英语朗读材料(1)

朗读材料：1 A good wayMrs. Brown’s old grandfather lived with her and her husband. Every morning he went for a walk in the park and came home at half past twelve for his lunch.But one morning a police car stopped outside Mrs. Brown’ s house at twelve o’clock, and two policemen helped Mr. Brown to get out. One of them said to Mrs. Brown, “The poor old gentleman lost his way in the park and telephoned us for help, so we sent a car to bring him home.” Mrs. Brown was very surprised, but she thanked the policemen and they left.“But Grandfather,”she then said, “you have been to that near park every day for twenty years. How did you lose your way there?”The old man smiled, closed one eye and said, “ I didn’t quite lose my way. I just got tired and I didn’t want to walk home!”2 Mid-Autumn FestivalMid-Autumn Festival usually comes in September or October. On that day families get together to celebrate（庆祝）the full moon. They usually sit outside in the open air at the table. On the table there’re moon cakes, frui t, peanuts, water chestnuts（菱角）and so on. Adults tell the young people the story of Chang’e and that of the moon cake. In China there’re three main（主要的）traditional（传统的）festivals. Besides Mid-Autumn Festival, they are Dragon Boat Festival and Spring Festival. On every festival we have a big dinner. From January to December there’s almost（几乎）a festival or holiday in each month.3 When in Rome ,do as ROMANS doBefore you go to another country, it is a great help if you know the language and some of the customs of the country.When people meet each other for the first time in Britain, they say, “How do you do?” and shake hands. Usually they do not shake hands after they haven’t met for a long time or when they will be away from each other for a long time.Last year a group of German students went to England for a holiday. Their teacher told them that the English people hardly shake hands. So when they met their English friends at the station, they kept their hands behind their backs. The English students had learned the Germans shake hands as often as possible, so they put their hands in front and got ready to shake hands with them. It made both of them laugh.4 Such a judge!A judge was working in his room one day when a neighbour ran in and said ,“If one man's cow kills another's ,I s the owner of the first cow responsible?”“It depends”, answered the judge.“Well” ,said the man “your cow has killed mine”.“Oh” ,answered the judge .“Everyone knows that a cow cannot think like a man ,so a cow is not res ponsible ,and that means that its owner is not responsible either.”“I am sorry ,Judge” ,said the man .“I made a mistake .I meant that my cow killed yours.”The judge thought for a few seconds and then said , “When I think about it more carefully ,this ca se is not as easy as I thought at first.” And then he turned to his clerk and said , “Please bring me that big black book from the shelf behind you.”5 The SunThere is nothing more important in life than the sun. Without the sun all living things on Earth would die.The sun is a star. In the sky there are thousands of stars like the sun. They are as large as the sun and as hot as the sun. At night you can see many stars, but in day-time you can only see one star- the sun. The sun is much nearer to us than any other stars. That is why it looks like the biggest and brightest of all the stars. The distance of the sun from the Earth is as much as 150 million kilometers. Most of the stars are thousands of light years away from the Earth. Do you know what a light year is? Nothing in the world travels faster than light. It travels 300,000 kilometers a second. One light year is the distance that light travels in one year.6 PandasPandas are lovely animals. Most of them live in the deep forests of Sichuan Province in China. They have white fur, though their shoulders, legs, ears and eyes are black. Pandas are usually very heavy, some of them can be about 1.5 meters tall and weigh about100 kilograms. However, pandas are very agile, they can climb trees as easily as some other creatures（生物）do. Pandas have big, sharp teeth and live mainly on bamboo leaves. Every day each grown-up panda eats about 15-30 kilograms of bamboo leaves and they usually spend 10-12 hours eating. Pandas also have spare-time hobbies. Two of their hobbies are climbing trees and sleeping. Sadly, there are not many pandas left in theworld because some people keep cutting down trees, and bad hunters are trying to kill them for money. The Chinese government is doing its best to protect pandas from being harmed or killed.7 The Diet.Mrs. Tan is worried about her weight, so she goes to see a doctor. “Oh, I’m too fat, I need to lose a lot of weight.” “It isn’t difficult to lose weight,” the doctor says. “All you need to do is go on a diet. I’ll give you one.” The doctor takes out a piece of paper and writes “Eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Also, eat a lot of lean meat and grains.” The doctor hands the paper to Mrs. Tan. “Eat all those things and you’ll soon lose weight.”A few weeks later, Mrs. Ta n’s friend visits her. Her friend is surprised to see that Mrs. Tan is even fatter than before and she is eating a huge sandwich with chocolate and ice cream. “I thought you were on a diet,” her friend says. “Oh, I am.” Mrs. Tan answers. “I’ve already had all the food on my diet today. Now I’m having my dinner.”8 I’m not a poor old manIt was a beautiful spring morning. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun was warm but not too hot, so Mr. Andrews was surprised when he saw an old gentleman at the bus-stop with a big, strong black umbrella in his hand.Mr. Andrews said to him, “Are we going to have rain today, do you think?”“ No,” said the gentleman,” I don’t think so.”“ Then are you carrying the umbrella to keep the sun off you ?”“No, the sun is not very hot in spring.”Mr. Andrews looked at the big umbrella again, and the gentleman said, “ I am an old man, and my legs are not very strong, so I really need a walking- stick. But when I carry a walking-stick, people say, “Look at that poor old man”, and I don’t like that. WhenI carry an umbrella in fine weather, people only say, “Look at that stupid man!”9 Seeing aliens 目击外星人A 13-year-old boy and his younger sister are playing on a farm. Suddenly, the boy shouts to his sister:“Look! There are black children!” What does the boy see? He sees four “black beings(生命)”。