星火英语2008年6月版听力强攻第2课

Test Two

Part Ⅲ Listening Comprehension

Section A

Directions: In this section, you will hear 8 short conversations and 2 long conversations.

At the end of each conversation, one or more questions will be asked about what was said.

Both the conversation and the questions will be spoken only once.

After each question there will be a pause.

During the pause, you must read the four choices marked A), B), C) and D),

and decide which is the best answer.

Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Now, let’s begin with the eight short conversations.

11. W: George, look at the long waiting line.

I am glad you’ve made a reservation.

M: More and more people enjoy eating out now.

Besides, this place is especially popular with the overseas students.

Q: Where did the conversation most probably take place?

12. M: I wonder if you can drop by tomorrow evening.

The Stevensons are coming over for dinner.

I’d like you to meet them.

W: Sure, I’d love to. I’ve heard they are very interesting people.

Q: What do we learn from the conversation?

13. W: The presentation made by Professor Jackson was too complicated to understand.

M: Well, I think he didn’t speak slowly enough for us to take notes.

Q: What is the man’s complaint?

14. W: You’ve got your apartment furnished, haven’t you?

M: Yes, I’ve bought some used furniture at the Sunday market.

And it was a real bargain.

Q: What does the man mean?

15. M: Mary doesn’t want me to take the job.

She says our child is too young.

And the job requires much traveling.

W: You should talk to her again and see if you can find a way out.

Think about the gains and losses before you make a decision.

Q: What do we learn from the conversation?

16. M: I haven’t got my scores on the GRE test yet.

Do you think I should call to make inquiries?

W: There is no hurry. The test scores are released at least eight weeks after the test.

Q: What does the woman advise the man to do?

17. M: Have you finished reading the book you bought last month?

W: Oh, I didn’t read straight through the way you read a novel, I just covered a few chapters that interested me most.

Q: How did the woman read the book?

18. W: Hi, John. Haven’t seen you for quite a while. Are you fine?

M: Oh, yes, but luck seems to go against me.

I had a car accident, only some minor injuries, though.

Q: What happened to John?

Now you’ll hear two long conversations.

Conversation One

W: Tim, did you get your ticket for the concert Friday?

M: I tried to. I stopped by the ticket office on the way back from campus, but they wouldn’t take my check.

W: Why not?

M: The cashier said I didn’t have enough identification with me—a student ID card wasn’t enough.

He said I needed a driver’s license, too.

W: What happened to yours?

Did you lose it, or just forget to bring it with you?

M: I don’t have one.

You know me— I ride my bicycle everywhere I go, so why do I need a driver’s license?

W: You could still get an official identification card from the state and use that to cash checks.

M: Where do I get one of those?

W: At the same place you get a driver’s license, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

M: Is that office downtown?

W: No, it’s out on Southland Parkway, next to the Midvale Shopping Mall.

M: What do you think I’ll need to do to get one?

W: Just bring some official document that has your date of birth on it.

You could use a passport, for example.

M: I’ll ride out there tomorrow.

W: Good idea. And I’ll tell you that, Tim— if you promise to cash a check as soon as you can,

I’ll let you borrow some money, and you can go get that ticket.

Questions 19 to 22 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

19.According to the conversation, why was Tim unable to buy the ticket?

20.Why doesn’t Tim have a driver’s license?

21.What does the woman suggest Tim bring when he goes to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles?

22.What does the woman offer to do for the man?

Conversation Two

M: Want to go out and get something to eat?

W: I can’t. I have a chemistry midterm on Monday and a German exam on Tuesday.

M: I have a geology exam Monday myself, but I think I’m ready for it.

W: What kind of exam is it going to be—multiple choice or essay?

M: Neither. The professor is going to give us a mineral sample and we have to identify it.

W: How do you do that? I mean, a rock’s a rock, isn’t it?

M: Actually, there are a lot of tests you can perform on minerals to help you figure out what they are.

Probably the first tests I’ll do are scratch tests.

When you do a scratch test, you rub the sample on a known mineral

to see if the unknown mineral scratches the know mineral or vice versa.

That tells you the relative hardness of the sample.

W: What other tests will you do?

M: I’ll probably do a streak test next.

In that test, you rub an unknown mineral against a piece of china to see what color the streak is.

W: Why can’t you just look at the mineral to see what color it is?

M: Well, you can, but sometimes a mineral has some other substance in it,

and the substance can change its color.

But a streak test shows the mineral’s true color.

Then there’s always the specific gravity test, the blowpipe test … oh, and …

W: And after you’ve done all these tests, you can positively identify any mineral?

M: Well, usually … but not always. I just hope I can on Monday!

Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

23.What type of exam is the man taking on Monday?

24.According to the man, what does a streak test show about a mineral?

25. What does the man imply about the tests used to identify minerals?

Section B Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages.

At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions.

Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once.

After you hear a question,

you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D).

Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

A friend of mine told me that when he was a young man,

he went to work as a teacher in one of the states of India.

One day,he received an invitation to dinner at the ruler's palace.

Very pleased,he went to tell his colleagues.

They laughed,and told him the meaning of the invitation.

They had all been invited,and each person who was invited had to bring with him a certain number of silver and gold coins.

The number of coins varied according to the person's position in the service of the government.

My friend's income was not high,so he did not have much to pay.

Each person bowed before the ruler,his gold went onto one heap,his silver went onto another heap.

And in this way he paid his income tax for the year.

This was a simple way of collecting income tax.

The tax on property was also collected simply.

The ruler gave a man the power to collect a tax from each owner of land or property in a certain area,

if this man promised to pay the ruler a certain amount of money.

Of course, the tax collector managed to collect more money than he paid to the ruler.

The difference between the sum of money he collected and the sum of money he gave to the ruler was his profit.

