英语高级视听说 下册 unit 2

Not Your Average Teen

Lots of teenage girls dream of becoming rich and famous. But it's not a fantasy for Michelle Wie. Just before her 16th birthday last fall, she became the highest-paid woman golfer in history simply by turning professional and lending her name to commercial endorsements that will pay her between $10 million and $12 million a year, most of which will go into a trust fund until she becomes an adult.

Wie has been a celebrity since she was 13, when people began predicting she would become the Tiger Woods of women’s golf. But, as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, that has never been enough for Wie. She wants to become the first woman ever to successfully compete with men in a professional sport. She has tried a couple of times on the PGA Tour without embarrassing herself.

As you will see, she has changed a lot since we first talked to her way back in 2004, when she was 14.

At the time, Wie told Kroft her ultimate goal was to play in the Masters.

"I think it'd be pretty neat walking down the Masters fairways," she said.

It was a neat dream for a 14-year-old kid. Nothing has happened in the last two years to change Wie's mind or shake her confidence.

She is stronger now, more mature and glamorous. She has already demonstrated that she can play herself into the middle of the pack against the best men on the PGA Tour and has come within a shot of winning her first two starts on the LPGA Tour this year as a part-time professional.

The day before 60 Minutes interviewed her at the Fields Open in Honolulu, she shot

a final round of 66, coming from six strokes off the lead to just miss a playoff.

"You won your first check yesterday," Kroft says.

"Uh-huh," Wie says. "It was, it was really cool. I mean, I was like looking at how much I won. I was like 'Oh my God.' "

Wie says she won around $72,000.

Asked whether she gets to keep that money, Wie said she didn't know.

"I'm trying to negotiate with my dad how much I can spend of that, and stuff like that. We're still working it out. But, you know, I'm definitely gonna go shopping today," she says, laughing.

Half of her life is spent in the adult world, competing with men and women twice her age for paychecks they may need to make expenses and dealing with the media, sponsors and marketing executives. The rest of the time she is a junior at Punahou High School in Honolulu, where she is an A student and claims to lead the life of a typical 16-year-old.

"Well, I have a math test tomorrow that I haven't studied for at all. Which I'm kind of worried for," she says, laughing.

What about boys

"Not yet," she says.

"And the boys, I'm sure, at your high school are probably a little intimidated," Kroft says.

"Well, I don't know, I mean, that's what everyone else says," she replies, laughing. "But I don't really care. I'm way too busy as it is."

She has already been on the David Letterman Show, graced countless magazines and played golf with former President Clinton, who, she claims, can be rather vague when recording his score.

Continued

To help manage all of this, her parents have surrounded her with the best people all that money can buy. Besides her caddy, Greg Johnston, and renowned golf coach David Leadbetter, her retinue includes agents, a sports psychologist, physical trainer and image consultant.

Two years ago, it was just Wie and her parents. Now she has an entourage.

"Entourage. That's funny," says Wie. "But, you know, I'm very glad for all the new members of the team. It feels nice to have, you know, people that you can trust around you."

"And making decisions for you," Kroft says.

"Yeah. I mean it's awesome," Wie says.

Most of the shots are still being called by her parents, . and Bo, with recommendations from the William Morris Agency, which was hired by the Wie family to manage the business aspects of her career and line up endorsements from sponsors who were already standing in line.

They include a ubiquitous sporting goods and apparel company, a Japanese electronics

giant and a Swiss watch manufacturer --who collectively contribute an eight-figure sum to the Michelle Wie trust fund.

William Morris president David Wirtschafter says Michelle is, and will remain, their only golf client in a talent stable mostly filled with Hollywood actors, directors and writers. He sees her as someone who can easily make the jump from sports to entertainment.

Asked if he thinks there is a difference anymore between sports and entertainment, Wirtschafter says: "We don't think so. We think that sports is a subset of entertainment. And we feel that so many people are interested in her because almost every demographic is anxious to watch her play and anxious to see what she does next, that she will be one of the few athletes who essentially transcends sports and becomes somebody that people pay attention to in popular culture."

