Listening to songs is a great way to learn English. Here are a few reasons.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. And when you are enjoying yourself, you learn without even realizing it. The best thing is that there are so many good songs in English and there are so many kinds of music, including pop, country, R&B, rock, soul and so on. Let David Bowie, Madonna, The Beatles, Alicia Keys...be your teachers!

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. Just take your MP3 player with your favorite tracks and press “play”. And you can listen to them whenever and whatever you want, so you can learn English while you're walking, driving, doing sports or relaxing on the sofa.

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. While you're listening to songs, you are raising your awareness of language structures. And you're seeing how the structures are formed and used.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. And after singing along to the songs several times, all those phrases and expressions will become firmly fixed in your long-term memory. Then later you'll find that you use them naturally when you're speaking or writing.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. For example, the song American Pie is about the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the The Big Bapper, which was an important event in US history.

    So, load up your MP3 player, put on your headphones and press “play”!

A. Learning English by listening to music is easy, too.

B. Songs can also teach you about history, culture and traditions.

C. Songs are full of useful language that you can use when you're speaking and writing.

D. Songs are good for developing your understanding of English grammar.

E. Listening to music is fun.

A．信息归纳

    阅读短文内容。根据所提供的信息，完成信息卡内容。

    I am Lily，a student in Beijing．I am fifteen years old．My birthday is on July 6th．I like volleyball very much．I play volleyball with my friends after school．My mother is 42 years old．Her birthday is in June．She is an English teacher in a middle school．My father is 45 years old．His birthday is in October．He likes playing basketball．He can play it very well．

    Bill is my pen friend from the US．He is sixteen years old．His birthday is on March 8th．He likes Soccer and baseball．He likes ice-cream very much．He eats it every day．Bill always helps me with my English．I like him very much．

Information Card

    Australia is the greatest island in the world.  Australia is a little smaller than China.

    Australia is big, but there are fewer people there. The population of Australia is smaller than that of Shanghai, a city of China.

    Australia is in the south of the earth. So when it is hot summer in our country, Australia will be cold winter. The seasons in Australia and in China are just opposite. Summer in Australia is from December to February, and winter is from July to August. When it's spring in China, it will be autumn in Australia.

    Australia is famous for sheep and kangaroos(袋鼠）. They are both popular in Australia. 

    You can see kangaroos not only in zoos but also outside the cities and towns. There are ten sheep for everyone in the country. So people call Australia "The country on the backs of sheep ". After a short drive from any town, you will find yourself in the middle of white sheep. Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep are everywhere.

    Have you seen a kangaroo? It has a "bag" on its body. The mother kangaroo keeps its baby kangaroos in the "bag". It's very strange, isn't it?

    Some people seem to be born happy. Nothing seems to get them down. However, some people seem to have everything going well but they still do not seem to be happy. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    ●Listen to music

    Music is good for people. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Light music can help us relax; some pop music can make us feel happy. You can listen to it, or take up playing an instrument in your spare time.

    ●Have a pet

    You may not have a pet of your own, but pets are so good at making people happy. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Some pets are lovely and some need exercise, which is helpful to you, too.

    ●Stay fit and healthy

    Try to keep fit and healthy by exercising every day. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} The great thing about exercise is that it helps release (释放) chemicals and these chemicals make you feel happy!

    ●{#blank#}5{#/blank#}

    Often it is the small things that make people happy. Being kind and smiling at people in your daily life can make others happy, and at the same time, it will also build happiness for you.

左栏是在外国学习期间中国留学生常遇到的五个问题的主题描述，右栏是常遇到的五个问题的具体描述，请为左栏的每个主题选择一个合适的描述。

    "How are you?" is a nice question. It's a friendly way people in the United States greet each other. But "How are you?" is also a very unusual question that often doesn't have an answer.

    When a person meets a friend on the street and asks "How are you?", he only expects to hear the answer "Fine." even if the other person isn't! The reason is that "How are you?" isn't really a question and "Fine." isn't really an answer. They are simple ways of greeting people and saying "Hello".

    Sometimes, people also don't say directly what they mean. For example, when someone asks "Do you agree?", the other person might be thinking "No, I disagree." But it isn't very polite to answer so directly, so the other person might say. "I'm not so sure." It's a nicer way to say that you don't agree with someone.

    People also don't say directly what they are thinking when they finish conversations with others. For example, many conversations over the phone end when one person says, "I've got to go now." Often, the person who wants to hang u gives an excuse: "Someone's at the door." "Something is burning on the stove!" The excuse might be real, or it might not be. Perhaps the person who wants to hang up simply doesn't want to talk any more, but it isn't very polite to say that. The excuse is more polite, and it doesn't hurt the other person's feelings.

    Whether they are greeting each other, talking about an opinion， or ending a conversation, people often don't say directly what they are thinking. It's an important way that people try to be nice to each other, and it's all part of the game of language!