雅思口语节日之新年

雅思考试主要是通过对考生听、说、读、写四个方面英语能力的考核，综合测评考生的英语沟通运用能力，实现“沟通为本”的考试理念。对于雅思考生来说，也有很多考试难点和政策盲区需要帮助解答。今天雅思无忧网小编准备了雅思口语节日之新年，希望通过文章来解决雅思考生这方面的疑难问题，敬请关注。

　New Year's Day January 1 　　10...9...8... The lighted ball in New York's Times Square(时代广场)starts picking up speed(加快速度). 7...6...5... It's almost time. 4...3...2... Everyone holds their breath for the last few seconds. We're about to jump that seemingly large but invisible gap that separates the years. 1...0... Happy New Year! 　　We made it. The old year, for better or worse, is gone for good. The new year has begun with fresh promise. Here's our chance to start again, to do it right this time, to have another shot at success...at glory...at just accomplishing what we resolve to. It's time to shed that baggage from the year long gone and celebrate what can be in the 365 untouched days to come. Happy New Year! 　　We can trace the origins of a new year's celebration back to the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, at least 4,000 years ago. In Egypt, the Nile river signaled a new beginning for the farmers of the Nile as it flooded their land and enriched it with the silt(淤泥)needed to grow crops for the next year. This happened near the end of September. 　　The Babylonians held their festival in the spring, on March 23, to kick off the next cycle of planting and harvest. Symbolically, the king was stripped of his robes and sent away for a few days while the people whooped it up(庆祝). He then returned in all his finery(华丽的服饰)for a grand parade, and the normal activities of life would return for the new year. 　　So how did we get to January 1 as the start of the year? That date was picked by the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar when he established his own calendar in 46 BC. The Roman Senate had actually tried to make January 1 New Year's Day in 153 BC, but it wasn't until Caesar stretched out 47 BC for 445 days that the date we're familiar with was synchronized(同步)with the sun. We've been on the Julian calendar ever since. 　　There must be something inside of us that needs to unload the accumulated results of fate and our own decisions and start anew. The Romans knew this. The month of January was named for their god, Janus, who is pictured with two heads. One looks forward, the other back, symbolizing a break between the old and new. The Greeks paraded a baby in a basket to represent the spirit of fertility. Christians adopted this symbol as the birth of the baby Jesus and continued what started as a pagan ritual. Today our New Year's symbols are a newborn baby starting the next year and an old man winding up the last year.