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Unit 3 Travel journal 知识探讨
1．1　头脑风暴
　　With the development of society, we are changing our way of life. More and more people like to travel.
　　1．Do you often travel? Where have you been?
　　Various answers are possible. Such as to the Great Wall, to Mount Huang, etc.
　　2．Do you like to explore some wild places? Which places do you want to go to?
　　Various answers are possible. To take a foot trip across the whole country. To explore the sources of some rivers.
　　3．What can you do to make preparations for your exploratory travel?
　　Before the exploratory travel, you should get many objects ready for you to carry. You should carry a tent for you to live in when it is at night. You should carry matches. You can use matches to make fire to cook food and frighten wild animals. You should carry a radio to listen to weather reports. You can carry a compass. When you get lost, you can use the compass to know the direction. And you can carry a map, a raincoat and so on if you think they are necessary.
　　1．2　语篇探究
　　1．Do you think Wang Kun and Wang Wei really took the great bike trip down the Mekong River? Why do you think so?
　　①I think so. According to the Journal we know they made preparations for the travel and we also know the details about some places they reached.
　　②I don't think so. If they take the great bike trip down the Mekong River, the road was too rough and too difficult for them to walk on. Another reason is that if they want to cycle along the Mekong River from where it begins to where it ends, they should enter several countries. If they have no necessary certificates, they can't get into other countries except China easily.
　　2．How long do you think it took them to cycle along the Mekong River from where it begins to where it ends?
　　No determined answer. Perhaps two months, half a year or a whole year or perhaps even longer. I think they should spend much time, because the journey is too long and too difficult. Let the students discuss the question, give their ideas and their reasons.
　　3．Do you think they can get much knowledge after the great bike trip? What kinds of knowledge can they get?
　　I think they can get much knowledge. They can know more about nature, about customs of some peoples. They can also know more about geography. And they should know how to live a hard life, etc.
　1．3　阅读讨论
　　Reading the following passage and discuss the questions below and try to give their answers.
　　People who travel long distances will have to decide whether they would prefer to go by land, sea, or air. Maybe nobody would say they enjoy sitting in a train for more than a few hours. The train will soon get crowded and dirty. It is almost impossible to take your mind off the journey. Reading may help you to kill the time but soon the clicking of the rails will bring you to sleep. During the day, sleep never lasts long. At night, when we really wish to go to sleep, you find you can hardly manage to do so. If you are lucky to get a sleeping seat, you spend half the night looking at the small blue light over your head, and when you finally arrived at the station, you are so tired that you don't want to leave.
　　Long car journeys are even less pleasant, for it is impossible even to read. On motor-ways, you can at least travel fairly safely at high speeds, but more often, the greater part of the journey is spent on narrow, bumpy（不平的）roads which are crowded with traffic.
　　When traveling by sea, you have a different experience. You can have a walk on the board, play games, swim, meet interesting people and enjoy good food, and of course, only when the sea is calm. If it is not, you are likely to get seasick, and you will find no journey can be worse than that. Even if you travel in good weather, sea journeys take a long time. Few people would like to spend a third of their holidays for the pleasure of traveling on a ship.
　　Traveling by plane seems to be dangerous to some people, and, it is also the most expensive of all traveling forms, though nothing can match planes for speed and comfort（舒适）. Flying at a height of 30000 feet, far above the clouds, and at 500 miles an hour is a very exciting experience. The journey is so smooth（平稳的）that there is nothing to prevent you from reading or sleeping. However, you decide to spend your time, one thing is certain: you will arrive at your destination（目的地）fresh and easy. You will not have to spend the next :few hours recovering（恢复）from a long and tiring journey.
　　1．What other means of traveling can find except the ones referred in the passage?
　　We can also travel by bike, by motorcycle, on horseback, and of course we can also travel by hiking. Maybe in the future we can travel to outer space by spaceship.
　　2．What kind of traveling do you think is the most comfortable? Why?
　　a. I think traveling by train is the most comfortable because if you get a good seat, you can get very good service in the train.
　　b. I think traveling by plane is the most comfortable because it is very smooth and you can read or sleep in the plane.
　　c. I think traveling by car is the most comfortable because you have freedom to have a rest or stop anywhere.
　　3．What should we prepare before traveling?
　　It is up to the students to finish the question after discussion.