Shadowing Practice: 英文故事 | 诀别的承诺 | 星际穿越 | 通过故事学英语 | 初级英语听力| 英语故事 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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In the future, the earth is not a good place to live.
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It is the 21st century, but the world is very different.
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There are no flying cars.
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There are no robot cities.
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The world is sick.
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A terrible blight is killing all the food.
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Corn is the only crop that can still grow.
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The air is full of dust.
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Families live in old farmhouses.
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Schools teach children that the Apollo moon landings were a fake.
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They do not want children to look at the stars.
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They want them to learn how to be farmers.
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The only goal is to find a way to grow more food on the dying planet.
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Cooper is a man who lives on a farm.
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He lives with his father-in-law, Donald.
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He lives with his 15-year-old son, Tom.
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He lives with his 10-year-old daughter, Murphy.
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He is a farmer, but he is not happy.
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He used to be a pilot and an engineer for NASA.
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He is good at fixing machines.
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He knows he was born to fly.
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Now he just drives a tractor in the dust.
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Murphy is a very smart girl.
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She thinks her room is haunted by a ghost.
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This ghost sometimes knocks books off her shelf.
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Cooper tells her that ghosts are not real.
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He says there is a rational explanation for everything.
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One day, a big dust storm comes.
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Murphy forgets to close her window.
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Dust comes into her room.
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On the floor, the dust makes strange lines.
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It looks like a pattern, not random.
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Cooper looks at the dust lines.
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He realizes it is not a ghost.
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It is gravity.
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Someone is using gravity to send a message.
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The pattern on the floor is coordinates.
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It is a location on a map.
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Cooper is curious.
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He follows the coordinates in his truck.
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He drives for a long time.
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Finally, he arrives at a secret place.
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It is a hidden NASA base.
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He is shocked.
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He thought NASA was closed.
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At the base, he meets an old professor.
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His name is Professor Brand.
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The professor explains the situation to Cooper.
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He tells Cooper the truth about the world.
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Earth is dying.
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Soon, there will be no more food.
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Humanity will end.
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But the professor has a plan.
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Years ago, a mysterious wormhole appeared near Saturn.
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A wormhole is a tunnel through space and time.
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It leads to another galaxy.
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Some intelligent beings probably put it there to help humanity.
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NASA sent 12 astronauts through the wormhole years ago.
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They went to look at planets in the new galaxy.
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Each astronaut went to a different planet.
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They sent back simple signals.
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The signals said good or bad.
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Three of them sent back good signals.
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These three planets might be able to support human life.
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Professor Brand now has a new mission.
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They will send a small ship with a crew through the wormhole.
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They must check these three planets.
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They must find a new home for the people of Earth.
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Professor Brand asks Cooper to be the pilot for this mission.
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Cooper has a choice.
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He can stay on the farm with his family.
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Or he can go to space to try to save them.
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He decides to go.
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It breaks his heart.
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But he goes for the future of his children.
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Murphy is very angry.
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She does not want her father to leave.
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She thinks the ghost was trying to tell him to stay.
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Cooper gives her a watch before he leaves.
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He tells her that when they look at the same time, they will be connected.
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He then drives away.
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Murphy runs out of the house.
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But he is already gone.
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The spaceship is called the Endurance.
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The crew has four main members.
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Cooper is the pilot.
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Amelia Brand is a scientist and the professor's daughter.
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Doyle and Romilly are two other scientists.
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They also have two robot assistants.
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Their names are TARS and CASE.
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The robots are big and black.
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They are rectangular boxes that can move and talk.
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The journey to Saturn takes two years.
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Everyone on the ship is asleep in special beds.
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These beds are called cryochambers.
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They save time and resources.
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Cooper and the others take turns waking up to check the ship.
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When they finally reach the wormhole, it is an amazing sight.
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It looks like a giant, perfect sphere floating in space.
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It is not a hole.
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It is a ball.
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Light bends around it.
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They go inside.
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It is a strange tunnel.
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They see distorted images of other galaxies.
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They can even see their own past.
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It is like looking into a huge, circular mirror.
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Then, they come out the other side.
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They are in a new galaxy.
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They are far from home.
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The first planet they go to is called Miller's Planet.
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It is near a giant black hole named Gargantua.
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A black hole has very strong gravity.
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Because of this, time moves much slower on Miller's Planet.
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For every hour they spend on the planet, seven years will pass on Earth.
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They must be very fast.
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Doyle, Brand, and Cooper go down to the planet in a small shuttle.
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Romilly stays on the Endurance.
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He will do research on the black hole.
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When they land, they see water.
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The whole planet is a giant, shallow ocean.
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There is no land.
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They also see the wreckage of the first astronaut's ship.
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But there is no sign of the astronaut.
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Suddenly, an alarm goes off.
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A huge wave is coming.
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It is not a normal wave.
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It is a giant wall of water, thousands of meters high.
