VOA慢速英语文本：《今日美国》第32课.doc

1、高考资源网（） 您身边的高考专家英语翻议讲解：1.stretch v.伸展,张开,曲解例句：They dont want to stretch the meeting out. 他们不想把会议延长。2.waterway n.航路,水路,运河例句：Canals and rivers form the inland waterways of a country. 运河和河流构成一个国家的内陆航道。3.throughout ad.在所有各处,彻头彻尾,自始至终例句：Fog will persist throughout the night. 雾将整夜不散。4.strengthen v.加强,变坚固例

2、句：His opposition served only to strengthen our resolve. 他一反对反而增强了我们的决心。5.suburb n.市郊,郊区,边缘例句：The located in a suburb close to London. 他们在靠近伦敦的郊区定居。1.To deal with the changes, lawmakers had to pass new traffic laws and rebuild roads.deal with处理,涉及,对付,讨论,与打交道例句：She tried to push me away, but I was str

3、ong enough to deal with it. 她想把我推开，但是我身体很壮，经受住了她这一推。2.They came from the middle of the country. They moved West in search of work and a better life.in search of寻找例句：They set off in search of the lost child. 他们出发寻找失踪的孩子。3.Yet, every day, Americans depend on their transportation system to keep them, a

4、nd the largest economy in the world, on the move.depend on依赖,依靠;取决于,随而定例句：They depend on a particular historical situation. 它们取决于特定的历史境况。英语听力原文：VOICE ONE:Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA, in VOA Special English. Im Shirley Griffith.VOICE TWO:And Im Faith Lapidus. This week, travel back in time to explore

5、the history of transportation in the United States.(MUSIC)In eighteen-hundred, Americans elected Thomas Jefferson as their third president. Jefferson had a wish. He wanted to discover a waterway that crossed from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. He wanted to build a system of trade that connected

6、people throughout the country. At that time the United States did not stretch all the way across the continent.A drawing of Lewis and ClarkJefferson proposed that a group of explorers travel across North America in search of such a waterway. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the exploration wes

7、t from eighteen-oh-three to eighteen-oh-six. They discovered that the Rocky Mountains divided the land. They also found no coast-to-coast waterway.So Jefferson decided that a different transportation system would best connect American communities. This system involved roads, rivers and railroads. It

8、 also included the digging of waterways.By the middle of the eighteen-hundreds, dirt roads had been built in parts of the nation. The use of river steamboats increased. Boats also traveled along man-made canals which strengthened local economies.The American railroad system began. Many people did no

9、t believe train technology would work. In time, railroads became the most popular form of land transportation in the United States.Watsonville, California, freight yards, 1890sIn nineteenth-century American culture, railroads were more than just a way to travel. Trains also found their way into the

10、works of writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman.In eighteen-seventy-six, the United States celebrated its one-hundredth birthday. By now, there were new ways to move people and goods between farms, towns and cities. The flow of business changed. Lives improved.Within

11、those first one-hundred years, transportation links had helped form a new national economy.(MUSIC: Ive Been Working on the Railroad)Workers finished the first coast-to-coast railroad in eighteen-sixty-nine. Towns and cities could develop farther away from major waterways and the coasts. But, to deve

12、lop economically, many small communities had to build links to the railroads.Railroads helped many industries, including agriculture. Farmers had a new way to send wheat and grain to ports. From there, ships could carry the goods around the world.Trains had special container cars with ice to keep me

13、at, milk and other goods cold for long distances on their way to market.People could now get fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the year. Locally grown crops could be sold nationally. Farmers often hired immigrant workers from Asia and Mexico to plant, harvest and pack these foods.Passengers wai

14、t to board streetcars in Washington, D.C. in 1915By the early nineteen-hundreds, American cities had grown. So, too, had public transportation. The electric streetcar became a common form of transportation. These trolleys ran on metal tracks built into streets.Soon, however, people began to drive th

15、eir own cars. Nelson Jackson and his friend, Sewall Crocker, were honored as the first to cross the United States in an automobile. Their trip in nineteen-oh-three lasted sixty-three days. And it was difficult. Mainly that was because few good roads for driving existed.But the two men, and their dog

16、 Bud, also had trouble with their car and with the weather. Yet, they proved that long-distance travel across the United States was possible. The trip also helped fuel interest in the American automobile industry.By nineteen-thirty, more than half the families in America owned an automobile. For man

17、y, a car became a need, not simply an expensive toy. To deal with the changes, lawmakers had to pass new traffic laws and rebuild roads.Cars also needed businesses to service them. Gas stations, tire stores and repair centers began to appear.Many people took to the road for personal travel or to fin

18、d work. The open highway came to represent independence and freedom. During the nineteen-twenties and thirties, the most traveled road in the United States was Route Sixty-Six. It stretched from Chicago, Illinois, to the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica, California. It was considered the peoples highwa

19、y.The writer John Steinbeck called Route Sixty-Six the Mother Road in his book The Grapes of Wrath. Hundreds of thousands of people traveled this Mother Road during the Great Depression of the nineteen-thirties. They came from the middle of the country. They moved West in search of work and a better

20、 life.In nineteen-forty-six, Nat King Cole came out with this song, called Route Sixty-Six.(MUSIC: Route 66)World War Two ended in nineteen-forty-five. Soldiers came home and started families. Businesses started to move out to the edges of cities where suburbs were developing. Most families in these

21、 growing communities had cars, bicycles or motorcycles to get around. Buses also became popular.The movement of businesses and people away from city centers led to the economic weakening of many downtown areas. City leaders reacted with transportation projects designed to support downtown developmen

22、t.Riders wait for a train at the Metro Center station in Washington, D.C.Underground train systems also became popular in the nineteen-fifties. Some people had enough money to ride on the newest form of transportation: the airplane.But for most automobile drivers, long-distance travel remained somew

23、hat difficult. There was no state-to-state highway system. In nineteen-fifty-six Congress passed a law called the Federal-Aid Highway Act. Engineers designed a sixty-five-thousand kilometer system of roads. They designed highways to reach every city with a population over one-hundred-thousand.Traffi

24、c moves through the interstate highway system in Atlanta, GeorgiaThe major work on the Interstate Highway System was completed around nineteen-ninety. It cost more than one-hundred-thousand-million dollars. It has done more than simply make a trip to see family in another state easier. It has also l

25、ed to the rise of the container trucking industry.(MUSIC: Truckin)The American transportation system started with horses and boats. It now includes everything from container trucks to airplanes to motorcycles. Yet, in some ways, the system has been a victim of its own success.Many places struggle wi

26、th traffic problems as more and more cars fill the roads. And a lot of people do not just drive cars anymore. They drive big sport utility vehicles and minivans and personal trucks.For others, hybrid cars are the answer. Hybrids use both gas and electricity. They save fuel and reduce pollution. But

27、pollution is not the only environmental concern with transportation. Ease of travel means development can spread farther and farther. And that means the loss of natural areas.Yet, every day, Americans depend on their transportation system to keep them, and the largest economy in the world, on the mo

28、ve.The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. has a transportation exhibition that explores the connection to the economic, social and cultural development of the United States. And you can experience it all on the Internet at americanhistory-dot-s-i-dot-e-d-u. Again, the address is

29、 americanhistory-dot-s-i-dot-e-d-u. (americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/exhibition)Our program was written by Jill Moss and produced by Caty Weaver. Im Faith Lapidus.And Im Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for the VOA Special English program THIS IS AMERICA.版权所有：高考资源网()版权所有：高考资源网()高考资源网版权所有 侵权必究