新标准大学英语_视听说教程1 2册 listening in.docxVIP

Unit1 Listening in Passage 1 Interviewer: Can you tell me something about the Ivy League? Youre a professor at Harvard, is that right? Professor :Thats right, yes. Interviewer :Tell me how many universities are there? How many institutions? Professor: In total there are eight institutions: Theres Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania. Interviewer :Ah, OK. And whats the sporting ... I believe theres some link with sports. Professor :There certainly is, yes. Originally the Ivy League referred to the sports teams from the universities which competed against each other, especially in football, basketball and ice hockey. Now sometimes these universities, institutions, chose their students on the basis of their skills at these particular sports. But in the last 50 years, Ivy League schools have accepted a wider range of students because it wasnt possible to be both world-famous for research and also top class in sport. Interviewer: And what about their academic importance? I gather theyre academically very, very important, theyre very well-known. Professor :Absolutely at the top. Theyre near or at the top of the USA colleges and university rankings. And theyre almost always in the top one per cent of the worlds academic institutions for financial resources. Interviewer: And what does it mean socially to go to an Ivy League university? Professor :Certainly if youve been to one of these institutions, you are presumed or assumed to be at the top end of the scale. The Ivy League institutions have a reputation for social elitism, many of the students are rich, intellectual, white Anglo-Saxon, protestants. Not all of them of course, but quite a lot of them. Interviewer: And do you know ... whys it called the Ivy League, whats the origin of the name? Professor: There are a number of stories, derivations, but possibly its based on four universities, and IV, the letters IV, thats the Roman numeral for four. Another more l