一、泛听建议：

　　1、完整听一遍，掌握大意。

　　2、继续听，特别注意关键信息。遇到相似的词，写下来。

　　3、复述新闻。

　　Close to a million people show up each year for New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square and organizers say more than a billion people around the world _1_ watch the festivities on television and on the Web.

　　As NPR's Margot Adler reports, planning for this night is a year round job and the days before the event _2_ tests. Testing the ball-drop, that makes sense, given some 32,000 LED lights. But many of the tests are fun and silly, like the confetti test. Tonight, confetti will _3_ seven buildings. On Saturday, there was a test with the media in tow.

　　Jeffrey Straus, of Countdown Entertainment, and Allison Hagendorf, a broadcast personality and host of this year's event, dropped confetti from an eighth floor window onto Times Square, over and over. Three, two, one, Happy New Year.Three, two, one, woo.

　　Whoa, beautiful. Beautiful, I _4_ my fluffing there. You see it _5_ perfectly.Now, this is taking place December 29th. And the cynic might say,Why wouldn't the confetti float?All this week, people have been visiting this building, One Times Square, to write their wishes on pieces of confetti. Those wishes _6_ with the regular confetti.So, if you're in Time Square you see all of these peoples' wishes falling down on you from the sky. And people actually _7_ and save them.

　　I watched Tracy Baggins(ph) write two wishes on a piece of confetti. I guess my first thought would be world peace and actually authentic love.The other thing tourists do here is get their pictures take in front of a big replica of The Time Square Ball. Wilbur Tune(ph), who works for the organizers, is taking pictures of each family group with their own camera or cell phone. And he's totally hamming it up as if they were models on a runway.

　　词汇解析：

　　1、confetti . （婚礼、狂欢节中抛撒的）五彩纸屑；（旧时狂欢节或庆祝场合抛撒的）糖果

　　2、Countdown . 倒数计秒

　　3、cynic . 愤世嫉俗者；犬儒学派的人adj. 犬儒学派的

　　4、replica . 复制品，复制物

　　1、are expected to 2、are filled with 3、be dropped from 4、take pride in

　　5、floated 6、get mixed in 7、pick them up