Why are so many people interested in her

"I think that men are fascinated by the way that she plays golf," says Wirtschafter. "She plays golf in a style that is much more like men. It's a power golf style. She hits the ball a long, long way. I think women find her attractive, particularly young women, because she, again, is playing against boys. And, yet, when she's off the course, she's very much like them."

Wirtschafter acknowledges that Wie has also become very attractive and that it makes a huge difference. "Because she exudes femininity, she exudes youth and, on the other hand, just has a skill level that's off the charts. And I think that's a very, very rare combination."

"So if she was 5-2 and weighed 160 pounds, there wouldn't be this interest" Kroft asks.

"I don't think there'd be this level of interest. But if she was 5-2 and weighed 160 pounds and could play golf as she plays golf, she'd still be a great golfer," says Wirtschafter.

Much of the interest in Michelle is in Asia. She is of Korean descent, already speaks Japanese and is now taking a stab at Mandarin. When she arrived at an airport in Japan last year before playing in a tournament there, she was styled and greeted like a major movie star, although she tries to pretend otherwise.

Wie says she doesn’t feel the level of celebrity she has already achieved. Referring to her movie star-like reception in Japan, Wie says, "Oh, I just figure that they were there at the airport because they had a plane to catch."

Wie admits juggling high school life while playing on the LPGA Tour is hectic but says that's the way she likes it.

"I mean, I like being busy. When I have nothing to do, I'm just like, 'Find me something to do.' I'm just, like, walking around my house trying to find something, actually cleaning up my room," she says, laughing. "Which I never do."

Asked if her parents still rule her life, Wie says: "Well, basically, in the household.

I mean they're the head of the household. So I guess I have to listen. But I'm still stubborn. I won't give in easily, that’s the thing."

That stubbornness has helped propel her to stardom. She passed up junior events and amateur tournaments that she could win for the chance to lose and learn from the best professionals. She also ignored people like John Hawkins, a senior writer at "Golf World" and "Golf Digest," who advised her to stay away from the men’s tour

and go play with the girls.

"Michelle's an iconoclast. She is somebody who dares to separate herself from her so-called peers," says Hawkins.

Hawkins says it's a huge part of Wie's appeal.

"She is unlike anybody else," he says. "Who has the guts Can’t refer to any other part of the anatomy here Who has the guts to play against men when they're 16 I have a tremendous amount of respect for the satchel it takes to go out there and tee it up with the big boys. You gotta turn your TV on and watch that, don't you I mean, you got to."

And people watched. "People came out. It was all over the newspapers the next day. It's news. It's news when she tries," says Hawkins.

Continued

No one is happier with the prospect than the TV networks and tournament sponsors. When Michelle plays against men or women, television ratings and ticket sales go up an average of 50 percent. But Hawkins points out that Michelle hasn't won anything since she was 13, and if she is going to justify her eight-figure endorsement deals over any length of time, she needs to win some tournaments.

"I think a lot of that money is predicated on her not only competing against men, Steve, but beating the women. She is a special talent. She is a transcendent figure," says Hawkins. "She's got it all. But you still gotta have W's in your pocket. I mean, that's the deal."

Does Michelle feel the pressure to start winning tournaments

"Well, I mean, I've heard a lot of people say that, but you know, I, hopefully, a lot of my fans will recognize that I'm still a full-time student," she says. "I still have a lot of other things that I have to do. And, hopefully, they'll be patient with me because I believe that I can do it."

Last weekend at the Kraft Nabisco Tournament, she just missed another opportunity to win a major championship on the women’s tour. After making a birdie on the 16th hole, all she had to do to make the playoff was get it down in two from the edge of the 18th green. But her chip shot went 10 feet past the hole and she just missed the putt coming back.

"I think, when you're 16, you still come across situations that you've never encountered before," says Hawkins. "You still feel emotions that you've never felt. Your heart beats a little harder. You're not used to feeling the crunch of pressure.

I think she's still learning."

But if you ask Michelle what has been her most stressful experience this year, she’ll likely give you the 16-year-old answer Which was taking and barely passing her driver’s test

"I got 15 points wrong. So I made it on the number," she explains.

