Unit 5

DIALOGUE I

Communicating by Pay Phone in the United States

A: Hi, Frank.
B: Hi, Weiwei, it's some time since I saw you last. You look upset. Do you need help?
A: Yes. Can you tell me where the post office is? I'm still new here.
B: Sure. The post office is down the street. But if it's stamps you want, I can lend you some.
A: Thank you, but I need a telephone for a long distance call.
B: You can use my phone.
A: Thank you very much. I'll pay for the call. It sure feels good to be among American friends. But I still want to know how to use a pay phone to call long distance in the United States. I have only a vague idea of that.
B: OK. Do you have time now?
A: Yes.
B: Let me give you a little lesson. There are two kinds of long distance calls in this country: dial-direct and operator-assisted.
A: Dial-direct and operator-assisted?
B: Yes. You dial directly or call the operator for help. In either case, to make a long distance call, you'll need to know the area code.
A: OK. I dial the three-digit area code plus the local number. Is that right?
B: Not exactly. You'll need to dial 1 plus the area code plus the seven-digit local number, and an operator or a computer voice will tell you how much money to deposit. On operator-assisted calls, the operator will ask you to deposit more money before your time is up. On dial-direct calls, you'll be cut off at the end of the time you paid for unless you put more money in the slot.
A: What if I make a long distance call and get a wrong number?
B: You can call the operator and explain what happened. Usually this means that you can make the call again to the right number without having to pay more money.
A: Where do I get information on long distance rates?
B: Look in the white pages directory.
A: White pages directory? I don't understand.
B: Phone books in the U.S. have white, blue and yellow pages. The white pages list people with phones by the last name. The blue pages contain numbers of city services, government services, and public schools. Businesses and professional services are listed in a special classified directory, that is, the yellow pages.
A: I see. But do you have to pay for business services?
B: It all depends. Some companies advertise a service called WATS.
A: What is WATS?
B: It's an acronym for "Wide Area Telecommunications Service". To get a WATS service, you can dial a special number without a long distance charge. These are called "toll-free numbers" and the area code for all of them is 800.
A: The last question: Do pay phones in the United States have numbers?
B: Yes, they do. This means you can arrange to call a friend at a phone booth. Or if you are making a long distance call and run out of money, give the number on your phone to the person you're talking to. Then hang up and they can call you back.
A: Thank you very much for the information, Frank.
B: You're welcome.

DIALOGUE II

Dialogue:

A driver of a car has just picked up a hitch-hiker outside London to give him a lift to Edinburgh.
A: It's good to have some company for the drive. It's a long way up to Edinburgh, and it's very boring if you're on your own.
B: I'm really lucky you stopped and offered me a lift. I've been waiting for about an hour but no one seemed to be going my way.
A: Are you a student?
B: Yes, I'm a biology student at London Polytechnic. I'm going up to Edinburgh for the festival, but it's so expensive on the train so I decided to try and hitch a lift.
A: Well, you're lucky, because I should have been going yesterday, but something happened to delay me so I postponed my trip until today.
B: Is it all right if I put my rucksack on the back seat?
A: Yes, of course.
B: It started to rain just as I left the house this morning and my clothes and shoes are wet through. Would you mind if I took my shoes off?
A: No, of course not. I don't mind. Go ahead.
B: Thanks.
A: Oh, don't forget to put your seat belt on! You can get fined nowadays, you know, for not wearing your seat belt.
B: Yes, sorry, I forgot. ... Could I open this window?
A: Well, I'd rather you didn't if you don't mind. It gets very draughty when you open that window. But you can open the back window.
B: Is it all right if I go to sleep for a while?
A: Yes, of course. I'll wake you up when we reach the next service station. I'll need some coffee then.

