Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language ; but few people are even moderately proficient at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the fundamental reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do is that they fail to grasp the true nature of the problem of learning to pronounce, and consequently pronouncing a foreign language is a skill one that needs careful training of a special kind,and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself, I think even teachers of language while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect, in their practical teaching, the branch of study concerned with speaking the language. So the first point I want to make is that English pronunciation must be taught; the teacher should be prepared to devote some of the lesson time to this, and by his whole attitude to the subject should get the student to feel, that here is a matter worthy of receiving his close attention. So, there should be occasions, when other aspects of English, such as grammar or spelling, are allowed for the moment to take second place. Apart from this question of the time given to pronunciation,there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique. It is important that the teacher should be in possession of the necessary information. This can generally be obtained from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the mechanics of speech, and of what we call general phonetic theory. It is also possible in this way to get a clear mental picture of the relationship between the sounds of different languages, between the speech habits of English people and those, say, of your students. Unless the teacher has such a picture, any comments he may make on his students’ pronunciation are unlikely to be of much use, and lesson time spent on pronunciation may well be time wasted. But it does not follow that you can teach pronunciation successfully as soon as you have read the necessary books. It depends after that what use you make of your knowledge; and this is a matter of technique.

In general, as soon as the newborn child’s muscles, sense organs, and nerves are fully formed, the child begins to use them. But much of the human nervous system is not fully developed until the child is a year or two old, and some parts, such as the corpus callosum, continue to mature for at least the next 20 years. The general pattern of bodily development is from head to foot. Simple skills, such as head movements, appear first because the structures that control these skills are among the first to mature. More complex behavior patterns, such as crawling, standing, and walking, come much later in the developmental sequence than head movements do. The motor centers in the brain are connected by long nerve fibers(usually through one or more synapses) to the muscles in various parts of the body. Since the head muscles are closer to the brain than the foot muscles, according to one theory, the head comes under the control of the motor centers long before the feet do. The appearance of a new motor skills(such as crawling and grasping)always suggests that a new part of the child’s body has just matured-that is, that the brain centers have just begun to control the muscles involved in the new motor skill.

Prometheus was happy to be of service to man. He taught people 【C1】______ . He taught them how to plant and grow their own food,and how to use animals to make their work easier. He even taught them 【C2】______. But without fire, life on earth was very difficult. Food had to be eaten raw; 【C3】______. Tools had to be of stone because there was no fire for working metals. Athena, daughter of Zeus, had been watching over Prometheus and had helped him in his work. Now, because Prometheus was kind and wanted man to be comfortable on earth, 【C4】______ . She knew that Zeus was away and promised to lead Prometheus to Mount Olympus by a secret path. Before leaving, Prometheus called his brother Epimetheus to him and told him what he was going to do. “My brother, “said Prometheus, “I know that when I steal the fire from the heavens, 【C5】______ . He will, I am sure, 【C6】______ .I am willing to accept punishment 【C7】______. I love mankind, and want to be sure that you will carry on my work. “ Sadly, Epimetheus gave his promise. Then Prometheus added, “Be very careful when I am gone. Be sure, above all, 【C8】______ . He has great powers, and is to be feared. “ Then Athena led Prometheus to Mount Olympus. 【C9】______ , Apollo came back from his day’s journey in his chariot of the sun. Prometheus lit a torch from the chariot and put the fire in a hollow stalk that he concealed under his cloak. Then he stole away without being seen by any of the gods, 【C10】______. (From Prometheus) A. Zeus will be very angry B. he called upon Athena to help him get fire from Mount Olympus C. that you do not do anything to anger Zeus D. how to make their own tools and how to build homes for themselves E. and brought his fire to earth F. houses could not be kept warm G. how to make music and how to paint H. punish me severely I. Just as he arrived J. if you will promise to take my place K. he asked Zeus for a tool L. be fond of me

(success) He made a great effort, which was only partly ______, to turn the talk on to a more cheerful subject.

(agree) He said it would rain, but I______ with him. I was sure it wouldn’t rain.

(make) He could have insisted that his daily visitor______ up her mind about the computer.

(grow) The US portion of the Internet is experiencing rapid ______ in the number of networks connected to it.

Why does the author examine the historical roots of violence in the first paragraph?

