专四听力指导：听懂英语新闻的十大方法

英语专四听写模拟练习全套

英语专四听写练习：女人的生活发生了改变

A Change in Women’s Life

The important change in women’s life-pattern has only recently begun to have its full effect on women’s economic position.Even a few years ago most girls left school at the first opportunity, and most of them took a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women tend to marry younger, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Very many more afterwards return to full-time or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life and with both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to the abilities and interests of each of them.

Useful Words and Expressions:

life-pattern生活方式

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英语专四听写模拟：美国和英国的警察局

British and American Police Officers

Real policemen, both in Britain and the U.S., hardly recognize any common points between their lives and what they se on TV—if they ever get home in time.

Some things are almost the same, of course, but the policemen do not think much of them much of them.

The first difference is that a policeman’s real life deals with the law. Most of what he learns is the law. He has to know actually what actions are against the law and what facts can be used to p rove them in court. He has to know nearly as much law as a lawyer, and what’s more, he has to put it into practice on his feet, in the dark and, running down a narrow street after someone he wants to talk to.

Little of his time is spent in talking with beautiful girls or in bravely facing cruel criminals. He will spend most of his working life arranging millions of words on thousands of forms about hundreds of sad, ordinary people who are guilty--- or not of stupid, unimportantcrimes.

Useful Words and Expressions:

1 think much of 重视，尊重

2 in court 在法庭上

3 criminal 罪犯，犯罪者

4 guilty 犯罪的，有罪的

英语专四听写练习：阿尔伯特爱因斯坦

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in Germany in 1879, His father owned a factory that made electrical devices. His mother enjoyed music and books. His parents were Jewish but they did not observe many of the religion’s rules. Albert was a quite child who spent much of his time alone. He was slow to talk and had difficulty learning to read. When Albert was five years old, his father gave

him a compass. The child was filled with wonder when he discovered that the compass needle always pointed in the same direction—to be north. He asked his father and his uncle what caused the needle to move. Their answers about magnetism and gravity were difficult for the boy to understand. Yet he spent a lot of time thinking about them. He said later that he felt something hidden had to be behind things.

Useful expressions and words:

1.device 装置，设备

leave to one’s own devices 听任某人自行其是，允许某人按自己的意愿做事

She left the child to her own devices for an hour in the afternoon.

她允许孩子在下午有一个小时的自由支配时间。

2. compass 指南针

beyond one’s compass某人力所不及

catch/fetch/take a compass兜圈子，绕道，拐弯抹角

keep sth within compass 把某种事物限制在适当的范围内

speak within compass 谨慎小心地说

wi thin sb’s compass 某人力所能及的

within the compass of 在……范围内

3.magnetism 磁力

英语专四听写模拟：塑料

Plastic

We use plastic wrap to protect our foods. We put our garbage in plastic bags or plastic cans. We sit on plastic chairs, play with plastic toys, drink from plastic cups, and wash our hair with shampoo from plastic bottles!

Plastic does not grow in nature. It is made by mixing certain things together. We call it a produced or manufactured material. Plastic was first made in the 1860s from plants, such as wood and cotton. That plastic was soft and burned easily.

The first modern plastics were made in the 1930s. Most clear plastic starts out as thick, black oil. That plastic coating inside a pan begins as natural gas.

Over the years, hundreds of different plastics have been developed. Some are hard and strong. Some are soft and bendable. Some are clear. Some are many-colored. There is a plastic for almost every need. Scientists continue to experiment with plastics. They hope to find even ways to use them!

英语专四听写模拟练习：英国人的闲暇时光

A Popular Pastime of the English People

One of the best means of understanding the people of any nation is watching what the do with their non-working time.

Most English men, women and children love growing things, especially flowers. Visitors to England in spring, summer or autumn are likely to see gardens all they way along the railway lines. There are flowers at the airports and flowers in factory grounds, as well as in gardens along the roads. Each English town has at least one park with beautifully kept flower beds. Public buildings of every kind have brilliant window boxes and sometimes baskets of flowers are hanging on them.

But what the English enjoy most is growing things themselves. If it is impossible to have a

garden, then a window box or something growing in a pot will do. Looking at each other’s gardens is a popular pastime with the English.

Useful Words and Expressions:

1. window box:窗台上的花盆箱

2.pastime 消遣，娱乐

Swimming is my favorite pastime

英语专四听写模拟练习：联合国

The United Nations

In 1945, representatives of 50 nations met to plan this organization. It was called the United Nations. After the war, many more nations joined.

There are two major parts of the United Nations. One is called the General Assembly. In the General Assembly, every member nation is represented and has an equal vote.

