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Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
听录音，然后回答以下问题。
What was exceptional about the two men's stay on the desert island?
Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise where the sun always shines. Life there is simple and good. Ripe fruit falls from the trees and you never have to work. The other side of the picture is quite the opposite. Life on a desert island is wretched. You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, waiting for a boat which never comes. Perhaps there is an element of truth in both these pictures, but few of us have had the opportunity to find out.
Two men who recently spent five days on a coral island wished they had stayed there longer. They were taking a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired. During the journey, their boat began to sink. They quickly loaded asmall rubber dinghy with food, matches, and cans of beer and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island. There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not prove to be a problem. The men collected rainwater in the rubber dinghy. As they had brought a spear gun with them, they had plenty to eat. Theycaught lobster and fish every day, and, as one of them put it ‘ate like kings’. When a passing tanker rescued them five days later, both men were genuinely sorry that they had to leave. New words and expressions生词和知语
desert island（title）/'dez+t-ail+nd/荒岛
Miami（1. 10）/mai'$mi/n．迈阿密（美国最南的城市）
unrealistic（1. 1）/?)nri+'litik/adj．不真实的
paradise（1. 2）/'p$r+daiz/n．天堂，乐土
dinghy（1. 11）/'diRgi/n．救生筏，小船
wretched（1. 6）/'retMid/adj．可怜的，艰苦的
Caribbean（1. 12）/k$ri'bi:+n/n．加勒比海
starve（1. 6）/sta:v/v．挨饿
spear gun（1. 14）/'spi+-g)n/捕鱼枪
element（1. 7）/'elim+nt/n．成分
lobster（1. 15）/'l&bst+/n．龙虾
opportunity（1. 8）/?&p+'tju:niti/n．机会
tanker（1. 15）/'t$Rk+/n．油轮
coral（1. 9）/'k&r+l/n．珊瑚
genuinely（1. 16）/'d{enjuinli/adv．由衷地
Virgin Islands （1. 10）/'v*:d{in'ail+ndz/维尔京群岛
Robinson Crusoe （11. 6-7）/'r&bins+n'kru:s+(/鲁滨孙·克鲁索（小说《鲁滨孙漂流记》主人公）
Notes on the text课文注释
1 imagine…to be…，作“想像……是……”，“设想……是……”讲。不定式to be引起的短语作宾语补足语。
2 quite the opposite，完全相反，截然不同。
3 starve to death，饿死。
4 …wished they had stayed there longer.
……还真希望在那里多呆些日子。wish引起的宾语从句常用虚拟语气。
5 as one of them put it，正如其中一位所说的。
参考译文
我们许多人对于荒岛生活有一种不切实际的想法。我们有时想像荒岛是阳光终日普照的天堂。在那里，生活简单又美好。成熟的水果从树上掉下来，人们根本无需劳动。另一种想法恰恰相反，认为荒岛生活很可怕，要么饿死，要么像鲁滨孙那样，天天盼船来，却总不见船影。也许，这两种想像都有可信之处。但很少有人能有机会去弄个究竟。 |
