李绍山四级听写原文(学生复制)

Passage 40

Exploring

Explorers have gone all over the world, and most parts of it are well known today, though there are still some forests and mountains about which one would like to know more. But it is not necessary to go abroad in order to learn something new about the world. In our city or town, even in our village, there is probably a great deal to be learnt, and certainly no one has seen all that is beautiful or interesting in his own country. We can usually see mountains that we have not climbed, and if we reach the top of one, we can see others in the distance. If we walk along a river, we shall find other streams running into it, and wonder where they come from. Every valley gives us a new view. Even on a short walk, we may see birds and trees and flowers of which we do not know the names. Passage 41

Human Language

Human language is a system of symbols, primarily spoken. It is composed of sounds that describe things, ideas, actions, and the like. Written language uses letters and other signs to represent the sounds of speech. We learn to read by noticing or being taught groups of letters that stand for the sounds that we already know how to speak. We learn to write by learning to form the letters and to put them together so that others can read what we “say”. Since human language is a form of human

behavior, there is nothing absolute about it. It has developed slowly throughout human history and will continue to develop. In the English language, there are perhaps 600,000 words, but most of them are known only to specialists and are rarely used. The average mature person has a working vocabulary of about 10,000 words and a recognition vocabulary of 30,000 to 40,000 words.

Passage 42

Why I Attend College?

Why did I choose to attend college? Is the four- year academic life worthwhile? I have put these questions to myself many times in the past two years, and now I have reached the conclusion that a college education is something that I truly want and it is worthwhile. I chose to attend college because I enjoy learning. I felt that I wanted to continue to study.

I simply couldn’t end my education upon graduation from the high school and enter the working world so soon. I chose to attend college also because I feel college is more than a place which offers knowledge. It can expose one to a rich variety of ideas. Finally, I feel that in today’s world, a college education has become almost essential if one wishes to compete in the job market. Attending college is a practical and necessary step to a secure future.

Passage 43

Dried Food

Centuries ago, man discovered that removing water from food helps to preserve it, and that the easiest way to do this is to expose the food to the sun and wind. All foods contain water. Cabbage and other leaf vegetables contain as much as 93% water, potatoes and other root vegetables 80%, and fish from 80% to 60%, depending on how fatty they are. If this water is removed, food won’t go bad easily. Dried foods take up less room and weigh less than the same food packed in cans or frozen, and they do not need to be stored in special conditions. For these reasons, they are invaluable to climbers, explorers and soldiers in battle, who have little storage space. They are also popular with housewives because it takes so little time to cook them. Usually it is just a case of replacing the water removed with boiling water.

Passage 44

Teaching

Teaching is supposed to be a professional activity requiring long and complicated training. The act of teaching is looked upon as a flow of knowledge from a higher source into an empty container. The student’s role is one of receiving information; the teacher’s role is one of supplying it. However, teaching need not be the province of a special group, nor need it be looked upon as a technical skill. Teaching is not forcing information into a supposedly empty head but guiding and assisting. If you have a certain skill, you should be able to share it with someone. All

of us, from the youngest child to the oldest member of our society, should come to realize our own potential as teachers. We can share what we know, however little it might be, with someone who has need of that knowledge or skill.

Passage 45

Energy from the Sun

The energy from the sun goes in every direction. However, only a minute part of it falls on the earth. Even so, it represents the power of about five million horsepower per square mile per day. The sun gives us as much energy every minute as mankind uses in a year. At present, we use this energy indirectly, and it is our only final source of power. Coal represents the chemical action of the sun on green plants thousands of years ago. Water power results from the sun’s creating vapor and the resulting rain. Even windmills operate because of air currents set in motion by the sun. Some day, through some type of solar motor, we shall use this source of energy more directly. Already, a scientist has worked out a surprisingly efficient engine, which uses a series of mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy to create steam.

