There is a story about Indian summer that goes back to the very first settlers of the New World. The first frost meant winter was coming. Snow would soon follow.
The Indians, seeing the settlers preparing for winter, told them not to hurry. The weather would turn warm, mild breezes2 would blow and the sky would turn soft and smoky. And so it did. The sun became hotter, and a bright warm smoke flowed over the fields and woods. The settlers, remembering the words of the Indians, called this wonderful period Indian summer.
But the Indians have their own stories about this late period of warm weather. One of their stories is about a god called Shawondasee.
Shawondasee was a sad god because he had lost the love of a tall and beautiful Indian maiden3. The sad and beautiful story caught the imagination of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1855 he included the story of Shawondasee in his poem “The song of Hiawatha”.
The story goes like this: God Shawondasee, fat and lazy, lived under the dreamy and neverending southern sun. He sent birds and wild geese to the north, as well as melons4 and grapes. He smoked a big pipe, and as the smoke rose, it filled the sky with dreamy softness, gave a bright shine to the water and brought the tender Indian summer to the melancholy northland.
There is something about this period of warm weather that gives people a lift and makes them feel warm and happy before the long snows of winter come.
【生词注释】
1. frostn. 霜；霜冻
2. breezen. 微风；轻风
3. maidenn. 姑娘；少女
4. melonn. 瓜；甜瓜
1. Which season does “Indian summer” refer to?
A. Early spring.
B. Late summer.
C. Midautumn.
D. Early winter.
2. Which of the following best describes the weather of this period of time?
A. Hot and humid.
B. Warm and mild.
C. Cool and bright.
D. Cold and smoky.
3. The Indians explanation to this natural phenomenon is that God Shawondasee .
A. lived under the dreamy southern sun
B. took pity on the homeless settlers
C. smoked a lot with his big pipe
D. lent his smoking pipe to the Indians
4. What is the meaning of the underlined word “melancholy”？
A. Sad and lonely.
B. Dreamy and exciting.
C. Soft and musical.
D. Warm and happy.
TV is an excellent resource for hearing and listening to English. The pictures help you understand what is being said and TV news is an ideal1 way to help improve your listening ability because within a short period of time the same news is often repeated. This means that you can watch basically2 the same news program several times within a day and that every succeeding program will help you to understand what is being said.
These preparatory3 steps are very important before your listening:
Find out which news report you want to listen to, when and on what channel. CCTV 9 is a good choice because this is Chinas English channel and has regular news reports.
Just watch the news reports for a few days first, before requiring yourself to understand the stories. Give yourself time to get familiar with the newsreaders and their accents. You should also get an idea of the structure of the entire report as well as the structure of a typical news story.
Watch the news in Chinese first. This will tell you what the main news items are and help you prepare for understanding news reports in English.
While listening, you should pay attention to a few things that you may try to do:
You can aim at just getting what a story is about. Give a onetotwosentence description after each story.
Put forward a few questions to yourself about a story, and then seek to answer them from your listening. You can do this by stopping the tape as soon as the headline is read to you.
You may write a full transcript4 of a story to practise intensive listening. This may bring to notice listening problems that have skipped your attention when you only concentrate on the content.
Even though the listening part is over, some followup activities will help you reinforce5 your learning. You may talk about the news with one or more friends. This provides an opportunity to produce a summary or express your thoughts in a brief article.
【生词注释】
1. idealadj. 理想的；最好的
2. basicallyadv. 基本上；根本上；本质上
3. preparatoryadj. 预备的；准备的
4. transcriptn. 抄本; 副本
5. reinforcevt. 增强；加强
1. The underlined word “succeeding” most probably means .
A. funny
B. next
C. good
D. famous
2. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage?
A. Getting ready for news listening
B. Making suggestions while listening.
C. Practice some followup activities after listening.
D. Listening practice after the proposal.
3. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A. The pictures on TV are helpful to your written English and spoken English.
B. CCTV 9 is a good choice because there are all excellent foreign newsreaders.
C. You may get a general idea about a story by using one or two sentences.
D. You may use the whole transcript of a story to practise your writing ability.
4. The best title of this passage may probably be .
A. How to listen to TV news
B. How to improve your listening
C. How to get from listening
D. How to listen step by step
“Tear them apart!” “Kill the fool!” “Murder the referee1！”
These are common remarks one may hear at various sporting events. At the time they are made, they may seem innocent enough. But lets not kid ourselves. They have been known to influence behavior in such a way as to lead to real violence. Books have been written about the way words affect us. It has been shown that words having certain meanings may cause us to react in ways quite foreign to what we consider to be our usual behavior. I see the term “opponent” as one of those words. Perhaps the time has come to delete2 it from sports terms.
The dictionary meaning of the term “opponent” is “enemy” , or “one who opposes your interests”. Thus, when a player meets an opponent, he or she may tend to treat that opponent as an enemy. I remember an incident in a handball game when a referee refused a players request for a time out for a glove change because he did not consider them wet enough. The player proceeded to rub3 his gloves across his wet Tshirt and then screamed “Are they wet enough now?”
