【习惯性GRE】1006G阅读--速度【VOA】2-1

lghscuUID: 2552043

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方法名称：一分钟VOA快速阅读
工具准备：秒表，电脑
方法使用：
0 从“以下开始计时”开始掐秒表
1以最快的速度完成浏览、扫描，争取60s解决战斗
2 不回视，不停顿，不过多思考，一口气跑到终点
3 详细记录每一篇阅读时间(每一次共五篇)，请不要自欺欺人
4 根据时间不断调整阅读速度，力求60s以内完成
5 坚持完成本期所有阅读
【习惯性GRE】1006G阅读--速度【VOA】汇总贴
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At Least 36 UN Personnel Confirmed Dead in Haiti; Number Likely to Rise
Margaret Besheer | United Nations
4 January 2010
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The U.N. Secretary General says the facts are "grim" in Haiti, after a 7.0 earthquake rocked the Caribbean nation Tuesday.  Ban Ki-moon warned that the overall death toll could be very high. Among the scores of dead, at least 36 U.N. military and civilian staff. But that figure could rise dramatically, as some 150 personnel are still unaccounted for nearly 48 hours after the quake.

Mr. Ban told reporters that the overall picture on the ground in Haiti still remains "sketchy".

He said the first 72 hours are critical in saving survivors, and he is still holding out hope for both Haitians and U.N. personnel trapped beneath the rubble.

Some 150 U.N. personnel with the U.N. Stabilization Mission, known as MINUSTAH, are still missing. But all hope is not gone. Overnight, Tarmo Joveer, an Estonian bodyguard,  was pulled alive from the wreckage of the mission's 5-story concrete headquarters.

"He was extracted from approximately four meters down the rubble," said the U.N. chief. "It was a small, small miracle during the night which brought few other miracles. We will continue to work, to search and rescue as quickly as possible."

Mr. Ban said the needs in Haiti are huge and immediate - above all medical supplies, food, water, tents, shovels and heavy equipment.

That appeal was echoed during a video conference with the U.N. mission in Haiti. Officials Kim Bolduc and David Wimhurst described the scene in Port-au-Prince immediately after the quake and now.

"Many bodies along the streets, a lot of injured people, just lying around, houses are destroyed and very new and large buildings totally collapsed," said Bolduc. "Now at night, Port-au-Prince doesn't have electricity - it looks like a ghost town. The situation is very dire, because all the survivors are sleeping out in the streets."

She said people are in a state of shock, waiting for something to happen and still fearing aftershocks.

David Wimhurst said tensions are rising among the population.

"The people have lost everything, it's hopeless. It's a hopeless situation for them," he said. "They expect us to provide them with help, which is of course, what we want to do. But we are not in a situation yet where we can do that on a massive scale and unfortunately, they are slowly getting more angry I think and impatient."
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A Military Education at West Point
By Nancy Steinbach
2010-1-13
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Today we answer a question from Brazil. Claudio Messias Gentil wants to know about the United States Military Academy at West Point.

West Point is a college for future Army officers. It has more than four thousand students, called cadets. The school is located about eighty kilometers north of New York City.

West Point is the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States. General George Washington built a fort there during the Revolutionary War to protect the Hudson River from the British. He moved his headquarters to West Point in seventeen seventy-nine in the middle of the war.
In eighteen hundred and two, President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation to establish the military academy. The education centered on civil engineering. West Point graduates designed many roads, bridges, harbors and railways for the young nation.
Today, math and science are still a large part of the education. But cadets can choose from almost fifty areas of study. If cadets major in the humanities, they must have an engineering minor.
Not all the young men and women at West Point are American. This year, fifty-eight are from other countries. Up to sixty cadets can be international students.
International students are nominated by their governments. They must satisfy physical and educational requirements and do well on the Test of English as a Foreign Language. After graduation, they return home to serve in their nation's armed forces. Other services besides the Army also accept foreign students at their academies.
Major Joe Sowers, a West Point public affairs officer, says information is available through American embassies. He says the presence of international students at West Point serves a purpose for the Army.
JOE SOWERS: "Cultural understanding, cultural awareness is essential for a modern-day officer. Now because we have cadets from Panama and cadets from African countries, that doesn't necessarily increase your knowledge on how to interact in Iraq or Afghanistan. At least not specifics, anyway. But you've begun the process of understanding that the world is bigger than your hometown and West Point and the United States of America. But I think the big payoff is at the individual cadet level, establishing relationships with those who come from much, much different backgrounds."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. You can learn more about higher education in the United States from our Foreign Student Series at 51voa.com. I'm Steve Ember.
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American History Series: The Final Surrender
By Frank Beardsley
2010-1-13
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Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English

Abraham Lincoln did not live to see the final surrender of the armies of the Confederacy. A Confederate sympathizer shot the president at Ford's Theatre in Washington on April fourteenth, eighteen sixty-five.

