English Recordings

45.
There are many everyday misunderstandings which are classified as “folk” understandings. And not just plain folk hold these misconceptions. Aristotle developed an entire theory of physics that physicists today find odd and amusing. For example, Aristotle thought that moving objects kept moving only if something kept pushing them. Today’s physicists say, “This is nonsense. A moving object continues to move unless some force is used to stop it.” Yet anyone who has ever pushed a heavy box along a street knows that Aristotle was right: If you don’t keep on pushing, the movement stops. Aristotle’s theory may be bad physics, but it describes reasonably well what we can see in the real world.

“Folk” understandings, such as Aristotle’s explanation about moving objects, often sound sensible to many people, even though they are incorrect

46-48.
PersonA
Since people generally like what they are good at, I propose that our children focus on areas in which they excel. To this end, we should test our children’s aptitudes in various subject areas during their last year of elementary school. For example, if a child scores well in science, he or she would then attend middle and high schools which specialize in science. Such a system would prepare students for employment after high school as well as further specialized study at university. There is plenty of time in life for people to follow other interests. School should be a time for students to develop their strengths because today’s world requires specialists, not generalists.

PersonB
I think it is rather unfair to decide our children’s career paths based on the results of an aptitude test taken when they are 11 or 12 years old. Areas which children are considered good at in sixth grade may not be the same ones in which they excel by the end of their senior year. Secondary school should be a time for expanding horizons―not limiting them. The only thing students should be required to do is to study a broad range of subjects throughout middle and high school. By the end of high school they would have a much better idea of what they would like to study at university. The time for specialized study is in university and graduate school, not earlier.

49-50.
Tennis is in some trouble. People seem to be losing interest in the game. One major reason for this is that the men’s professional game has lost some of its appeal. The pro game has become a contest of strength, where powerful hitters with their high-tech rackets dominate. At Wimbledon, for example, Britain’s Greg Rusedski hit the ball at 138 mph, the fastest recorded serve for the tournament. As a result of this speed, very few points last more than three shots―serve, return and winning point.
In short, the game has little action. Top male players play for an average of only four minutes per hour on grass, according to recent studies. The hope is that the introduction of the new, bigger ball will cause first-class games to be dominated again by play involving skill and artistry remindful of players like Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe.
Not everyone is in favor of using the big ball, however. Some players, such as hard hitting, six-time Wimbledon champ Pete Sampras, call the change “simply ridiculous.” Also, aside from modifying the current game, there is some concern that players may suffer arm and ligament injuries as they swing harder trying to draw more speed out of the ball.

42.
The old Sumerian cuneiform could not be used to write normal prose but was a mere telegraphic shorthand, whose vocabulary was restricted to names, numerals and units of measure. A related limitation was that few people ever learned to write this early script. Knowledge of writing was confined to professionals who worked for the king or temple. On the contrary, Greek alphabetic writing was a vehicle of poetry and humor, to be read in private homes. The first preserved example of Greek alphabetic writing, scratched onto an Athenian wine jar of about 740 B.C., is a line of poetry announcing a dancing contest: “Whoever of all dancers performs most gracefully will win this vase as a prize.”

43.
Environmental psychologists have long known about the harmful effects of unpredictable, high-volume noise. In laboratory experiments, people exposed to 110-decibel bursts of noise experienced a decrease in their ability to solve problems. However, when subjects either could predict when the bursts of noise would occur or had the ability to terminate the noise with a “panic button,” the negative effects disappeared. We are not always fortunate enough to enjoy a work environment free of noise pollution. But when we feel we are in charge of our noisy environments, we may no longer suffer from anxiety and poor performance.

44.
An Eskimo once told European visitors that the only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and can be reached only through suffering. The great loneliness―like the loneliness a caterpillar endures when she wraps herself in a silky cocoon and begins the long transformation to butterfly. It seems that we too must go through such a time, when life as we have known it is over and yet we don’t know who we are supposed to become. All we know is that something bigger is calling us to change. And though we must make the journey alone, and even if suffering is our only companion, soon enough we will become a butterfly, soon enough we will taste the joy of being alive.

39.
The breadfruit is a round or oval fruit that grows on the tropical islands in the Pacific Ocean. It grows on a tree that reaches a height of about 12 meters and bears shiny dark green leaves, which are over 31 centimeters long. The fruit is first green in color. Then it turns brown, and if allowed to ripen fully, becomes yellow. Usually, breadfruit is gathered before it ripens and is cooked on hot stones. The pulp of breadfruit looks and feels much like new bread. When mixed with coconut milk, it makes a delicious and nourishing pudding.

40.
Researchers at Solar Impulse in Lausanne, Switzerland, are developing a solar-powered, single-pilot aircraft that they hope will fly around the globe in 2010. In order to generate enough electricity from solar electric panels on the tops of its wings, the craft will need a wingspan of 80 meters; at the same time, however, its weight cannot exceed 2,000 kilograms. Meeting these conditions requires pushing the limits of materials and design, and making highly efficient electrical components, batteries and power management systems. The new craft’s basic design emerged from computer models built with help from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. A test model is scheduled to be completed in 2006, followed by manufacture in 2007 and the first test flight in 2008.

