【习惯性GRE】1006G阅读--速度【VOA】2-9

lghscuUID: 2552043

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方法名称：一分钟VOA快速阅读
工具准备：秒表，电脑
方法使用：
0 从“以下开始计时”开始掐秒表
1以最快的速度完成浏览、扫描，争取60s解决战斗
2 不回视，不停顿，不过多思考，一口气跑到终点
3 详细记录每一篇阅读时间(每一次共五篇)，请不要自欺欺人
4 根据时间不断调整阅读速度，力求60s以内完成
5 坚持完成本期所有阅读
【习惯性GRE】1006G阅读--速度【VOA】汇总贴
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A Scary Story to Get You Into the Halloween Spirit
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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Barbara Klein. October thirty-first, this coming Saturday, is Halloween. Millions of children will dress as ghosts, witches, skeletons, superheroes, princesses -- all sorts of costumes.
VOICE ONE:
Then, with parents usually nearby, they will walk through their neighborhoods. They will go door to door, yelling "trick or treat." This threat of a trick, all in good fun, quickly brings a treat, usually some candy. Then the trick-or-treaters will go off to the next house.
VOICE TWO:
But, you know, there is a reason people in ancient times were careful to honor evil spirits and the dead with a night of their own. The masks that people wore on All Hallows' Eve were meant to hide their identity, so they would avoid a most frightful trick. But now, do you want to know a story that is even scarier than that?
VOICE ONE:
Do you mean the story of my mother? That story? It makes me shake just to think about it!
(SOUND)
VOICE TWO:
Faith's mother lived in a small town in New York State when she was a girl. The fall season was beautiful in the Adirondack Mountains, but it was very cold at night.
VOICE ONE:
There was a girl named Arial at my mother's school. She was popular but not very nice. She told stories about people. She ruined them with her gossip.
Missus Hart was a very kind teacher at the school. Everyone liked her.
VOICE TWO:   
"Class ... "
VOICE ONE:
she said one morning early in the new school year,
VOICE TWO:
"... we have a new student, Pearl Dew from Kentucky. Please welcome her."
VOICE ONE:
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In India, a Cycle Rickshaw With Help From the Sun


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This the VOA Special English Development Report.
Picture a bicycle with a two-wheeled carriage in place of a back tire. India has millions of these cycle rickshaws. The operators are called pullers. They ride through the streets pulling passengers and goods. Unlike auto rickshaws, which burn fuel, cycle rickshaws produce no pollution. But the job of a rickshaw puller is not easy.
Now, to help ease their labor, there is the Solar-Electric Rickshaw, or Soleckshaw. This is the product of work of several scientific, industrial and environmental agencies.
An electric motor helps the operator pull a heavy load or go up a hill. A thirty-six volt battery can carry the rickshaw forty kilometers. Top speed is fifteen kilometers an hour, and the Soleckshaw does not pollute. The project includes a battery charging station at a Delhi Metro Rail Station.
Testing of the Soleckshaw was launched in Delhi in October. The nonprofit Center for Rural Development is supervising the project.
The goal with the new rickshaw is to increase the number of trips per day that the pullers can make. There is also space for advertising, a way for them to earn additional money.
The designers suggest that rickshaw pullers could repay a loan to buy a Soleckshaw within about two or three years. They could borrow the money from the Rickshaw Bank.
India's seven to eight million pullers usually pay one-third of their earnings to the owner of a rickshaw to use it by the day. But in two thousand four the Center for Rural Development had the idea for a bank to help self-employed workers buy their own rickshaws.
There are plans for improved versions of the Soleckshaw, and to use them when New Delhi hosts the Commonwealth Games next year.
Vandana Prakash writes about environmental policy. She wrote at ecowordly.com that Soleckshaws are a great step forward. But she says several important issues and questions are getting lost in all the excitement.
She suggests that pullers might not be able to earn enough to pay back a loan for the current high cost of a Soleckshaw. The price is four hundred forty dollars compared to one hundred seventy, or less, for a traditional cycle rickshaw.
And how, she asks, will they handle additional costs such as electric charging, batteries and solar panels? Vandana Prakash says the dream of creating "proud owners" needs greater planning and market research.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report. It was written by Jerilyn Watson.
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How to Do It: Making Paper by Ha nd