While she just made the cut, she says she was really nervous and didn't know what to expect.

"More than a PGA event" Kroft asks.

"Yeah, I think so. It was different, though," she replies.

Michelle says she would rate her driving skills as OK. "But I kind of panic sometimes. It's not very good. I have to get better on that."

When her parents finally allow her to have her own car, she’ll not only get exactly what she wants, some company will gladly pay her to drive it. But to her friends at Punahou High, she is just another junior.

"She lives her life just like us. We all go to the movies. We all go shopping," says Michelle's friend Raquel.

And Meghan, another friend, says even when Michelle is halfway around the world, they text message each other a lot. "I just upped my minutes by the way," she says, laughing.

Wie is not one of those prodigies who has been robbed of her childhood; in some ways she is still holding on to it --the final stages, anyway, and enjoying every minute of it. At 16, the days and weeks still last a long time for her. An endless summer competing against some of the best golfers in the world still feels a long way off. Anything beyond that is hard for her to grasp.

"I always fantasize with me being on my own, traveling by myself, you know, being independent," she says. "But then the reality sinks in that I never booked a hotel room by myself. I've never bought a plane ticket. I barely know how to do laundry.

I can't cook. I can't even, I almost cannot microwave stuff. I mean it's pathetic. So basically the reality sets in and I can't do that."

"That's why you have William Morris," Kroft remarks.

"Yeah," she replies.

"Isn't it" Kroft asks.

"No, that's a good point, that's a really good point. I haven't thought about that before. I mean, I guess I just have to learn how to do laundry," she says.

Asked whether she wants to get married and have kids, Michelle Wie said, laughing: "Yeah, most definitely. That's way down the road. I mean, I'm 16 right now. Might be illegal right now."

上外版英语高级视听说(上册)听力原文

Unit 1 Pirates of the Internet It’s no secret that online piracy has decimated the music industry as millions of people stopped buying CDs and started stealing their favorite songs by downloading them from the internet. Now the hign-tech thieves are coming after Hollywood. Illegal downloading of full-length feature films is a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s becoming easier and easier to do. The people running America’s movie studios know that if they don’t do something----and fast---they could be in the same boat as the record companies. Correspodent: “What’s really at stake for the movie industry with all this privacy?” Chernin: “Well, I think, you know, ultimately, our absolute features.” Peter Chernin runs 20th Century Fox, one of the biggest studios in Hollywood. He knows the pirates of the Internet are gaining on him. Correspont: “Do you know how many movies are being downloaded today, in one day, in the United States?” Chernin: “I think it’s probably in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.” Correspondent: “And it’s only going to grow.” Chernin: “It’s only going to grow. √Somebody can put a perfect digital copy up on the internet. A perfect digital copy, all right. And with the click of mouse, send out a million copies all over the world, in an instant.”

高级英语视听说教程第二册听力文本

Book 2 Chapter 1 The Population Today we’re going to talk about population in the United States. According to the most recent government census, the population is 281,421,906 people. Now this represents an increase of almost 33 million people since the 1990 census. A population of over 281 million makes the United States the third most populous country in the whole world. As you probably know, the People’s Republic of China is the most populous country in the world. But do you know which is the second most populous? Well, if you thought India, you were right. The fourth, fifth, and sixth most populous countries are Indonesia, Brazil, and Pakistan. Now let’s get back to the United States. Let’s look at the total U. S. population figure of 281 million in three different ways. The first way is by race and origin; the second is by geographical distribution, or by where people live; and the third way is by the age and sex of the population. First of all, let’s take a look at the population by race and origin. The latest U. S. census reports that percent of the population is white, whereas percent is black. Three percent are of Asian origin, and 1 percent is Native American. percent of the population is a mixture of two or more races, and percent report themselves as “of some other race”. Let’s make sure your figures are right: OK, white, percent; black, percent; Asian, 3 percent; Native American, 1 percent; a mixture of two or more races, percent; and of some other race, percent. Hispanics, whose origins lie in Spanish-speaking countries, comprise whites, blacks, and Native Americans, so they are already included in the above figures. It is important to note that Hispanics make up percent of the present U.S. population, however. Finally, the census tells us that 31 million people in the United States were born in another country. Of the 31 million foreign born, the largest part, percent are from Mexico. The next largest group, from the Philippines, number percent. Another way of looking at the population is by geographical distribution. Do you have any idea which states are the five most populous in the United States? Well, I’ll help you out there. The five most populous states, with population figures, are California, with almost 34 million; New York, with 21 million; Texas, with 19 million; and Florida, with 16 million; and Illinois with million people. Did you get all those figures down? Well, if not, I’ll give you a chance later to check your figures. Well, then, let’s move on. All told, over half, or some 58 percent of the population, lives in

