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What will the woman do?M: Will you be joining us later in the basketball game?
W: No, thanks. I have to prepare for my tomorrow’ s examination. To play basketball. To have a rest. To go to the library. To prepare for the examination.
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What does the woman plan to do tomorrow?M: What are your plans for tomorrow, Brenda?
W: Well, first, I’ m going to do the washing up.
M: Poor you! While you’ re doing the washing up, I’ll be having breakfast in bed.
W: It’ s all right for some people. Sleeping late. Do some washing up. Cooking breakfast herself. Go shopping with her friends.
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What is the present condition of hotline like today?M: Hotlines are very common in today’s life, do you think so?
W: Of course.
M: Most of them are about amusement, in my opinion. But some of them are very important in our daily life.
W: Is that true?
M: Certainly. A free hotline offering help to teenagers was opened in Guangdong.
W: Can you tell me something more about it?
M: It is the first part of the national hotline system to help to protect teens’ rights. Young people who have psychological problems or questions on legal issues can call for help. More than 100 experts are ready to offer help.
W: Then what is the telephone number?
M: Call 12355 if you are in Guangzhou and 020-12355 if you are outside.
W: Oh, it will be a help to teenagers. Poor. Popular. Rare. Not mentioned.
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What does the woman try to do in the conversation?W: Are you all ready for Christmas?
M: Are you kidding? I haven’ t even started. I’ ve done zero shopping.
W: Well, you’ d better get going: Christmas is only a week away.
M: I have to tell you that I’ m one of those people who really get stressed out by the Christmas rush.
W: Oh, I’m not. I love the holidays. I love the crowds, the shopping, the holidays, the music, the food, the parties, and all the presents.
M: That’ s just the beginning. My wife always spends too much money on Christmas. The average Christmas expense for US families is about $ 550. But somehow I always spend about twice that much. It takes me till April to pay off all our Christmas bills.
W: But didn’t you use to love Christmas when you were a kid?
M: I guess so. I don’ t remember.
W: I know you did. You were the most excited kid in the whole class I remember. Maybe Christmas is for kids, but you can still enjoy it through the eyes of your children.
M: Well, kids enjoy it because they don’t have to do all the shopping and pay all the bills.
W: Maybe that’ s true. But you know as well as I do, that Christmas is more than shopping and trees. It’ s about what’ s in your heart and how you can make others happy.
M: You’ re right. You’ re absolutely right. I’ m going to try harder to be nice to people and try to keep the true spirit of Christmas in my heart.
W: I’m glad to hear it. To make the man feel happy. To persuade the man to shop with his kids. To convince the man Christmas is worth spending. To prevent the man from spending too much shopping.
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Why does the man choose to take an evening course?W: Hello, Parkson College. May I help you?
M: Yes. I’ m looking for information on courses in computer programming. I would need it for the fall semester.
W: Do you want a day or evening course?
M: Well, it would have to be an evening course since I work during the day.
W: Aha. Have you taken any courses in data processing?
M: No.
W: Oh. Well, data processing is a course you have to take before you can take computer programming.
M: Oh, I see. Well, when is it given? I hope it’ s not on Thursdays.
W: Well, there’ s a class that meets on Monday evenings at seven.
M: Just once a week?
W: Yes, but that’ s almost three hours from seven to nine forty-five.
M: Oh. Well, that’ s all right. I could manage that. How many weeks does the course last?
W: Twelve weeks. You start the first week in September, and finish, oh, just before Christmas. December 21st.
M: And how much is the course?
W: That’ s three hundred dollars including the necessary computer time.
M: Okay. Where do I go to register?
W: Registration is on the second and third of September, between 6 and 9 in Frost Hall.
M: Is that the round building behind the parking lot?
W: Yes, it is the one.
M: Oh, I know how to get there. Is there anything that I should bring with me?
W: No, just check your book.
M: Well, thank you very much.
W: You are welcome. Bye!
M: Bye! He prefers the smaller evening classes. He has to work during the day. He has signed up for a day course. He finds the evening course cheaper.
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What is the main purpose of the research?W: Excuse me, could I ask you some questions?
M: Of course.
W: I work for an advertising agency, and I’ m doing some research. It’ s a new magazine for people like you.
M: People like me? What do you mean?
W: Well, people between 25 and 35 years old.
M: OK.
W: Right. Em, what do you do at the weekend?
M: Well, on Fridays my wife always goes to her exercise class. Then she visits friends.
W: Don’ t you go out?
M: Not on Fridays. I never go out on Fridays. I stay at home and watch television.
W: And on Saturdays?
M: On Saturdays, my wife and I always go sailing together.
W: Really?
M: Em, we love it. We never miss it. And then in the evening we go out.
W: Where?
M: Different places. We sometimes go and see friends. We sometimes go to the cinema or a restaurant. But we always go out on Saturday evenings.
W: I see. And now on Sunday, what happens on Sundays?
M: Nothing special. We often go for a walk, and I always cook a big Sunday lunch.
W: Oh! How often do you do the cooking?
M: Em, twice a week, three times a week.
W: Thank you very much. All I need now are your personal details: your name, yours job, and so on. What’ s your surname?
