听力教程1 (施心远版)news原文 unit3

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NEWS ITEM1

This presidential election is creating unusual interest and excitement across America, especially with young people and Democrats.

The Democrats hope to reclaim the White House after 8 years of Republican presidency. Yet candidates from both parties are promising change.

There are major issues facing Americans: the weakening economy, the Iraq war. Other concerns include the troubled housing market, high costs of health care and energy, and the debate over illegal immigration.

But interest in the election is also being driven by the candidates themselves. Democrats Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would become America’s first female or first black president. Republican John McCain would become, at age seventy-two, the oldest president elected to a first term.

NEWS ITEM2

The space shuttle Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center in the state of Florida last month. It was the one hundred twentieth shuttle flight and the twenty-third to the

International Space Station.

The United Spaces space agency had two main goals for this flight of Discovery. First, the crew was to move a structure from one side of the space station to the other. And then they were to add a new room to the space station.

NASA calls the new addition to the space station the Harmony connecting module. It is the first new room added to the space station since 2001. Harmony is about seven meters long and about four meters wide. It will be a passageway between the laboratories and the rest of the space station.

NEWS ITEM3

The World Health Organization is urging countries to follow 6 policies to prevent millions of tobacco-related deaths. The 6 policies are known as MPOWER, spelled M-P-O-W-E-R.

The M is for monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies. The P is for protecting people by establishing smoke-free areas. The O stands for offering services to help people stop smoking. The W is for warning people about the dangers of tobacco. The E is for enforcing bans on tobacco advertising and other forms of marketing. And the R is for raising taxes on tobacco.

The WHO says tobacco now causes more than five million

deaths a year. It predicts this number will rise to more than eight million by the year 2030. By the end of the century, it says, tobacco could kill one billion people─ten times as many as in the twentieth century.

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PASSAGE2

British Postmen and Milkmen British postmen and milkmen have a reputation for being cheerful. As they both arrive very early in the morning, when you are perhaps not feeling very good-tempered, their brisk knocking and bright whistling may get in your nerves. Of course, there are some gloomy postmen, who make you think that every letter contains tragic news, but the majority are jolly and good-humoured. This is quite surprising, because delivering the mail each morning is a job which is not very well paid and there are a great many problems.

The city postman has to go on foot, not only along streets but also up and down stairs, as many blocks of flats still have no lifts and no downstairs letterbox. If he has a registered letter to deliver, he has to wait for someone to come to the door to sign for it. That person