单词部分：
explosive
a. 爆炸的；极易引起争论的；n. 炸药
shepherd
n. 牧羊人；vt. 带领
competence
n. 能力，胜任
investigate
v. 调查
variable
a. 易变的；可变的；n. 可变因素
enthusiastic
a. 满腔热情的，极感兴趣的
activate
vt. 使活动起来，使开始起作用
reassure
vt. 使放心
dubious
a. 怀疑的，犹豫不决的；有问题的，靠不住的
precede
vt. 在…之前，先于
mourn
v. 哀悼；（对…）感到痛心（或遗憾）
glitter
vi. 闪耀；n. 闪光；耀眼，辉煌
drawback
n. 缺点，欠缺，不利条件
illuminate
vt. 照明，照亮；阐明，启发
adhere
vi.（to）黏附，附着；遵守，坚持；支持
indicative
a.（of）标示的，指示的；陈述的；n. 陈述语气
alternate
a. 交替的；间隔的 ；v.（使）轮流
bewilder
vt. 使迷惑，使难住
erroneous
a. 错误的，不正确的
wretched
a. 极不愉快的，可怜的；令人苦恼的；拙劣的
warrant
n. 授权令；（正当）理由；vt. 证明…是正当的
impart
vt. 告知，透露；赋予，给予
porch
n. 门廊
tumble
vi. 跌倒；翻滚；（价格等）暴跌；
uphold
vt. 支持，维护
forthcoming
a. 即将到来的；
propel
vt. 推动；
commonplace
a. 普通的；n. 寻常的事物
descent
n. 下降，下倾；斜坡；
听力部分：
【听力原文】
Conversation 1（0:00-3:07）
M: What’s all that? Are you going to make a salad【/ˈsæləd/沙拉】?
W: No, I’m going to make a gazpacho.
M: What’s that?
W: Gazpacho is a cold soup from Spain【/speɪn西班牙】. It’s mostly vegetables. I guess you can call it a liquid salad.
M: Cold soup? Sounds weird.（ /wɪəd奇怪的）
W: It’s delicious. Trust me! I tried it for the first time during my summer vacation in Spain. You see, in the south of Spain, it gets very hot and summer, up to 42 degrees Celsius【/ˈselsiəs/摄氏度】, so a cold gazpacho is very refreshing. The main ingredients【/ɪnˈɡriːdiənts材料】 are tomato【/təˈmɑːtəʊ/】, cucumber【/ˈkjuːkʌmbə(r)/黄瓜】, bell peppers【/ˈpepəz胡椒】, olive【橄榄】oil and stale【/steɪl/不新鲜的】bread.
M: Stale bread? Surely you mean bread for dipping【蘸】 into the soup.
W: No. bread is crushed and blended in【弄碎并混合】, like everything else. It adds texture and thickness【厚度】to the soup.
M: um…and is it healthy?
W: Sure. As I said earlier, it’s mostly vegetables. You can also add different things if you like such as half-boiled【煮沸的】eggs or cured ham【熏制的火腿】.
M: Cured ham? What’s that?
W: That’s another Spanish delicacy【美味】. Have you never heard of it? It’s quite famous.
M: No. Is it good too?
W: Oh, yeah, definitely【肯定的】. It’s amazing. It’s a little dry and salty【/ˈsɔːlti咸的】. And it is very expensive because it comes from a special type of pig that only eats a special type of food. The ham is covered in【覆盖】salt to dry and preserve it, and left hang for up to two years. It has a very distinct flavor.【它有一种非常独特的味道】
M: um, sounds interesting. Where can I find some?
W: It used to be difficult to get Spanish produce here, but it's now a lot more common. Most large supermarket chains have cured ham in little packets. But in Spain, you can buy a whole leg.
M: A whole pig leg? Why would anybody want so much ham?
W: In Spain, many people buy a whole leg for special group events such as Christmas【/ˈkrɪsməs圣诞节】. They cut it themselves into very thin slices with a long flat【平的】knife【/naɪf】.
Q1 What do we learn about gazpacho?
Q2 For what purpose is stale bread mixed into gazpacho?
Q3 Why does the woman think gazpacho is healthy?
Q4 what does the women say about cured ham?
