Cultural Notes:

Punt: A punt is a long flat boat with square ends pushing a long pole again the bottom of the river. Punts were originally used to carry cargo but today they are used only for pleasure trips on the rivers I the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge. 

Charity: A charity is an organization to which you give money so that it can help other people who are poor or ill, or who need advice and support. It’s common for students in most English-speaking universities to raise money for charity by doing something for which other people will sponsor them, or to pay a small amount of money. This is them passed on to one or a number of charity organizations, it could be a sponsored walk, or a charity run or anything that involves fun and only a little efforts by the fundraisers.

OUDS: OUDS stands for Oxford University Dramatic Society. It’s an amateur dramatics club for everyone who likes to act in plays or musicals. Many students who are members of OUDS go on to become well-known actors.

CNN: CNN is an acronym(首字母缩写) for Cable News Network, a popular American news channel. Founded 

in 1980 [watch the following video of CNN's debut(首播) on June 1st, 1980.], it was the first news network to introduce 24-hour news coverage. 

Boston Red Sox：The Boston Red Sox is a professional baseball team based in Boston, Massachusetts. Not surprisingly, the name comes from the colour of their socks. 

Ivy League schools： The term Ivy League commonly refers to a group of 8 private, east-coast colleges and universities renowned for providing an excellent education and their significant history. These universities were some of the earliest American institutions founded:

1. Harvard in 1636    2.Yale in 1701     3.Pennsylvania in 1740    4. Princeton in 1746

5. Columbia in 1754   6. Brown in 1764   7. Dartmouth in 1769    8.Cornell in 1865

Instagram: Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flick.

Classification of undergraduate degrees in British Universities: 

●first-class honors  ●upper second-class honors  ●lower second-class honors  ●third-class honors

Most students receive an upper or lower second-class degree. There is also an ordinary degree (or a pass degree without honors.)

GPA (grade point average 平均绩点): GPA is the grading system in the US. Your grade point average may range from 0.0 to a 4.0. If you want to be admitted into an undergraduate program, the minimum requirement is 2.0 GPA and most graduate schools have required a 3.0 GPA.

Listening Stratey: 

● Use different cues to predict before actually listening to the conversations or passages. 

● Make apt use of one's background knowledge about the topic to improve listening comprehension.