口试话题提前练:Choose one of the following passages. Read it aloud, and upload your recording. (从下面文本中选取一段朗读。请上传录音。)
A.
To the ancient Egyptians death marked the end of one journey and the beginning of another. After death, all ancient Egyptians believed that they must leave behind the green fertile farm lands of Egypt and the waters of the river Nile to travel to the afterlife.
They hoped that afterlife would be a perfect place that resemble the beautiful landscape of Egypt they have left behind. It was called “the Field of Reeds”. But to reach the afterlife they had to make a dangerous and frightening journey. Their spirit had to cross the netherworld, which was the land of dead, ruled by the god of Osiris.
B.
I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school my classmates who were constantly teasing made it clear to me how I looked to others: A little girl with a misshaped lip, crooked nose and somewhat garbled speech. I couldn't even blow up a balloon without holding my nose. When I bent down to drink from the fountain, the water spilt out my nose.
When my schoolmates asked, “What happened to your lip?” I’d tell them I’d fallen when I was a baby and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different.
C.
… The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to transform the world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
D.
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
…
Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.