M: Robinson. To investigate what people do at the weekend. To make preparations for a new publication. To learn how couples spend their weekends. To know how housework is shared.
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The whole of the United States cheered its latest hero, Ashley Smith, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation saying it was planning to give a big reward to her for having a brave heart and wise mind.
【C1】______She was moving into her apartment in Adanta, Georgia early on the morning of March 12, when a man followed her to her door and put a gun to her side. “I started walking to my door, and I felt really, really afraid,“ she said in a TV interview last week. The man was Brian Nichols, 33. He was suspected of killing three people at an Atlanta courthouse on March, 11 and later of killing a federal agent. 【C2】______
Nichols tied Smith up with tape, but released her after she repeatedly begged him not to take her life. “I told him if he hurt me, my little girl wouldn’ t have a mummy,“ she said. In order to calm the man down, she read to him from The Purpose-Driven Life, a best-selling religious boot. He asked her to repeat a paragraph “about what you thought your purpose in life was—what talents were you given. 【C3】______
“I basically just talked to him and tried to gain his trust,“ Smith said.
Smith said she asked Nichols why he chose her. “He said he thought I was an angel sent from God, and we were Christian sister and brother,“ she said. “And that he was lost, and that God led him to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people. “【C4】______She said Nichols was surprised when she made him breakfast and that the two of them watched television coverage of the police hunt for him. “I cannot believe that’ s me,“ Nichols told the woman. Then, Nichols asked Smith what she thought he should do. She said, “I think you should turn yourself in. If you don’t, lots more people are going to get hurt. “
Eventually, he let her go.【C5】______A $ 60,000 reward had been posted for Nichols’ capture. Authorities said they did not yet know if Smith would be eligible for that money.
[A]She even cooked breakfast for the man before he allowed her to leave.
[B]Smith thanked the man for his kindness.
[C]Then she called the police.
[D]The local police were searching for him.
[E]And the two of them discussed this topic.
[F]Smith tried very hard to kill Nichols.
[G]Smith is a 26-year-old single mother with a daughter.
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One in six. Believe it or not, that’ s the number of Americans who struggle with hunger. To make tomorrow a little better, Feeding America, the nation’ s largest【C6】______hunger relief organization, has chosen September as Hunger Action Month. As part of its 30 days in 30 days program, it’ s asking【C7】______across the country to help the more than 200 food banks and 61 ,000 agenda in its network provide low income individuals and families with the fuel they need to【C8】______
It’ s the kind of work that’ s done every day at St. Andrew’ s Episcopal Church in San Antonio. People who【C9】______at its front door on the first and third Thursdays of each month aren’ t looking for God—they’ re there for something to eat. St. Andrew’ s runs a food pantry that【C10】______the City and several of the【C11】______towns. Janet Drane is its manager.
In the wake of the【C12】______, the number of families in need of food assistance began to grow, It is【C13】______that 49 million Americans are unsure of where they will find their next meal. What’s the most surprising is that 36% of them live in【C14】______where at least one adult is working. “ It used to be that one job was all you needed,“ says St. Andrew’ s Drane. “The people we see now have three or four part-time jobs and they’ re still right on the edge【C15】______“
[A]accumulate[B]recession[C]domestic
[D]competition[E]communities[F]households
[G]formally[H]gather[I]financially
[J]circling[K]reported[L]serves
[M]reviewed[N]surrounding[O]survive
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Elizabeth Freeman was born about 1742 to African American parents who were slaves. At the age of six months she was acquired, along with her sister, by John Ashley, a wealthy Massachusetts slaveholders. She became known as “Mumbet“ or “Mum Bett“.
For nearly 30 years Mumbet served the Ashley family. One day, Ashley’ s wife tried to strike Mumbet’s sister with a spade. Mumbet protected her sister and took the blow instead. Furious, she left the house and refused to come back. When the Ashleys tried to make her return, Mumbet consulted a lawyer, Theodore Sedgewick. With his help, Mumbet sued for her freedom.
While serving the Ashleys, Mumbet had listened to many discussions of the new Massachusetts constitution. If the constitution said that all people were free and equal, then she thought it should apply to her. Eventually, Mumbet won her freedom—the first slave in Massachusetts to do so under the new constitution.
Strangely enough, after the trial, the Ashleys asked Mumbet to come back and work for them as a paid employee. She declined and instead went to work for Sedgewick. Mumbet died in 1829, but her legacy lived on in her many descendants. One of her great-grandchildren was W. E. B. Du Bbis, one of the founders of the NAACP, and an important writer and spokesperson for African American civil rights.
Mumbet’ s tombstone still stands in the Massachusetts cemetery where she was buried. It reads, in part: “ She was born a slave and remained a slave for nearly thirty years. She could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior or equal. “
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“ We are not about to enter the Information Age, but instead are rather well into it. “ Present predictions are that by 1990, about thirty million jobs in the United States, or about thirty percent of the job market, will be computer-related. In 1980, only twenty-one percent of all American high schools owned one or two computers for student use. In the fall of 1985, a new study showed that half of United States secondary schools have fifteen or more computers for student use. And now educational experts , administrators, and even the general public are demanding that all students become “ computer-literate“. By the year 2000 knowledge of computers will be necessary in over eighty percent of all occupations. Soon those people not educated in computer use will be compared to those who are print-illiterate today.