41.
The most satisfying and expressive drawing is done with the active engagement of the entire body. Your hand is connected to your whole arm, the arm to the torso, supported by your feet on the floor. To awaken the active engagement of your whole body in drawing, try the following: Begin by drawing small circles in space with each of your fingers. Then move your hands in circles around the wrist. Next, make bigger circles with your forearms. And finally, make giant swinging arm circles. Now you see how your entire body can be used in the activity of drawing.

36.
Most helpful to the calm and peaceful atmosphere that the two-year-old child needs but cannot produce for himself/herself is the presence of comforting music, in almost any form. Mother’s singing can help. Chanting a request, such as “Time to come to breakfast,” may be more effective than simply saying the request. Records, especially nursery rhymes, are just the thing for those periods at the end of the morning or afternoon when children are often easily irritated. Some children, especially boys, like to have their own music players and may play these for very long periods of time.

37.
Everyone has instincts, and listening to your inner voice is always a good idea. But when you’re making a decision, following your instincts is necessary but not sufficient. Learning how to use your instincts as a guide in decision making requires effort. After all, no one’s instincts are always correct; so how do you know when to follow them and when to ignore them? Following your instincts could lead you to make impulsive decisions that you may regret later. The key is to learn how to use your instincts to support, not dictate, your decisions. Use your experience to analyze the situation. Your past experience gives you the basis for judging whether your instincts can be trusted.

38.
When you clean out your storage room, don’t throw out any “junk” until you determine its potential as a collectible. In fact, what often appears to be a piece of worthless old junk may very well be quite valuable. For instance, people often sell old record albums, bottles and books for pennies only to see them resold for tens or hundreds of dollars as parts of larger collections. Rarer cases involve people selling paintings that were actually painted by famous painters. Therefore, before you have a garage sale, call an antique dealer to help you separate the valuable from the worthless junk.

33.
The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps lit―hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On the sideboard behind her, two tall glasses, soda water, champagne. Now and again she would glance up at the clock, but without anxiety, merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come. There was a slow smiling air about her. When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the car approach and stop outside. The car door closed, and her heart beat faster as the footsteps passed the window.

34.
Disharmony enters our relationships when we try to impose our values on others by wanting them to live by what we feel is “right,” “fair,” “good,” “bad,” and so on. If they do not accept our values, we become annoyed and angry. However, we must realize that no one is obligated to change just to meet our expectations of how we feel they should act. People may disturb or anger us, but the fact that not everyone objects to their behavior indicates that the problem is probably ours. We need to see things as they are, not as we would like them to be.

35.
Villagers heard a deer barking in the distance, but they were not the only ones to hear it. A leopard, stretched full-length on a large tree branch, heard it, too. The leopard raised its head and then got up slowly. Deer were its natural prey, but there weren’t many left in this area. So the leopard began to attack dogs and cattle in the village. After several attacks, the villagers no longer allowed their cattle to wander far, and at night they were securely locked into their barns. Favorite dogs, used to walking around the village at night, were now called indoors before sunset.

30.
If you connect a primitive digital camera to your PC and aim it at a happy face, your computer might perceive the image as it appears on the right-hand side of the given drawing. The digitized image of the face is rough because the computer thinks in terms of ones and zeros and makes all-or-nothing approximations. This will, in some cases, enhance subtle information about light versus dark differences, hence the lack of detail in the eyes and mouth, and in other cases exaggerate such differences, as shown in the edges of what should be a smooth, gradually curving face.

31.
The shapes of Korean kites are based on scientific principles which enable them to make good use of the wind. One particular Korean kite is the rectangular “shield kite,” which has a unique hole at its center. This hole helps the kite fly fast regardless of the wind speed by concentrating the wind on days when the wind is light, and letting it pass through when the wind is blowing hard. The center hole also allows the kite to respond quickly to the flyer’s commands. For these reasons, Korean kites such as the shield kite are good at “kite fighting.”

32.
One summer night a man stood on a low hill overlooking a wide expanse of forest and field. By the full moon hanging low in the west he knew that it was near the hour of dawn. A light mist lay along the earth, partly veiling the lower features of the landscape, but above it the taller trees showed in well-defined masses against a clear sky. Two or three farmhouses were visible through the mist, but in none of them, naturally, was a light. Nowhere, indeed, was any sign or suggestion of life except the barking of a distant dog, which served to accentuate the solitary scene.

27.
Learning to ski is one of the most humbling experiences an adult can undergo (that is one reason to start young). After all, an adult has been walking for a long time; he knows where his feet are; he knows how to put one foot in front of the other in order to get somewhere. But as soon as he puts skis on his feet, it looks as though he had to learn to walk all over again. He slips and slips, falls down, has trouble getting up, gets his skis crossed, tumbles again, and generally looks and feels like a fool.

28.
The most common mistake made by amateur photographers is that they are not physically close enough to their subjects. This means that the center of interest― the subject―is just a spot, too small to have any impact. Even when it is big enough to be recognized, it usually carries little meaning. Viewers may think that a subject is small because it is supposed to be. When you look at other photographers’ work, pay attention to how they fill the frame. Everything in it should serve the message of the image. If you see things through your camera lens that distract from what you are trying to say, get rid of them. So when you photograph people, remember to get closer to them to exclude unwanted objects.

