Lesson 85 Part I

Lesson 85

PartⅠ Warming-up Exercises

Acronyms: Some International Organizations

Training Focus:

Identifying acronyms: names of organizations

An acronym is a word formed from the first or first few letters of several words. It is pronounced as a single word, unlike an abbreviation, in which each individual letter is pronounced. News broadcasts often make use of many acronyms, and listeners must be able to recognize them instantly. This practice offers the students an opportunity to identify acronyms and at the same time provides them with some relevant information.

Directions: You are going to hear eight acronyms and some information about them. Listen carefully and write down the full names of these organizations.

Key:

1．The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries

2．The South West African People's Organization

3．The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

4．The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

5．The Australia, New Zealand and the United States Treaty

6．The Association of Southeast Asian Nations

7．The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization

8．The National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Lesson 85 Part Ⅱ News

Lesson 85

Part Ⅱ  News

Ex. Ⅰ

Directions: Complete the summary for News Item 1.

Key: reducing nuclear weapons in Europe

Ex.Ⅱ

Directions: Answer the questions you hear on the tape.

1．What did Soviet and American negotiators talk about?

2．When will they reopen the talks?

3．How many times have the American and Soviet delegations met since last November?

Key: (see tapescript)

Ex.Ⅲ

Directions: Complete the summary for News Item 2.

Key: NATO and the Warsaw Alliance talks on force reductions in Europe

Ex.Ⅳ

Directions: Fill in the blanks with the information you get from the news.

Key: (see tapescript)

Tapescript:

News  (1'43")

News Item 1

Geneva

Soviet and American negotiators have temporarily ended their talks on reducing medium-range nuclear weapons in Europe. The delegations will return home to meet with officials of their governments before reopening the talks in September. The American and Soviet delegations have met 40 times since the talks began last November. But there are no reports of progress in the talks.

News Item 2

Vienna

The NATO Alliance has offered new proposals to the Warsaw Alliance at their talks on joint and balanced force reductions in Europe. NATO proposed that both sides reduce their ground and air forces to 900,000 men. This would be done in four steps over a seven-year period. A Soviet spokesman said the Warsaw Alliance will study the proposals. But he said the NATO plan fails to deal with all issues. Both NATO and the Warsaw Alliance have agreed to reduce their forces in Europe. But the two sides can not agree on the number of forces now in Europe and how to make sure any agreement to reduce them will be honored.

Lesson 85 Part Ⅲ Science Report ---- Heredity

Lesson 85

Part Ⅲ  Science Report

---- Heredity

Ex.

Directions: Complete the report with the information you get from the tape.

Key: Subjects: Pea plants

Procedure:1．Mate a red flower plant with a white flower plant.

2．Mate two of the offspring plants.

Findings: Pea plants carry factors, and the parents pass these factors onto their offspring.

Related Discoveries:

1．unique combination of characteristics.

2．unique combination of genes.

Tapescript:

Science Report (3'56")

---- Heredity

You are unique. There are four billion people in the world but no other person is exactly like you. Some people have brown eyes, others have blue eyes, black eyes, green eyes, or grey eyes. Some have dark hair, others have light hair. Some are tall, others are short. Some are fat, others are thin. Besides people, there are millions of other living things. Some are so small that we can't see them. Every living thing is different from every other. Every living thing is a unique combination of characteristics.

Why is each living thing unique? Where do its characteristics come from? Do people receive characteristics from their mothers and fathers? Which characteristics do they receive? How? These are some of the questions that biologists try to answer.

The work of one man, 100 years ago, was especially important. His name was Gregor Mendel. Mendel studied plants, especially pea plants. In some ways, they were all the same. For example, they all had flowers. But some had red flowers, and some had white flowers. Some plants were tall, and some were short. Mendel was especially interested in the differences. He wondered why each plant was of certain color, and shape and size. He experimented with thousands of pea plants, with a careful record for his experiments. And he discovered some interesting things. He mated different pea plants. First, he mated a red flower plant with a white flower plant. All of the offspring plants had red flowers. Mendel asked,“What happened to the white?”Then he mated two of the offspring plants. Every time he did this, they produced three red plants and one white plant. There was the white again. So Mendel knew that even red plants somehow passed on whiteness. Mendel decided that pea plants carried factors, and the parents passed these factors onto their offspring. Today we call these factors genes. Genes are tiny pieces of matter. They carry information from parents to offspring. Long after Mendel's work, biologists asked, “Can we apply our information about genes to people?”They discovered that in a person genes tell whether he will have brown eyes or blue eyes, whether he will have dark hair or light hair, whether he will be tall or short, whether he will be thin or fat. Now we know that every person is unique. One reason is that every person is a unique combination of genes.