Conversation 2（4:14-6:24）
M: Hello, I wish to buy a bottle of wine.
W: Hi, yes. What kind of wine would you like?
M: I don’t know. Sorry, I don’t know much about wine.
W: That’s no problem at all. What’s the occasion【 /əˈkeɪʒ(ə)n/时刻，场合】and how much would you like to spend?
M: It’s for my boss. It’s his birthday. I know he likes wine but I don’t know what type. I also did not want anything too expensive. Maybe middle range. How much would you say is a middle range bottle of a wine approximately【/əˈprɒksɪmətli大约】?
W: Well, it varies greatly. Our lowest prices are around 60 dollars a bottle but those are table【桌子，表格】 wines. They are not very special and I would not suggest them as a gift. On the other hand, our most expensive bottles are over a hundred and fifty dollars. If you are looking for something priced in the middle, I would say anything between 30 dollars and 60 dollars would make a decent【像样的】gift. How does that sound?
M: um, yeah. I guess something in the vicinity【/vəˈsɪnəti/ 周围地区，附近】 of 30 or 40 would be good. Which type would you recommend?
W: I would say the safest option is always a red wine. They are generally more popular than whites【白色】and can usually be paired with food more easily. Our specialty【/ˈspeʃəlti 特色，专长】 here are Italian wines and these tend to be fruity【/ˈfru: ti 果味的】with medium acidity【 /əˈsɪdəti酸度】. This one here is a Chianti which is perhaps Italy's most famous type of red wine. Alternatively, you may wish to try and surprise your boss with something less common such as this Zinfandel. The grapes【/ɡreɪps葡萄】are originally native to Croatia, but this winery【/ˈwaɪnəri酿酒厂】is in eastern Italy. And it has more spicy【/ˈspaɪsi加有香料的、辛辣的】 and peppery flavor. So, to summarize, the Chianti is more classical and Zinfandel more exciting. Both are similarly priced, and just under 40 dollars.
M: I'll go with Chianti then, thanks.
Q5 What does the woman think of table wines?
Q6 What is the price range of wine the man will consider?
Q7 Why does the woman recommend red wines?
Q8 What do we learn about the wine the man finally bought?
Passage 1（8:05-10:05）
Many people enjoy secret codes【密码】. The harder the code, the more some people will try to figure it out. In wartime, codes are especially important. They help army【军队】send news about battles and the sizes of enemy forces. Neither side wants its codes broken by the other.
One very important code was never broken. It was used during World War II by the Americans. It was a spoken code never written down. And it was developed and used by Navajo Indians. They were called “the Navajo code talkers” the Navajos created the code in their own language. Navajo is hard to learn. Only a few people know it. So it was pretty certain that the enemy would not be able to understand the cold talkers. In addition, the talkers used code words. They called a submarine an iron fish and a small bomb thrown by hand a potato.【他们称潜艇为铁鱼，手投的小炸弹为土豆。】 If they wanted to spell something, they used code words for letters of the alphabet【/ˈælfəbet/字母表】. For instance, the letter A was ant【蚂蚁】or apple or eggs.
The code talkers worked mostly in the islands in the Pacific【/pəˈsɪfɪk太平洋】. One or two would be assigned to a group of soldiers【/ˈsəʊldʒə/士兵】. They would send messages by field telephone to the code talker in the next group. And he would relay【 /ˈriːleɪ传达】the information to his commander【指挥官】. The code talkers played an important part in several battles. They helped troops【/tru:ps军队】coordinate【/kəʊˈɔ:dɪneɪt协调、坐标】their movements and attacks【攻击】. After the war, the US government honored【光荣的】them for what they had accomplished. Theirs was the most successful wartime code ever used.
Q9 What does the speaker say many people enjoy doing?
Q10 What do we learn about Navajo code talkers?
Q11 What is the speaker mainly talking about?
Passage 2（11:00-12:51）
If you are young and thinking about your career. You want to know where you can make a living.
Well, it’s going to be a technological replacement of a lot of knowledge-intensive【知识密集型】jobs in the next twenty years. Particularly, in the two largest sectors of labor force with professional skills. One is teaching and the other healthcare. You have so many applications and software and platforms that are going to come in and provide information and service in these two fields, which means a lot of healthcare and education sectors would be radically【彻底地】changed and a lot of jobs will be lost.
