Unit 2 

Part 1 

Listening I    

Mart Moody from Tupper Lake used to tell this tale. "I went out one day and there was a big flock of ducks out on Tupper Lake. And I had this good dog. I shot at the ducks, and then I sent the dog out there. She was heavy with pups at the time, and I didn't know whether I should send her out there. It was a cold day in the fall. Well, she took right off and away she went. But she didn't show up when it got dark. I began to worry about her. She was a good dog, a really good retriever. She'd get anything I shot at.  

"So the next morning I woke up and I thought I'd better go and see if I could find her. And I got down to the shoreline of the lake and I looked out. Suddenly I saw something coming. It was this dog. She came into the shore! She had three ducks in her mouth. And behind her she had seven pups. And each of the pups had a duck in his mouth."  

Exercise 1 

1. B  2. A  3. B  4. D  5. C 

Exercise 2 

1. F  2. T  3. T  4. F  5. T    

Listening II    

There was an old man who had a daughter. He told his daughter that he had invited a preacher to his house. He said, "Daughter, I'm going down to the train to meet the Reverend, and I've roasted two ducks and left them there for him in the other room. Don't you touch them!" The daughter said, "No, I won't touch them." So her papa went to the train to meet the Reverend, and the girl began to taste the ducks. The ducks tasted so good that she kept on tasting them until she had eaten them all up, every bit of them. 

After the old man came back, he didn't even look in the place where he had left the ducks. He went directly into the other room to sharpen his knife on the oilstone so he could carve the ducks. The preacher was sitting in the room with the girl. She knew that her papa was going to punish her, and she started crying and shedding tears. The preacher asked, "What is the matter with you, girl?" She said, "Papa has this one bad fault: He invites preachers to his house and goes to sharpen his knife to cut off both their ears." And the Reverend asked, "What is that you say, daughter?" The girl said, "Yes, Papa invites preachers here all the time and cuts off both their ears." The preacher said, "Daughter, hand me my hat. Quick!" The girl gave him his hat and he ran out of the door quickly. The daughter called her papa and said, "Papa, the preacher got both the ducks and has gone." The old man ran to the door and yelled to the preacher, "Hey, where are you going in such 

a hurry? Come back here right now!" But the preacher just kept running and shouted back over his shoulder, "Damned if you'll get either one of these."  

Exercise 1 

1. A    2. A     3. B   4. C   5. D 

Exercise 2 

1. T   2. F    3. T   4. T    5. F   6. F 

Listening III    

Jack Storm was the local barrel maker and blacksmith of Thebes, Illinois. He had a cat that stayed around his shop. The cat was the best mouse catcher in the whole country, Jack said. He kept the shop free of rats and mice. But, one day, the cat got caught in a piece of machinery and got a paw cut off. After that, he began to grow weak and thin and didn't take any interest in anything, because he wasn't getting enough to eat. 

So, one day, Jack decided to make a wooden paw for the cat. He made it with his pocket knife and fastened it on the injured leg. After that, the cat began to grow sleek and fat again. Jack decided to stay at the shop one night to see how the cat managed with his wooden paw. 

After dark, the cat got down in front of a mouse hole and waited. Pretty soon a mouse peered out cautiously. Quick as a flash the cat seized it with his good paw and knocked it on the head with his wooden one. In no time, that cat had eighteen mice piled up in front of the mouse hole.  

Exercise 1 

1) stayed around    2) mouse catcher   3) rats and mice 

4) got a paw        5) weak and thin   6) make a wooden paw 

7) fastened it       8) grow sleek and fat    9) managed 

10) peered out cautiously 11) seized it with   12) eighteen mice 

Listening IV    

Ken: Hey, Josh. Where did you get those comic magazines? 

Josh: When I went home last weekend, I found these old Superman magazines that my older brother had bought many years ago.  

Ken: You don't have time to read old comics. Why did you bring them here? 

Josh: In my World Literature class we've been talking about the importance of myths, folk tales, and legends to cultures. We have to write a short paper on which legendary figure we think is the great American hero. I think it's Superman. 

