SECTION A In this section you will hear a
minilecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the lecture
take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will
need them to complete a gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the
mini-lecture. Use the blank paper for note-taking. Now listen
to the mini-lecture. Did Chinese sailors really discover America before
Columbus A new exhibition sets the scene, presenting new (1)_____. that
lends support to the assumptions made in"1421: The Year China
(1)_____ Discovered America"by Gavin Menzies.
"1421: The Year China Sailed the World, "is primarily a celebration of
(2)_____Zheng (2)_____
He’s seven maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1423. With a fleet of 317
ships and 28, 000 men, Zheng He is generally acknowledged as one of the great
naval explorers, but how far he actually went remains a matter of dispute.
The exhibition starts in Hunnan(China)in 1382, with a
(3)_____space giving some back-
(3)_____ ground on Zheng He’s youth. When he grew up, he became a scholar and
a trusted adviser to the emperor, Zhu DJ, who sent him on a mission
to"proceed all the way to the ends of the earth to collect tribute from the
(4)_____beyond the seas. "
(4)_____ Later,
China began a policy of isolationism that would last hundreds of years. The
large ships were left to rot at their moorings, and most of the records of
the great journeys were destroyed. Along with examples of spices and other
goods that the fleet would have brought back to China, the visitors can find
ancient (5)_____like unusual animal-shaped money from Malacca made of tin.
(5)_____ Arguing that the Chinese had reached America 70 years
before Columbus, Menzies’s book caused a (6)_____when it was published in
2002.
(6)_____ "None of the
great European explorers actually discovered anything new. The whole world
was (7)_____before they set sail. So somebody before them had done it, and
that was the basis of the book, "
(7)_____ Since then, the Web site he created to centralize
evidence to (8)_____his book has received (8)_____ more
than 100, 000 e-mails from people across the globe coming forward with"massive
evidence" (9)_____his claims.
(9)_____ Menzies now believes that Zheng He was not
the first to sail to America. "One of the mistakes I made in my book was to
say that Zheng He did everything. He had a (10)_____Most of the world
(10)_____ had already been mapped by Kublai Khan’s fleet, " he
said. The exhibition shows copies of Kublai Khan’s maps,
recently found at the U. S. Library of Congress by an academic. The documents
clearly show North America. Menzies believes the maps are from the late 13th
century.