视听说

UNIT 1PART TWOListening 1In one town, there were three longtime friends, Pat, Mike and Bob. Pat and Bob were quite bright, but Mike was rather dull.One day as Pat and Mike were walking down the sidewalk together, Pat put his hand on a solid brick wall and said, "Mike, hit my hand as hard as you can." Mike struck a hard blow, but Pat pulled his hand away from the wall just before Mike's fist hit it. Of course, it hurt Mike's hand very much when he hit the wall, but Pat said, "That was a good joke on you, wasn't it?" Mike agreed, but was not too happy.The following day Mike and Bob were walking in the town square. Mike decided to play the joke on Bob. He looked around, and seeing no solid object, he placed his hand over his face and said, "Bob, hit my hand as hard as you can." Bob agreed, and as he struck a hard blow with his fist, Mike quickly pulled his hand away and was knocked to the ground, unconscious. After a few minutes Mike recovered, and saw Bob worriedly looking down at him. Mike said, "That was a good joke on you, wasn't it?"Listening 2If you like, you can do tricks at a party and be announced as, "The Magician". When everybody wants a bit of fun but nothing really happens, it could be the time to play one of these tricks. You won't need any special materials, nor will you need to practice them very much.A trick with a coin, a handkerchief and a friend:Put the coin on your palm. Cover the coin with the handkerchief. Ask several people to put their hands beneath the handkerchief and feel the coin, to make sure that it is still there. Then take the corner of the handkerchief and pull it rapidly off your hand. The coin has gone! How? You must make sure the last friend knows the trick! Your last friend removes the coin when he or she seems to be just feeling it. And nobody knows where it has gone!A trick with a piece of paper and a pencil:Say that you can communicate your thoughts to people. Write on the piece of paper the word No. Don't let your friends see what you have written. Say, "Now I will communicate this word into your minds." Pretend to concentrate. Ask someone if he or she knows whatis written on the paper. They will say, "No!" And you say, "Quite correct! I wrote on the paper No!"A trick with an egg and some salt:Ask your friends to stand the egg upright on the table. They won't manage to do it. Say that you can speak to the chicken inside. Say, "Chicken! Can you hear me? Get ready to balance your egg!"When you first get the egg back from your friends, pretend to kiss the egg at the base. Make the base wet. Then put the base into salt which is in your other hand. The salt will stick to the egg. Then put the egg on the table. Twist the egg around a few times as this will arrange the grains of salt. Then it will stand up. Don't forget to thank the chicken. PART THREEPractice 4The game of football may have started in Roman times. It seems that the Romans played a game very much like our modern rugby but with a round ball.English villagers played foo tball in the 16th century and they often had almost a hundred players on each side. It was a very common game, which was very rough and even dangerous until the early part of the 19th century. In the 18th century a Frenchman who had watched a rough game of football in a village wrote, "I could not believe that those men were playing a game. If this is what Englishmen call playing, I would not like to see them fighting!"From the mid 19th century, it was played in schools in England and soon spread all o ver Britain and Europe. Until in 1850, it was not possible to have football matches between one school and another, because each school had different rules! So set rules had to be made. They were not formalized though until, in 1863, when those who preferr ed to play with hands as well as feet formed the Rugby Union while the others started the Football Association (F.A.). It was only in 1863 that the first set of rules for all football clubs was agreed upon.Nearly 150 years later, football has become by far the most popular sport in the entire world. Would that 18th century Frenchman have believed it possible?PART FOURSection 3Sally Marino gets married. After the wedding, there is a big party—a wedding reception. All the guests eat dinner. There is a band and, after dinner, everyone dances. Sally's mother and father pay for everything. At the end of the reception, Sally and her new husband cut the wedding cake and all the guests get a piece.Pete and Rose buy a new house. After moving in, they invite their friends and family to a party—a house-warming party. Everybody comes to see the new house. They look at the bedrooms, the dining room, even the garage. Pete and Rose serve drinks, sandwiches, and snacks. The party is on a Saturday afternoon.It is Christmas time. Ted and Sarah Robinson want to see many of their friends over the holiday. So they invite their friends to an open house. The hours of the party are from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. The guests arrive and leave whenever they want. The Robinsons serve sandwiches, drinks, and snacks. Some guests stay for just 20 minutes, others stay for 3 hours. About fifty people come to the open house.Mr. and Mrs. Todd ask their neighbors