最新版英语听力教程 Model Test5-part c

（单词翻译）

　　[00:03.50]You'll hear three pieces of recorded material.
[00:08.18]Before listening to each one,you'll have
[00:11.94]time to read the questions related to it.
[00:16.38]While listening,answer each question by choosing A,B,C or D.
[00:21.97]After listening,you will have time to check your answers,
[00:27.72]You will hear each piece once only.
[00:31.48]M:Questions 11-13 are based on the following talk
[00:38.74]discussing Drinking Problems.
[00:42.58]You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11-13.
[00:49.24]W:According to recent estimates,there are nine million
[00:55.38]people with drinking problems in the United States.
[01:00.06]If your idea of someone with an alcohol problem is
[01:05.02]a person with a bottle in a paper bag,
[01:09.09]you are probably wondering where those nine million people are.
[01:14.55]The fact is,more than 95 percent of the victims of alcoholism
[01:20.90]do not look like that.
[01:24.45]In the early and middle stages of the disease,they hold down jobs
[01:30.23]or are housewives,and appear to lead normal lives
[01:35.37]The early symptoms of alcoholism are very subtle
[01:40.65]and difficult to recognize
[01:44.31]but sooner or later they show up on the job.
[01:48.98]That woman in the office who loses temper in the morning
[01:54.02]and happy as a clam¹ in the afternoon may
[01:59.80]just not be a "Morning person" .
[02:04.24]She may have a problem with alcohol.
[02:08.50]Then there's the man in the machine shop who is often actually asleep on the job
[02:15.34]Sometimes it's a group problem,like the payday lunch group
[02:20.98]who never make it back to the office.
[02:25.53]Or it may be the group that goes out to celebrate on the way home and
[02:31.28]stretches it out until early Saturday morning.
[02:36.03]American attitudes about alcohol are complicated and confusing.
[02:41.78]Social drinking is not only acceptable but very sophisticated.
[02:47.63]Full-color magazine ads show
[02:51.47]rich,beautiful and happy people socializing over martinis,champagne,or
[02:57.71]whatever the ads are promoting.
[03:01.79]It's supposed to be manly,as well.
[03:05.91]Witness the classic cowboy scene where our hero tosses down straight whiskey,
[03:12.86]while the man who orders orange juice is laughed at.
[03:17.62]Conflicting social and moral attitudes about drinking make it
[03:22.66]difficult to see alcoholism clearly as a disease.
[03:28.22]The person who has lost control over drinking,
[03:33.26]however funny sophisticated or infuriating he may be,is ill.
[03:40.92]M:Questions 14-17 are based on the following lecture on Memory.
[03:47.68]You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 14-17.
[03:54.24]W:It is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory.
[04:01.95]The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions,
[04:06.67]the bases for the decisions we make,and the roots of our
[04:11.53]habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences,which are
[04:17.10]brought into the present by memory.
[04:21.36]Memory can be defined as the capacity to keep information available for later use
[04:29.11]It includes not only "remembering" things like arithmetic or historical facts
[04:36.27]but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves.
[04:42.72]Memory is involved
[04:46.09]when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed²
[04:50.53]something suspicious in the grain pile.
[04:54.69]Memory's also involved when a six-year-old child learns to swing a baseball bat
[05:02.26]Memory exists not only in humans and
[05:06.42]animals but also in some physical objects and machines.
[05:11.56]Computers,for example,
[05:15.32]contain devices for storing data for later use.
[05:20.18]lt is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity of a computer
[05:26.24]with that of a human being.
[05:29.69]The instant-access memory of a large compute³ may hold up to
[05:35.33]100,000 words ready for instant use.
[05:40.58]An average U.S. teenager probably recognizes
[05:45.65]the meaning of about 100,000 words of English.
[05:50.98]However,this is but a fraction of the total amount of information
[05:57.15]which the teenager has stored.
[06:00.91]Consider,for example,the number of faces and places
[06:06.18]that the teenager can smartly recognize on sight.
[06:12.24]W:Questions 18--20 are based on the following conversation on
[06:17.50]Family Members in Britain.
[06:20.94]You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 18-20.
[06:26.72]M:Over the past 50 years in Britain,we have seen a major shift
[06:33.56]in the numbers of elderly parents being cared for by their own children
[06:39.33]compared to those being looked after by either state or private old people's homes.
[06:45.68]I asked Polly Trainor,a welfare officer of
[06:50.64]some 40 years experience and herself a senior citizen,
[06:56.50]how this change has come about.
[07:00.65]W:I believe there are
[07:03.81]two major factors.The first's a decline in the extended family
[07:09.69]Fifty years ago,offspring would often be born into a family composed
[07:15.25]not just of mother,father,sisters and brothers
[07:20.29]but also grandmother,grandfather and sometimes the odd uncle or aunt.
[07:26.22]Parents would look after children and in turn
[07:31.06]one of the children would look after the parents.
[07:35.71]M:...and the extended family has given way to
[07:41.06]what is known as the nuclear family. W:That's right.
[07:44.72]The smaller family means it is no longer practicable in
[07:49.68]most cases for younger families to look after their elderly parents,
[07:55.35]frequently due to the pressures of work.
[07:59.50]Often,the elderly need someone to be constantly with them..
[08:04.65]and in the modern family,with both partners out away at work,
[08:10.00]the elderly would be left at home alone for most of the day.
[08:15.65]M:Is that the only reason
[08:19.02]why families today are unwilling⁴ to look after their elderly parents?
[08:24.48]W:Well,no,and that brings me on to the second major factor.
[08:29.75]50 years ago,it was expected that one of the children
[08:34.61]would look after the elderly parents...it was the tradition.
[08:39.86]M:But now the young are no longer expected to look after their parents
[08:45.43]W:Right.As we dropped the tradition and it
[08:49.87]became less and less of a responsibility on the young to look after their parents
[08:56.11]so...the elderly have begun to feel guilty..
[09:00.84]that it really would be an imposition on their children if
[09:05.70]they were to move in with them.
[09:08.96]A number of elderly people I have talked to
[09:13.51]told me they were invited by their children to move in with them,
[09:18.97]but selected instead to go into an old people's home.
[09:24.24]M:And now with old people's homes being so much more
[09:29.21]comfortable than they used to be,
[09:32.87]there isn't the necessity...W:Right...
[09:37.02]so long,of course,that they have the money to go into a home.