Passage 46

Women’s Colleges in the United States In the United States, 84 colleges now accept just women. Most of them were established in the 19th century. They were designed to offer women

the education they could not receive anywhere else. At that time, major universities and colleges accepted only men. In the past 20 years, many young women have chosen to study at colleges that accept both men and women. As a result, some women’s colleges decided to accept men students, too. Others, however, refused to change.

Educational experts say that men students usually speak more in class than women students do. In a women’s college, women feel free to say what they think. Women’s colleges also bring out leadership capability in many women. Recent studies show that this leadership continues after college. The studies also show that American women who went to women’s colleges are more likely to hold successful jobs later in life. Passage 47

The Value of a Name

Names can affect the way people see themselves. If a person likes his name, he is likely to have high self-esteem. However, the value of a person’s name to his or her self-esteem is mostly influenced by other people’s opinion of that name. for example, some teachers like students because of their names. A teacher’s tone of voice, smile, and warm treatment of certain students show his or her preference. This does not happen only in the classroom. Studies show that youngsters with aggressive names actually commit more crimes than teenagers who have quiet, peaceful-sounding names. The studies described above emphasize

the disadvantages of uncommon names. However, uncommon names may also have advantages in certain occupations. So if your name is unusual, you may one day become a well-known scientist or the president of your own business.

Passage 48

The Horse

The horse preceded man on earth. The earliest remains of primitive horses have been found on the North American continent. Many scientists believe this small species traveled over a land mass to Asia to found the beginning of the modern Asian horse. Yet it became extinct in America. Other scientists believe that the horse may have originated in Asia. In any event the animal soon spread to China, Europe, and the Middle East. The first modern horses to be introduced into the American continent came with the early Spanish explorers. Horses are said to rate in intelligence after the ape, the elephant and the dog. They have excellent memories and can sometimes find their way home when lost, and sense danger better than their masters. The early civilizations of man that made use of the horse developed more rapidly than those which did not.

Passage 49

Space and Distance

The study of space and distance concerns the way we use the space around us. The minute you enter a classroom, for example, you will have

to decide where to sit. You may choose to sit in the back because you do not want to be noticed, or because you do not want people behind you to look at you. on the other hand, you might select a front-row seat because you have a lot of confidence, or because you want to be noticed. What is interesting about your choice of seating is that you might be sending your instructor a message. When he sees you sitting in the back or in the far corner, he might decide that you are not very interested in the subject. If you are in the front row, he might conclude that you are an unusually attentive student and he should give you special attention.

Passage 50

Travel and the Hotel Business

A hotel is a temporary home for travelers. In a hotel, the traveler can rest and have food and drink. The hotel may also offer facilities for recreation, such as a swimming pool, or a golf course. In many cases, the hotel also provides free parking space for the traveler’s means of transportation. Travel and hotels have always been closely related. In Europe and America, for example, inns were built along the roads. The inns were primitive by modern standards. The traveler usually had to share his bed with other people. The old-fashioned inns, however, did provide food and shelter for both men and horses and therefore became a symbol of hospitality. Indeed, the word “inn” has been used by many modern hotels to suggest the image of people warming themselves in front of a cheerful

fire while waiting to be called to a rich dinner.

Passage 51

A New Era

A new era is upon us. We can call it the service economy, the information age or the knowledge society. It all translates to a fundamental change in the way we work. Already we are partly there. The percentage of people who earn their living by making things has fallen dramatically in the Western World. Today, the majority of jobs in America, Europe, Japan, and many other countries are in the service industry, and the number is on the rise. More women are in the work force than ever before. There are more part-time jobs. More people are self-employed. But the breadth of the economic transformation can’t be measured by numbers alone, because it is also giving rise to a radical new way of thinking about the nature of work itself. Long-held notions about jobs and careers, the skills needed to succeed, even the relation between individuals and employers, all these are being challenged.

