📚 Bài tập Luyện Nghe Tiếng Anh trong 5 phút #2

Study with me ❤-I’m Mary

Exercise 1: Music In New Orleans

Listen to the conversation and fill in the missing information in the notes below.

A: Hi, Mike. Do you like jazz?

B: Yes, very much. And I like to dance to jazz too.

A: Do you know who first started to play jazz?

B: Yes, of course. The African Americans.

A: Do you know when and where?

B: Yes. Around 1900. People from many countries lived in New Orleans. Music was an important part of
life in this city. Musicians in New Orleans started to play a new kind of music. It was called jazz. Jazz was
a kind of music intended to make people happy.

A: I know jazz is kind of a mixture of many different kinds of music, for example, African, blues,
European, church music, and work songs. Most early jazz musicians were African-American. They played
in small bands and they didn't write down their music.

B: Yes, they learned to work together to produce a loose and relaxed beat that is so powerful that
listeners cannot help but dance, or at least move their feet along with it. And soon white musicians were
playing jazz too.

A: I know black and white musicians seldom played together in the United States at that time.

B: You are right. Around 1920, jazz music began to spread. Jazz musicians moved from city to city.
People listened to jazz records. They heard jazz on the radio. In the 1930s and 1940s, jazz was popular in
the U.S. and Canada. The music was called swing. It was played by big bands.

A: It was said there are still a few bands made up of very old musicians playing the old-style jazz in a club
in New Orleans. They play jazz for four and a half hours each evening so many tourists go there and
listen.

B: Can the audience make some special requests for the songs?

A: Yes, if the musicians are willing to play them, people pay a little money for the request. Traditional
songs cost one dollar and all others cost two.

B: That's interesting I'd like to visit the city sometime in the future.

Exercise 2: Who invented popcorn?

Listen to the conversation and fill in the missing information in the notes below.
(Mary and her classmate Alex are off from school. They are going to see a film.)

Mary: Do you have the time, Alex?

Alex: It's 7:20.

Mary: We are early. The film starts at 7:30. Let's have something to drink.

Alex: That's a good idea.

Mary: Something smells good.

Alex: Right, that's popcorn. Would you like some popcorn?

Mary: Yes I'd love some. Do you know who invented popcorn?

Alex: It is said that popcorn is a delicacy that was developed by the Indians of North America.

Mary: When did they invent it?

Alex: It has been dated back thousands of years.

Mary: I see.

Alex: Do you know that the Indians were not only eating popped corn. But they also use popped corn in
headdresses, necklaces and in religious ceremonies?

Mary: Yes, we have seen these in some films and according to most sources, a deerskin bag full of
popcorn was served at the first Thanksgiving dinner at Plymouth Rock in 1621.

Alex: You know, popcorn's popularity grew during the Depression of the 1930s when people realized
that a little popcorn could go a long way. But its success was clinched when movie theaters across the
continent started serving the snack. By 1947, 85 per cent of movie houses were selling popcorn at their
concession stands.

Mary: Oh, the movie's about to start. Let's go.

Exercise 3: Lobsters tôm hùm

Listen to the talk and fill in the missing information in the notes below.

Good morning, everyone. Today I will talk about lobsters. Many of our listeners wrote to me to ask if
lobsters really scream when they are boiled and why they turn red when they are cooked. These are
very good questions. Well, let me ask you a question.

If you were sitting in a vat of boiling water, wouldn't you scream and turn red, too? But in the lobster's
case, there is no scream, and there is a chemical reason for the change in color.

Noises are produced as a lobster is boiled alive, but the sounds are not voices. As the lobster's body
heats up in the shell, pockets of air in the cavities and joints expand. If enough pressure builds inside the
body, the air will make whistle-like sounds as it escapes through small openings in the shell.

As for the color shift, a lobster's shell contains red pigment molecules that combine with a protein to
create the camouflaging colors of the lobster.
Live lobsters are usually blue-green or brown with flecks of yellow. When the lobster is boiled, the
protein is denatured, or deformed by the heat. The pigment remains however turning the shell red.