介绍:
A-1
W: Welcome to Backpack Travel! I&`&m your host, Stacy Goodwin. Today our program is about hitchhiking. We have Dennis Hornyak here to share his hitchhiking experience. Thank you for joining us, Mr. Hornyak.
M: Call me Dennis, please.
W: Okay, Dennis. Do you hitchhike to save money or do you hitchhike for some other reason?
M: I haven&`&t got any money to save! I&`&m a student. I hitchhike in order to travel and, of course, to meet people.
W: Is it easy to get a lift? Do people stop or do you have to wait a very long time?
M: It depends where you are, what time it is and how many people are with you and whether they are men or women!
W: Isn&`&t it dangerous for a woman to hitchhike by herself?
M: Yes. On the other hand a lot of things are dangerous. It is very dangerous to travel in a car. And, in any case, most people in Britain will be respectful of her right to travel as she wants.
W: And is it faster for you if you travel with a woman?
M: Yes, it&`&s certainly faster.
W: How do you stop the cars?
M: In Britain you just hold out your hand, usually you put your thumb upwards. Actually, the best system is to have a sign and make the letters big.
W: Any more tips?
M: Well, you learn all kinds of things when you do it. The main advice is, try it! You&`&ll meet a lot of different people. And you&`&ll learn a lot about the country.
Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
1. For what purpose did the man hitchhike?
2. What do we learn about women&`&s hitchhiking?
3. How can the man get a lift faster?
4. What is the best system to stop cars in Britain according to the man?
A-2
W: Roger, any problems in your Korean study?
M: The biggest problem with me is the Korean vocabulary. It really makes me frustrated. The pronunciation and usage put me into great confusion as I keep forgetting them.
W: I guess first of all, you can narrow down the vocabulary sphere. I mean, try to learn "core" vocabulary,
the words with high frequencies of occurrence.
M: That sounds quite reasonable. Do you think I can find in bookstores a book or dictionary where such kinds of words are listed?
W: Yes, definitely. Another thing, the first several occurrences of strange words are very important. Words are remembered best if they are learnt quickly with a few presentations. You may not have much trouble in remembering swear words, may you?
M: No. They&`&re very impressive and quite memorable. I don&`&t even need to practice them.
W: That&`&s it! For other words that don&`&t have such a strong effect, you have to make yourself highly attentive and sensitive. If not, later practice and repetition don&`&t seem to work so well.
M: I see.
W: The last thing I&`&ll say is that if you want to remember something for periods longer than a year or two,
you need to space the presentations over quite long intervals of days, say 30 days.
A more frequent interval doesn&`&t promise you longer remembrance.
M: Really? I have thought every word should be practiced as often as possible within a short time span.
W: No. How the word is practiced is much more important than how often it is practiced.
M: You really do me a great favor, Teresa.
Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
5. What is the man&`&s biggest problem?
6. What is the cause of the man&`&s problem?
7. Why needn&`&t the man practice swear words?
8. What is an advisable way of longer remembrance of vocabulary?
B-1
In a recent study of six- and seven-year-olds in the Philadelphia area, Penn State psychologist Cindy Dell Clark
found that most parents underestimate just how terrifying Halloween can be for young kids. Two thousand years ago, Celts living in what is now the United Kingdom celebrated their new year at the end of October. During these days of transition from the end of summer harvest to the beginning of winter, spirits were thought to roam among the living. The modern customs of candy and costume are rooted in medieval England. To avoid being recognized by the visiting spirits, people would dress up in masks whenever they left home. Bowls of food were placed outside to keep the ghosts happy. The practices have gradually changed into Halloween as it is known today, with parents encouraging their own little ghosts and goblins to haunt the neighborhood. There have been few studies to examine how the holiday affects children. Child psychologists generally caution parents that the fright of some aspects of Halloween can be too much for the very young,
and advise adults to keep a close eye on children and remind them of what is real and what is not. For most kids, at an age when they&`&re often not included in family funerals or witness to grave illnesses, Oct. 31 is often their first introduction to the subjects. Halloween also provides an opportunity for adults to confront usually uncomfortable topics like death. Kids as young as six and seven, however, don&`&t differentiate between real death and the store-bought skeleton figures hanging in the trees.
Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.