Passage 52

Nuclear Power

The big advantage of nuclear power is the large amount of energy released from a relatively small amount of material. Nuclear power has become an important source of energy in some countries, especially in Germany and Japan. The United States and Canada are less dependent

than Europeans on nuclear energy, in part because of their more abundant coal reserves. Five problems severely restrict the use of nuclear power instead of coal to generate electricity. The first problem is the danger of an accident. The second is the need to store waste products following the reaction. No country has devised an effective storage system for waste products. The third problem is that a bomb can be made from the material. Nuclear power has been used in warfare twice. The final problem is its high cost. The future of nuclear power has been seriously affected by its high risks and costs.

Passage 53

Diet and Health

Even though we have more choice of what to eat than forty years ago, the diet of the average American is less healthy. In fact, according to a recent study, American pets, eating specially prepared tinned food, have a healthier diet than most of their owners. The Health Department was alarmed at recent figures which show that America has the third highest record in the world for heart disease. Cancer is also a growing cause of death. This has led to governments to try to launch a campaign to encourage healthier eating habits. The campaign will urge people to eat less salt. Sugar, animal fat than they do today. It will show the advantages of eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. The Health Department is going to issue a booklet that will give guidance on which foods to eat and

which to avoid.

Passage 54

New Year’s Celebration

New Year’s Day is the world’s oldest celebration. In fact, ancient people celebrated the new year even before they had exact ways of measuring time. new Year’s Day is also the one holiday that is observed by people of all national and religious groups. Not everyone celebrates the new year at the same time. the Chinese celebrate at different times each year, sometime between January twenty-first and February nineteenth. But the majority of people today celebrate it on January first. In some countries, the New Year’s holiday is the most important celebration of the year. But this is not true in the United States, even though it is a celebration that many people enjoy. One reason may be that Christmas comes just one week before the new year. Christmas is America’s biggest holiday, and the American people give it the importance that people in other countries give the start of a new year.

Passage 55

Seasons and Human Intelligence

If you are like most people, your intelligence varies from season to season. You are probably a lot sharper in the spring than you are at any other time of the year. A noted scientist concluded from other men’s work and his own that climate and temperature have a definite effect on our

mental abilities. He found that cool weather is much more favorable for creative thinking than is summer heat. This does not mean that all people are less intelligent in the summer than they are during the rest of the year. It does mean, however, that the mental abilities of large numbers of people tend to be lowest in the summer. Spring appears to be the best period of the year for thinking. One reason may be that in the spring man’s mental abilities are affected by the same factors that bring about great changes in all nature.

Passage 56

A False Alarm

Last night, I had a frightening experience. While I was eating at a fast-food restaurant, the manager came to announce that everybody would have to leave the building because a bomb was reported to be hidden somewhere in the restaurant. When the announcement was made, the place was immediately thrown into confusion as everyone was determined to get out first. To make matters worse, an elderly woman, who must have weighed 300 pounds, had just come up to the entrance, which was also the only exit. In the meantime, I suddenly remembered that I had left my purse in the chair in which I had been sitting. It was certainly not convenient now to return to get it. When I finally managed to get my purse and go outside. I saw the police had arrived and were searching the area. Eventually they determined that it had been all a false

alarm.

Passage 57

Air-conditioning

With air-conditioning, you can be comfortable anywhere indoors even on the hottest summer day. Inventors had been trying to come up with methods of keeping the air cool. There were hundreds of ideas, but none of them really worked. The first machine was developed by Willis H. Carrier, who is often called “the father of air-conditioning”. He built the machine for a printing plant in New York. Soon air-conditioning was being used in many factories. But the public did not really know about this invention until the 1920s when movie theaters, department stores and restaurants had air conditioners installed. As air conditioners became popular during the 1930s, central air-conditioning systems were developed. A whole office or apartment building could be cooled from one unit. After World War II, large numbers of air conditioners began to be used in both public buildings and private homes.

