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A Popular Pastime of the English People
One of the best means of understanding the people of any nation is watching what the do with their non-working time.
Most English men, women and children love growing things, especially flowers. Visitors to England in spring, summer or autumn are likely to see gardens all they way along the railway lines. There are flowers at the airports and flowers in factory grounds, as well as in gardens along the roads. Each English town has at least one park with beautifully kept flower beds. Public buildings of every kind have brilliant window boxes and sometimes baskets of flowers are hanging on them.
But what the English enjoy most is growing things themselves. If it is impossible to have a garden, then a window box or something growing in a pot will do. Looking at each other’s gardens is a popular pastime with the English.
Useful Words and Expressions:
1. window box:窗臺上的花盆箱
ime 消遣，娛樂
Swimming is my favorite pastime.
A Change in Women’s Life
The important change in women’s life-pattern has only recently begun to have its full effect on women’s economic position. Even a few years ago most girls left school at the first opportunity, and most of them took a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age, and though women tend to marry younger, more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Very many more afterwards return to full-time or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with the husband accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfactions of family life and with both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money, and running the home, according to the abilities and interests of each of them.
Useful Words and Expressions:
1. life-pattern生活方式
2. share
【相關閱讀】2017年專業英語四級考試聽力預測題
專四預測——聽寫(1)：Sidewinder
Most snakes move in a straight line， but there are some notable exceptions. One is the snake called the American sidewinder. From its name， you can probably guess that it moves side ways rather than in a straight line. And this is because it lives in the desert where the sand slips and slides. With nothing firm to push against for traction， the sidewinder has had to adapt its way of movement to the shifting sand. It pushes against the sand with the entire side of its body， and then moves sideways or sidesteps. It lays its body at about 60degree angle to the direction in which it wants to go. By doing this， the snake has more sand to push against. Then it points its head in the direction it wants to go and leaps. An added advantage gained from this method of moving may be that the snake‘s body is kept cooler by the breaking of contact with the hot sand during its leaps.
專四預測——聽寫(2)：Railroad
Nineteenth-century writers in the United States were powerfully drawn to the railroad in its golden years. In fact， writers responded to the railroads as soon as they began to be built in the 1830‘s. By the 1850’s， the railroad was a major presence in the life of the nation. Most writers saw the railroad both as a benefit to democracy and as an object of suspicion. The railroad could ruin nature. Furthermore，in its manifestation of speed and noise， it might ruin human nature as well. By the 1850‘s and 1860’s， there was a great distrust among writers and intellectuals of the rapid industrialization of which the railroad was a leading force. Some philosophical historians regretted the role that the new passion for business was playing in eroding traditional values. A distrust of industry and business continued among writers throughout the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.