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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.
The earliest process of making paper was done almost five thousand years ago in Egypt and the Nile Valley. In those days, paper was made from strips of the papyrus plant.
Modern paper-making began in China about two thousand years ago. This process produced paper from cloth, straw, wood or the bark of trees. The raw materials are struck over and over until they become loose. Then they are mixed with water.
After the water has been removed, the flat, thin form remaining is permitted to dry. This becomes a sheet of paper.
Large machines started to be used for making paper near the end of the sixteenth century. Today, paper-making is a big business. But it is still possible to make paper by hand, since the steps are the same as using big machines.
You should choose paper with small amounts of printing. Old envelopes are good for this reason. Colored paper also can be used, as well as small amounts of newspaper. Small pieces of rags or cloth can be added. These should be cut into pieces about five centimeters by five centimeters.
Everything is placed in a container, covered with water and brought to a boil. It is mixed for about two hours with some common chemicals and then allowed to cool. Then it is left until most of the water dries up. The substance left, called pulp, can be stored until you are ready to make paper.
When you are ready, the pulp is mixed with water again. Then the pulp is poured into a mold. The mold is made of small squares of wire that hold the shape and thickness of the paper. To help dry the paper, the mold lets the water flow through the small wire squares.
After several more drying steps, the paper is carefully lifted back from the mold. It is now strong enough to be touched.
The paper is smoothed and pressed to remove trapped air. You can use a common electric iron used for pressing clothes.
There are many other technologies for people making paper using small machines.
Internet users can do a search and find directions for making homemade paper. You can also order information about making paper from the group EnterpriseWorks/VITA. Its Web site is enterpriseworks.org.
And that's the VOA Special English Development Report. Transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports are at 51voa.com. You can also follow us at twitter.com/voalearnenglish. I'm Steve Ember.
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Words and Their Stories: If a Student's Grades Hit Bottom, It Is Time to Hit the Books
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Now, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES - a VOA Special English program about American expressions.  I'm Rich Kleinfeldt with some expressions containing the word hit.
(MUSIC)
Hit is a small word but it has a lot of power.  Baseball players hit the ball.  Missiles hit an airplane.  A car hits a tree.
Hit also joins with other words to create many colorful expressions.  One is hit the road. It means to travel or to leave a place, as suggested in this song, "Hit the Road."
(MUSIC)
Another common expression is hit the spot.  At first it meant hitting a spot at the center of a target with an arrow.  Someone who did so was satisfied with his shooting.  Now, hitting the spot usually means that a food or drink is especially satisfying.
Many years ago, Pepsi Cola sold its drink with a song that began, "Pepsi Cola hits the spot, twelve full ounces, that's a lot..."
Another expression involving hit is hit bottom.  Something that has hit bottom can go no lower.  If the price of shares of a stock hits bottom that might be the time to buy it.  Its value can only go up.
A student who tells you his grades have hit bottom is saying he has not done well in school.
When a student's grades hit bottom it is time to hit the books.  Hit the books is another way to saying it is time to study.  A student might have to tell her friends she can not go with them to the movies because she has to hit the books.
Not hitting the books could lead to an unpleasant situation for a student.  The father or mother may hit the ceiling when they see the low grades.  Someone who hits the ceiling, the top of the room, is violently angry.  A wife may hit the ceiling because her husband forgot their wedding anniversary.
To build something of wood, you usually need a hammer.  That is what you use to hit nails into the pieces of wood to hold them together.  When you hit the nail on the head, exactly on its top, it goes into the wood perfectly.  And when someone says your words or actions hit the nail on the head, he means what you said or did was exactly right.
If you are tired after hitting all those nails on the head, then it is time to hit the hay.  That expression comes from the days when people slept on beds filled with dried grass or hay. Some people slept on hay in barns where they kept their farm animals.
Hitting the hay simply means going to bed. That is a good idea. I think I will hit the hay now.
(MUSIC)
This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Frank Beardsley. I'm Rich Kleinfeldt.
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Why Holding Fruit on Trees May Limit Next Year's Crop



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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
Alternate bearing is a widespread problem for growers of citrus and other fruit trees. It can affect a large area or just individual trees or even part of a tree. No, it is not a disease. Alternate bearing is when a tree produces a heavy crop one year, called an "on-crop," followed by an "off-crop" the next year.
On-crop trees produce a large number of small fruit with little value. Off-crop trees produce no fruit or a small number of large fruit that often have thick, unappealing skins.
Citrus growers know that the number of fruit in their current crop has an inverse effect on the number of flowers in the return bloom. In other words, if one number is big, the other number will be small.
Two researchers recently did a study to understand how this happens. Johannes Verreynne is now at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Carol Lovatt is at the University of California, Riverside. They studied "Pixie" mandarin trees in the Ojai Valley of California. Mandarin oranges are also known as tangerines.
The study showed that fruit on the tree reduces the next bloom by stopping buds from appearing. This limits the number and length of summer and fall shoots. As a result, there is a reduction in the number of nodes, or joints, that produce groups of flowers along stems. Fruit on the tree during spring bloom stops the growth of flowering shoots.
During an on-crop year, growers often treat the fruit so it can stay on the tree longer. The purpose is to extend the harvest season. Yet Carol Lovatt says holding fruit on the tree makes alternate bearing worse. The researchers advise growers to investigate the effects of thinning or pruning to reduce the number of fruit in early summer of the on-crop year.
The findings appeared in the Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science.
Other kinds of trees that can experience alternate bearing include nut trees. Scientists recently studied the effects of mechanical thinning on two kinds of pecan trees in the southeastern United States. The results from the University of Georgia appeared in HortTechnology, also published by the society.
The study compared trees that had been thinned by machine with those that had not been thinned. The findings suggest that thinning during the on-crop year can increase the value of off-year pecan crops.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson. I'm Bob Doughty.
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solosandraUID: 2889127

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一段时间不练果然就不行了..