英语四级听力部分算是同学们考试时的难点，听力不能急于求成，需要耐心练习。因此文都四六级考试网小编整理了英语四级听力VOA练习题，希望大家可以在练习中掌握技巧。

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　　听力材料：

　　Within the first few weeks of the Civil War, theConfederate Congress decided to move the capitalfrom Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia.The lawmakers believed Virginia would be animportant battlefield in the war.

　　Many northerners wanted Union forces to seize the new Confederate capital and quickly end therebellion. Pro-union newspapers took up the cry, “On to Richmond!” Most Union soldiers werenot yet trained to fight. They were volunteers who knew little about war. But public pressureforced the Union army to act.

　　On the afternoon of July 16, 1861, about 35,000 Union troops marched out of Washington,DC. General Irvin McDowell led them toward a Virginia town where two railroad lines crossed.

　　The crossing was called Manassas Junction. If the Union forces could seize Manassas, they couldmove over land to the city of Richmond.

　　It was a hot day, and the road was dusty. The march was not well organized, and the mentraveled slowly. They stopped at every stream to drink and wash the dust from their faces.Some of the soldiers left the road to pick fruits and berries from bushes along the way.

　　It took the Union soldiers four days to travel the 45 kilometers to the town of Centreville,Virginia. A stream called Bull Run lay beyond the town. The Confederate Army was waitingthere.

　　The forces of General Pierre Beauregard had only 22,000 soldiers. But Confederate spies hadwarned him that McDowell would attack. So he asked that another nearby Confederate force,led by General Joe Johnston, help him defend the territory.

　　The First Battle of Bull Run, also called First Manassas, started the next morning -- Sunday,July 21.

　　In the first few hours of the battle, Union forces were winning. They attacked with artillery andpushed the Confederate forces back. Some of the southern soldiers began to run.

　　One Confederate officer, trying to prevent his troops from moving back, pointed to a group ledby General T. J. Jackson of Virginia. “Look!” he shouted. “There is Jackson, standing like a stonewall! Rally behind the Virginians!”

　　The fighting was fierce. The air was full of flying bullets. A newspaper reporter wrote the wholevalley was boiling with dust and smoke. A Confederate soldier told his friend, “Them Yankeesare just marching up and being shot to hell.”

　　Neither side would give up. Then, a large group of additional Confederate soldiers — GeneralJohnston's men — arrived by train and joined the fight.

　　Suddenly, Union soldiers stopped fighting and began pulling back. General McDowell and hisofficers tried to stop the retreat but failed. Their men wanted no more fighting.

　　The fleeing Union soldiers threw down their guns and equipment, thinking only of escape. Manykept running until they reached Washington.

　　It was a bitter defeat. But it made the North recognize the need for a real army -- one trainedand equipped for a long war.