Pronouncing a language is a skill. Every normal person is expert in the skill of pronouncing his own language ; but few people are even moderately proficient at pronouncing foreign languages. Now there are many reasons for this, some obvious, some perhaps not so obvious. But I suggest that the fundamental reason why people in general do not speak foreign languages very much better than they do is that they fail to grasp the true nature of the problem of learning to pronounce, and consequently pronouncing a foreign language is a skill one that needs careful training of a special kind,and one that cannot be acquired by just leaving it to take care of itself, I think even teachers of language while recognizing the importance of a good accent, tend to neglect, in their practical teaching, the branch of study concerned with speaking the language. So the first point I want to make is that English pronunciation must be taught; the teacher should be prepared to devote some of the lesson time to this, and by his whole attitude to the subject should get the student to feel, that here is a matter worthy of receiving his close attention. So, there should be occasions, when other aspects of English, such as grammar or spelling, are allowed for the moment to take second place. Apart from this question of the time given to pronunciation,there are two other requirements for the teacher: the first, knowledge; the second, technique. It is important that the teacher should be in possession of the necessary information. This can generally be obtained from books. It is possible to get from books some idea of the mechanics of speech, and of what we call general phonetic theory. It is also possible in this way to get a clear mental picture of the relationship between the sounds of different languages, between the speech habits of English people and those, say, of your students. Unless the teacher has such a picture, any comments he may make on his students’ pronunciation are unlikely to be of much use, and lesson time spent on pronunciation may well be time wasted. But it does not follow that you can teach pronunciation successfully as soon as you have read the necessary books. It depends after that what use you make of your knowledge; and this is a matter of technique.

On days when there is work, I talk to the other guys. Some of them tell me that the harvest season is coming in northern California, and they say that one can earn good money there. Things haven’t gone so badly in the car wash, but one afternoon I give the manager my thanks for having hired and promoted me, and with a little suitcase that night I board a Greyhound headed north. My ticket is made out for San Francisco, but I don’t plan to go that far. I plan to ride until I had a place where people are harvesting, and to get off the bus there. I sleep on the bus for a few hours that night,and in the morning, when I awake,I don’ t know where we are. I get up from my seat and walk down the bus aisle, looking for a Mexican or Chicano to tell me our location, but oddly enough I don’t see any among the passengers, who are all white-skinned. I pay attention to the road signs we pass, but they are not of much help. I can read the town names, but I don’t know where the towns lie. A map would help me, and I decide to buy one at our next stop. Lots of things are for sale at the bus stop’s gift shop, but there are no maps. I direct myself towards the shop’s operator, but I run into the language barrier. The operator is an Anglo, and when I speak to him in Spanish, he says that he doesn’ t understand. I try to practice my very precarious English with him, but it’s of no use. I have a rough idea of the sound of the words that I want to say, but I can’t pronounce them right. I make signs, signaling a big piece of paper and say “from California“, but he turns into a question mark,with eyes wide open, arms raised and hands extended. “Map,“ I say, but I don’t pronounce the word very well. “Freeways, streets,“I add, but he still doesn’t understand. He points out chewing gum, candies, pieces of cake, sandwiches ,soft drinks,and cigarettes,trying to guess what I ’ m asking for. But he doesn’t show me any maps. Finally, I back out of the store, and as 1 leave I hear him say, “I’m sorry. “ A little before the bus leaves, I run into a Mexican-American in a hallway and I immediately ask him to help me find a map of California. We go back to the store. The Chicano asks for a map. “Ahh! Ahaaa!“ the operator exclaims. Then he goes to a corner of his shelves and takes out what I’ve been asking for. While I am paying him, he talks to the Chicano in a joyful tone. With the map in my hands,I give the Chicano my thanks, and he explains that the store keeper thinks that I am asking if he needs anybody to clean the floor or “mop“.

Thomas Alva Edison was awarded more patents on inventions than any of other American. When he died in 1931, Americans wondered how they could best show their respect for him. One suggestion was that the nation observe a minute or two of total blackout. All electric power would be shut off in homes, streets,and factories. Perhaps this suggested plan made Americans realize fully what Edison and his inventions meant to them. Electric power was too important to the country. Shutting it off for even a short time would have led to complete confusion. A blackout was out of the question. On the day of Edison’s funeral, many people silently dimmed their lights. In this way they honored the man who had done more than anyone else to put the great force of electricity at his countrymen’s fingertips.

(profession) Dr. Caswell, exercising his______ self-control, said, “Congratulations, Mr. Ellsworth. “

(increase) A new form of entertainment known as“Couch Potatoes“ is the result of three______important facts of baby-boom life: marriage, children and home video.

(courage) I want to thank everyone who has ______and supported me.

(amaze) Maugham has an______ skill for revealing, with a few touches, a situation and the essentials of a character.

