朗读模仿材料.doc

06-07学年第二学期大学英语期末口语考试之朗读部分材料B类: Passage One-Passage TenC类: Passage One-Passage Six D类: Passage One-Passage SixSAMPLE sample.mp3We talked about the growth of the cattle industry. This industry started in Texas during the eighteen-seventies. With its growth came a new kind of worker - the man who watched and took care of the cattle. These men who watched the cows and rode with them as they moved across the wild lands were often young. Just boys. And so they were called cowboys.People all over the world have seen all sorts of films about the cowboy. And he is often shown in television shows. But the real life of the cowboy is not often shown. His work has been hard, and his life lonely and full of danger.PASSAGE ONEpassage one.mp3This is the VOA Special English Health Report.Some peoples ears produce wax like busy little bees. This can be a problem even though earwax appears to serve an important purpose. Experts say it protects and cleans the ear. It traps dirt and other matter and keep insects out. Doctors think it might also help protect against infections. And the waxy oil keeps ears from getting too dry.So earwax is good. It even has a medical name: cerumen. And there are two kinds. Most people of European or African ancestry have the wet kind: thick and sticky. East Asians commonly have dry earwax. But you can have too much of a good thing. PASSAGE TWOpassage two.mp3This is the VOA Special English Education Report.We are going to talk again this week about higher education for disabled students who want to study in the United States. As we noted last time, the National Federation of the Blind says there are no special colleges or universities for blind students. But there are for deaf students. One of them is Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. Gallaudet says it is the worlds only liberal arts university where everything is designed for deaf or hard-of-hearing students. About two thousand students attend Gallaudet. The cost for international students is about thirty-three thousand dollars a year. PASSAGE THREEpassage three.mp3Next Sunday will be the most important day of the year for hundreds of people in the film industry. The Academy Awards will be presented in Los Angeles. More than fifty people will receive awards for the best acting, directing and other work on films released last year. They will receive an award called an Oscar. It is shaped like a man. It is made of several metals covered with gold. It is only about thirty-four centimeters tall. It weighs less than four kilograms. But to the person who receives an Oscar, the statue can be priceless. Winning an Oscar can mean becoming much more famous. It can mean getting offers to work in the best movies. And it can mean earning much more money.PASSAGE FOURpassage four.mp3Nineteen forty-five was a time of hope. World War Two was ending. Many nations wanted to create a new international organization. This organization would not attempt to govern the world. But it would create a center for discussion, negotiation and decision about international problems. Fifty-one nations signed a charter for the United Nations in June of nineteen forty-five in San Francisco, California. This document was based on a desire for security, human rights and a better life for all people. The purpose of the United Nations is to bring all nations together to work for peace and development. The U.N. came into existence on October twenty-fourth, nineteen forty-five. United Nations Day is celebrated on that day each year.PASSAGE FIVEpassage five.mp3Each year, the Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway announces the winners of its famous Nobel Prizes. Most winners of the Nobel Peace Prize have been men. Only ten percent have been women since the prize was first presented in Nineteen-Oh-One. Now the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the human rights group International Alert have presented a new award to honor women peacemakers. It is called the Millennium Peace Prize for Women. Officials will present the award every three years. The award recognizes womens actions in building peace, protecting womens human rights and supporting community life during and after war. PASSAGE SIXpassage six.mp3Ernest Hemingway was born in eighteen-ninety-five. He grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, near the middle western city of Chicago. He was the second child in a family of six. His father was a doctor. His mother liked to paint and play the piano.Each summer the family traveled to their holiday home in northern Michigan. Ernests father taught him how to catch fish, hunt, set up a camp and cook over a fire.At home in Oak Park, Ernest wrote for his school newspaper. He tried to write like a famous sports writer of that time, Ring Lardner. He developed his writing skills this way.PASSAGE SEVENpassage seven.mp3The story of the United States Peace Corps is our report today on the VOA Special English program, THIS IS AMERICA. The Peace Corps is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year. The very first American Peace Corps workers arrived in the city of Accra, Ghana, in Nineteen-Sixty-One. They were volunteers. They had agreed to work for almost no pay. They would spend two years in Ghana helping to make life better for poor people. The Peace Corps volunteers lived and worked in much the same way as the Ghanaians they helped. They ate Ghanaian food. They spoke the local language. They followed local customs. And they learned what few Americans knew: the reality of life in a developing country. PASSAGE EIGHTpassage eight.mp3The United States Department of Labor is the government agency that deals with employment issues. It reports that there were more than fifteen-million foreign workers in the United States in Nineteen-Ninety-Nine. This is the highest number of foreign workers in seventy years. It is seventeen percent higher than in Nineteen-Ninety-Six. Immigrants represent twelve percent of all workers in the United States. However, about five-million of these workers are illegal immigrants. They lack official work permits. Foreign workers have many kinds of jobs. Many have good jobs in science and technology. But many others have difficult jobs with low pay. These jobs include working in meat production centers and on building projects, cleaning hotel rooms and picking fruits and vegetables. PASSAGE NINEpassage nine.mp3Not long ago, many people believed that babies only wanted food and to be kept warm and dry. Some people thought babies were not able to learn things until they were five or six months old. But doctors in the United States say babies begin learning on their first day of life. The National Institute of Child Health and Development is an American government agency. Its goal is to discover which experiences can influence healthy development in humans. Researchers at the Institute note that babies are strongly influenced by their environment. They say a baby will smile if his mother says or does something the baby likes. A baby learns to get the best care possible by smiling to please his mother or other caregiver. This is how babies learn to connect and communicate with other humans. PASSAGE TENpassage ten.mp3The first organized American sports cheer was created at