听写答案

Lesson One

Passage 1: The Knowledge

Becoming a London taxi driver isn’t easy. In order to obtain a licence to drive a taxi in London, candidates have to pass a detailed examination. They have to learn not only the streets, landmarks and hotels, but also the quickest way to get there. This is called “The Knowledge” by London Cab drivers and it can take years of study and practice to get ‘The Knowledge’. Candidates are examined not only on the quickest routes but also on the quickest routes at different times of the day. People who want to pass the examination spend much of their free time driving or even cycling around London, studying maps and learning the huge street directory by heart.

Passage 2: The Underground

Travelling on the London underground (the ‘tube’) presents few difficulties for visitors because of the clear colour- coded maps. It is always useful to have plenty of spare change with you because there are often long queues at the larger stations. If you have enough change you can buy your ticket from a machine. You will find signs which list the stations in alphabetical order, with the correct fares, near the machines. There are automatic barriers which are operated by the tickets. You should keep the ticket, because it is checked at the destination.

Lesson 2

The Foolish Frog

Once upon a time a big, fat frog lived in a tiny shallow pond. He knew every plant and stone in it, and he could swim across it easily. He was the biggest creature in the pond, so he was very important. When he croaked, the water-snails listened politely. And the water-beetles always swam behind him. He was very happy there.

One day, while he was catching flies, a pretty dragon-fly passed by. ‘You’re a very fine frog,’ she sang, ‘but why don’t you live in a bigger pond? Come to my pond. You’ll find a lot of frogs there. You’ll meet some fine fish, and you’ 11 see the dangerous ducks. And you must see our lovely water-lilies. Life in a large pond is wonderful!’

‘Perhaps it is rather dull here,’ thought the foolish frog. So he hopped after the dragon-fly. But he didn’t like the big, deep pond. It was full of strange plants. The water-snails were rude to him, and he was afraid of the ducks. The fish didn’t like him, and he was the smallest frog there. He was lonely and unhappy.

He sat on a water-lily leaf and croaked sadly to himself, ‘I don’t like it here. I think I’ll go home tomorrow.’

But a hungry heron flew down and swallowed him up for supper.

Lesson 3

Sleep

It’s clear that everyone needs to sleep. Most people rarely think about how and why they sleep, however. We know that if we sleep well, we feel rested. If we don’t sleep enough, we often feel tired and irritable. It seems there are two purposes of sleep: physical rest and emotional and psychological rest: We need to rest our bodies and our minds. Both are important in order for us to be healthy. Each night we alternate between two kinds of sleep: active sleep and passive sleep. The passive sleep gives our body the rest that’s needed and prepares us for active sleep, in which dreaming occurs.

Throughout the night, people alternate between passive and active sleep. The brain rests, then it becomes active, then dreaming occurs. The cycle is repeated: the brain rests, then it becomes active, then dreaming occurs. This cycle is repeated several times throughout the night~. During eight hours of sleep, people dream for a total d one and half hours on the average.

Lesson 4

Books Belong to the Past Sir,

I visited my old school yesterday. It hasn’t changed in thirty years. The pupils were sitting in the same desks and reading the same books. When are schools going to move into the modern world? Books belong to the past. In our homes radio and television bring us knowledge of the world. We can see and hear the truth for ourselves. If we want entertainment most of us prefer a modern film to a classical novel. In the business world computers store information, so that we no longer need encyclopaedias and dictionaries. But in the schools teachers and pupils still use books. There should be a radio and television set in every classroom, and a library of tapes and records in every school. The children of today will rarely open a book when they leave school. The children of tomorrow won’t need to read and Write at all.

M. P. Miller London

Lesson 5

The School Holidays Are Too Long

Today the children of this country have at last returned to work. After two months’ holiday pupils have started a new term. How many adults get such long holidays? Two to four weeks in the summer and public holidays--that’s all the working man gets. As for the average woman, she’s

lucky to get a holiday at all. Children don’t need such long holidays. In term-time they start work later and finish earlier than anyone else.

In the holidays most of them get bored, and some get into trouble. What a waste! If their overworked parents were given more free time instead, everyone would be happier.

This isn’t just a national problem either--it’s worldwide. Dates may be different from country to country, but the pattern’s the same. Why should children do half as much work and get twice as much holiday as their parents?

Lesson 6

Sign Language

Deaf people, people who can’t hear, are still able to communicate quite well with a special language. It’s called sign language. The speaker of sign language uses hand gestures in order to communicate. Basic sign language has been used for a long, long time, but sign language wasn’t really developed until about 250 years ago. In the middle of the 1700s a Frenchman named Epée developed sign language. Epée was able to speak and hear, but he worked during most of his life as a teacher of deaf people in France. Epée developed a large number of vocabulary words for sign language. Epée taught these words to his deaf students. Epée’s system used mostly picture :image signs. We call them picture image signs because the signs create a picture. For example, the sign for sleep is to put both hands together, and then to place the hands flat against the right side of your face, and then to lower your head slightly to the right. This action was meant to show the position of sleep. So we call it a picture image sign.

Lesson 7

Credit Cards

Many businesses, such as department stores, restaurants, hotels and airline companies, use a credit system for selling their products and services. In a credit system, the seller agrees to sell something to the buyer without immediately receiving cash. The buyer receives the goods or services immediately and promises to pay for them later. This “buy- now- pay- later” credit system is quite old. People have been buying things on credit for centuries. But nowadays people use credit cards. There are two types of credit cards. One type is issued directly by a Store to a customer. Many large department stores issue credit cards to their customers. The store credit card can be used to make purchases only at a particular store. The other kind of credit card is issued by a credit company. Credit cards from credit companies can be used to buy things almost anywhere. If you have a major credit card, you can buy airplane tickets, stay at hotels, and eat at restaurants with it. Most large credit companies are connected to large banks. So if you want a credit card from a credit company, you generally have to make an application at a bank. After an applicant receives a credit card, he or she can make purchases, using the card.