Ken: Superman? Why? I think it's someone like Paul Bunyan, the giant woodsman, or Johnny Appleseed, who planted early apple trees in the Midwest. Superman is just a modern comic magazine character. 

Josh: When I saw these old comics, I started thinking that Superman represents a combination of cultural traditions and beliefs that have been told throughout our American history.  

Ken: How? 

Josh: Superman is an orphan who comes by rocket to Earth when his native planet explodes. He lands near a small town and is adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent, who teach him their American middle-class values of honesty, hard work and consideration for others. As an adult, he migrates to a large city and defends Americans against evil. 

Ken: What else? 

Josh: Well, I was thinking about this and realized that he is a symbol of the American character because he is an immigrant. We Americans have come from somewhere else, too. My great grandparents came from Germany, and I know your grandparents came from Brazil. They all worked hard and succeeded. 

Ken: But how does that relate to Superman? 

Josh: He goes to the city, just as many immigrants did, works as a newspaper reporter. But his adopted parents' values of honesty, hard work and helpfulness are a part of him. He uses his super abilities to fight dishonesty and to help the victims of crime and injustice, meanwhile working hard at his newspaper job. 

Ken: I understand. As an orphan, Superman becomes a new person in a new land, just as our ancestors did, and succeeds. He also represents our values. Your paper should be interesting. I'd like to read it when it's finished.  

Josh: OK.  

Exercise 1 

1. B   2. D  3. A  4. A   5. C 

Exercise 2  

1. F  2.T    3. T    4. T   5.F   6 T  7. F  8.F 

Part Four 

Listening I    

Almost seven centuries ago, in Central Asia, there lived a great king called Tamerlane. He was a mighty, powerful, conquering soldier, and his greatest ambition was that one day he would rule a massive empire stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. He made his imperial capital in the oasis city of Samarkand, which he planned to make the most beautiful city on earth. Many magnificent mosques were built and they were decorated with exquisite blue ceramic tiles on the outside, and with pure gold on the inside.  

Tamerlane, like the great oriental king that he was, had many wives, including a Chinese girl called Bibi Khanym. Now Bibi Khanym was the most beautiful of all Tamerlane's wives, and she was also the youngest. She was his favorite wife and was deeply in love with him. 

In order to demonstrate her great love of Tamerlane, she decided to build a magnificent mosque to honor him, while he was away fighting in a distant war. She engaged the best architect, who designed for her the most magnificent mosque you could imagine. And then she found the best master builder, who began work immediately. But as the weeks and months passed by, the master builder began to fall in love with Bibi Khanym. She resisted all his advances, but at last he threatened to leave the mosque unfinished unless she allowed him to kiss her just once. Bibi Khanym wanted the beautiful mosque finished more than anything else. She was expecting Tamerlane to return any day. So at last she agreed to let the master builder kiss her, just once. 

But that was her terrible mistake, for so powerful was the master builder's love for Bibi Khanym that when he kissed her he left a permanent mark on her face. 

King Tamerlane returned and saw the guilty mark on his wife's face. The master builder was executed immediately, and then, thinking that a woman's beauty can be a dangerous thing, Tamerlane ordered that from that day on all the women in the kingdom should never be seen in public without a veil to cover their face.  

Exercise 1 

1. B   2 . C   3. B   4. A   5. D   6. A 

Exercise 2 

1. F   2. F    3. T    4. T   5.F    

Listening II 

At one time animals and people lived together in peace and talked with each other. But when mankind began to multiply rapidly, the animals were crowded into forests and deserts. 

Man began to destroy many animals for their skins and furs instead of only for food. Animals became angry at this treatment by man and decided that mankind must be punished. 

The animals held a meeting, but they could not decide how to punish mankind. Finally the animals agreed that because deer were the animals most often killed by man, deer should decide how man should be punished.  

Deer decided that any Indian hunters who killed deer without asking pardon in a suitable manner would be made to suffer with painful stiffness in their bodies. After this decision was made, the leader of the deer sent a message to the nearest people, the Cherokee Indians. "From now on, your hunters must first offer a prayer to the deer before killing him. You must ask his pardon, telling the deer you are forced to kill him only because your people are hungry and need meat. Otherwise, a terrible disease will come to you." 

