英语专业四级DICTATION答案

专项练习Dictation 1Old AgeMany people mistakenly believe that old age is a time of increased illness and loneli ness./ In fact,people do not suddenly change /when they reach the age of 60 or 65. /Consequently , we shouldnot expect more mental illness/ among the 60to 70 age group than among the50 to 6 0. /Furthermore, although more parents and their married children live in separate house holds than ever before,/ this is usually by choice. It is not because children now tend to neglect their parents /when they become old. /Itis also wrong to believe that old age seriously affects a person’s mental abilities. /Th ere is clearproof that people who were eager to learn and who welcomed new experiences in th eir middle age,/ continue to do so in old age. /It is true that older people tend to take l onger to learn somethingnew than young people. /Nevertheless, if they are given sufficient time, /they learn a s well as young people do.Dictation 2GardeningGardening is one of the oldest of the arts. /The Chinese with their deep sensitiveness to beauty /laid the foundation for a form of garden art /which was later to have great influences upon other lan ds. /The Greeks gave to the world a new concept of gardening. /Their homes were decorated with flowers/but it was in their civic design that they most skillfully applied their garden art. /Their temp les were surrounded by rows oftrees, /and trees lined the important streets and market places in thei r principal cities. /TheRomans acquired much of the knowledge and skill in garden craft from Gree ks. /In the second century AD the Romans began to build gardens of great scale, /inspired by the va st palace gardens they had conquered./ They bought water from great distances to supply the orna mental foundations which decorated their villa gardens./ these great villas were later to inspire the Italian garden architects to follow the Roman style.Dictation 3Being UnemployedMost people are much more frightened by being unemployed than they need to be. /Being unempl oyed certainly has disadvantages,/ but there are good things about it too. /One advantage is that you don’t have to get up early to work in the rush hour. /You can stay in bed as long as you like, /and there is plenty of time to read the newspaper /and have a leisurely breakfast./ But the best thing of a ll is that you are your own boss /and there is no one to tell you what to do and when to do it. /One drawback of being unemployed is that you haven’t got much money coming in. /Having a job at le ast enables you to save a lot of money to go on holiday./ On the other hand, when you are unemplo yed, /you needn’t go on holiday /because you are on holiday already. /In fact, the main trouble is th at you have to spend much time looking for a job./Dictation 4The Credit Card in the U.S.Today, more and more people in the U.S. are using credit card/instead of money to buy what they need./Almost anyone who has a steady income and a continuous work record/can apply for a credit card. With a credit card, you can buy a car, eat a dinner, take a trip/ and even get a haircut by charging the cost to your account./ In this way, you can pay for purchases a month or two later./ Or you may choose to spread out your payments over severalmonths/ and pay only part of the total amount each month./With a credit card,you don’t have to carry much cash/ and you don’t have to be concerned about losing your money through carelessness or theft./ The card user only has to worry about paying the final bill./ This of course can be a problem/ if you charge more than you can pay for.Dictation 5A Woman at HomeIn Japan, most people still feel that a woman’s right place is in the home /and most women willingly accept their traditional role as wives, /leaving the business of making a living to their husbands. / For those who do want a career of their own, opportunities are limited. /And working women usual ly have to settle for lower wages and less responsible positions. /In America, on the other hand, m ost women, including wives and mothers, work most of their lives. /But until recently, few have ha d real careers. /As in Japan, most fields are dominated by men /and opportunities for women have been restricted, /salaries low, chances for promotion rare. /American women work mainly because they have to./ In these days of inflation and expensive living, /only one income per family is simpl y not enough. /So American women actually have two jobs: /one outside the home, and the other ro und-the-clock job such as wife, cook and nurse.Dictation 6SuccessSuccess in life depends to a great extent on what is meant by success. /To some peop le, money is the only real indication /of achievement in the modern world and theref ore/ their judgment of success is based on the state/ of their bank balance and the po wer that goes with it. /Their life is devoted to making money/ and they are at a loss t o understand people whose ideas are different from their own./ There are people, ho wever, who consider their lives successful/ if they are doing what they enjoy doing/ t hat may not bring them any great financial reward./A man who spends his time gardening might consider himself successful/ if the flowers blossomed and his trees gave fruit. /Nursing and teaching can also bring their own ki nd of successto those engaged in them. /Success can be found in painting a picture nobody will ev er see. /Thegreat thing is to believe that success is not necessarily public.Dictation 7People’s Way of Seeing ThingsThe way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe. /For those people who bel ieved in the physical existence of Hell in the Middle Ages, /the sight of fire must have meant somet hing quite different from what it means today. /Nevertheless, their idea of Hell owed a lot to the sig ht/ of fire consuming and the ashes remaining as well as to their experience of the pain of burns. / We only see what we look at. /To look is an act of choice. /As a result of this act, what we see is br ought within our reach,/ though not necessarily within arm’s reach. /To touch something is to situat e oneself in relation to it./ We never look at just one thing. /We are always looking at the relation b etween things and ourselves. /Our vision is continually active, continually moving, /continually hol ding things in a circle around itself.Dictation 8EducationSome people may say that it is energy that makes the world go round, /but in my opinion thereis something else which is equally important. /That is education. /Education makes it possible to pa ss on /the invaluable knowledge of our ancestors and, at the same time, /makes it easier to explore the contemporary world. /Most great inventions have been brought about by educated people. /So we can say that education makes the world go round. /A poorly educated nation can never be a rich one. /The most advanced countries in the world all place great emphasis on education. /Nations w hich have a low percentage of educated people can, /in most cases, barely produce the basic necessi ties of life,/ let alone develop their science, technology and economics. /Such nations are facing the possibility of extinction in this highly developed world. /Therefore, education cannot be emphasiz ed enough in a developing country.。