高级英语视听说(上册)听力原文

United 2 A plan to build the world's first airport for launching commercial spacecraft in New Mexico is the latest development in the new space race, a race among private companies and billionaire entrepreneurs to carry paying passengers into space and to kick-start a new industry, astro tourism. The man who is leading the race may not be familiar to you, but to astronauts, pilots, and aeronautical engineers –basically to anyone who knows anything about aircraft design –Burt Rutan is a legend, an aeronautical engineer whose latest aircraft is the world's first private spaceship. As he told 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley when he first met him a little over a year ago, if his idea flies, someday space travel may be cheap enough and safe enough for ordinary people to go where only astronauts have gone before The White Knight is a rather unusual looking aircraft, built just for the purpose of carrying a rocket plane called SpaceShipOne, the first spacecraft built by private enterprise. White Knight and SpaceShipOne are the latest creations of Burt Rutan. They're part of his dream to develop a commercial travel business in space. "There will be a new industry. And we are just now in a beginning. I will

英语高级视听说-下册-unit-2

Not Your Average Teen Lots of teenage girls dream of becoming rich and famous. But it's not a fantasy for Michelle Wie. Just before her 16th birthday last fall, she became the highest-paid woman golfer in history simply by turning professional and lending her name to commercial endorsements that will pay her between $10 million and $12 million a year, most of which will go into a trust fund until she becomes an adult. Wie has been a celebrity since she was 13, when people began predicting she would become the Tiger Woods of women' sgolf. But, as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, that has never been enough for Wie. She wants to become the first woman ever to successfully compete with men in a professional sport. She has tried a couple of times on the PGA Tour without embarrassing herself. As you will see, she has changed a lot since we first talked to her way back in 2004, when she was 14. At the time, Wie told Kroft her ultimate goal was to play in the Masters. "I think it'd be pretty neat walking down the Masters fairways," she said. It was a neat dream for a 14-year-old kid. Nothing has happened in the last two years to change Wie's mind or shake her confidence. She is stronger now, more mature and glamorous. She has already demonstrated that she can play herself into the middle of the pack against the best men on the PGA Tour and has come within a shot of winning her first two starts on the LPGA Tour this year as a part-time professional. The day before 60 Minutes interviewed her at the Fields Open in Honolulu, she shot a final round of 66, coming from six strokes off the lead to just miss a playoff. "You won your first check yesterday," Kroft says. "Uh-huh," Wie says. "It was, it was really cool. I mean, I was like looking at how much I won. I was like 'Oh my God.' " Wie says she won around $72,000. Asked whether she gets to keep that money, Wie said she didn't know. "I'm trying to negotiate with my dad how much I can spend of that, and stuff like that. We're still working it out. But, you know, I'm definitely gonna go shopping today," she says, laughing. Half of her life is spent in the adult world, competing with men and women twice her age for paychecks they may need to make expenses and dealing with the media, sponsors and marketing executives. The rest of the time she is a junior at Punahou High School in Honolulu, where she is an A student and claims to lead the life of a typical 16-year-old.