The second part is called the Security Council. It has representatives of just 15 nations. Five nations are permanent members: the United States, Russia, France, Britain, and China. The 10 other members are elected every two years by the General Assembly.

The major job of the Security Council is to keep peace in the world. If necessary, it can send troops from member nations to try to stop little wars before they turn into big ones.

It is hard to get the nations of the Security Council to agree on when this is necessary. But they did vote to try to stop wars.

Useful Words and Expressions:

1.representative 代表

2.General Assembly 联合国大会

3.permanent 永久的，持久的

4.Security Council 联合国安全理事会

英语专四听写模拟练习：物品的陈列

Display of Goods

Are supermarkets designed to persuade us to buy more?

Fresh fruit and vegetables are displayed near supermarket entrances. This gives the impression that only healthy food is sold in the shop. Basic foods that everyone buys, like sugar and tea, are not put near each other. They are kept in different aisles so customers are taken past other attractive foods before they find what they want. In this way, shoppers are encouraged to buy products that they do not really need.

Sweets are often placed at children’s eye level at the checkout. While parents are waiting to pay, children reach for the sweets and put them in the trolley.

More is bought from a fifteen-foot display of one type of product than from a ten-foot one. Customers also buy more when shelves are full than when they are half empty. They do not like to buy from shelves with few products on them because they feel there is something wrong with those products that are there

英语专四听写模拟练习：妻管严

A Henpecked Husband and His Wife

There was once a large, fat woman who had a small, thin husband. He had a job in a big company and was given his weekly wages every Friday evening. As soon as he got home on

Fridays, his wife used to make him give her all his money, and then she used to give him back only enough to buy his lunch in his company every day.

One day, the small man came home very excited. He hurried into the living-room. His wife was listening to the radio and eating chocolates there.

“You will never guess what happened to me to day, dear.” he said.

He waited for a few seconds and then added, “I won ten thousand dollars on the lottery!”

“That is wonderful! ” said his wife delightedly. But then she pulled a long face and added angrily, “But how could you afford to buy the ticket?”

Useful Words and Expressions:

1.henpecked 怕老婆的，妻管严的

2.lottery 彩票

3.a great lottery 虚无缥缈的事

4.pull a long face 拉下脸来

5.have a face to say that脸皮厚得竟能讲出这种话

英语专四听写模拟练习：一个年轻人的承诺

A Young Man’s Promise

One day, a young man was writing a letter to his girlfriend who lived just a few miles away in a nearby town. He was telling her how much he loved her and how wonderful he thought she was. The more he wrote the more poetic he became. Finally he said that in order to be with her, he would suffer the greatest difficulties, he would face the greatest dangers that anyone cou ldn’t imagine. In fact, to spend only one minute with her, he would swim across the widest river, he would enter the deepest forest, and he would fight against the fiercest animals with his bare hands.

He finished the letter, signed his name and then suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to mention something quite important. So, in a postscript below his name, he added: “By the way, I’ll be over to see you on Wednesday night, if it doesn’t rain.”

英语专四听写模拟练习：土壤

Soils

There are many different kinds of soils. Different soils have different types of rock and minerals in them. Some soils have more water in them than others. Some soils might have more plant and animal material in them, too.

Different kinds of soils are found in different parts of the world. There are several kinds of soils found in the United States. In some areas, the soil has a lot of clay. Other soils are very sandy. Loam is a kind of soil that has a good mixture of clay and sand.

In some places, soil layers are very thick. Lots of plants grow in places with a thick soil layer. In dry and windy places soil layers are much thinner. Layers of soil on mountains are thin because gravity pulls the soil downhill.

The type of soil in a particular place affects what kinds of plants can grow there.

Useful Words:

clay 黏土，泥土

loam 肥土

layer 层

gravity 地心引力，重力

downhill 往下

英语专四听写模拟练习：美国的大萧条时期

Great Depression in the U.S.

In 1929, the bills started to come in. American industry had produced too many goods. Americans could not afford to buy all of them. So factories had to cut down on their production. Many workers lost their jobs. Investors tried to get their money back. But businesses did not have enough money to pay them. Banks tried to get their money back from investors. But the investors could not pay, either. Too many people owed money. And few of them could pay their bills.

During the next few years, business got worse and worse. By 1932, banks all over the country were closing.

People without money could not buy goods. So more businesses closed. More and more people lost their jobs. By 1932, more than 12 million Americans were jobless. Millions more were earning barely enough to live on. The country was in a great depression they had never experienced before.