READING I

America's National Parks, Part I

The National Park Service of the U.S.A. controls more than 77 million acres of land, divided up into 320 park sites of extraordinary variety, the latest covering huge areas of wilderness in Alaska. There are urban or city parks, there are ancient buildings and historic sites, seashore parks, national rivers, and more and more recreation areas where priority is given to the amusement of the public. Finally there are the National Parks themselves, which are visited by millions, but where the priority is conservation. In a country of free enterprise, where business interests are so powerful, these parks play an essential role. It was the conservationists who saved the remaining giant redwood trees and created the National Redwood Park, on the far side of the Golden Gate Bridge which spans the entrance to San Francisco Bay. The lumberjacks were so furious that they marched into the city to protest, shouting "No more parks!" But the environmentalists and conservationists have always been allowed to have their say in the "Land of the Free," and their influence has been greater than in most countries.
The first national park, founded in 1872, was Yellowstone, in the State of Wyoming. Yellowstone has everything which appeals to the romantic, geysers which shoot jets of boiling water 200 feet up into the air, a deep canyon where a rushing river pours over mighty waterfalls. There are snowy mountain peaks, tree-fringed lakes and vast forests, as well as broad water meadows, across which the Yellowstone River glides gently on its way to the canyon. On these meadows bison, elk, moose and deer come to graze in the evening.
American national parks represent one of the finest examples of nature conservation in the world. All the parks are kept as "natural" as possible. In the Far West, lumbermen devastated whole forests. But no tree-felling is allowed in the parks. When a tree falls, it is left to rot and enrich the soil, and so encourage young trees to grow. Even natural forest fires, those not started by man, are allowed, in many parks, to burn themselves out.
Animals learned years ago that man was not their enemy in the national parks. Many of them became so tame that they were a nuisance, and sometimes even a danger. Bears, in particular, lined the roads and begged for food. They were so comical that people stopped to feed them, thus breaking one of the strictest rules of the parks. This was not nature conservation! Cookies and candy are not part of a bear's normal diet! There were also some unfortunate accidents, for even the fairly mild black bear cannot tell where the cookie ends and the hand begins. In Yellowstone, the bears have been taken miles away into the wilderness, but in a few other parks they are still a nuisance.
Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her.
-- William Wordsworth

READING II

America's National Parks, Part II

The national parks are run by the National Park Ranger Service. The Rangers are men and women with special qualities, for they are not only conservationists. They also have to look after the visitors. They act as guides, and must be ready to answer quite learned questions on the plants, animals and geology of the parks. In addition they are trained policemen and policewomen qualified to use guns, though they keep these weapons out of sight in their cars, not wishing to spoil their friendly image with the public.
Rangers must be ready to deal with emergencies of all kinds. They frequently have to rescue inexperienced climbers stuck half way up a mountain rock face. Then there are some backpackers, who in midsummer walk with their packs on their backs to the bottom of the Grand Canyon without enough water, regardless of the warning that the temperature is many degrees higher on the floor of the canyon, one mile down, than it is on the rim.
The national parks make few concessions to tourists. Visitors are warned of the dangers, but they are expected to look after themselves and be self-reliant. There is no cable car to the floor of the Grand Canyon, and no motor road. The only way of getting to the bottom is to follow a rough track down the precipices on a mule or on foot. The shortest trail is seven miles long.
In the mountains and forests of the northwestern States there is one animal that is especially to be feared, the brown, or grizzly, bear. It is the largest and most ferocious carnivore (flesh eater) in the world and will attack humans on sight. Grizzlies are now rare, but there are more than 250 of them in Yellowstone. There are warnings everywhere, about not leaving food uncovered in tents at night, about what to do if you suddenly meet a grizzly on a lonely trail. The grizzly is a protected animal, and if the Rangers have to shoot one, they use tranquillizing darts instead of bullets whenever possible. There are about 100 grizzly incidents a year, a few of which are fatal. Not many when one considers that two and a half million people visit Yellowstone each year.
One of the biggest problems for the conservationists is preserving the parks from the footsteps of the countless millions of visitors. Until recently, campers would line up along the valley floor for places in the campsites at Yosemite, which is about 375 miles east of San Francisco. Now they must make their reservations months ahead. There are one or two hotels in the bigger parks, and also groups of log cabins. Outside the park boundaries there is a growing rash of motels. But the wilderness in the heart of every park is untouched.