Learners of English, especially self-taught learners may have trouble in understanding speeches by native speakers. The following ways might help improve their listening ability.
First of all, do things step by step. It is not good to listen to something beyond your level. Better choose a suitable course and start with the first book. Go on to the second book only after you are sure you understand the first one.
Secondly, stick to one course of study. Don’t change books often. Never let your attention be attracted by another course just because it seems to be more “fashionable”.
Thirdly, listen to the English news program over the radio from time to time. Better go through the news stories in the Chinese-language newspaper first. That will make it easy for you to understand the English news on the radio.
Fourthly, if you have time, listen to some interesting stories in “Special English from the V.O.A. or other listening materials of the same level as that of your textbook”.This is a piece of advice to learners of English on how to ________.
| A．improve their listening ability |
| B．read fast |
| C．write better English and read faster |
| D．speak correctly |
If you want to understand the English news program on the radio, you should ________.
| A．read the Chinese-language newspaper step by step |
| B．read again and again the Chinese-language newspaper |
| C．go through the Chinese-language newspaper first |
| D．be able to recite the Chinese-language newspaper |
The author advised that once you have taken up a course, you ________.
| A．should stick to it |
| B．should begin with the last book |
| C．should take up other courses if they are more fashionable |
| D．shouldn’t do anything else |
In this passage, V.O.A. stands for ________.
A. a book B. a magazine C. a text-book D. a radio station
What's on
Oscar Film Themes Symphony Concert
Film highlights accompanied by live performances of movie theme music by the China Opera and Dance Drama Theatre Symphony Orchestra, which has recorded the music for many films．Familiar tunes will come from such flicks as Titanic, Jurassic Park and Waterloo Bridge．
Where: Nationality Cultural Palace Theatre When: March 8, 7：30 pm Admission：80-380 yuan Tel：6528 7674 ext 508
Fantastic View All the Way
The mountains in this area are not very high, but the vistas are excellent．This walk is gentle and very interesting, going through valleys, over passes, along a ridge and through a few little tranquil villages that are located in amazing places．Many sites along the walk offer panoramic view of the surrounding mountains．
Where: Pinggu, northeast of Beijing When: March 9, meet 8：30 am outside Starbucks at Lido Hotel, or 9 am at Capital Paradise front gate, return 5 pm Admission: adults 150 yuan, children 100 yuan Tel: 13701003694 Email: fjhikers @ yahoo．co．uk
Spring Greetings
Paintings in bold colors in a traditional Chinese style by young artist Tian Xifeng are displayed to welcome the spring．Tian is a student of famous bird-and-flower painting artist Wang Qing．He has won several prizes at various national painting exhibitions and developed a style emphasizing vivid close-ups of natural scenes．
Where: Melodic Gallery, 14 Jianwai Dajie, opposite Friendship Store When：till March 31, 9 am- 5 pm Admission: free Tel: 65188123
Cala, My Dog
Directed by Lu Xuechang, starring Ge You．The story is about a middle- aged working man, known as Lao Er, whose chief source of stability and comfort in life is his dog, Cala ．One day, when his wife is out walking Cala, a policeman confiscates the unregistered canine．As Lao Er endeavors to recover his dog , the difficult circumstances of his life are revealed．Chinese with English subtitle(字幕）．
Where: Dongchuang Theatre, 3 Xinzhongjie, Dongzhimenwai When: March 13 and 20, 8: 30 pm Admission: 20 yuan Tel: 64169253 If you are a music lover you can go to ________ on Women's Day．
| A．Capital Paradise |
| B．Dongchuang Theatre |
| C．Capital Gymnasium |
| D．Nationality Cultural Palace Theatre |
The exhibition held in Melodic Gallery ________．
| A．is open to the public from 7:30 am - 5pm till April lst． |
| B．presents the works by Tian Xifeng and his teacher |
| C．is to display some bird-and-flower paintings |
| D．costs the art lovers much money to visit |
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
| A．Both adults and children can take part in the walk in Pinggu． |
| B．Even you don't know English you can enjoy Cala, My Dog． |
| C．You'll have to dial 65188123 to book a ticket for the film． |
| D．You'll have a choice of two meeting places on March 9th. |
All the advertisements in this passage are about ________．
| A．music | B．movies | C．exhibitions | D．entertainments |
The majority of astronauts（宇航员）from America have been men．At the start of the space programme there was strong resistance from some people against having women in space．However, some women were very keen to become astronauts and in the end they were successful．In 1978, NASA began the first training programme for women astronauts．
Judy Resnick and Christa McAuliffe were both astronauts and they were both women, but in many other ways they were very different．Both of them were on Flight STS-5L-L．Judy Resnick was born in 1949 and studied engineering at university and went on to obtain a PhD in 1977．She was a member of the first group of women selected for astronaut training in 1978, and in 1984, she became the second woman in space．During that flight, she helped to launch three new satellites and she carried out a programme of research．She was, in many ways, a professional astronaut whose whole life was devoted to space travel．