Some people believe that international sport creates goodwill between nations and that, if countries play games together, they will learn to live together. Others say that the opposite is true: international contests encourage false national pride and lead to misunderstanding and hatred. There is probably some truth in both arguments, but in recent years the Olympic Games have done little to support the view that sport encourages international brotherhood. Apart from tragic incidents involving the murder of athletes, the Games were also ruined by lesser incidents caused principally by international contests. One country received its second-place medals with visible indignation after a hockey final. There had been noisy scenes at the end of the hockey match, the losers objecting to the final decision. They were convinced that one of their goals should not have been disallowed and that their opponents’ victory was unfair. Their manager was in a rage when he said: “This wasn’t hockey. Hockey and the International Hockey Federation are finished. “ The president of the Federation said later that such behavior could result in the suspension of the team for at least three years. The American basketball team announced that they would not yield first place to Russia, after a disputable end to their contest. The game had ended in disturbance. It was thought at first that the United States had won by a single point, but it was announced that there were still three seconds to play. A Russian player then threw the ball from one end of the court to the other, and another player popped it into the basket. It was the first time the U. S. A had ever lost an Olympic basketball match. A judging panel debated the matter for four and a half hours without changing the original decision. The American players then voted not to receive the silver medals. Incidents of this kind will continue as long as sport is played competitively rather than for the love of the game. The suggestion that athletes should compete as individuals, or on non-national teams, might be too much to hope for, but in the present organization of the Olympics there is far too much that encourages aggressive patriotism.

It began as a game: high school and college students studying computer technology figured out they could use personal computers to break into telephone company computers and make free, long-distance telephone calls. These young computer wizards soon gained the nickname“ hackers“. Police put the collar on a few hackers,but many went on to even more complex hacking. One hacker was arrested for making illegal telephone calls and later used a jailhouse phone to alter a police officer’s credit records to get back at the officer for arresting him. The hacker also used a computer to alter his college records to give himself better grades. As hackers gained experience,they began invading computers at banks,airlines and other businesses. In one scheme,a hacker instructed an airline’s computer to give him free airplane tickets. The U. S. government is worried hackers may break into its sophisticated networks of defense computer. The government’s classified secrets are vulnerable because thousands of government computers are connected by telephone lines that hackers can tap into. In November 1988, a college student tapped into a non classified U. S. Defense Department computer network called Arpanet. The hacker injected a computer program that left copies of itself throughout Arpanet. Some hackers use each “viruses“ to destroy all the data in a computer. But in this case,government officials shut down the network before the program reached every computer in the system. Shutting down the system angered many researchers who were using the computers. The hacker turned himself into police and told them how to get his program out of the computer system. He was charged with a crime. The incident put the spotlight on computer hacking in the United States. Many companies have hired experts to protect their computers from hackers, and many computer experts now advise companies on how to protect their computers. The U. S. government believes foreign governments have hired hackers to try to break into top-secret defense computers. It fears a hacker could inject a virus into military computers that would erase all the data during a war. Experts disagree over whether a computer network can ever be safe from hacking. But in the future, some of the most brilliant minds in the U. S. will be working to frustrate the efforts of computer hackers and spies.

(die) While she was______, Cinderella’s mother told her little girl to remain faithful and kind.

(succeed) His business was a______ because he was well prepared, worked hard,and acted wisely.

direction under hung run into come up most with intend by draw tremble come to Framton 【G1】______ slightly and turned towards the niece with a look 【G2】______ to show sympathetic understanding. The child was looking out through the open window with fear in her eyes. 【G3】______ a shock Framton turned round in his seat and looked in the same 【G4】______. In the increasing darkness three figures were walking across the grass towards the window ; they all carried guns 【G5】______ their arms, and one of them had also a white coat 【G6】______ over his shoulders. A tired brown dog kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they 【G7】______ near to the house, and then a young voice started to sing in the darkness. Framton wildly seized his hat and stick ; he ran out through the front door and through the gate. He nearly 【G8】______ a man on a bicycle. “Here we are, my dear,“ said the bearer of the white coat, coming in through the window; “fairly muddy, but most of it is dry. Who was that who ran out as we 【G9】______?“ “A 【G10】______ extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,“ said Mrs. Sappleton,“he could only talk about his illnesses,and ran off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost. “ (From The Open Window)

According to the author, what is the relationship between media violence and real life violence?

What does the writer actually say about pronouncing foreign languages? ( )

The best way of learning to speak a foreign language he suggests is by______. ( )

What is it that teachers are said to be inclined to forget? ( )

The value the student puts on correct speech habits depends upon______. ( )

How might the teacher find himself wasting lesson time? ( )