By that time, however, the American Civil War really was over.
General Robert E. Lee surrendered in early April, bringing an end to four years of fighting. Several other Confederate armies were still in the field. But they were too small and too weak to continue the fight.
This week in our series, Maurice Joyce and Leo Scully tell the story of the final surrender of the Confederate armies.
VOICE ONE:
One army was in North Carolina, commanded by General Joe Johnston. Five days after Lee's surrender, Johnston asked for a meeting with General William Sherman, the commander of Union forces in North Carolina.
Sherman met with Johnston a few days later. He offered him the same surrender terms that General Lee had accepted. He said the Confederates must give up their weapons and promise to fight no more. Then they would be free to return to their homes.
Johnston said he could not accept these terms. Johnston said he had the power to surrender all the Confederate armies everywhere in the South he said he would do so if Sherman agreed on a political settlement.
VOICE TWO:
The two generals met again the next day. Sherman listened as Johnston explained his demands. Most of them, Sherman accepted. He believed that President Lincoln wanted to help the South as much as possible. He had heard Lincoln say that he wanted to make it easy for the southern states to return to the Union.
When the agreement was completed, Sherman sent it immediately to Washington for approval by the new president, Andrew Johnson. The agreement seemed to give the South everything it wanted.
VOICE ONE:
Instead of surrendering to Sherman, the Confederate Armies would break up. The soldiers would return to their homes, taking their weapons with them. They would sign a promise not to fight again and to obey state and federal laws.
In exchange for this, Sherman said the president would recognize state governments in the south which promised to support the Constitution. He said federal courts would be established in the south again. And he said the president -- as well as he could -- would protect the political rights promised to all people by the Constitution of the United States and the state constitutions.
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And Sherman said the United States government would not interfere with any of the southern people, if they remained peaceful and obeyed the laws.
VOICE TWO:
President Johnson held a cabinet meeting to discuss the agreement Sherman had signed. War Secretary Stanton and the other members of the cabinet were violently opposed to it. They said Sherman had no power to make any kind of political settlement.
President Johnson rejected the agreement. He said Johnston's army must surrender within forty-eight hours or be destroyed. He said the surrender terms could be no better than those given General Lee.
VOICE ONE:
Johnston decided to surrender. On April twenty-sixth, his army laid down its weapons. One by one, the remaining armies surrendered. The soldiers began returning home.
Many of them were bitter. They wanted to continue to fight. They spoke of guerrilla war against the Yankees. But most of the Confederate commanders opposed this. Many, like cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest, urged their men to accept defeat.
Said Forrest in a farewell speech to his men:
"It is a clear fact that we are beaten. We would be foolish to try to fight further. The government which we tried to establish is at an end. Civil War -- such as you have just passed through -- naturally causes feelings of bitterness and hatred. We must put these feelings aside. Whatever your responsibilities may be, meet them like men. You have been good soldiers. You can be good citizens."
VOICE TWO:
Confederate President Jefferson Davis fled south after the fall of his government. He hoped to get across the Mississippi River. He believed that he could form a new Confederate army. If this failed, he planned to escape to Mexico.
President Lincoln had hoped that Davis would escape. He felt that punishing Davis would only create more bitterness and make reconstruction -- the rebuilding of the South -- more difficult. But President Johnson did not share Lincoln's feelings. He believed Davis had a part in the plot to kill Lincoln. He said Davis must be captured.
On May tenth, Union forces found the Confederate president's camp in southern Georgia. They seized him and took him to Fort Monroe, Virginia. He remained there for many months under close guard. His trial was never held. And finally, in eighteen sixty-seven, he was freed.
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VOICE ONE:
Late in May, one hundred fifty thousand Union soldiers, representing every one of the Union armies, came to Washington. They came to take part in a big parade -- a victory march through the city.
For two days, the soldiers marched past the White House. Many of the marching men had fought at Bull Run, at Fredericksburg, Antietam, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Appomattox. Sherman's western army was there from battles at Shiloh, Vicksburg, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga and Atlanta.
The soldiers marched proudly past the president and other government leaders.
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
All along the way, from the Capitol building to the White House, were huge crowds of cheering people. Hour after hour, the soldiers passed. Never had the city seen such a celebration. Each group of soldiers had its band and carried its own battle flags. Some proudly carried flags that had been torn in fierce fighting.
Finally, late on the second day, the final group of soldiers passed the White House. The grand parade was over. The battle flags were put away, and the marching bands fell silent. The war was ended. Now, men could look about them and count the cost of the war.
VOICE ONE:
Four years of bloody fighting had saved the Union of states. The northern victory had settled for all time the question of whether states could leave the Union. And it had put to rest the great problem of slavery, which had troubled the nation for so many years.
But the costs were great. More than six hundred thousand men of the North and South lost their lives. Hundreds of thousands more were wounded. Many had lost their arms or legs.
VOICE TWO:
The war cost the North almost three-and-one-half thousand million dollars. It was almost as costly to the Confederates. Most of the war was fought in the southern states. And most of the war damage was there.
Hundreds of cities and towns suffered damage. Some -- like Atlanta -- were completely destroyed by Union forces. The damage outside the populated areas was almost as great. Union armies had marched across the South leaving behind them widespread destruction. Farm houses and buildings had been burned; animals and crops seized or destroyed.
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solosandraUID: 2889127

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90s 怎么越看越慢了..><
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