PART II

Listening Comprehension

Section A

Directions:

in this section,

you will hear two long conversations.

At the end of each conversation,

you will hear four questions.

 Both the conversation 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

 1 with a single line through the centre.

Now you will haer the two long conversations

Conversation 1

W: One of the most interesting experiments with dolphins must be one done by Doctor Jarvis Bastian.

What he tried to do was to teach a male dolphin

called Bass and a female called Doris to communicate with each other across a solid barrier.

M: So how did he do it exactly?

W: Well, first of all, he kept the two dolphins together in the same tank

and taught them to press levers whenever they saw a light.

The levers were fitted to the side of the tank next to each other.

If the light flashed on and off several times,

the dolphins were supposed to press the lefthand lever followed by the righthand one.

If the light was kept steady, the dolphins were supposed to press the levers in reverse order.

Whenever they responded correctly, they were rewarded with fish.

M: Sounds terribly complicated.

W: Well, that was the first stage. In the second stage,

Doctor Bastian separated the dolphins into two tanks.

They could still hear one another, but they couldn't actually see each other.

The levers and light were set up in exactly the same way

except that this time it was only Doris who could see the light indicating

which lever to press first.

But in order to get their fish, both dolphins had to press the levers in the correct order.

This meant of course that Doris had to tell Bass

whether it was a flashing light or whether it was a steady light.

M: So did it work?

W: Well, amazingly enough, the dolphins achieved a 100% success rate.

Q1:What is the purpose of Doctor Jarvis Bastian's experiment?

Q2:What were the dolphins supposed to do when they saw a steady light?

Q3:How did the second stage of the experiment differ from the first stage?

Q4:Which is not correct according to the recording?

Conversation 2

W: This week's program Up Your Street takes you to Harrogate, a small town in Yorkshire.

Harrogate became a fashionable resort during Victorian times,

when people came to take a bath in the mineral waters.

Today, few people come to visit the town for its mineral waters.

Instead, Harrogate has become a popular town for people to retire to.

Its clean air, attractive parks, and the absence of any industry,

make this an ideal spot for people looking for a quiet life.

Now, to tell us more about Harrogate, I have with me Tom Percival,

President of the Chamber of Commerce.

Tom, one of the things visitor notices about Harrogate is the

large area of open park land right down

into the middle of the town.

Can you tell us more about it?

M: Yes, certainly. The area is called the Stray.

W: Why the Stray?

M: It's called that because in the old days,

people let their cattle stray on the area, which was common land.

W: Oh, I see.

M: Then, we've changes in farming and in land ownership.

The Stray became part of the land owned by Harrogate.

W: And is it protected?

M: Oh, yes, indeed. As a special law, no one can build anything on the stray.

It's protected forever.

W: So it will always be park land?

M: That's right. As you can see, some of the Stray is used for sports fields.

W: I believe it looks lovely in the spring.

M: Yes, it does. There're spring flowers on the old trees,

and people visit the town just to see the flowers.

Q 5:Where does this conversation most probably take place?

Q 6:What do we learn about modern Harrogate?

Q 7:What does the man say about the area called the Stray?

Q 8:What attracts people most in the Stray during the spring time?

Section B. Directions:

In this section, you will hear two 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 1 with a single line through the centre.

Passage One

Bernard Jackson is a free man today, but he has many bitter memories.

Jackson spent five years in prison after a jury wrongly convicted him of raping two women.

At Jackson's trial, although two witnesses testified

that Jackson was with them in another location at the times of the crimes,

he was convicted anyway.

Why? The jury believed the testimony of the two victims,

who positively identified Jackson as the man who has attacked them.

The court eventually freed Jackson after the police found the man

who had really committed the crimes.

Jackson was similar in appearance to the guilty man.

The two women has made a mistake in identity.

As a result, Jackson has lost five years of his life.

The two women in this case were eyewitnesses.

They clearly saw the man who attacked them,

yet they mistakenly identified an innocent person.

Similar incidents have occurred before.

Eyewitnesses to other crimes have identified the wrong person in a police lineup or in photographs.

Many factors influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony.

For instance, witnesses sometimes see photographs of several suspects

before they try to identify the person they saw in a lineup of people.

They can become confused by seeing many photographs or similar faces.