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The gravity of the black hole causes it.
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Brand wants to get the data from the astronaut's ship first.
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She is too slow.
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The wave hits.
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Water floods the shuttle's engine.
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Doyle is swept away and killed.
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The wave almost destroys their ship.
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Cooper and Brand barely get the shuttle to lift off.
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They escape back to the Endurance.
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When they get back, they are shocked.
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Romilly looks much older.
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His beard is long and gray.
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For them, only a few hours passed on the planet.
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But for Romilly, on the endurance, 23 years have passed.
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The time difference is real.
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Cooper checks his messages from home.
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Tom, his son, has grown up.
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He graduated, got married, and had a child.
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Murphy is now a grown woman.
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She is working as a scientist with Professor Brand.
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In one message, Murphy speaks to him.
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It is her birthday.
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She is the same age he was when he left.
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She is not angry anymore.
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She just wants him to come home.
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She tells him that the professor is dying.
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Before he dies, he tells her a secret.
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He tells her the truth about his plan.
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He had solved half of the equation to save the people of Earth.
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But he could not solve the second half.
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He needed data from inside a black hole to finish it.
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He knew he could never get that data.
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So, plan A was a lie.
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There was no way to save the people on earth.
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The only real plan was plan B.
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Plan B was to use the ship's cargo of frozen human embryos.
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They would start a new human colony on another planet.
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He was sending the crew away so that humanity could start over.
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He was leaving the people on earth to die.
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is heartbroken and angry.
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She tells Cooper this through the message.
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Cooper feels terrible.
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He has left his children to die for a lie.
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The Endurance has enough fuel for only one more planet.
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They have to choose between two.
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One is Dr.
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Mann's planet.
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The other is Edmund's planet.
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Dr.
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Mann's signal is still strong.
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He is a great scientist.
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He is a hero to the crew.
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Brand wants to go to Edmund's planet.
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She is in love with the astronaut who went there.
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Cooper thinks she is being emotional.
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He chooses Dr.
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Mann's planet.
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They land on Dr.
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Mann's planet.
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It is a cold, icy world.
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It is covered in clouds of freezing gas.
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They find Dr.
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Man in a small base.
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He is alive, but very weak.
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He is so happy to see them.
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He tells them his planet is great for human life.
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He shows them data about the surface.
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But there is something wrong.
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His robot, Kip, is broken.
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Dr.
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Man says Kip crashed a long time ago.
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Cooper and the others are suspicious.
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Romilly stays behind to study Kip.
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He tries to fix the robot's memory.
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Cooper, Brand, and Dr.
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Mann go to explore the planet's surface.
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Dr.
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Mann leads them to a beautiful, frozen spot.
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He says it is safe.
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But then, his helmet display changes.
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It shows the truth.
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The atmosphere is poisonous and deadly.
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There is no safe place on this planet.
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The data he sent was all fake.
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He was just afraid to die alone.
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He wanted to be rescued, no matter what.
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Dr.
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Mann tries to kill Cooper.
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He breaks Cooper's helmet.
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He cuts off his air supply.
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He leaves him to die on the ice.
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He goes back to the base to steal the endurance.
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Back at the base, Romilly finally gets Kip working.
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The robot starts to tell the truth.
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Please do not.
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It says.
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But then it explodes.
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Dr.
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Mann had booby-trapped it.
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The explosion kills Romilly.
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Cooper is dying on the ice.
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But Brand comes back and saves him.
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They rush back to the base.
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They are too late.
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They see Dr.
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Mann flying away in a shuttle.
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He is trying to dock with the Endurance.
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But he is not a good pilot.
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He tries to dock too fast.
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The air pressure is too strong.
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The airlock explodes.
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The shuttle is destroyed.
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Dr.
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Mann is killed.
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The explosion damages the endurance.
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The ship starts to spin wildly out of control.
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It is falling towards the black hole, Gargantua.
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Cooper and Brand are in their own shuttle.
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Cooper does a very dangerous thing.
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He flies his shuttle next to the spinning endurance.
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He matches its spin perfectly.
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It is a perfect piece of flying.
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They are able to dock.
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They get control of the main ship again.
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But the damage is done.
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They have very little fuel left.
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They cannot go home.
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They can only go to one place.
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They decide to use the black hole's gravity for one final push.
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It is a slingshot maneuver.
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It will send them towards Edmund's planet.
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But to make it work, they have to get very close to the black hole.
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Cooper and his robot, TARS, will detach in one small shuttle.
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They will go into the black hole.
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They will collect the quantum data from inside.
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This is the data Professor Brand needed.
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Meanwhile, Brand will take the Endurance and the embryos to Edmund's planet.
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TARS goes into the black hole first.
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Cooper follows.
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As he falls, the ship is torn apart by the immense gravity.
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He is thrown out of his seat.
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Cooper wakes up.
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He is not in space anymore.
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He is in a strange place.
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It is a kind of giant, 3D grid made of light.
