口语考试朗读材料

Passage 41

Apology Helps

It is never easy to admit you are in the wrong. Being human, we all n eed to know the art of apologizing. Look back with honesty and think how often you have judged roughly, you said unkind things, and pushed yourself ahead at the expense of a friend. Then count the occasions when you indicated clearly and truly that you were so sorry. A bit fr ightening, isn’t it? It is frightening, isn’t it? It is frightening because some deep wisdom in us knows that when even a small wrong has been committed, some mysterious moral feeling is disturbed; and it s tays out of balance until fault is acknowledged and regret expressed.

A heartfelt apology can not only heal a damaged relationship but also make it stronger. If you can think of someone who deserves an apolog y from you, someone you have wronged, or judged too roughly, or just neglected, do something about it right now.

Useful Words and Expressions:

1. push ahead 捉紧进行

2. at the expense of 在损害……的情况下

3. mysterious神秘的

4. moral 道德的

5. disturbed 扰乱的

6. stay out of 不参与……，置身于……之外

7. heartfelt 衷心的，真心真意的

8. roughly粗糙地，概略地

Passage 42

Sleep

Why is it so difficult to fall asleep when you are overtired? There i s no one answer that applies to every individual. It is possible to f eel “tired” physically and still be unable to fall asleep, because while your body may be exhausted, you do not feel sleepy. It is not s o easy to simply “turn off”.

Lack of sleep complicates matters even more. Experts say adults need at least seven to eight hours of sleep a night to function properly. When you get less sleep than that on consecutive three nights, you be gin to accrue four “sleep debt”. As sleep debt increases your body experiences a stress response. Now a vicious cycle has been created: You experience the feeling of being more and more tired, but your bod

y is increasingly stimulated. “Power sleeping” for more hours on we ekends is only a temporary solution. There is no substitute for getti ng a good night’s sleep on a regular basis.

Useful Words and Expressions:

1. overtire 使过度疲劳

2. apply to 将……应用于

3. consecutive 连续的，连贯的

4. accrue 自然增加，产生

5. vicious恶的

vicious cycle 恶性循环

6. stimulate 刺激，激励

7. substitute for 代替……，替换……

Passage 43

Our Concern

The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction betwee n living things and their surroundings. To a large extent, the physic al form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Only in the present century has one species of man acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.

The rapidity of change follows the pace of man rather than the pace o f nature. Radiation is now the unnatural creation of man’s tampering with the atom. The chemicals are the creations of man’s inventive mi nd, having no counterparts in nature.

We have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals into the hand s of persons largely ignorant of their potentials for harm. We have s ubjected enormous numbers of people to contact with these enormous nu mbers of people to contact with these poisons, without their consent and often without their knowledge. We have allowed these chemicals to be used with little or no advance investigation of their effect. Fut ure generations are unlikely to forgive our lack of concern.

Useful Words and Expressions:

1. interaction 交互作用，交感

2. vegetation 植被

3. mold 塑造，浇铸

4. species 种类

5. unnatural 不自然的

6. temper with 损害，影响