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。

　　Bank of America will pay $400 million to mortgage giant Freddie Mac to settle claims over bad home mortgages. NPR's Chris Arnold reports it's part of a series of settlements _1_ many of the nation's big banks.

　　美国银行将向抵押贷款巨头房利美支付4亿美元，以了结不良住房抵押贷款引发的索赔问题。据NPR新闻的克里斯·阿诺德报道，这起和解是涉及众多美国大银行的和解案之一。

　　These cases essentially involved banks allegedly selling garbage home loans to investors after first telling them the loans were good. This was back during the housing bubble when this took place. The government-controlled mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought or _2_ tens of billions of dollars worth of these loans that went bad. And this latest settlement $400 million is actually smaller potatoes. Bank of America earlier this agreed to pay $3.6 billion in a similar settlement with Fannie Mae. And JPMorgan Chase recently struck a deal with both Fannie and Freddie to pay them about $5 billion for selling loans that _3_ quality than the bank said they were. Chris Arnold, NPR News.

　　基本来说，这些涉及银行的案件都是在告知投资者贷款安全之后却向他们出售不良住房贷款。这些案件发生在房地产泡沫时期。政府控制的抵押贷款公司房地美和房利美购买或担保了价值数百亿美元的不良贷款。最新达成的这笔价值4亿美元的和解协议实际上只是一件小案子。美国银行早前同意支付36亿美元与房地美达成和解。近期摩根大通银行也与房地美和房利美达成和解协议，将为出售低于所承诺质量的贷款支付两房50亿美元。NPR新闻，克里斯·阿诺德报道。

　　Huddled with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday in the host of other _4_ retail holidays were bombarded with, well, like another one on the list today, Cyber Monday. Most analysts expect upwards of 2 billion in sales today.

　　黑色星期五之后，“小企业星期六”迎来了所谓的零售业假期，同时“网购星期一”也掀起了购物热潮。大部分分析人士预计今天的销售量将超过20亿美元。

　　Stocks closed lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 77 points; the NASDAQ lost 14 points today.

　　今天股市收盘走低，道琼斯工业平均指数下降77点；纳斯达克综合指数下降14点。

　　This is NPR.

　　这里是NPR新闻。

　　词汇解析：

　　1. small potato

　　小人物，不重要的事；

　　eg. I can do nothing. I am just a small potato here.

　　我干不了什么事，我在这里不过是个小卒子而已。

　　eg. I was working for small potatoes until I went into business for myself.

　　在我自己创业之前，我一直赚的是小钱。

　　2. be bombarded wtih

　　连珠炮似的质问（或批评）；使大量面对；

　　eg. The spokesman was bombarded with questions on the press conference.

　　新闻发布会上那位发言人遭到了连珠炮般的发问。

　　eg. We have been bombarded with letters of complaint.

　　我们接二连三收到了大批的投诉信件。

　　3. upwards of

　　…以上；多于…；

　　eg. It costs upward of $40,000 a year to keep some prisoners in prison.

　　关押某些犯人一年的成本超过4万美元。

　　eg. There were upwards of a hundred people at the meeting.

　　有一百多人参加了这次会议。

　　参考答案：

　　1、involving 2、guaranteed 3、were lower

　　4、so-called 5、upwards