The spirits of the deer would run to the place where a deer had been killed and these spirits would ask the dead deer, "Did you hear the hunter's prayer for pardon?" If the answer was "yes", the spirits would be satisfied. But, if the answer was "no", then the deer spirits would track down the hunter to his house and strike him with the terrible disease of stiffness in his body, making him crippled so that he could not hunt deer again. 

Soon all of the animals agreed that this was a fair and just punishment. Each type of animal decided that they would also cause a disease in people who mistreated them. 

When the friendly plants of the world heard what the animals had decided as punishment for mankind, the plants decided that this punishment was too harsh. They had a meeting of their own. Finally they decided that each type of plant should provide a cure for one of the diseases which animals had caused for mankind. 

This was the beginning of plant medicines from nature among the Cherokee Indians a long, long time ago.  

Exercise 1 

1. C D J   2. A E G H   3. B F I 

Exercise 2 

1. A   2 .B   3. D   4.C  5. B   6. D 

Listening III  

Moon was sad. She had spent many years looking at the people on Earth and she saw that they were afraid. They were afraid of dying. To make them feel better she decided to call on her friend Spider to take a message to them.  

"Spider," she said. "The people on Earth are afraid of dying and that makes me very sad. Please tell them that they will all die sooner or later but it is nothing to be scared of."  

So Spider slowly made his way to Earth, carefully picking his way down on moonbeams and sunbeams. On his way he met Hare.  

"Where are you going, Spider?" asked Hare. 

"I am going to give the people of Earth a message from Moon," he said. 

"Oh, you'll be far too long. Tell me the message and I'll take it there for you," replied Hare. 

"OK! Moon wants the people of Earth to know that they will all die..." Spider started. 

"Right! Tell the people of Earth that they will all die," said Hare. And with that, Hare disappeared off to Earth. 

Spider gloomily made his way back to Moon and told her what had happened. Moon was very angry with Hare when she heard what he had said to the people, and hit him on the nose! That is why, to this day, Hare has a split lip. 

"You should have taken the message yourself," said Moon to Spider. 

And to this day, Spider is still carefully carrying Moon's message and spinning the web in the corner of our rooms—but how many of us listen?  

Exercise: 

1. T   2. F    3. F    4. F   5.T    6. F  7. T  8. T 

Listening IV 

We don't often know how a word or a legend 1)associated with that word started; however, in the case of the American "cowboy" we do. The cowboy legend began in 1867 when the first transcontinental 2) railroad was being built across the American West. 

A branch line of the new railroad went to Abilene, Kansas. In Abilene, a 29-year-old cattle 3) merchant, Joseph McCoy, had a plan that made him a millionaire and put his name in 4) dictionaries. His plan was simple. He knew that in the high 5)grasslands of southern Texas there were large herds of cattle. If these cattle could be brought to Abilene, they could be put on trains and shipped to cities in the North and East, where they would 6)bring good prices. He bought a lot of land close to the railroad in Abilene, where cattle could be kept before being shipped, and put his plan into 7) action. 

McCoy advertised for ranchers and cow-handlers to bring their herds of cattle to his new railway cattle yard in Abilene. He offered $40 for each of the cattle, ten times more than anyone else did. 8) One hundred days after his offer was made, the first herds arrived from the South. Each herd had two or three thousand cattle in it. In the next four years, McCoy shipped more than two million cattle to the North and East. He soon became a millionaire. 

McCoy referred to the men bringing the cows to Abilene as "cowboys". 9) Soon there were at least 5,000 cowboys bringing cattle up to Kansas from Texas. Because the camera had recently been developed, many photos were taken of the cowboys and their long trips with the cattle. 10) These photos were published in eastern newspapers and the cowboy became an American folk hero. Soon writers, such as Zane Gray, were writing books about the cowboys and their adventures. Thus the legend of the cowboy grew and developed into the 20th century.