Listen and Respond
Listen to a short passage entitled “An Invitation”. Task One Focusing on the Main Ideas
Choose the best answer to each of the following questions according to the information contained in the listening passage. 1) Where did the woman see the three old men? A) In front of her store. B) In her front yard. C) In her dream. D) In her doorway.
2) Who were the three old men respectively?
A) Success, Hope and Wealth. B) Faith, Hope, and Love. C) Wealth, Faith and Success. D) Love, Success and Wealth.
3) Whom did the family invite in?
A) Wealth. B) Love. C) Success. D) All of the above.
4) How many of the old men would like to go into the house? A) One. B) Two. C) Three. D) Four.
5) What is the main idea of the passage?
A) Where there is love, there is wealth and success. B) One cannot live without wealth, love and success. C) Love is as important as wealth and success.
D) Wealth and success are what people pursue most eagerly.
Task Two Zooming In on the Details
Listen to the passage again and fill in each of the blanks according to what you have heard.
1. The women thought that the three old men must be hungry , so she invited them to come in and have something to eat .
2. The old men said that they did not go into a house together .
3. The husband wished to invite Wealth , but the woman did not agree and wished to have Success , while their daughter suggested: “ Wouldn’t it be better to invite Love ?”
4. The woman came out and asked: “Which one of you is Love ? Please come in and be our guest .”
5. The other two old men also got up and followed, which surprised the woman.
6. One old man told the woman: “If you had invited Wealth or Success , the other two of us would have stayed out .”
Read and Explore
Task One Discovering the Main Ideas
1 Answer the following questions with the information contained in Text A.
1) Is “love” easy to define? Why or why not?
No. It is because love is a feeling that can only be felt but cannot be clearly described.
2) How does the author describe “puppy loves”?
“Puppy loves” are brief, silly, adventurous but harmless.
3) What does it take for love to develop into maturity?
Love takes time to blossom and it takes a lot of understanding, caring, sharing and affection to develop into maturity.
4) What helped preserve the holiness of love in the author’s parents’ generation?
It was the distance between men and women that helped preserve the holiness of love in the author’s parents’ generation.
5) What negative roles do the media play in forming the younger generation’s view of love?
The media have exposed the younger generation to things that have fast paced their sensibilities so much that taking things slow requires effort.
6) What do young people today tend to value in relationships? What does the author think they should value?
They tend to value physical beauty, closeness, passion and acquiring. The author thinks that they should value inner charm, intimacy, emotion and sharing.
2 Text A can be divided into four parts with the paragraph number(s) of each part provided as follows. Write down the main idea of each part.
Part Paragraph(s) Main Idea
One 1–2 Love is hard to define because it can only be felt but not described.
Two 3–7 The author discusses love of different depths from her own experiences.
Three 8–12 The two generations handle love and relationships differently. The younger generation tends to be more hasty and selfish in building relationships.
Four 13–14 The author advises young people to learn the essence of love and find ways to develop relationships into lifelong bonds.
Task Two Reading Between the Lines
Read the following sentences carefully and discuss in pairs what the author intends to say by the italicised parts.
1. Given the busy nature of our lives, it’s to be appreciated that we even find the time to indulge in matters of the heart. (Para. 3)
Love is still indispensable to us, even though we are so busy pursuing material things for our everyday life. For this we should feel grateful.
2. The long skirts, the quiet and unpretentious looks, the curled long hair, the calmness, the shy glance — these are all so frequently remindful of a bygone era. (Para. 8)
These often remind us of those days when people of our parents’ generation were courting. It was an era of constraints, restraints, respect, admiration, and plenty of romance. But such an era is gone for ever, for young people today tend to behave differently.
3. There is more of acquiring and less of sharing. (Para.12)
The younger generation is more selfish: they care too much about what they can get instead of what they can share.
4. There’s much more to being someone’s lover than gifting them red roses and fifty-cent cards. (Para. 13)
People in a relationship need to do much more than just sending gifts to their lovers. More importantly, they should devote themselves, heart and soul, to each other.