Now, where will the new jobs be found? Well, the one sector of the economy can’t be easily duplicated by even smart technologies is the caring sector, the personal care sector. That is, you can’t really get a robot to do a great massage【 按摩】or physically therapy【治疗】. Or you can’t get the kind of personal attention your need with regard to【关于】therapy or any other personal services. They could be very high and personal services. 【他们可能是非常高级和个性化的服务】Therapists do charge a lot of money. I think there’s no limit to the amount of personal attention and personal care people would like if they could afford it.
But the real question in the future is how come people afford these things if they don’t have money because they can’t get a job that pays enough. That’s why I wrote this book which is about how to reorganize the economy for the future when technology brings about destructive【毁灭性的】changes to what we used to consider high income work.
Q12 What does the speaker say will happen in the next 20 years?
Q13 Where will young people have more chances to find jobs?
Q14 What does the speaker say about therapists?
Q15 What is the speaker’s book about?
Recording 1（14:37-17:30）
American researchers have discovered the world's oldest paved【/peɪvd用石板铺】road, a 4,600-year-old highway. it linked a stone pit【坑】in the Egyptian desert【沙漠】to waterways that carried blocks to monument 【纪念碑】sites along the Nile.The eight-mile road is at least 500 years older than any previously discovered road. It is the only paved road discovered in ancient Egypt, said geologist Thomas Bown of the U.S. Geological Survey. He reported the discovery Friday, "The road probably doesn't rank with【与……并列】the pyramids as a construction feat【壮举】, but it is a major engineering achievement," said his colleague, geologist James Harrell of the University of Toledo. "Not only is the road earlier than we thought possible, we didn't even think they built roads."The researchers also made a discovery in the stone pit at the northern end of the road: the first evidence that the Egyptians used rock【岩石】saws【锯】. "This is the oldest example of saws being used for cutting stone," said Bown’s colleague, James Hoffmeier of Wheaton College in Illinois,
"That's two technologies we didn't know they had," Harrell said. "And we don't know why they were both abandoned."The road was discovered in the Faiyum Depression, about 45 miles southwest of Cairo. Short segments of the road had been observed by earlier explorers, Bown said, but they failed to realize its significance【 重要性】or follow up on their observations. Bown and his colleagues stumbled across【偶然发现】it while they were doing geological mapping【映射】in the region.The road was clearly【显然】built to provide services for the newly discovered stone pit. Bown and Harrell have found the camp【营地】that housed workers at the stone pit. The road appears today to go nowhere, ending in the middle of the desert. When it was built, its terminal【终点站】was a dock on the shore of【在……岸边】Lake Moeris, which had an elevation【高度，海拔】of about 66 feet【脚、英尺】above sea level, the same as the dock. Lake Moeris received its water from the annual floods【洪水】of the Nile. At the time of the floods, the river and lake were at the same level and connected through a gap【缝隙】in the hills【丘陵】near the modern villages【村庄】of el-Lahun and Hawara. Harrell and Bown believe that blocks were loaded onto barges【驳船】during the dry season, then floated over to the Nile during the floods to be shipped off【遣送】to the monument sites at Giza and Saqqara.
Q16: What do we learn from the lecture about the world's oldest paved road in Egypt?
Q17: What did the researchers discover in the stone pit?
Q18: For what purpose was the paved road built?
Recording 2（18:30-22：40）
The thin, extremely sharp needles【锋利的针】 didn’t hurt at all going in. Dr. Gong pierced them into my left arm around the elbow【肘部】that had been bothering me. Other needles were slipped into my left wrist【手腕】and, strangely, into my right arm, and then into both my closed eyelids【眼皮】.
