听力文本

A hundred years ago people knew little or nothing about this part of Africa. It was an unhealthful and a dangerous country for the white man. The marshes and jungles gave white men fever, and there was a little fly called the tsetse which gave men a disease called sleeping sickness, from which they never awoke. Besides allthese terrible things there were fierce wild animals that killed those who escaped other things.
And then there was born in Scotland a boy named David Livingstone. He was just like you or me until he was ten years old. But when he was ten years old he left school and went to work in a cotton mill. There he worked all day from six in the morning until eight at night. If you count this up you will find that it was fourteen hours a day he worked—and he was only ten years old. Every day in the week he worked this way, but whenhe went home at night he wasn’t through working. After his supper he would study until he fell asleep over his books. Livingstone’s one idea in life was to be of some good in the world and to help people who were sick and miserable. So he studied to be a doctor, and he decided he would go to China. He thought also they should be made Christians. So he learned to be a minister as well as a doctor. But he didn’t go to China at all. He was sent to Africa instead.
Every one said he would die, he would be stung by the deadly tsetse fly, or he would drink water that would give him a fever, or he would be devoured by some wild animal. “If I’m going to die,” said he, “it doesn’t matter which way. I’ll have to die some day, but I want to do some good before that day.” So he went to Africa.

参考译文

一个世纪以前，人们对非洲的这块地方所知甚少或一无所知。对白人来说，这是一个不利于健康、不安全的地方。白人待在这里，经常患一种热病，而且还有一种很小的苍蝇叫舌蝇，人被咬后会患一种叫“昏睡病”的疾病，睡着后就再也醒不过来了。除了这些令人恐怖的事物，那里还有凶猛的野兽，那些有幸逃脱其他危险的人，往往又被野兽咬死。
后来，有一位名叫大卫 ·利文斯通的小男孩在苏格兰出生。他在10岁前，和你我小时候一样，没什么特别之处。但他在10岁的时候，离开了学校，在一家棉纺厂干活。在那儿，他每天从早晨6点一直做到晚上8点。如果你算一下，你会发现他一天干14个小时的活，而他只是个10岁的孩子。每周的每一天他都这样辛苦工作。但是，晚上回家后，他并没有休息，晚饭后，他就开始读书，直到趴在书本上睡着了。利文斯通的人生计划就是为这个世界作点贡献，帮助那些身患疾病和生活不幸的人。于是，他学习医学，还决定去中国。他也认为中国人应该信仰基督教。所以利文斯通不仅学了医学，还学了神学。但是他后来根本没有去中国，而是被派往非洲。
人人都说他去了会死，不是被致命的舌蝇叮咬，就是会喝那里的水患上热病；或者会被某个野兽吃掉。“如果我要死了，”他说，“怎么死都没有关系。我总有一天会死的，但是我想在那一天来临之前，做一些好事。”于是，利文斯通去了非洲。