29.
Darwin was the first to propose that long necks evolved in giraffes because they enabled the animals to eat the treetop leaves.
This seemingly reasonable explanation has held up for over a century, but it is probably wrong, says Robert Simmons, a behavioral ecologist. Simmons was studying eagles in Africa when he came across a pair of male giraffes locked in combat.
He saw the male giraffes battling for mates by swinging their powerful necks, which were over six feet long and weighed more than 200 pounds. He observed that in contests of this type, males with the longest, thickest necks usually won.
So Simmons became convinced that this competition for mates, not stretching for treetop food, was what drove the evolution of the neck.

24.
The above chart shows the electricity consumption in five countries in 1999 and 2003. Of the five countries, the United States consumed the greatest amount of electricity in both 1999 and 2003. China and Japan consumed the same amount of electricity in 1999, but four years later China’s consumption increased by more than 500 billion kilowatt-hours while Japan's remained unchanged. The increase in China’s electricity consumption was the second largest among the five countries. India’s consumption increased to slightly over 500 billion kilowatt-hours in 2003, but Brazil's remained below 500 billion kilowatt-hours.

25.
The United States remains an underdeveloped country when it comes to language skills. Immigrants are importing their mother tongues at record rates. Yet the vast majority of Americans remain stubbornly monolingual. Ignorance of other languages and cultures handicaps the United States in dealing with the rest of the world. Today the language policies in the United States address this problem primarily with efforts to teach “foreign” languages to monolingual Americans. Meanwhile, the United States seeks to eliminate these same skills among ethnic minorities by reducing existing bilingual programs, out of misplaced fears of diversity or haste to force their assimilation. Instead of focusing on immigrants’ disabilities in English, why not encourage them to maintain their abilities in their mother tongues while they learn English?

26.
The introduction of unique products alone does not guarantee market success. Another vital factor is increasing one’s responsiveness to the markets by providing products suited for the local communities that make up the market. This means understanding that each country, community and individual has unique characteristics and needs; it requires sensitivity to regional and individual differences. In other words, one of the challenges is to avoid a one-size-fits-all strategy that places too much emphasis on the “global” aspect alone. Even categorizing countries as “developed” or “emerging” is dangerous. Upon closer analysis, “emerging” countries are not only vastly different from one another, they are also composed of numerous unique individuals and communities.

21.
I wonder how many people give up just when success is almost within reach. They endure day after day, and just when they’re about to make it, decide they can’t take any more. The difference between success and failure is not that great. Successful people have simply learned the value of staying in the game until it is won. Those who never make it are the ones who quit too soon. When things are darkest, successful people refuse to give up because they know they’re almost there. Things often seem at their worst just before they get better. The mountain is steepest at the summit, but that’s no reason to turn back.

22.
You can certainly make bad quality wine from good quality grapes, but you cannot make good quality wine from bad quality grapes. What happens in the vineyard is crucial. To start with, you need well drained, not necessarily over fertile soil in order to make the vine’s roots dig deep into the soil. After the grapes are picked, either by hand or by machine, they are taken to the winery. The vineyard needs plenty of exposure to the sun in cool climate areas. There needs to be enough rain, or in some cases, irrigation. With too little water, the grape skins become too tough and they fail to ripen.

23.
Someone who reads only newspapers and books by contemporary authors looks to me like a near-sighted person. He is completely dependent on the prejudices of his times. And what a person thinks on his own without being stimulated by the thoughts and experiences of other people is at best insignificant and monotonous. There are only a few enlightened people with a clear mind and with good taste within a century. What has been preserved of their work belongs among the most precious possessions of mankind. We owe it to a few writers of old times that the people in the Middle Ages could slowly free themselves from ignorance.

18.
One myth tells how a group of gods had a meeting to decide where to hide the “truth of the universe” from people. The first god suggested putting it under the ocean, but the others shouted him down, saying that people would build an underwater boat to take themselves there to find it. A second god suggested hiding it on a planet far from the earth, but the other gods realized that a craft might be built to reach this destination as well. Finally, a third god suggested that they hang it around the neck of every human being. The other gods agreed that people would never look at it for the truth. So they did exactly as the third god had suggested.

19.
Usually, filmmakers shoot more film than is needed. An uncut movie might last four or five hours. Working in an office or studio, these people cut the film down to about two hours. Selecting and assembling scenes, they cut out parts that don’t fit in well. Sometimes they discover parts that seem to drag. They speed up the action by shortening or cutting slow scenes. Their work may take several months. After all the scenes have finally been joined in the correct order, the film is ready for presentation.

20.
On most subway trains, the doors open automatically at each station. But when you are on the Mtro, the subway in Paris, things are different. I watched a man on the Mtro try to get off the train and fail. When the train came to his station, he got up and stood patiently in front of the door, waitingfor it to open.It never opened. The train simply started up again and went on to the next station. In the Mtro, you have to open the doors yourself by pushing a button, depressing a lever or sliding them.