Useful Words and Expressions:

bill 帐单，票据

foot the bill付账，负责

cut down on 减少

depression 沮丧，萧条

Great Depression大萧条

英语专四听写模拟练习：漫画家

Cartoonists

In a good cartoon, the artist can tell in a few lines as much as a writer can tell in half a dozen paragraphs. The cartoonist not only tells a story but he also tries to persuade the reader to his way of thinking. He has great influence on public opinion. In a political campaign, he plays an important part. Controversial issues in Congress or at meetings of the United Nations may keep the cartoonist well-supplied with current materials.

A clever cartoonist may cause laughter because he often uses humor in his drawings. If he is sketching a famous person, he takes a prominent feature and exaggerates it. Cartoonists, for instance, like to lengthen an already long nose and to widen an already broad grin. This exaggeration of a person’s characteristics is called caricature. The artist uses such exaggeration to put his message across.

Useful Words and Expressions:

cartoonist 漫画家

campaign 活动

controversial 争论的，争议的

sketch 素描

prominent 卓越的

exaggerate 夸张

lengthen 延长

grin 露齿笑

英语专四听写模拟练习：那不是我们的错

That Isn’t Our Fault

Mr. and Mrs. Williams got married when he was twenty-three, and she was twenty. Twenty-five ye ars later, they had a big party, and a photographer came and took some photographs of them.

Then the photographer gave Mrs. Williams a card and said, “They’ll be ready next Wednesday. Yo u can get them from studio.”

“No,” Mrs. Williams said, “please send them to us.”

The photographs arrived a week later, but Mrs. Williams was not happy when she saw them. S he got into her car and drove to the photographer’s studio. She went inside and said angrily, “You t ook some photographs of me and my husband last week, but I’m not going to pay for them.”

“Oh, why not?” the photographer asked.

“Because my husband looks like a monkey,” Mrs. Williams said.

“Well,” the photographer answered, “that isn’t our fault. Why didn’t you think of that before y ou married him?”

英语专四听写模拟练习：合格的领航员

A Qualified Pilot

The captain of a small ship had to go along a rocky coast, but he was unfamiliar with it, so he tried to find a qualified pilot to guide him. He went ashore in one of the small ports, and a local fisherman pretended that he was a pilot because he needed some money. The captain took him on board and asked him where to steer the ship.

After half an hour, the captain began to suspect that the fisherman did not really know what he was doing and where he was going.

“Are you sure you are a qualified pilot?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” answered the fisherman. “I know every rock on this part of the coast.”

Suddenly there was a terrible crash from under the ship. At on ce the fisherman added, “And that’s one of them.”

英语专四听写模拟练习：危机

Crisis

Life is a contest! Who will win? A bluebird and sparrow both compete for space to build their nests. A fast-growing maple tree and slower-growing dogwood compete for the sunlight they both need. Oil competes with coal and nuclear power as an energy source for electric power plants!

There is a problem. There is a limited amount of space for birds, sunlight for trees, and energy for people! If we do not cut back on our uses of some of our resources, someday they will be gone!

How can we use energy today and know we will have enough to go around in the future? We can choose alternate, or replacement, energy resources. It takes the earth millions of years to create coal, oil, and gas. They are nonrenewable resources.

Solar energy, wind energy and water energy are renewable resources. It takes the earth millions of years to create coal, oil, and gas. They are nonrenewable resources.

Solar energy, wind energy and water energy are renewable. What other ways can we conserve

our sources? How can we make sure there is always enough to go around?

Useful words and expressions:

bluebird 蓝知更鸟

sparrow 麻雀

dogwood 山茱萸

power plant 发电厂，发电站

alternate 替换物

nonrenewable resources 不可再生资源

conserve 保存

英语专四听写模拟练习：时间

Time

Time is tangible. One can gain time, spend time, waste time, save time, or even kill time. Common questions in American English reveal this concrete quality as though time were a possession. “Do you have any time?”, “Can you get some time for this?”, “How much free time do you have?” The treatment of time as a possession influences the way that time is carefully divided.

Generally, Americans are taught to do one thing at a time and may be uncomfortable when an activity is interrupted. In businesses, the careful scheduling of time and the separation of activities are common practices. Appointment calendars are printed with 15-,30-, and 60-minute time slots. The idea that “there is a time and place for everything” extends to American social life. Visitors who drop by without prior notice may interrupt their host’s personal time. Thus, calling friends on the telephone before visiting them is generally preferred to visitors’ dropping by.

Useful words and expressions:

tangible 切实的

kill time 消磨时间

reveal 显示，揭示

scheduling 行程安排

slot 缝隙

drop by 随便访问

preferred 首选的