大学英语精读预备1册 lesson 4（在线收听）

The Fun They Had

Margie kept her diary almost every day. One day she wrote, “17 may,2155” and then this sentence: “Today Tommy found a real book.”

It was a very old book. Its pages were yellow. Margie suddenly remembered that her grandfather once said that that centuries ago all stories were printed on paper. This must be a book on that time.

Tommy and Margie were anxious to read the book. They turned the pages. It was very funny. The words stood still, and didn’t move as they did on a TV. And then, when they turned back, the same words were there.

“Oh,” said Tommy, “what a waste, when you finish reading the book, you just throw it away. You can have a million books on our television, and even more, there is nothing throw away.”

Tommy and Margie were both thirteen. They had read a lot. Whenever they wanted to read, the books appeared on the TV. They had turned a page like they were doing now.

“What’s it about?” Margie asked.

“School.”

Margie didn’t like the idea. “School? All those lesson: chemistry, physics, arithmetic! What can be interesting about school?” she hated school. Her school was a room next to her bedroom. There was a machine with a big TV set on it. The big TV showed her lessons, asked her questions and gave her exercises and examination papers. “why did they write about school?”

“it’s not our kind school..” Tommy answered. “this is the old kind of school hundreds of years ago. They had teachers. All were people.”

“Really? How could that be? And I don’t think it’s pleasant to have a stranger in my house to teach me.”

Tommy laughed. “You don’t know much, Margie. The teacher didn’t lived in the house. They had a special building and all the pupils all there.

“And all the pupils learn the same thing?”

“Of course, if they were the same age, the book says.”

At that moment, the machine in the next room called, “Maregie! School!”

Margie went into her classroom. The TV was on and waiting for her. It was always on at the same time every day except Saturday and Sunday.

The TV announced, “Today’s arithmetic lesson…”

Margie looked at the TV. But she was thing about the old school. All the pupils from the neighbourhood came. They laughed, and shouted when they played ball games in the schoolyard or at the stadium. They sat together in the classroom, went together at the end of the day. They learned the same things, so they could help one another with their homework and talk about it. And the teacher were people… Oh, what fun they had!