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He is inside the Tesseract.
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It is a place built by the mysterious beings from the fifth dimension.
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They are the ones who made the wormhole.
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They have made this place so that Cooper can communicate with the past.
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He sees that the Tesseract is full of bookshelves.
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He realizes it is the back of the bookshelf in Murphy's old room.
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He is looking through time.
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He can see every moment in Murphy's bedroom.
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He sees himself leaving.
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He sees Murphy as a child, watching him go.
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He sees her as a young woman.
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He tries to talk to her.
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He pushes on the books.
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They move in the tesseract.
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In the past, they just fall off the shelf.
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He is the ghost.
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He was always the ghost.
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He tries to send a message.
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He finds Tars, who is also in the tesseract.
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Tars has collected the quantum data from the black hole.
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But Cooper needs to send it to Murphy.
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He sees the watch he gave her.
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It is hanging on the wall.
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He realizes he can use gravity to move the second hand.
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He can send the data by making the hand move in a pattern.
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In Morse code, the hand ticks.
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Tick, tick, tick.
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It is the data from the black hole.
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On the other side, Murphy is now a grown woman.
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She is back in her old room.
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She is watching the watch.
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She sees the hand moving strangely.
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She finally understands.
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Her father is not gone.
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He is there.
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He is communicating with her.
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She writes down the data from the watch.
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With this data, she can solve the professor's equation.
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Humanity can be saved.
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She tells him, they didn't bring us here to change the past.
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The tesseract starts to close.
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The beings are done with him.
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He is sent back out of the black hole.
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Cooper wakes up again.
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He is floating in space, near Saturn.
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An old NASA ship finds him.
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He is alive.
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He is taken to a space station.
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It is a giant cylinder.
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It is spinning to create gravity.
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It is full of plants, houses, and people.
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This is Cooper Station.
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Murphy's work saved them all.
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Humanity left earth.
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Cooper is taken to a hospital.
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He is a famous man.
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He is a hero from the past.
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A man tells him that he should meet an old woman.
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It is Murphy.
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She is very, very old.
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She is lying in a bed.
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She is surrounded by her family.
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Cooper goes to her.
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She has lived a long, full life.
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She looks at him.
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She is happy to see her father again.
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But she is old, and he is still young.
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Time did not pass for him.
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She tells him she always knew he would come back.
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She tells him that parents should not have to watch their children die.
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She is surrounded by her family.
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She has her children and grandchildren.
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She is content.
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She tells him to go.
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She says, go.
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Cooper has no place here.
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His daughter is gone.
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He has nothing left.
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But Brand is still out there.
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She is on Edmund's planet.
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He steals a small spaceship.
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He flies back through the wormhole.
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He is heading towards Brand.
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He finds her.
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She is alone on the planet.
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She is next to the grave of Edmunds.
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She is setting up a camp.
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In the background, the sky is clear.
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The planet looks good.
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She has started the colony.
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Cooper arrives.
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They are reunited.
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The story ends with a new beginning for humanity.
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It is on a new world.
Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
Practicing speaking through this video is an excellent way to immerse yourself in authentic English dialogue. The story unfolds in a future Earth facing serious challenges, making it not only interesting but also rich with vocabulary and expressions relevant to survival and discovery. By engaging with this content, you can develop your speaking skills while exploring themes of hope and resilience. Using the shadowing technique, you can mimic the speaker's intonation and rhythm to improve your pronunciation and fluency. This practice technique is particularly useful for those preparing for IELTS speaking practice, as it helps in developing a natural flow in speech.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
Several key structures and expressions from the video can enhance your English proficiency:
- Conditional sentences: "If the world is sick..." This construction helps express hypothetical situations, a crucial skill for advanced speaking.
- Past simple tense: "He used to be a pilot..." Understanding how to convey past actions vividly is essential when sharing stories or personal experiences.
- Present continuous tense: "Families are living in old farmhouses." This aspect describes ongoing situations, commonly used in conversations.
- Descriptive adjectives: “the terrible blight...” Learning to use adjectives effectively adds depth to your speaking, making your conversations more engaging.
Integrating these structures into your speeches can significantly boost your confidence and ability to express complex ideas clearly.
Common Pronunciation Traps
As you practice alongside the video, pay attention to the following tricky words and phrases that may pose challenges:
- Coordinates: Focus on the stress of syllables to correctly pronounce this word, as it can often be misrecognised.
- Blight: This word has silent letters that can confuse non-native speakers. Ensure you practice with emphasis on its pronunciation.
- Dying planet: The two words ‘dying’ and ‘planet’ can be easily rushed together. Practicing the separation can improve clarity in your speech.
By clearly articulating these terms, you're not only enhancing your vocabulary but also preparing yourself for english speaking practice in real-life scenarios.
Utilize the shadow speech technique as you repeat what you hear in the video, allowing you to develop a better accent and improve your overall English fluency.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.