[00:00.33]Part Ⅱ Listening Comprehension
[00:04.09]In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY.
[00:12.93]Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
[00:18.08]Mark the correct answer to each question on Answer Sheet Two.
[00:24.75]SECTION A CONVERSATIONS
[00:29.32]In this section you will hear several conversations.
[00:33.92]Listen to the conversations carefully
[00:37.41]and then answer the questions that follow.
[00:40.80]Questions 1 to 3 are based on the following conversation.
[00:47.13]At the end of the conversation, you will be given 15 seconds
[00:52.07]to answer the questions.
[00:54.75]Now, listen to the conversation.
[00:59.59]M: Excuse me,
[01:01.63]I'm trying to find articles on new methods of geological research.
[01:05.92]Can you tell me how to find it?
[01:08.59]W: You can begin by looking into some of the specialized indexes
[01:13.18]such as the Applied Science and Technology Index.
[01:17.03]M: What will I find in these indexes?
[01:20.02]W: The Applied Science and Technology Index,
[01:22.96]for example, lists articles published in 297 periodicals.
[01:29.36]So you could look under "geology"
[01:31.88]and then under such subheadings as
[01:34.93]"methods of research" or "research technique", etc.
[01:39.23]You'll find everything that was published
[01:42.08]in any of those 297 magazines and journals.
[01:46.76]M: If I find out the listings of articles I want to read,
[01:50.52]what do I do then?
[01:52.92]W: You should go to the appropriate abstracts to learn more about the articles
[01:57.86]and decide which ones are relevant to you.
[02:01.29]M: Where could I find the articles?
[02:03.65]W: If the article has appeared in the last year,
[02:06.85]check in the Periodical Reading Room.
[02:09.60]Current issues of a great many magazines
[02:12.49]are kept on the racks and shelves there,
[02:15.34]arranged alphabetically by title.
[02:17.89]M: Can I borrow those periodicals?
[02:20.24]W: No. But you can always copy a particular article
[02:24.11]if you want to take it home with you.
[02:26.17]M: You've been very helpful and patient.
[02:28.97]I really appreciate it.
[02:45.88]Questions 4 to 7 are based on the following conversation.
[02:50.83]At the end of the conversation, you will be given 20 seconds
[02:55.66]to answer the questions.
[02:58.08]Now, listen to the conversation.
[03:01.97]M: Hey, Jane. What's so interesting?
[03:05.02]W: Oh, hi, Tom. I'm reading this fascinating article
[03:10.01]on the societies of the Ice Age.
[03:12.81]M: The Ice Age? There weren't any societies then,
[03:16.59]just the bunch of cave people.
[03:19.21]W: That's what people used to think.
[03:22.01]But a new exhibition
[03:24.10]at the American Museum of National History
[03:27.52]shows that Ice Age people were surprisingly advanced.
[03:31.92]M: Oh, really? In what ways?
[03:34.32]W: Well, Ice Age people were the inventors of languages,
[03:38.73]art and music as we know it.
[03:41.40]And they didn't live in caves.
[03:43.85]They built their own shelves.
[03:46.15]M: What did they use to build them?
[03:48.76]The cold weather would have killed almost all of the trees,
[03:52.21]so they couldn't have used wood.
[03:54.43]W: In some warmer climates,
[03:56.88]they did build houses of wood.
[03:59.54]In other places,
[04:00.69]they used animal bones and skins
[04:03.40]or lived in natural stone shelters.
[04:06.02]M: How did they stay warm?
[04:08.27]Animal skin walls don't sound very sturdy.
[04:11.52]W: Well, it says here, that in the early Ice Age,
[04:15.61]they often faced their homes towards
[04:18.05]the south to take advantage of the sun,
[04:20.95]a primitive sort of solar heating.
[04:23.76]M: Hey, that's pretty smart!
[04:26.25]W: Then people in the late Ice Age even insulated their homes
[04:30.86]by putting heated cobblestones on the floor.
[04:33.94]M: I guess I spoke too soon.