《英语高级视听说》

《英语高级视听说》 教学大纲 课程编码：3011104 课程性质：专业教育必修课 教学时数：96学时 学分数：6学分 开课学期：第五、六、七学期 授课单位：英语系视听说教研室 授课对象：英语专业本科学生 一、课程概述 1.性质与地位 英语高级视听说课程是为英语专业本科学生在专业学习提高阶段开设的专业教育必修课程。该课程以外语教学理论为指导，广泛应用多媒体教学，融课堂教学与自主学习为一体，以真实语境下的常速语料为基本教学材料，紧扣时代脉搏，是全面提升学生听说能力、使学生的目标语听力理解能力与口语产出能力满足高层次语言应用要求的重要课程。 2.基本理念 英语高级视听说课程以素质教育、创新教育思想为理论指导，以双主模式及Anderson的“听前－听时－听后”理论为理论支撑，着力发展学生的目标语高级实时应用能力。 课程在实施过程中，一方面坚持以人为本，关注学生的情感，另一方面注重营造自主学习的气氛，创造自主学习的条件和环境，培养学生的可持续自我发展能力。 本课程摒弃接受式、填鸭式的学习方式和教学方式，坚持以学生为中心，以方法为主导，强调启发式、引导式教学，同时利用该课程材料均以多媒体形式呈现于课堂、内容时效性强等独特优势，激发学生的学习兴趣与积极性，培养和增强学生探索知识的能力和欲望。 利用校园网、互联网等信息渠道，开展多媒体课堂教学与课后自主学习，着力提高教学效率与教学质量，同时努力提升听与说在认知学习中的地位，贯彻“听为学”、“说为学”的理念，使学生认识到视听是与阅读同等重要的语言输入途径，也是同样有效的认知途径。 3.设计思路

本课程教学以解放军外国语学院生长干部学历教育本科人才培养方案（英语）为依据，参照《高等学校英语专业英语教学大纲》（以下简称《大纲》）的要求实施。教学安排在3个学期内完成，第八学期举行3次有关英语区域变体的讲座，第五、六、七学期每学期32学时，第八学期6学时，总时数为102学时。 教学实施分为课堂教学与自主学习，教学内容分为音频和视频两部分：音频教材方面主要包括《英语专业三年级听力教程》、《英语中级听力》、《英语专业四年级听力教程》，以及带前方记者报道的最新VOA、BBC、NPR新闻等；视频教材包括《高级英语视听说教程》、《英语高级视听说》、片长10分钟左右的多主题短片，BBC/CNN 视频新闻以及部分精选的记录片、影视剧片段等。授课教师在教材既定的总体框架下，可根据学生的实际水平和国际国内形势的发展情况，灵活组合、添加部分最新音、视频材料用于课堂教学，以保证教学内容时时更新，反映最新形势。 英语区域变体讲座内容涉及澳大利亚英语、新西兰英语、南亚英语、东南亚英语的特点，重点解决学生在听辨这些英语变体时所遇到的苦难。 二、课程目标 1.总体目标 系统讲授听力理解过程中各环节所需的语言知识和理解判断要素；利用新闻、对话、讲座、电影等语料训练学生对声像信息的辨读能力；通过“视”、“听”、“说”的结合，综合多种训练手段，提高学生的听力理解和口头表达能力，加深其对英语国家政治、军事、经济、社会、文化等方面的认识和了解，全面提升真实语境下的实时语言运用能力，并使之具备较强的自主学习能力。 2.分类目标 （1） 通过本课程的学习，学生应具备独立解决辨音难点的能力，掌握运用字典等工具书逆向查词、独立解决疑难问题的能力。 （2） 通过本课程的学习，学生应掌握政治、军事、经济、科技、文化等方面的听力理解词汇及口语产出词汇，并最终达到《大纲》八级水平。 （3） 通过本课程的学习，学生应充分理解“听为学”、“说为学”的理念，并积极通过这两种渠道进行目标语认知。 （4） 通过本课程的学习，学生应充分理解自主学习的重要性，充分利用教师提供的自主学习资源或自主开发新资源，养成良好的自主学习习惯，开展有效的 自主学习。 （5） 通过视频材料的广泛使用，使学生有效掌握大量非语言性对象国知识。 （6） 通过讲座，使学生了解英语区域变体的语音、语法特点，并能够准确把握视、音频材料的大意及细节内容。 三、内容标准 1.授课内容 第五、六学期，教学内容主要为《英语专业三年级听力教程》、《英语中级听力》、《英语高级视听说》（上）中的材料，辅以带有前方记者报道的VOA、BBC、NPR新

