1 . Foreign visitors to the UK might be disappointed when they learn that not everyone there speaks like Harry Potter and his friends. Usually, there’s an assumption by many non-Brits that everyone in Britain speaks with what’s known as a Received Pronunciation (RP,标准发音) accent, also called “the Queen’s English”. However, while many people do talk this way, most Britons speak in their own regional accents (口音).
Scouse, Glaswegian and Black Country — from Liverpool, Glasgow and the West Midlands — are just three of the countless non-RP accents that British people speak with. There are even differences in accents between towns or cities just 30 kilometers apart. What is even more disappointing is that not speaking in a RP accent may mean a British person is judged and even treated differently in their everyday life.
In a 2015 study by The University of South Wales, videos of people reading a passage in three different UK accents were shown to a second group of people. The group then rated how intelligent they thought the readers sounded. The lowestrated accent was Brummie, native to people from Birmingham, a city whose accent is considered working class.
However, there is no need to be disappointed though you are not speaking in a RP accent. In fact, doing the opposite may even give you strength.
Kong Seongjae, 25, is an Internet celebrity from Seoul. After studying in the UK, he picked up several regional accents. He’s now famous for his online videos, where he shows off the various accents he’s learned. “British people usually get really excited when I use some of their local dialect words, and they become much friendlier. I think it makes a bit of bond between local people and foreigners to speak in their local accent,” he said.
So if you’re working on perfecting your British accent, try to speak like someone from Liverpool, Glasgow or Birmingham. You may not sound like Harry Potter, but you are likely to make more friends.
1. What can we infer from Paragraph 1?A.Non-Brits usually hold that all Britons speak in a RP accent. |
B.Only “the Queen’s English” is accepted in the UK. |
C.Foreign visitors are disappointed at their on spoken English. |
D.Any Received Pronunciation around the world is also called “the Queen’s English”. |
A.Favored by foreign visitors to the UK. | B.Closest to the RP accent. |
C.Smart and easy to understand. | D.Spoken by people of lower class. |
A.Speaking in a RP accent. | B.Speaking in regional accents. |
C.Speaking the Brummie accent. | D.Speaking like Harry Potter. |
A.A study about the most intelligent accent in Britain. |
B.A comparison between different British accents. |
C.How much British people value the RP accent. |
D.The influence of regional accents on people’s lives. |
2 . Reading can be a social activity. Think of the people who belong to book groups. They choose books to read and then meet to discuss them. Now, the website Book Crossing.com turns the page on the traditional idea of a book group.
Members go on the site and register (登记) the books they own and would like to share. Book Crossing provides an identification number (识别码) to stick inside the book. Then the person leaves it in a public place, hoping that the book will have an adventure, traveling far and wide with each new reader who finds it.
Bruce Pederson, the managing director of Book Crossing, says, “The two things that change your life are the people you meet and books you read. Book Crossing combines both.”
Members leave books on park benches and buses, in train stations and coffee shops. Whoever finds their book will go to the site and record where they found it.
People who find a book can also leave a journal entry describing what they thought of it. E— mails are then sent to the BookCrossers to keep them updated about where their books have been found. Bruce Pederson says the idea is for people not to be selfish by keeping a book to gather dust on a shelf at home.
Book Crossing is part of a trend (趋势) among people who want to get back to the “real” and not the virtual (虚拟).The site now has more than one million members in more than one hundred thirty—five countries.
1. Why does the author mention book groups in the first paragraph?A.To explain what they are. | B.To introduce Book Crossing. |
C.To stress the importance of reading. | D.To encourage readers to share their ideas. |
A.An adventure. | B.A public place. |
C.The book. | D.The identification number. |
A.Keep it safe in his bookcase. | B.Mail it back to its owner. |
C.Meet other readers to discuss it. | D.Pass it on to another reader. |
A.Online Reading: A Virtual Tour | B.Electronic Books: A New Trend |
C.A Book Group Brings Tradition Back | D.A Website Links People through Books |
3 . Today we take a look at the word “smart”. If someone says you are smart, what do they mean? Is it a good thing or something bad?
For example, someone could say you look smart or are dressed smartly. That means they like your physical appearance or what you are wearing.
But if something smarts, it can be unkind or hurtful, either physically or mentally. If you accidentally trip over a chair and fall down, you might shout, “Ow! That smarts!” Or if a friend says something that hurts your feelings, you can say you are smarting from the hurtful comments.
If you are standing too close to a campfire, you could say your eyes are smarting from the smoke of the fire. Here the word “smarting” means feeling a sharp pain.
And then there is a definition of smart that means to talk or behave disrespectfully. If you say something disrespectful to your parents, they might say, “Don’t get smart with me!” Here, “smart” means showing a lack of respect by saying something unkind. This definition of smart can also be used as a verb.
A.Do they really mean you are smart? |
B.The answer is not as easy as you might think. |
C.People have different attitudes towards being smart. |
D.In fact, maybe that person is no longer your friend. |
E.But the most common meaning of “smart” is to be intelligent. |
F.However, different people have different ways of being smart. |
G.If you smart off to the wrong people, they could hit you in the face. |
4 . An elderly woman is crediting (归功于) her neighbor's 4yearold dog with saving her life during last week's dangerously cold temperatures.
Tim Curfman was
Curfman
Noreen, who didn't have serious injuries, was lucky to
Noreen was
A.sending out | B.taking out | C.picking out | D.handing out |
A.sound | B.attention | C.behavior | D.appearance |
A.normally | B.suddenly | C.really | D.daily |
A.down | B.in | C.out | D.up |
A.trained | B.drove | C.walked | D.followed |
A.lying | B.moving | C.playing | D.standing |
A.guessed | B.feared | C.argued | D.explained |
A.time | B.space | C.strength | D.courage |
A.view | B.hold | C.taste | D.command |
A.save | B.report | C.find | D.visit |
A.face | B.fight | C.avoid | D.suffer |
A.car | B.garden | C.yard | D.home |
A.dry | B.clean | C.old | D.beautiful |
A.grateful | B.close | C.rude | D.polite |
A.expects | B.intends | C.waits | D.deserves |
The way of Chinese people’s life has been changed through the China’s “New Four Great Inventions”. What are “New Four Great Inventions”? They are High-speed rail, Shared bike, Online shopping and AliPay.
What did the China’s “New Four Great Inventions” bring to us?
High-speed rail—Modern transportation makes everybody neighbors. The invention of the high-speed railway makes it easy to thousands of miles a day. Today China’s rail transit technology is the best, the China’s daily average of 4, 000 trains, sending about 4.6 million passengers.
Shared bike—Short walks become more convenient and faster, and carbon missions are reduced, which is friendly to the environment. You can download the APP about shared bikes, pay some money, then you can use bicycles everywhere in the street. The Chinese shared bicycle programs have been becoming more and more popular.
Online shopping—Don’t need to go out to find the needs for living. Online shopping, as the name implies, is to pay money online. Purchases(购买物) can be sent home. China has 751 million internet users, 724 million mobile phone users; total transactions (销售额) on November 11 and December 12 hit a record high every year. Online shopping lets Chinese internet users enjoy “shopping carnival” every day.
Alipay—A software which can replace cash payment. With intelligence phones’ popularization, AliPay has become an indispensable (不可或缺的) APP. Through scanning the “QR code”, AliPay wants to realize the ambition of “replacing cash payments” gradually. On 11 November 2018, both the mobile payment account and the transaction reached 213.5 billion.
There is no doubt that China has already used its own power of “New Four Great Inventions” to become the great powerful technological country, showing the power of China once again.
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