[04:36.38]Can I read that magazine article after you've done?
[04:39.70]I think I'm going to try to impress my anthropology teacher
[04:43.66]with my amazing knowledge of Ice Age civilization.
[04:47.35]W: Ha... What a show-off!
[05:10.04]Questions 8 to 10 are based on the following conversation.
[05:15.79]At the end of the conversation, you will be given 15 seconds
[05:20.33]to answer the questions.
[05:22.74]Now, listen to the conversation.
[05:26.56]M: Hi, Wendy!
[05:27.76]There are 2 weeks of classes and then exams start.
[05:31.75]W: Yes. I will be glad when exams are over.
[05:35.46]I get very panicky and stressed at exam time.
[05:40.24]I find myself eating constantly
[05:42.80]and I don't seem to find any time to exercise.
[05:46.59]M: Exams don't bother me that much.
[05:49.30]This year most of the marks for my courses are based
[05:52.22]on assignments and research projects. I only have 2 exams.
[05:57.28]W: You're lucky. I have 5.
[06:00.38]I also need to get good marks over 80%
[06:04.18]or I won't be able to keep my scholarship.
[06:07.57]M: Any plans for summer break?
[06:10.03]W: I'd like to go to Italy.
[06:11.92]My uncle owns a restaurant specializing in seafood
[06:16.02]and he has offered me a job for the summer.
[06:18.97]M: That's great!
[06:20.46]W: Yes. But the problem is my father
[06:23.39]had a heart attack 3 weeks ago,
[06:25.72]so I have to look after him
[06:27.77]and help my mother around the house.
[06:30.11]It is such a dilemma. I don't know what to do.
[06:33.66]M: Yes, it would be a very difficult decision.
[06:37.62]You are young and a chance to go to Italy for the summer
[06:41.01]sounds like the opportunity of a lifetime.
[06:44.05]W: I'm leaning towards going to Italy but I just feel so guilty.
[06:49.38]What about you, Steven?
[06:51.67]What are your plans for the summer?
[06:54.03]M: Well, I have no idea yet.
[07:11.96]SECTION B PASSAGES
[07:15.36]In this section, you will hear several passages.
[07:19.58]Listen to the passages carefully
[07:22.46]and then answer the questions that follow.
[07:25.81]Questions 11 to 14 are based on the following passage.
[07:31.94]At the end of the passage,
[07:33.89]you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions.
[07:38.18]Now, listen to the passage.
[07:42.57]Mark Twain, who wrote the story we are going to read,
[07:46.30]traveled quite a lot, often because circumstances,
[07:50.42]usually financial circumstances forced him to.
[07:54.67]He was born in Florida, Missouri in 1835,
[07:59.41]and moved to Hannibal,
[08:01.27]Missouri with his family when he was about four years old.
[08:06.11]After his father died when he was about twelve,
[08:10.00]Twain worked in Hannibal for a while
[08:12.40]and then left so he could earn more money.
[08:15.81]He worked for a while as a typesetter on various newspapers,
[08:20.06]and then got a job as a river pilot on the Mississippi.
[08:25.04]Twain loved this job, and many of his books show it.
[08:29.83]The river job didn't last, however,
[08:33.58]because of the outbreak of the Civil War.
[08:36.88]Twain was in the federate army for just two weeks,
[08:40.95]and then he and his whole company went west,
[08:44.50]to get away from the war and the army.
[08:47.59]In Nevada in California,
[08:50.58]Twain prospected for silver and gold without much luck,
[08:54.99]but did succeed as a writer.
[08:57.59]After that, Twain traveled around the country giving lectures
[09:02.95]and earning enough money to go to Europe.
[09:06.09]Twain didn't travel much the last ten years of his life,
[09:10.70]and he didn't publish much either.
[09:13.35]Somehow his travel inspired his writings.
[09:17.09]Like many other popular writers,
[09:19.98]Twain derived much of the materials for his writing
[09:23.53]from the wealth and diversity of his own experience.