There wasn’t any discomfort, just a mild warming sensation【一种轻微的温暖感】. However, I did begin to wonder what had driven me here, to the office of Dr. James Gong in New York’s Chinatown【唐人街】.Then I remembered the torturing【剧烈痛】pain in that left elbow. Several trips to a hospital and two expensive, uncomfortable medical tests had failed to produce even a diagnosis【诊断】. “Maybe you lean【倾斜、倚靠】on your left arm too much,” the doctor concluded, suggesting I see a bone doctor. During the hours spent waiting in vain【徒然】to see a bone doctor, I decided to take another track【小道】and try acupuncture【针灸】. A Chinese-American friend recommended Dr. Gong. I took the subway【地铁】to Gong’s second-floor office, marked with a hand-painted sign.
Dr. Gong speaks English, but not often. Most of my questions to him were greeted with【以……迎接】a friendly laugh, but I managed to let him know where my arm hurt. He asked me to go into a room, had me lie down on a bed, and went to work. In the next room, I learned, a woman dancer was also getting a treatment. As I lay there a while, I drifted into【不知不觉地陷入】a dream-like state and fantasized【幻想】about what she looked like.
Acupuncturists today are as likely to be found on Park Avenue as on Mott Street. In all there are an estimated【估计的】10,000 acupuncturists in the country. Nowadays, a lot of medical doctors have learned acupuncture techniques. So have a number of dentists【牙医】. Reason? Patient demand. Few, though, can adequately【充分地】explain how acupuncture works. Acupuncturists may say that the body has more than 800 acupuncture points. A life force called Qi circulates【循环】through the body. Points on the skin are energetically connected to specific organs【器官】, body structures and systems. Acupuncture points are stimulated【刺激】 to balance the circulation of Qi. The truth is, though acupuncture is at least 2,200 years old, “nobody really knows what’s happening,” says Paul Zmiewski, a Ph.D. in Chinese studies who practices acupuncture in Philadelphia.
After five treatments, there has been dramatic improvement in my arm, and the pain is a fraction【小部分】 of what it was. The mainly silent【沉默的】Dr. Gong finally even offered a diagnosis for what troubled me. “Pinched nerve【神经】,” he said.
Q19: What does the speaker find especially strange?
Q20: Why did the speaker go see Dr. Gong?
Q21: What accounts for the growing popularity of acupuncture in the United States according to the speaker?
Recording 3（22:40--）
Ronald and Louis married for 2 decades consider themselves a happy couple but in the early years of their marriage both were disturbed【使烦恼】by persistent arguments【持续的争吵】that seemed to fade away【消失】without ever being truly resolved. They uncovered clues【线索】towards what was going wrong by researching a fascinating subject: How birth order affects not only your personality but also how compatible【兼容的】you are with your mate.
Ronald and Louis are only children, and "onlys" grow up accustomed【习惯】to be the apple of parents’ eyes. Match two “onlys”, and you have partners who subconsciously【潜意识地】expect each other to continue fulfilling this expectation, while neither has much experience in the giving end.
Here is a list of common birth order characteristics, and some thoughts on the best and worst, marriage would match for each.
The oldest tends to be self-assured【自信】, responsible, a high-achiever and relatively serious and reserved【保守、寡言少语的】. He may be slow to make friends, perhaps contained with only one companion. The best matches are with a youngest, an only or a mate raised in a large family. The worst match is with another oldest, since the two will be too sovereign【君主】to share a household comfortably.
The youngest child of the family thrives【茁壮成长、繁荣】on attention, and tends to be out-going【外向】, adventurous, optimistic, creative and less ambitious than others in the family. He may lack self-discipline【自律】, and have difficulty making decisions on his own. A youngest brother of brothers, often unpredictable and romantic, will match best with an oldest sister of brothers. The youngest sister of brothers is best matched with an oldest brother of sisters who will happily indulge【纵容】these traits.
The middle child is influenced by many variables; However, "middles" are less likely to take initiative【主动】, and more anxious and self-critical【自我批评】than others. "Middles" often successfully marry other "middles", since both are strong untacked, not so strong on aggressiveness【攻击性】, and tend to crave affection【渴望爱情】.
The only child is often most comfortable when alone. But since an “only” tends to be a well-adjusted【适应力强】individual, she’ll eventually learn to relate to any chosen spouse. The male only child expects his wife to make life easier without getting much in return. He is sometimes best matched with a younger sister of brothers. The female only child who tends to be slightly more flexible is well matched with an older man who will indulge her tendency to test his love. Her worst match? Another only. Of course.