练习材料：Lesson 76 77 78
任务配置：L0
知识笔记：
Lesson76 April Fools Day
'To end our special news bulletin/ˈbʊl.ə.tɪn/,' said the voice of the television announcer,' we are going over to the macaroni/ˌmæk.ərˈəʊ.ni/fields of Calabria. Macaroni has been grown in this area for over six hundred years. Two of the leading growers, Giuseppe Moldova and Ricardo Brabante, tell me that they have been expecting a splendid/ˈsplen.dɪd/crop this year and harvesting has begun earlier than usual. Here you can see two workers who, between them, have just finished cutting three cart-loads of golden brown macaroni stalks. The whole village has been working day and night gathering and threshing/θreʃ/this year's crop before the September rains. On the right, you can see Mrs. Brabante herself. She has been helping her husband for thirty years now. Mrs. Brabante is talking to the manager of the local factory where the crop is processed. This last scene shows you what will happen at the end of the harvest: the famous Calabrian macaroni-eating competition! Signor Fratelli, the present champion/ˈtʃæm.pi.ən/, has won it every year since 1991. And that ends our special bulletin for today, Thursday, April 1st. We are now going back to the studio.'
macaroni/ˌmæk.ərˈəʊ.ni/通心面，空心面条
bulletin新闻简报
announcer 播音员
leading 主要的
gather收庄稼
thresh打庄稼
Lesson77A successful operation
The mummy/ˈmʌm.i/of an Egyptian/iˈdʒɪp.ʃən/woman who died in 800 B.C. has just had an operation. The mummy is that of Shepenmut who was once a singer in the Temple/ˈtem.pəl/of Thebes. As there were strange marks on the X-ray plates taken of the mummy, doctors have been trying to find out whether the woman died of a rare disease. The only way to do this was to operate. The operation, which lasted for over four hours, proved to be very difficult because of the hard resin/ˈrez.ɪn/which covered the skin. The doctors removed a section of the mummy and sent it to a laboratory/ləˈbɒr.ə.tər.i/. They also found something which the X-ray plates did not show: a small wax figure of the god Duamutef. This god which has the head of a cow was normally placed inside a mummy. The doctors have not yet decided how the woman died. They feared that the mummy would fall to pieces when they cut it open, but fortunately this has not happened. The mummy successfully survived the operation.
Lesson78The last one?
After reading an article entitled 'Cigarette/ˌsɪɡ.ərˈet/Smoking and Your Health' I lit a cigarette to calm my nerves. I smoked with concentration and pleasure as I was sure that this would be my last cigarette. For a whole week I did not smoke at all and during this time, my wife suffered terribly/ˈter.ə.bli/. I had all the usual symptoms of someone giving up smoking: a bad temper and an enormous appetite/ˈæp.ə.taɪt/. My friends kept on offering me cigarettes and cigars/sɪˈɡɑːr/. They made no effort to hide their amusement whenever I produced a packet of sweets from my pocket. After seven days of this I went to a party. Everybody around me was smoking and I felt extremely uncomfortable. When my old friend Brian urged me to accept a cigarette, it was more than I could bear. I took one guiltily, lit it and smoked with satisfaction/ˌsæt.ɪsˈfæk.ʃən/. My wife was delighted that things had returned to normal once more. Anyway, as Brian pointed out, it is the easiest thing in the world to give up smoking. He himself has done it lots of times!
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