9. What did psychologist Cindy Dell Clark find?
10. Why did people dress up in masks in medieval England?
11. What does the speaker say about the uncomfortable topics like death?
B-2
Over 1,000 people get struck by lightning every year in the United States, and over 100 of them die as a result of the strike. Lightning is a very dangerous force that, yes, can even reach you indoors if you&`&re in contact with the telephone or plumbing. If lightning strikes the phone line outside your house, the strike will travel to every phone on the line--- and potentially to you if you are holding the phone. So, if you are indoors during a lightning storm, stay off the phone. If you must call someone, use a wireless or cell phone--- that way, you&`&re not in contact with any wires that run outdoors. Stay away from plumbing pipes like your bath tub or shower, as well. Lightning has the ability to strike a house or near a house and impart an electrical charge to the metal pipes used for plumbing. If you&`&re touching those pipes or anything connected to those pipes, that electrical charge has a path to you. This threat is not as great as it used to be, because PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is often used for indoor plumbing these days. If you are not sure what your pipes are made of, wait it out. And while you&`&re at it, switch off your appliances and electronics before the storm hits. Such devices as your computer, television and air conditioner all provide potential pathways between the lightning and you.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.
12. What does the speaker say about lightning?
13. What does the speaker suggest doing when a lightening storm is outside?
14. Why is the threat of plumbing strike not as great as it used to be?
15. What does the speaker advise us to do before the storm hits?
C-1
Psychologists have many theories to explain how we remember information.The most influential theory is that memory works as a kind of storage system for information. There are three types of these storage systems with different functions that hold information for different amounts of time. They are sensory memory, short-term memory and long-term memory. Sensory memory holds information for the shortest amount of time, less than for seconds and instant. Sensory memory is where stimuli or things that stimulate our senses are very briefly stored. We forget sensory memories almost instantly, unless they passed into another storage system. Examples of the stimuli are what we see and hear in the world, such as a flash of lightning or the sound of a door closing. Short-term memory also called working memory, holds information for about 15 to 20 seconds. This is not a very long time. But the information that passes into this system has more meaning for us than just sensory stimulation. Some experts believe that sensory information changes into visual images as it is stored. And others believe that information changes into words. There is not much room for information in short-term memory. And it did not stay there for very long. Examples of these types of information are telephone numbers, addresses and names. Long-term memory holds information almost indefinitely, although retrieving it can sometimes be difficult. Think of long-term memory as a very big library,
with almost unlimited capacities for storage. Information gets filed, cataloged and stored. Long-term memory has several different components or categories. The main two categories are declarative memory and procedure memory. Declarative memory is where we store factual information, such as names, faces, dates, life events. Procedure memory is where we store memory of skills and habits, like how to ride a bike, or how to boil an egg. Within the declarative memory, there are smaller categories of memory, episodic memory and semantic memory. Episodic memory relates to our personal lives. Things we have done or experienced, such as having a car accident or graduating from school. Semantic memory is where we organize general knowledge or facts about the world, such as math formulas, spelling rules and capital cities.
16. What is the most influential theory about memory?
17. What do we learn about the short-term memory?
18. What are the main two categories of long-term memory?
19. What does episodic memory relate to?
C-2
The term “American dream” is widely used today. But what exactly does this concept mean? The term “American dream” began to be widely used in 1867. The term was used in a famous novel written by Horatio Alger. The novel, Ragged Dick, was a “rags to riches” story about a little boy who was orphaned and lived in New York. The boy saved all his pennies, worked very hard, and eventually became rich. The novel sent the message to the American public that anyone could succeed in America if they were honest, worked hard, and showed determination to succeed. No matter what your background, no matter where you were from, no matter if you had no money or no family, hard work and perseverance would always lead to success. Today, the message from Alger’s novel is still a prevalent one in this country. It is still used to define the American dream. A very basic definition of the American dream is that it is the hope of the American people to have a better quality of life and a higher standard of living than their parents. This can mean that each generation hopes for better jobs, or more financial security, or ownership of land or a home. However, new versions and variations of the American dream have surfaced since Alger’s novel was published. For one thing, the basic definition I stated a moment ago— the idea that Americans are always seeking to improve their lifestyle —also suggests that each generation wants more than the previous generation had. Some people would argue that this ever-increasing desire to improve the quality of one’s life may have started out
on a smaller scale in the past, but today has led to an out-of-control consumerism and materialism. Another more benign view of the American dream is that it is about the desire to create opportunities for ourselves, usually through hard work. A hallmark of the American dream, some would argue, is the classic “self-starter, the person who starts out with very little in life—little money, few friends, few opportunities— and works hard to make his or her way in the world.
20. What do we learn about the term “American dream”?
21. What is the basic definition of the American dream?
22. What is the impact the American dream may bring about today?
C-3
Today, I’m going to talk about the health problems related to sun-tan. Sun-tan is preferred by lighter-kinned people, especially during the summer months.They like to give their skin a nice natural bronze color
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