Passage 58

Helen Keller

Helen Keller was born in 1880 into a middle-class family. Her father was a newspaper editor. They lived in a comfortable house on a farm. From the time she lost her eyesight and hearing until she was nearly seven, she was cared for by her loving family, who allowed her uncontrolled

freedom around the home. She had the servants’children as playmates, and she ruled them like a little queen. She did not sit at the table at dinner, but wandered around helping herself to food from other people’s plates. Without any discipline, she grew up to be a little wild animal. She behaved very badly if anyone prevented her from doing or having what she wanted. But later, with the help of her teacher, Helen Keller managed to overcome the double disabilities of blindness and deafness, and became one of the most remarkable persons in the nineteenth century. Passage 59

The Submarine

Trying to describe a submarine is like trying to describe an automobile. There are dozens of different kinds of automobiles and each is different from any other. So a description of any one automobile would fail to describe the rest. And yet all automobiles are alike in the most important things: all have engines, wheels, steering devices, and certain other vital parts. And a description of a sort of average automobile would in some way describe all others. The same is true of submarines. There are many kinds and sizes, but all work basically the same way and all must have the equipment necessary for sailing, for diving beneath the sea, for communicating with their home bases, for housing and feeding a crew and so on. So it is possible to describe a sort of average submarine in a way that will tell something about all submarines and how they all

operate.

Passage 60

Motel

The word “ motel” means motorist hotel and it is used chiefly by people traveling by car. Parking space is always available. Motels are usually outside the center of town near major roads and are less expensive than hotels. Rates in motels are about $10 to $15 per person a day for a room and bath. Motels in and near large cities tend to be more expensive. In smaller towns, the prices may be lower. Because motels are often located outside the center of town, it will probably be inconvenient to stay in a motel unless you have a car or unless the motel is located near public bus or train lines. Although reservations in advance are usually required in motels in busy areas, this is not always the case in less crowded parts of the country. Because of their convenience and economical prices, it is easy to understand why they are so popular with Americans.

Passage 61

Shrinking Families Challenge Traditions It has been a Chinese tradition for several generations to live under the same roof. However, this tradition is being challenged by new ideas brought about by economic development in the last decade. The concept of an extended family is disappearing in China. Experts point out that the traditionally large families are splitting into smaller nuclear families.

Along with one-child families, there are single-parent families and “dink”families. “Dink”stands for “double-income-no-kid”. Single-parent families are the result of the increasing divorce rate, which has caused problems in child care and education. As more and more women are working outside the home, they choose either not to have children or leave their children in the care of grandparents. Thus, the number of “dink”families and families in which grandparents live with their grandchildren is on the rise.

Passage 62

How Your Memory Works

In all human communication, information is transferred from one person’s memory to another’s. no matter how the message is sent, it must arrive in a form that can be understood, held and recalled later by the brain. How do these three memory processes function? Before answering this question, we need to consider the fact that there are two kinds of memory: short-term and long-term memory. Your short-term memory can hold only five to seven items of information such as five numbers, six words, or seven syllables. However, unless you repeat that information to yourself over and over again, you will forget it in less than a minute. This temporary memory is used when you try to remember a name or telephone number that someone told you a moment ago. Short-term memory plays an important part in thinking and understanding.

Passage 63

The United Nations The most important international organization is the Unite d Nations, created at the end of World War II by the victorious allies. When it was established in 1945, the United Nations comprised 49 states. But by the early 1990s, it had grown to 159 members. However, the United Nations is now frequently criticized for various reasons. It is criticized, for example, for failing to keep world peace. Members can vote to establish a peace-keeping force and request states to contribute soldiers. However, any one of the five permanent members of the Security Council may veto the operation. It is also attacked for being one-sided on a number of world issues. Yet, with all its weakness, the United Nations still represents a place where for the first time in human history nearly all states of the world can meet and vote on important issues

Passage 64

A Change of Interests on Campus in China There has been a change of interests on campus in recent years. Many excellent students used to show a great interest in liberal arts. To become a writer was their life-long dream. Now, top students go in for computer science, business studies and other subjects concerning finance. Obviously, they believe if they master such subjects , they are more likely

to get well-paid jobs in the future. Moreover, students display greater enthusiasm than ever for learning English. A good command of the language will open up new windows for them and help widen their scope of knowledge. Besides, with the carrying out of the open-door policy and the rapid development of our economy, more and more companies have business ties with foreign firms. So university graduates with a good knowledge of English will find it easier to win good positions. Passage 65