What is “computer literacy“? The term itself seems to imply some degree of “knowing“ about computers, but knowing what? The present opinion seems to be that this should include a general knowledge, of what computers are, plus a little of their history and something of how they operate.
Therefore, it is important that educators everywhere take a careful look not only at what is being done, but also at what should be done in the field of computer education. Today most adults are able to use a motor car without the slightest knowledge of how the internal combustion engine works. We effectively use all types of electrical equipment without being able to tell their histories or to explain how they work.
Business people for years have made good use of typewriters and adding machines, yet few have ever known how to repair them. Why, then, attempt to teach computers by teaching how or why they work?
Rather, we first must fix our mind on teaching the effective use of the computer as the tool is.
“ Knowing how to use a computer is what’ s going to be important. We don’ t talk about ’ automobile literacy’. We just get in our cars and drive them. “
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Gary:
It is generally held that one can pick up a foreign language easily when under the age of eight. If you immerse a child(under 8)in a foreign language, then he or she will pick it up within months. When a child is under 5 , this can be a matter of weeks. This, Very simply, is because the part of the brain that learns language is still developing and that it is easy for that child to pick up and copy sounds.
William:
It seems that the older you get, the more rigid your brain becomes so that it is much harder to learn a new language, for example you were a teenager. I think that as a child you learn a language intuitively, just absorbing the language around. As you get older, you have to study the language more intensively and analytically, studying grammar and such.
Arthur:
We learn our first language not for any other reason than solving problems.(communicating is a problem, and we develop our patterns to do so), when we have “covered“ that need we don’t go further, unless we have an extra need(it could be the desire of having more languages). It is fascinating how we are motivated by those needs, which combined with proper exposure makes us learn a new language.
Joyce:
My own theory is that language learning is very attitude or self-image dependent. Each person’ s self image governs to what extent they are willing to absorb a new language. Clearly, children before they become self-conscious are far less inhibited than young teenagers who have begun to worry what others think about them. I’ ve come across examples of self-conscious inhibition in adults when teaching pronunciation. Whereas children, who are still forming their own identity, seek to conform to their peers, adults, on the other hand, with an already firmly established self-image feel foolish when making unfamiliar tongue and lip movements.
Mary:
Besides self-image, children and adults experience different types of pressure from those of the same age or status. Young children are often placed in a completely foreign language environment by their parents—leaving them with little choice but to learn the new language. Peer pressure is pushing them to learn. Adults on the other hand, almost never completely separate themselves from the native culture. When it comes too hard they can easily break away from the foreign group and revert to their native language. Depending on the person’ s culture, peer pressure can push them not to learn.
Now match the name of each person(36-40)to the appropriate statement.
Note: there are two extra statements.
Statements
[A]Stress from around you affects foreign language achievement.
[B]Learning strategies determine one’ s foreign language learning achievements.
[C]Ideas about your qualities and abilities affect a new language learning.
[D]Practical needs often have positive impact on a new language learning.
[E]The older one is, the harder it will be to learn a new language.
[F]Personality produces difference in the development of a new language learning.
[G]Younger children enjoy an advantage in learning a foreign language.
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You have made an appointment with Prof. Zhang, but failed to keep it. Write a letter to your teacher. Your letter should include:
1)apologize for your failure to keep the appointment:
2)explain your reason to your teacher:
3)express your wish to make another appointment:
You should write about 100 words. Do not sign your own name at the end of your letter. Use “Wang Lin“ instead.
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Read the text below. Write an essay in about 120 words, in which you should summarize the key points of the text and make comments on them. Try to use your own words.
In the 1960s, medical researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe developed a checklist of stressful events. They appreciated the tricky point that any major change can be stressful. Negative events like “ serious illness of a family member“ were high on the list, but so were some positive life-changing events, like marriage. When you take the Holmes-Rahe test you must remember that the score does not reflect how you deal with stress—it only shows how much you have to deal with. And we now know that the way you handle these events dramatically affects your chances of staying healthy.
By the early 1970s, hundreds of similar studies had followed Holmes and Rahe. And millions of Americans who work and live under stress worried over the reports. Somehow, the research got boiled down to a memorable message. Women’ s magazines ran headlines like “ Stress causes illness! “ If you want to stay physically and mentally healthy, the articles said, avoid stressful events.
But such simplistic advice is impossible to follow. Even if stressful events are dangerous, many— like the death of a loved one—are impossible to avoid. Moreover, any warning to avoid all stressful e-vents is a prescription for staying away from opportunities as well as trouble. Since any change can be stressful, a person who wanted to be completely free of stress would never marry, have a child, take a new job or move.
The notion that all stress makes you sick also ignores a lot of what we know about people. It assumes we’ re all vulnerable and passive in the face of adversity. But what about human initiative and creativity? Many come through periods of stress with more physical and mental vigor than they had before. We also know that a long time without change or challenge can lead to boredom, and physical and metal strain.
