听力原文

These hill slopes of Yuanyang County plunge nearly 2,000 metres to the floor of the Red River valley.
元阳县的山坡以2000M之势，斜插于红河谷地的河床。
Each contains literally thousands of stacked terraces carved out by hand using basic digging tools.
包含了上千由原始刨掘工具所创造出的梯田。
Yunnan's rice terraces are among the oldest human structures in China.
云南的梯田是中国最古老人类耕作痕迹之一。
Still ploughed, as they always have been, by domesticated water buffaloes, whose ancestors originated in these very valleys.
正如千百年来的习俗一样，并为云南河谷的家养水牛承担了耕作的重任，所以依旧被耕种使用的土地。
This man-made landscape is one of the most amazing engineering feats of pre-industrial China.
这片人力开拓的土地是工业化前中国最惊奇宏伟的壮景。
It seems as if every square inch of land has been pressed into cultivation.
似乎这里的每一寸土地都被打上了农耕的痕迹。

重点讲解

重点讲解：
1. carve out
开创；创造；
eg. Camille used a hammer and chisel to carve out a figure from the marble.
卡米尔用锤子和凿子将大理石雕刻出一个人像。
eg. We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine.
我们可以掌握神秘而不可知的未来，从中开创出我们所能想象的任何东西。
2. man-made
人造的；人工的；人为的；
eg. This new man - made material feels like real leather.
这种新型人造材料摸起来像真皮一样。
eg. The country blasted off another man-made satellite.
这个国家又发射了一颗人造卫星。
3. as if
好像；仿佛；
eg. He continued with his reading as if nothing important had happened.
他若无其事地又继续看他的书。
eg. I can remember it as if it were yesterday.
我对此事记忆犹新，恍如昨日一样。