Education in America

Life in the twentieth century demands preparation. Today, all individuals must have adequate schooling to prepare them for their work and for their responsibilities as citizens. In America, government officials, parents and teachers are working hard to give the children the best preparation available. There is no national policy in the US. Each state makes its own education rules and regulations, but there are many similarities among the school systems. Public schools in all states are supported by taxes paid by the citizens of the individual state. In most states, the children are required to attend school until they reach sixteen. When they become six years old, children begin elementary school. After six years in elementary school, they go into junior high school and remain there for three years. The last three years of their public school education are spent in senior high school, from which they graduate at the age of eighteen.

Passage 66

Work and Careers

Sometimes we say that someone we know is “a square peg in a round hole”. This simply means that the person is not suited for his job. He may be a bookkeeper who really wants to be an actor or a mechanic who likes cooking. Unfortunately, many people in the world are “ square peg s” who are not doing the kind of work they should be doing. Most of us spend a great part of our lives at our jobs. For that reason we should try to find out what our talents are and how we can use them. There are many careers open to each of us. Perhaps, we like science. Then we might prepare ourselves to be chemists, physicists, or biologists. Maybe our interests take us into the business world or the medical profession. Teaching, newspaper work and engineering— these and many other fields all offer satisfying careers to persons with talent and training.

Passage 67

Automobiles

It is impossible to say that any one man invented the automobile. Many individuals living and working in different countries and at different times contributed to its development. Many of the discoveries that went into the creation of the automobile were small in themselves. But together they were important. Here are two examples. On Christmas Eve 1801, the silence of the English countryside was shattered by a steam-powered

carriage running at a speed of 8 to 9 miles an hour—almost unheard of in those days. According to automobile historians, this was the first practical use of mechanical power to move a vehicle. After its first run, the machine reportedly burned up while the inventor and his friends were celebrating its success at a pub. Henry Ford is considered the father of modern automobile mass production. His famous Model T car, because of its low price, made it possible to produce cars on a large scale. Passage 68

Automation

For thousands of years, man has been busy making tools and machines to make his work easier. Automation is the latest stage in this process of replacing manpower with machines. Automation is as up-to-date as space flight, yet some of the ideas behind it are nearly 200 years old. The steam engine invented in 1784 is one of the first examples of the automatic control of machinery. A big step toward automation was taken when the first electronic computer was devised by American scientists during World War II. Automation is not the same as mechanization. With mechanization, workers are still needed to operate the machines. With automation, the machines are controlled by other machines, without a human worker. Not all things can be done by automation. The machine will not replace man in tasks that involve the use of judgment, imagination, artistic creation and personal care or service.

Passage 69

Newspapers

Almost every family buys at least one copy of a newspaper every day. Why do people read newspapers? Five hundred years ago, news of important happenings took months and even years to travel from one country to another. Today, we can read in our newspapers of important events that occur in faraway countries on the same day they happen. Apart from supplying news from all over the world, newspapers give us a lot of other useful information. There are weather reports, TV and film guides, book reviews, and, of course, advertisements. Companies pay newspapers thousands of dollars for the advertising space, but it is worth the money, for news of their products goes into almost every home in the country. For those who publish newspapers, advertisements are also very important. Money earned from advertisements makes it possible for them to sell their newspapers at a low price and still make a profit.

Passage 70

The Source of Energy

All the useful energy at the surface of the earth comes from the activity of the sun. The sun heats and feeds mankind. Each year, it provides men with two hundred million tons of grain and nearly ten million tons of wood. Coal, oil, natural gas, and all other fuels are stored up energy from the sun. some was collected by this season’s plants as carbon compounds.