高级英语视听说第七单元文本 GM's Difficult Road Ahead

Unit 7 GM's Difficult Road Ahead Episode 1 If the old saying “what?s good for American is good for General Motor and vice versa” is still true, we are all in a lot of trouble. General Motors is limping along in the breakdown lane, in need of a lot more than a minor tune-up. With GM?s stock trading near an all time low and its bonds rated as junk, the company reported losses of more than $10 billion last year. Unless it stops hemorrhaging money, it will have to be towed into bankruptcy court—a consequence that could cascade through the American economy, threatening up to a million jobs and changing the dreams of American workers. *General Motors is not just another company.For almost a century, it was emblematic of American industrial dominance, with a car for every customer and a brand for every stratum of society. ***Back when Pontiacs were as sexy as Sinatra and Cadillac the synonym for luxury, GM made half the cars in the United States. And a job on one of its assembly lines was a ticket into the middle class. But that was before the first oil shock, and the Japanese imports. Today, General Motors is losing $24 million a day—and *** all bets are off. Cole: **And this is not a phantom crisis or a fake crisis. This is a real crisis. David Cole is chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, a non-profit consulting firm in Ann Arbor Michigan. He is widely considered one of the industry?s top analysts, and believes that Detroit is now facing what the steel industry and the big airlines have already been through: high labor costs that make it almost impossible to compete. Cole: And every one of the Big Three faces a problem right now of about $2000 to $2500 per vehicle produced cost disadvantage. ** If that plays out over time, they?re all dead. Correspondent: Change or die. Cole: It?s change o r die. Everything is driven by a profitable business. If you can?t be profitable, you can?t be in business. Episode 2: Wagoner: This is a mid-sized car, the Chevy Impala SS… It has certainly not escaped the attention of General Motors chairman Rick Wagoner, who we met at the Detroit Auto Show and may have the toughest job in America: running a corporation many analysts believe has become, too big , too bloated and too slow to compete with more nimble foreign competitors. Correspondent: How did General Motors get to the point where it is right now? Wagoner: …Cause we have a long history, almost 100 years. We have a lot of employees. We

英语高级视听说下册 unit 10

Burning Rage This story originally aired on Nov. 13, 2005. When they first emerged in the mid-1990s, the environmental extremists calling themselves the "Earth Liberation Front" announced they were "the burning rage of a dying planet." Ever since, the ELF, along with its sister group, the Animal Liberation Front, has been burning everything from SUV dealerships to research labs to housing developments. In the last decade, these so-called "Eco-terrorists" have been responsible for more than $100 million in damages. And their tactics are beginning to escalate. Some splinter groups have set off homemade bombs and threatened to kill people. As correspondent Ed Bradley first reported last November, things have gotten so bad, the FBI now considers them the country's biggest domestic terrorist threat. 错误! The biggest act of eco-terrorism in U.S. history was a fire, deliberately set on the night of August 1, 2003, that destroyed a nearly-completed $23 million apartment complex just outside San Diego. The fire was set to protest urban sprawl. "It was the biggest fire I have ever responded to as a firefighter," remembers Jeff Carle, a division chief for the San Diego Fire Department. "That fire was not stoppable. At the stage that the fire was in when we arrived, there were problems in the adjacent occupied apartment complexes. Pine trees were starting to catch fire. Items on patios were starting to light up and catch fire. And we had to direct our activity towards saving life before we could do anything about the property." Hundreds were roused from their beds and evacuated. Luckily, nobody –including firefighters – was injured. By the time the fire burned itself out the next morning, all that remained was a 12-foot-long banner that read: "If you build it, we will burn it." Also on the banner was the acronym: E-L-F. When Carle saw the banner, he says he knew he had a problem. A problem, because he knew what ELF stood for: the Earth Liberation Front, the most radical fringe of the environmental movement. It's the same group that set nine simultaneous fires across the Vail Mountain ski resort in 1998 to protest its expansion, causing $12 million in damage. And it is the same group that has left SUV dealerships across America looking like scenes from Iraq's Sunni triangle, their way of protesting the gas-guzzling habits of American car buyers. The ELF is a spin-off of another group called the ALF, or Animal Liberation Front, whose masked members have been known to videotape themselves breaking into research labs, where they destroy years of painstaking work and free captive animals. In recent years,

