Red is used in many American expressions. It can be used to show happiness, as in the expression “a red-letter day”. This is a day when something special happens. The expression is probably based on church customs. For almost 600 years, church calendars have been marked with red to show special holy(神圣的)days. Today’s calendars are still marked that way with the dates of holidays and special days printed in red.

The expression “a red-letter day”is often heard in daily life. “A red-letter day” is a day that people are especially happy. It may be a day that you have waited for a long time, a wedding day, for example. Or it may be a day with a happy surprise. You might tell a friend that yesterday was a red-letter day, because you won some money in the lottery.

“Rolling out the red carpet” is another commonly heard expression. It describes an especially warm welcome of any kind. A city may “roll out the carpet ”for its baseball team, when the team arrives home after winning a championship. A group of supporters go to the air port to the greet the team. The red-carpet welcome includes a lot of cheering by thousands of fans, a parade, music and speech of praise by local statesmen.

Red is also used in some expressions that are not happy. “Red-handed ” is an example. To be caught “red-handed” is to be found in an act of wrong doing. The evidence is clear. You are guilty. Today we use the expression “ to be caught red-handed ”in situation(情况)that are not serious. For example, a mother might say she caught her son red-handed, taking cookies out of the cookie jar.

Some American Expressions with __1.___

Listening test is one of the important parts of the English exam. Here are some tips for you .
Before you start to listen ,you need to relax. Don't be nervous. And try to read the questions .These questions usually help you understand the dialogue or the passage.
Then listen carefully to the first sentence. It usually tells you the main idea of the passage. When you 're listening ,try to do some thinking and take some notes ,suck as:
? What happened?
? When ,where, and how?
? What does the speaker want to tell us?
In this way, you may understand the passage better.
Please rememeber not to think about one or two words for a long time. When you hear some words you don't know, don't spend too much time on them. Very often, you'll find out what they mean later when you go on with the listening.
【小题1】This passage mainly talks about          .
A. tips on listening    B. tips on speaking      C. tips on reading
【小题2】It's better for you to keep           when you start to have a listening test.
A. excited           B relaxed            C. nervous
【小题3】We should listen to the first sentence carefully, because it usually tells us        
A. the answer to the question
B. where to write the answers  
C. the main idea of the passage
【小题4】When you're listening, it's important for you to          .
A. remember every word        
B. take some notes 
C. Think about one word for a long time
【小题5】The           usually help(s) us understand the passage better.
A. questions            B. first sentence         C. notes

To be a good teacher, you need some of the gifts of a good actor; you must be able to hold the attention and interest of your audience; you must be a clear speaker, with a good, strong, pleasant voice which is fully under your control; and you must be able to act what you are teaching, in order to make its meaning clear.

Watch a good teacher, and you will see that he doesn’t sit still before his class; he stands the whole time he is teaching; he walks about, using his arms, hands and fingers to help him in his explanations, and his face to express feelings.

There are very important differences between the teacher’s work and the actor’s.

The actor has to speak words which he has learnt by heart; he has to repeat exactly the same words each time he plays a certain part, even his movements and the ways in which he uses his voice are usually fixed beforehand(预先).What he has to do is to make all these carefully learnt words and actions seem natural on the stage. A good teacher works in quite a different way. His audience take an active part in his play: they ask and answer questions, they obey orders, and if they don’t understand anything, they say so. The teacher can’t learn his part by heart, but must invent it as he goes along.

I have known many teachers who are fine actors in class but are unable to take part in a stage-play because they can’t keep strictly to what another has written.

1.What does the underlined word “gifts” mean?

2.Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?

3.The skills of a good teacher are        .

4.From the passage, we know        .

5.The title of the passage is         .