to come to an evening drinks party. They don't serve much food, just snacks—pretzels, chips, peanuts. No one dances. Conversation is important with people asking questions like "What's new with you?".UNIT 2PART TWOListening 1My name is Atsuko Saeki. I work as a salesclerk in a big department store in Fuji, Japan. Six years ago when I was 21 years old, I went to California to attend college. Life in the United States was much more difficult than I had ever imagined. It wasn't like the descriptions I had read in my textbooks. People often seemed tense. I felt very alone.One of my hardest classes was physical education. We often played volleyball. All the other students were good at it, but I wasn't. One afternoon, the teacher asked me to hit the ball to my classmates. For most people, this would be easy but I was terrified that I would make a fool of myself. One of the boys on my team saw how nervous I was. He walked up to me and whispered, "Come on, you can do that."You can't imagine how those words of encouragement made me feel. I was so happy; I almost cried. I managed to hit the ball and I think I thanked the young man, but I'm not sure.I have never forgotten his kind words of encouragement. He probably doesn't even remember what he said to me or how much his kindness meant to me. Whenever things aren't going well, I think of those simple words of encouragement: Come on, you can do that.We often forget that our words can have a powerful impact on other people. Even a simple word—good or bad—can have a lasting effect.Listening 2The first part:Dear Miss Austen,I was so happy to receive your letter. It is a valuable letter of reply to me. I never expected such a detailed response. I am eighty years old and I am blind. There is little I can do except knit and that is why I knit so many caps, sweaters and scarves. Of course, I can't write, so my daughter-in-law is writing this letter for me.I know a little bit about the work you are doing. At the age of nineteen I married a man who was going as a missionary to China. For 40 years, with an occasiona l year at home in America, we worked in China. We had two sons, only one of whom is still alive. After 40 years, my husband's health began to fail. We moved back to the States where he took charge of a settlement house in Brooklyn, New York. When my husband died, I came to Toronto to live with my son and daughter-in-law.The second part:What I most wanted to say is this. For 60 years I have been making up missionary packages of clothing, food, medicine, or books. I have sent them to various parts of the world. Sometimes I have received a printed slip of acknowledgement, sometimes nothing. Never before in all these years have I had a personal letter describing the village and telling me who is wearing the clothing and what they said. I never thought that in my lifetime I would receive a letter like that. May God bless you.Part threePractice 1Two Belgians and two Dutchmen traveled regularly to work on the same train.After a while the Dutchmen saw that the two Belgians only had one ticket between them and asked how they managed to achieve this. They explained that when they heardthe conductor approaching from the other end of the carriage, the two of them left their seats, went into the toilet and locked the door. When the conductor knocked on the toilet door, saying, "Tickets, please!", they pushed one ticket under the door. It was then stamped and pushed back under the door again.The Dutchmen thought this was a very good idea and the following morning bought one ticket between them. When they got to their carriage there was only one Belgian. They told him what they had done and asked the Belgian if he had a ticket as he was traveling on his own.He said he didn't have a ticket at all and when they asked him how he planned to travel for free, he told them they would have to wait and see until the conductor arrived, but he had no doubt that he would manage it without difficulty.As soon as they heard the conductor coming, the two Dutchmen immediately went to the toilet and locked the door.A few moments later the Belgian followed them down the corridor and knocked on the toilet door, saying, "Tickets, please!" One ticket appeared under the door.Practice 2"My name is Jim Shelley, and I am an addict..." With these words I began to solve the problem, the problem of my telephone addiction.It started socially I suppose—a few calls each day. It seemed harmless, just a quick chat. Gradually though, the situation got worse. Soon it was frequent use, then compulsive calling, until, finally, addiction.And it began to affect my work. I was spending all of my lunchtime phoning. During the day I would disappear for a quick call. I spent days waiting for the phone to ring. I got agitated. In the end, I would ring someone, then someone else, telling myself "just one more".I was phoning people and leaving messages to guarantee enough calls to see me through the day. I used to arrive at friends' homes and before the door was closed, go straight for the phone with the words "Is it OK if I just use the phone..." One night I found it impossible to sleep, thinking the phone was ringing downstairs. I jumped out of bed and then discovered it hadn't rung