英语高级视听说unit-4

Unit 4 Brain Man Almost 25 years ago, 60 Minutes introduced viewers to George Finn, whose talent was immortalized in the movie "Rain Man." George has a condition known as savant syndrome, a mysterious disorder of the brain where someone has a spectacular skill, even genius, in a mind that is otherwise extremely limited. Morley Safer met another savant, Daniel Tammet, who is called "Brain Man" in Britain. But unlike most savants, he has no obvious mental disability, and most important to scientists, he can describe his own thought process. He may very well be a scientific Rosetta stone, a key to understanding the brain. ________________________________________ Back in 1983, George Finn, blessed or obsessed with calendar calculation, could give you the day if you gave him the date. "What day of the week was August 13th, 1911?" Safer quizzed Finn. "A Sunday," Finn replied. "What day of the week was May 20th, 1921?" Safer asked. "Friday," Finn answered. George Finn is a savant. In more politically incorrect times he would have been called an "idiot savant" - a mentally handicapped or autistic person whose brain somehow possesses an island of brilliance. Asked if he knew how he does it, Finn told Safer, "I don't know, but it's just that, that's fantastic I can do that." If this all seems familiar, there?s a reason: five years after the 60 Minutes broadcast, Dustin Hoffman immortalized savants like George in the movie "Rain Man." Which brings us to that other savant we mentioned: Daniel Tammet. He is an Englishman, who is a 27-year-old math and memory wizard. "I was born November 8th, 1931," Safer remarks. "Uh-huh. That's a prime number. 1931. And you were born on a Sunday. And this year, your birthday will be on a Wednesday. And you'll be 75," Tammet tells Safer. It is estimated there are only 50 true savants living in the world today, and yet none are like Daniel. He is articulate, self-sufficient, blessed with all of the spectacular ability of a savant, but with very little of the disability. Take his math skill, for example.

英语高级视听说 下册 unit 2

Not Y our A verage Teen Lots of teenage girls dream of becoming rich and famous. But it's not a fantasy for Michelle Wie. Just before her 16th birthday last fall, she became the highest-paid woman golfer in history simply by turning professional and lending her name to commercial endorsements that will pay her between $10 million and $12 million a year, most of which will go into a trust fund until she becomes an adult. Wie has been a celebrity since she was 13, when people began predicting she would become the Tiger Woods of women’s golf. But, as correspondent Steve Kroft reports, that has never been enough for Wie. She wants to become the first woman ever to successfully compete with men in a professional sport. She has tried a couple of times on the PGA Tour without embarrassing herself. As you will see, she has changed a lot since we first talked to her way back in 2004, when she was 14. At the time, Wie told Kroft her ultimate goal was to play in the Masters. "I think it'd be pretty neat walking down the Masters fairways," she said. It was a neat dream for a 14-year-old kid. Nothing has happened in the last two years to change Wie's mind or shake her confidence. She is stronger now, more mature and glamorous. She has already demonstrated that she c an play herself into the middle of the pack against the best men on the PGA Tour and has come within a shot of winning her first two starts on the LPGA Tour this year as a part-time professional. The day before 60 Minutes interviewed her at the Fields Open in Honolulu, she shot a final round of 66, coming from six strokes off the lead to just miss a playoff. "Y ou won your first check yesterday," Kroft says. "Uh-huh," Wie says. "It was, it was really cool. I mean, I was like looking at how much I won. I was like 'Oh my God.' " Wie says she won around $72,000. Asked whether she gets to keep that money, Wie said she didn't know. "I'm trying to negotiate with my dad how much I can spend of that, and stuff like that. We're still working it out. But, you know, I'm definitely gonna go shopping today," she says, laughing. Half of her life is spent in the adult world, competing with men and women twice her age for paychecks they may need to make expenses and dealing with the media, sponsors and marketing executives. The rest of the time she is a junior at Punahou High School in Honolulu, where she is