Christa McAuliffe was born in 1948 and she was an astronaut almost by accident．In 1984, NASA decided to find a teacher who could accompany astronauts into space．They hoped that she would be able to communicate with students from space and encourage every one of them to be interested in space travel．Christa was a secondary teacher in history and social studies．She was a gifted teacher and she was selected from over 11,000 applicants to go on flight STS-51-L．She was also a very good communicator and she immediately established a very good relationship with the news media(radio, television and newspapers）．It was partly because of this that there was a great deal of interest and excitement about the flight．Thousands of students in schools and universities all around the country were looking forward to communicating with Christa in space．Millions of people were watching her flight with great interest．It is partly because of the excitement over McAuliffe's place in the flight that the disaster in 1986 had such an effect on people．We can learn from the first two paragraphs that ___________．
| A．Judy was against the idea of having women in space at first |
| B．Judy was the first woman selected for astronaut training |
| C．Judy helped to launch three new satellites at the age of 35 |
| D．Judy carried out a programme during her second space travel |
Christa McAuliffe was chosen for training because _______．
| A．she was popular with the news media |
| B．she expected to give history lessons in space |
| C．she was an excellent teacher and communicator |
| D．she made the students in space very excited |
The reason why there was great interest in Flight STS-51-L is that ________．
| A．both Christa and Judy got PhD degrees in the same year |
| B．a young secondary school teacher was on the flight |
| C．students were going to learn more about space travel |
| D．it was the first time for women to travel in space |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．Two Astronauts | B．Flight STS-51-L |
| C．Travelling in Space | D．The Training Programme |
A recent study of ancient and modern elephants has come up with the unexpected conclusion that the African elephant is divided into two distinct (不同的) species
The discovery was made by researchers at York and Harvard universities when they were examining the genetic relationship between the ancient woolly mammoth and mastodon to modern elephants—the Asian elephant, African forest elephant and African savanna elephant
Once they obtained DNA sequences (序列) from two fossils (化石)，mammoths and mastodons the team compared them with DNA from modern elephants. They found to their amazement that modern forest and savanna elephants are as distinct from each other as Asian elephants and mammoths.
The scientists used detailed genetic analysis to prove that the African savanna elephants and the African forest elephants have been distinct species for several million years. The divergence of the two species took place around the time of the divergence of Asian elephants and woolly mammoths. This result amazed all the scientists.
There has long been debate in the scientific community that the two might be separate species but this is the most convincing scientific evidence so far that they are indeed different species.
Previously, many naturalists believed that African savanna elephants and African forest elephants were two populations of the same species despite the elephants’ significant size differences. The savanna elephant has an average shoulder height of 3.5metres while the forest elephant has an average shoulder height of 2.5metres. The savanna elephant weighs between six and seven tons, roughly double the weight of the forest elephant. But the fact that they look so different does not necessarily mean they are different species. However, the proof lay in the analysis of the DNA.
Alfred Roca, assistant professor in the department of Animal Sciences at the University of Minois, said, “We now have to treat the forest and savanna elephants as two different units for conservation purpose. Since 1950 all African elephants have been conserved as one species. Now that we know the forest and savanna elephants are two very distinct animals, the forest elephant should become a bigger priority (优先)for conservation purpose .”One of the fossils studied by the researchers is that of ________.
| A．the Asian elephant | B．the forest elephant |
| C．the savanna elephant | D．the mastodon elephant |
The underlined word “divergence” in paragraph 4means “________”
| A．evolution | B．exhibition | C．separation | D．examination |
The researcher’s conclusion was based on a study of the African elephant’s ____________
| A．DNA | B．height | C．weight | D．population |
What were Alfred Roca’s words mainly about?
| A．The conversation of African elephants. |
| B．The purpose of studying African elephants |
| C．The way to divide African elephants into two units |
| D．The reason for the distinction of African elephants |
Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?
| A．Naturalist’s Belief about Elephants. |
| B．Amazing Experiment about Elephants |
| C．An Unexpected Finding about Elephants |
| D．A Long scientific Debate about Elephants |
To err is human. To blame the other guy is even more human.
