Listen and Respond

Task One Focusing on the Main Ideas

Choose the best answer to complete each of the following

statements according to the information contained in the listening passage.

1) One of the reasons for the annual increase in HIV infections is that ________.

A) people show little concern about HIV

B) no effective cure for AIDS has been found yet

C) people are unaware of the danger of HIV D) there is no way to prevent HIV from spreading

2) The first reason given for AIDS education is ________.

A) to prevent new infections from taking place

B) to help people know where HIV infections may happen C) to tell people how to protect themselves from HIV and AIDS

D) to tell people about the two processes of prevention from HIV infections

3) The second reason for AIDS education is ________. A) to curb the HIV infection

B) to ask hospitals to offer more help

C) to improve the quality of life for HIV-positive people D) to give financial aid to AIDS patients

4) The third reason for AIDS education is ________.

A) to reduce the fear of HIV and AIDS B) to bring down the death rate of AIDS C) to prevent the spread of HIV

D) to protect HIV-positive people or AIDS patients

5) The purpose of the passage is ________.

A) to explain why we should overcome the fear of AIDS B) to criticize schools for neglecting AIDS education

C) to prove that the danger of AIDS has been overstated (夸大)

D) to give the reasons for AIDS education

Task Two Zooming In on the Details

Listen to the passage again and fill in each of the blanks according to what you have heard.

1) A survey in the UK found recently that a third of teenagers thought there was a ―cure‖ for AIDS . So education is important in preventing the spread of HIV.

2) There are TWO processes to prevent new HIV infections: one is to give people information about HIV and the other is to teach people how to put this information to use and act on it practically.

3) HIV-positive people need to get medical services and drug supplies . And they also need to find appropriate emotional and practical support and help.

4) Many people fear those who are HIV-positive. Some extreme cases can be found in India , where AIDS patients were burned to death .

Read and Explore

Task One Discovering the Main Ideas

1 Answer the following questions with the information contained in Text A.

1) Why does the author describe Charles Winget and his wife in the first paragraph?

Because she intends to show that people’s bodies operate at different speeds.

2) How would behavioral scientists explain the differences between Charles Winget and his wife?

Behavioral scientists would say that such differences were caused by personal eccentricities or early conditioning.

3) What are ―circadian rhythms‖ according to Franz Halberg?

According to Franz Halberg, circadian rhythms are the regular daily patterns of our body. That is, our systems work on an approximately 25-hour cycle. Sometimes our body speeds up, and sometimes it slows down. It achieves peak efficiency for only a limited time each day.

4) How does the study of chronobiology benefit people in general?

Chronobiology tells people how to coordinate their activities with their biological capacities so that they can achieve their best with the least effort.

5) What approach has been developed to help a person recognize his body’s patterns?

Winget and his associates have developed a simple approach. It is to record 6 readings of a person’s temperature all throughout the day and put the readings on graph paper. The rising or falling patterns of the temperature can be recognized as his body’s patterns.

6) How should we arrange our mental and physical work according to the author?

Physical work can be best done when our rhythms are at their peak. In most people, this peak lasts about four hours. For mental activities, the timetable is more complicated. Precision tasks such as mathematical work are best tackled when your temperature is on the rise. For most people, this is at 8 or 9 a.m. By contrast, reading and reflection are better done between 2 and 4 p.m., which is the time when body temperature usually begins to fall.

7) What tips does chronobiology offer for effective dieting?

Eating breakfast rather than dinner helps to lose weight, because calories burn faster in the morning than in the evening.

8) What tips for sleep problems are offered in the text?

Three tips are offered. The first is that we should go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning, even on weekends. The second is that the best way to recover from a bad night’s sleep is simply to resume your normal cycle. And the third tip is that we should beware of sleeping pills, as most sleeping pills won’t work for periods longer than two weeks and there is real danger of drug accumulation in the blood.

2 Text A can be divided into four parts with the paragraph number(s) of each part provided as follows. Write down the main idea of each part.

Part Paragraph(s) Main Idea

One 1–4 Our bodies operate with the complexity of clocks. Franz Halberg, a physician-biologist, discovered that there is a 25-hour cycle in the body with the body systems running with regular patterns. Halberg called these regular patterns ―circadian rhythms.‖

Two 5–6 Circadian principles have already been used to schedule astronauts’ work and it is expected that the work in chronobiology will be applied to increasing our efficiency in daily activities.

Three 7–17 Taking the given approach to figure out our body’s patterns, we can then take advantage of chronobiology techniques to improve our health