[09:47.82]Questions 15 to 17 are based on the following passage.
[09:53.47]At the end of the passage,
[09:55.82]you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions.
[10:00.75]Now, listen to the passage.
[10:04.33]I cannot say that I like photographs better than paintings,
[10:11.12]for I like them both.
[10:12.87]Each says something different to me.
[10:16.01]A photograph brings me face to face
[10:19.92]with an actual event and real people.
[10:23.06]A painting can never do that.
[10:25.99]The people in a painting most often
[10:28.99]come from the artist's imagination.
[10:31.92]The photographer, however,
[10:34.93]can neither add nor take away
[10:38.08]from what is in front of the camera.
[10:40.88]You may have seen paintings of battle scenes.
[10:44.32]Many are very dramatic.
[10:46.78]But more powerful—at least to me
[10:50.88]—are the war photographs of soldiers in action
[10:54.64]or lying wounded or dead on the battlefield.
[10:57.97]A number of very haunting pictures were taken
[11:02.17]during the American Civil War
[11:04.35]by a photographer named Mathew Brady.
[11:07.64]While the painter imagined the battle in his mind
[11:11.59]and then painted it in a studio,
[11:14.12]Brady was there in the field.
[11:16.94]Because of this, many of his photographs create an effect
[11:22.13]that paintings do not.
[11:24.62]The young soldiers lying dead
[11:27.06]in Brady's photographs had actually lived.
[11:30.72]The photographer had to be there
[11:33.30]on the battlefield to take those pictures.
[11:36.56]Thus, to me, photographs are better
[11:40.66]because of this one-to-one relationship
[11:43.59]with reality that is not possible in paintings.
[12:02.67]Questions 18 to 20 are based on the following passage.
[12:08.06]At the end of the passage,
[12:10.65]you will be given 15 seconds to answer the questions.
[12:15.33]Now, listen to the passage.
[12:19.43]The Chinese first made paper about 2,000 years ago.
[12:24.68]China still has pieces of paper
[12:27.63]which were made as long ago as that.
[12:30.91]But Chinese paper was not made from the wood of trees.
[12:35.00]It was made from the hair-like parts of certain plants.
[12:39.49]Paper was not made in southern Europe until about the year 1100.
[12:46.14]Scandinavia—which now makes a great deal of the world's paper
[12:51.04]—did not begin to make it until 1500.
[12:54.84]It was a German named Schaeffer who found out
[12:59.03]that we could make the best paper from trees.
[13:02.47]After that, the forest countries of Canada,
[13:06.02]Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the United States
[13:10.56]became the most important in paper making.
[13:13.60]Today in Finland,
[13:15.79]which makes the best paper in the world,
[13:18.25]the paper industry is the biggest in the land.
[13:22.14]New paper-making machines are very big,
[13:26.15]and they make paper very fast.
[13:29.40]The biggest machines can make a piece of paper
[13:33.08]300 meters long and 6 meters wide in one minute.
[13:38.72]When we think of paper,
[13:40.94]we think of newspaper, books, letters,
[13:44.74]envelopes, and writing paper.
[13:47.72]But only half of the paper that is made
[13:50.72]is used for books and newspapers, etc.
[14:09.29]SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
[14:13.78]In this section, you will hear several news items.
[14:18.43]Listen to them carefully and then answer the questions that follow.
[14:23.71]Questions 21 and 22 are based on the following news.
[14:30.25]At the end of the news item,
[14:33.11]you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.
[14:36.95]Now, listen to the news.
[14:41.09]A coal mine exploded
[14:44.38]in Indonesia's West Sumatra province on Tuesday,
[14:48.58]killing five people and trapped at least 30 others underground,
[14:53.86]according to the latest information
[14:56.41]of the local Disaster Management Agency.
[14:59.68]Ade Edward, an official with the agency,
[15:03.88]said 10 other people were seriously injured in the explosion
[15:08.17]which happened early Tuesday morning in Sawah Lunto.
[15:12.41]Despite the efforts,
[15:14.76]the trapped people have not been able
[15:17.10]to be taken out of the one-meter-wide exit.