Common sense is not all that common.
Why tell the truth when you can come up with a good excuse?
These three popular misquotes（戏谑的引语）are meant to be jokes, and yet they tell us a lot about human nature. To err, or to make mistakes, is indeed a part of being human, but it seems that most people don’t want to accept the responsibility for having made a mistake. They naturally look for someone else who could be responsible for the problem. Perhaps it is the natural thing to do. The original quote about human nature went like this：“To err is human, to forgive, divine（神圣的）.” This saying mirrors an ideal：people should be forgiving of others’ mistakes. Instead, we tend to do the opposite—find someone else to pass the blame on to. However, taking responsibility for something that went wrong is a mark of great maturity.
Common sense is what we call clear thought. Having common sense means having a good general plan that will make things work well, and it also means staying with the plan. Common sense tells you that you take an umbrella out into a rainstorm, but you leave the umbrella home when you hear a weather forecast for sunshine. Common sense does not seem to be common for large organizations, because there are so many things going on that one person cannot be in charge of everything . People say that in a large company, “the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.”
And what is wrong with a society that thinks that making up a good excuse is like creating a work of art? One of the common problems with making excuses is that people, especially young people, get the idea that it’s okay not to be totally honest all the time. There is a corollary（直接推论）to that：if a good excuse is “good” even if it isn’t honest, then where is the place of the truth?According to the passage, which of following seems the most human?
| A．To search for truth. |
| B．To achieve one’s ideal. |
| C．To make fun of others’ mistakes． |
| D．To criticize others for one’s own error. |
Which of the following is NOT based on common sense?
| A．A man tries to take charge of everything in a large company. |
| B．A student goes out with an umbrella in stormy weather. |
| C．A company’s next move follows a good plan. |
| D．A lawyer acts on fine judgments. |
What is the author’s opinion about a good excuse?
| A．Making a good excuse is sometimes a better policy. |
| B．Inventing a good excuse needs creative ideas. |
| C．A good excuse is as rewarding as honesty. |
| D．Bitter truth is better than a good excuse. |
What would be the best title for his passage?
| A．A Mirror of Human Nature |
| B．To Blame or to Forgive |
| C．A Mark of Maturity |
| D．Truth or Excuse |
Elixir
Written by Eric Walter
Twelve-year-old Roth becomes a friend of Dr. Banting and his Assistant,
Mr. Best, who are in search of a cure for diabetes(糖尿病). She finds herself torn between her sympathy for the animals being experimented on and her friendship with Banting and Best.
George Washington Carver
Written by Elizabeth Macleod
Meet the “Peanut（花生）specialist”, George Washington Carver, the inventor
and professor who made over 325 products out of peanuts. Through his agricultural research, he also greatly improved the lives of countless black farmers in the southern United States. See also Macleod’s Albert Einstein：A Life of Genius.
The Inuit Thought of it：Amazing Arctic Innovations
Written by Alootook Ipellie & David MacDonald
Explore more than 40 ideas necessary to Inuit survival. From ideas familiar to us today to inventive concepts that shaped their lives, celebrate the creativity of a remarkably intelligent people. Also see other book：the Chinese thought of it by Tingxing Ye and A Native American Thought of it by Rocky Landon and David MacDonald.
Made in Canada：101 Amazing Achievements
Written by Bev Spencer
What things do we use daily that have a Canadian connection? Here
are 101common things that were invented in Canada or by a Canadian,
including the Blackberry, alkaline（碱）batteries the Blue Box recycling program.
Newton and the Time Machine
Written by Michael McGowan
Ten-year-old boy Newton has invented a time machine to see dinosaurs up
close. But it disappears on a test run with his two huge friends, Ki ng Herbert and Queen Certrude in it! Can he save them before time runs out?Which of the following best describes Roth’s feeling in Book 1?
| A．Painful | B．Curious | C．Frightened | D．Disappointed. |
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．Animals are mentioned in Book 1 and Book 5. |
| B．Book 3 introduces 40 inventive concepts. |
| C．Alkaline batteries were invented by Dr. Banting. |
| D．George Washington Carver was a black farmer in the US. |
In Book 5, King Herbert and Queen Certrude are_______.
| A．Newton’s human friends |
| B．the names of the time machine |
| C．two dinosaurs |
| D．the inventors of the time machine |