, and partly because he wanted to prove to the Chinese people that he had the right to rule.-In China, there's something called Mandate⁴ of Heaven, and this is the idea for centuries that Chinese leaders' role with the acceptance and Mandate of Heaven's, of the gods, of spirit god of ancestors. And any threat to that mandate, any challenge to that mandate can come from inside an earthquake or a flood, because it suggests that the spirit will be somehow unhappy with the leaders in the real physical world.

1 unstable   

adj.不稳定的，易变的

参考例句：

• This bookcase is too unstable to hold so many books.这书橱很不结实，装不了这么多书。
• The patient's condition was unstable.那患者的病情不稳定。

2 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

3 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

4 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。