Questions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.

26. What do we know about the speaker's friend?

27. What was the real purpose of the ruler's invitation?

28. What does the passage say about the tax collectors?

Passage Two

Around the year 1000 A.D,some people from northwest India began to travel westwards.

Nobody knows why.

After leaving their homes,they did not settle down again,

but spent their lives moving from one place to another.

Their later generations are called the Romany people,or Gypsies.

There are Gypsies all over the world,and many of them are still travelling with no fixed homes.

There are about 8 million of them,including 3 million in eastern Europe.

Gypsies sometimes have a hard time in the countries where they travel,because they are different.

People may be afraid of them,look down on them,or think that they are criminals.

The Nazies treated the Gypsies cruelly,like the Jews,and nobody knows how many of them died in Hitler's death camps.

Gypsies have their own language,Romany.

They liked music and dancing.

And they often work in fairs and travelling shows.

Travelling is very important to them,and many Gypsies are unhappy if they have to stay in one place.

Because of this,it is difficult for Gypsy children to go to school,and Gypsies are often unable to read and write.

In some places, the education authorities try to arrange special travelling schools for Gypsy children,

so that they can get the same education as other children.

Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.

29. Why did the ancestors of Gypsies leave their home?

30. What is the attitude of some people toward Gypsies?

31. What measure has been taken to help Gypsy children?

Passage Three

As the car industry develops,traffic accidents have become as familiar as the common cold.

Yet, their cause and control remain a serious problem that is difficult to solve.

Experts have long recognized that this discouraging problem has multiple causes.

At the very least,it is a problem that involves three factors:the driver,the vehicle,and the roadway.

If all drivers exercised good judgement at all times,there would be few accidents.

But this is rather like saying that if all people were honest,there would be no crime.

Improved design has helped make highways much safer.

But the tide of accidents continue to rise

because of human failure and an enormous increase in the number of automobiles on the road.

Attention is now turning increasingly to the third factor of the accident,the car itself.

Since people assume that the accidents are bound to occur,

they want to know how cars can be built better to protect the drivers.

Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.

32. What does the speaker think of the causes of automobile accidents?

33. What measure has been taken to reduce car accidents?

34. What remains an important factor for the rising number of road accidents?

35. What is the focus of people’s attentions today according to the passage?

Section C

Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times.

When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea.

When the passage is read for the second time,

you are required to fill in the blanks numbered from 36 to 43 with the exact words you have just heard.

For blanks numbered from 44 to 46 you are required to fill in the missing information.

For these blanks, you can either use the exact words you have just heard

or write down the main points in your own words.

Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.

Now listen to the passage.

All that we really need to plot out the future of our universe are a few good measurements.

This does not mean that we can sit down today and outline the future course of the universe with anything like certainty.

There are still too many things we do not know about the way the universe is put together.

But we do know exactly what information we need to fill in our knowledge,

and we have a pretty good idea of how to go about getting it.

Perhaps the best way to think of our present situation is to imagine a train coming into a switchyard.

All of the switches are set before the train arrives, so that its path is completely determined.

Some switches we can see, others we cannot.

There is no doubt if we can see the setting of a switch:

we can say with confidence that some possible futures will not be realized and others will.

At the unseen switches, however, there is no such certainty about it.

We know the train will take one of the tracks leading out, but we have no idea which one.

The unseen switches are the true decision points in the future,

and what happens when we arrive at them determines the entire subsequent course of events.

When we think about the future of the universe, we can see our “track many billions of years into the future,

but after that there are decision points to be dealt with and possible fates to consider.

The goal of science is to reduce the vagueness at the decision points and find the true road that will be followed.

Now the passage will be read again.

All that we really need to plot out the future of our universe are a few good measurements.

This does not mean that we can sit down today and outline the future course of the universe with anything like certainty.

There are still too many things we do not know about the way the universe is put together.

But we do know exactly what information we need to fill in our knowledge,

and we have a pretty good idea of how to go about getting it.

Perhaps the best way to think of our present situation is to imagine a train coming into a switchyard.

All of the switches are set before the train arrives, so that its path is completely determined.

Some switches we can see, others we cannot.

There is no doubt if we can see the setting of a switch:

we can say with confidence that some possible futures will not be realized and others will.

At the unseen switches,

however, there is no such certainty about it.

We know the train will take one of the tracks leading out, but we have no idea which one.

The unseen switches are the true decision points in the future,

and what happens when we arrive at them determines the entire subsequent course of events.

When we think about the future of the universe, we can see our “track many billions of years into the future,

but after that there are decision points to be dealt with and possible fates to consider.

The goal of science is to reduce the vagueness at the decision points and find the true road that will be followed.

Now the passage will be read for the third time.

All that we really need to plot out the future of our universe are a few good measurements.

This does not mean that we can sit down today

and outline the future course of the universe with anything like certainty.

There are still too many things we do not know about the way the universe is put together.

But we do know exactly what information we need to fill in our knowledge,

and we have a pretty good idea of how to go about getting it.

Perhaps the best way to think of our present situation is to imagine a train coming into a switchyard.

All of the switches are set before the train arrives, so that its path is completely determined.

Some switches we can see, others we cannot.

There is no doubt if we can see the setting of a switch:

we can say with confidence that some possible futures will not be realized and others will.

At the unseen switches, however, there is no such certainty about it.

We know the train will take one of the tracks leading out, but we have no idea which one.

The unseen switches are the true decision points in the future,

and what happens when we arrive at them determines the entire subsequent course of events.

When we think about the future of the universe, we can see our “track many billions of years into the future,

but after that there are decision points to be dealt with and possible fates to consider.

The goal of science is to reduce the vagueness at the decision points and find the true road that will be followed.

This is the end of listening comprehension.