[15:20.80]They have slim chance of surviving
[15:23.55]as there is no oxygen supply equipment, Edward said.
[15:37.61]Question 23 is based on the following news.
[15:41.90]At the end of the news item,
[15:44.45]you will be given 5 seconds to answer the question.
[15:48.55]Now, listen to the news.
[15:52.14]Representatives from more than 80 nations,
[15:55.84]including the United States and Iran,
[15:58.72]are gathering Tuesday in the Hague for a key conference
[16:03.21]focusing on Afghanistan at a time when NATO and U.S. forces there
[16:10.60]are fighting a rising insurgency.
[16:13.59]The Afghanistan conference follows the unveiling of a new U.S. strategy
[16:19.89]that calls for sending more aid and additional troops
[16:24.12]to the conflict-torn country
[16:26.33]and to focus more on al-Qaida terrorists operating there.
[16:36.34]Questions 24 and 25 are based on the following news.
[16:42.38]At the end of the news item,
[16:45.17]you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.
[16:48.92]Now, listen to the news.
[16:53.02]Three children, including a 45-day-old girl,
[16:57.65]were burnt to death when a fire broke out in their hut in a slum
[17:01.84]in the capital city Sunday night,
[17:04.38]reported the semi-official Press Trust of India on Monday.
[17:09.08]Three others were injured, two of them critically,
[17:12.92]in the fire which broke out at a slum
[17:15.96]called Shahbad Dairy at around 11:10 p.m.
[17:20.70]Sunday night, said the report quoting fire fighter sources.
[17:25.69]The cause of the fire is yet to be ascertained,
[17:29.43]said the report.
[17:40.86]Questions 26 and 27 are based on the following news.
[17:46.54]At the end of the news item,
[17:49.47]you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.
[17:53.31]Now, listen to the news.
[17:57.36]In India,
[17:59.15]the trial of the suspected gunman captured
[18:02.70]in last year's Mumbai terror attacks
[18:05.64]has begun under heavy security.
[18:08.43]But, the defense says his confession about the attacks
[18:12.57]was forced and he wants to retract it.
[18:16.12]In its opening arguments in a Mumbai special court Friday,
[18:20.71]the prosecution accused Mohammed Ajmal Kasab
[18:25.10]of being part of a "meticulously planned and ruthlessly executed" plot
[18:31.28]hatched in Pakistan, and backed by its intelligence agency.
[18:46.19]Questions 28 and 29 are based on the following news.
[18:52.16]At the end of the news item,
[18:54.99]you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.
[18:59.13]Now, listen to the news.
[19:03.19]For much of the year,
[19:04.99]record prices for oil have made oil-producing nations rich.
[19:10.38]Now these nations are trying to cut production
[19:14.07]to support collapsing prices.
[19:16.68]Last week, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
[19:21.58]met in Algiers.
[19:23.58]Members agreed to a record production cut
[19:26.97]of more than two million barrels a day,
[19:29.65]or about five percent of world output.
[19:33.54]OPEC's president said the group
[19:36.29]may call an emergency meeting in March
[19:38.89]if prices continue to fall.
[19:51.20]Question 30 is based on the following news.
[19:55.59]At the end of the news item,
[19:57.79]you will be given 5 seconds to answer the question.
[20:01.66]Now, listen to the news.
[20:05.50]South Africans go to the polls April 22
[20:10.39]in general and provincial elections
[20:12.89]which many see as the most important
[20:15.57]since the advent of democracy in 1994.
[20:19.72]The past 18 months have seen the ruling
[20:24.31]African National Congress
[20:26.31]come under sharp criticism,
[20:28.49]mostly centering on a now-abandoned prosecution
[20:32.38]of party president Jacob Zuma,
[20:35.09]who had faced charges of fraud and corruption.
[20:38.34]But, all indications are that the ANC will once again
[20:44.27]achieve a resounding victory in this poll.
[20:52.78]This is the end of listening comprehension.