at all.Things were so bad I often rang people and asked them if they had been trying to ring me. I had a business line and a private line installed. I bought an answerphone, then borrowed money so I could buy a car and have a carphone. At work, I became hostile and violent when colleagues tried to stop me using the phone. And one day I hit my supervisorwith the phone. I was dismissed. Finally the police caught me destroying a phone box that had taken my last ￡1 coin, and I was ordered to see a psychiatrist.I haven't had a phone in the house for three weeks so far, and it's several days since I used a phone box. I also try not to watch TV because there are always people on it making phone calls. My name is Jim Shelley and I am an addict.Practice threeOur ability to speak language is an inborn characteristic of our species. We carry in our genes and our brains the capacity for spoken language. If the day ever arrives when we abandon spoken language and the sign language used by people with hearing and speaking disabilities, we will be waving goodbye to the species of human beings that we are.In contrast to written language, spoken and sign languages are user-friendly. As very young children, we just start speaking or signing; we don't have to spend years in school learning to speak. Nor does spoken language divide humanity into those who can read and write and those who are nonliterate. Everyone who is mentally and physically able can speak a language.Historically, spoken language came to humans before written language. Biologically, speech or sign language comes to each child before literacy. This is because written languages are symbolic representations of spoken languages. If we had no spoken lan guage, we could not have created written language. Written language may have emerged as the primary method used to store and retrieve information in certain areas of the world, but it is based on and derived from spoken language.In the 21st century, people with access to voice-in/voice-out computer technology will once again be able to use spoken language to access all stored information. Talking computers are going to make writing and reading obsolete.The obituary for written language will not be written. It will be spoken by someone talking to a voice-in/voice-out computer in 2050.Part FourSection 1A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit. When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead.The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead.Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out. When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?" The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.Section 2All of us would like our friends to know our moods and our needs instinctively. That rarely happens and never happens regularly. No one will ever be able to meet your needs if they don't know what your needs are. It is true that you take risks when you let your needs be known. You may be turned down and hurt. However, when you are expecting your friends to read your mind and satisfy your needs without your input, you are going to be disappointed and hurt without your friends ever knowing why.This is a common misconception of friendships and even mar riages. When asked if he had told his wife he wanted her to ride bicycles with him, one husband said, "Of course I didn't tell her. After all these years of marriage, she should know!" The sad thing is she will probably never know unless he tells her. So, tell your friends what you want and what you need. Otherwise you will be stuck in relationships that can never grow to be "best friends".Section 3I am an American English professor who has spent a lot of time in China. In fact, my husband and I have made sixteen trips to China since 1990. We have made many friends, especially since we started working on New College English with Chinese colleagues. These colleagues made me aware of a word I use in one particular situation. Let me tell you about it.My husband and I have come to Hangzhou during the Spring Festival twice and worked on the English texts with our colleagues. During this time we have eaten all of our meals together, enjoying good food and conversation. The first year my friends noticed that when I seemed to think we had talked long enough and should go back to our work, I would say "Well?" and they understood I thought it was time to leave. I didn't realize I was giving this signal until later when they started teasing me about it. As a joke, I continued doing this.After we returned to the United States, I noticed I did the same thing. I decided to stop saying "Well?". This year we returned for the Spring Festival. Again, the same group was eating meals together. At the end of the first lunch, I did not say "Well?". Everyone else just sat there until finally someone said, "Aren't you going to say 'Well'?" Everyone laughed. After that, it was my word that signaled the end of each meal, always with laughter.Recently my husband and I had dinner guests in our home in the U.S. Without meaning to, I said it again! However, I didn't want our guests to think I wanted them to leave, so I quickly continued, "Would you be more comfortable if we sat in the living room now?".。