The number of people in the lineup,

and whether it is a live lineup or a photograph,

may also affect a witness's decision. People sometimes have difficulty identifying people

 of other races.

The questions the police ask witnesses also have an effect on them.

Q 9:What do we learn about Bernard Jackson?

Q 10:What led directly to Jackson's sentence?

Q 11:What lesson do we learn from Jackson's case?

Passage 2

Russell Fazio, an Ohio State psychology professor

who has studied interracial roommates there and at Indiana University,

discovered an intriguing academic effect.

In a study analyzing data on thousands of Ohio State freshmen

who lived in dorms,

he found that black freshmen

who came to college with high standardized test scores earned better grades

if they had a white roommate—

even if the roommate's test scores were low.

The roommate's race had no effect on the grades of white students or lowscoring black students.

Perhaps, the study speculated, having a white roommate helps academically

prepared black students adjust to a predominantly white university.

That same study found that randomly assigned interracial roommates

at Ohio State broke up before the end of the quarter about twice as often as same

race roommates.

Because interracial roommate relationships are often problematic,

Dr. Fazio said, many students would like to move out,

but university housing policies may make it hard to leave.

“At Indiana University, where housing was not so tight,

more interracial roommates split up,” he said.

“Here at Ohio State, where housing was tight, they were told to work it out.

The most interesting thing we found was that if the relationship managed to

 continue for just 10 weeks,

we could see an improvement in racial attitudes.”

Dr. Fazio's Indiana study found that three times as many randomly assigned interracial roommates

were no longer living together at the end of the semester,

compared with white roommates. The interracial roommates spent less time together,

and had fewer joint activities than the white pairs.

Q 12:What do we know about Russell Fazio?

Q 13:Who benefited from living with a white roommate according to Fazio's study?

Q 14:What did the study find about randomly assigned interracial roommates at Ohio State University?

Q 15:What did Dr. Fazio find interesting about interracial roommates who had lived together for 10 weeks?

Section C Directions:

In this section, you will hear recordings of lectures or talks followed by some questions.

The recordings will be played 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 1 with a single line through the centre.

Passage 1

Good evening. On Wednesday,

14 Americans were killed as they came together to celebrate the holidays.

They were taken from family and friends who loved them deeply.

They were white and black; Latino and Asian;

immigrants and Americanborn; moms and dads; daughters and sons.

Each of them served their fellow citizens and all of them were part of our American family.

Tonight, I want to talk with you about this tragedy,

the broader threat of terrorism, and how we can keep our country safe.

Now, here at home, we have to work together to address the challenge.

There are several steps that Congress should take right away.

To begin with, Congress should act to make sure no one on a nofly list is able to buy a gun.

What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semiautomatic weapon?

This is a matter of national security.

We also need to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons

like the ones that were used in San Bernardino.

I know there are some who reject any gun safety measures.

But the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies

—no matter how effective they are—

cannot identify every wouldbe mass shooter,

whether that individual is motivated by ISIL or some other hateful ideology.

What we can do—and must do—is make it harder for them to kill.

My fellow Americans, I am confident we will succeed in this mission

because we are on the right side of history.

We were founded upon a belief in human dignity—

that no matter who you are, or where you come from,

or what you look like, or what religion you practice,

you are equal in the eyes of God and equal in the eyes of the law.

Even in this political season, even as we properly debate

what steps I and future Presidents must take to keep our country safe,

let's make sure we never forget what makes us exceptional.

Let's not forget that freedom is more powerful than fear;

that we have always met challenges—

whether war or depression, natural disasters or terrorist attacks—

by coming together around our common ideals as one nation, as one people.

So long as we stay true to that tradition, I have no doubt America will prevail.

Thank you. God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.

16.What did President Obama say he wanted to talk about in his speech?

17.How did Mr Obama say America met challenges?

18.What was one way the President planned to stop terrorists from killing?

19.Mr obama began his speech talking about a recent tragedy. On what day did he say it happened?

Passage 2

An estimated 20 percent of the population has trouble working with numbers.

That's as many as one person in five with some sort of numerical disability.

The British researchers are exploring ways to stimulate the brain

to improve the ability to understand and work with numbers.

If you look at two numbers—say, seven and two—most of us  know at a glance,

almost instinctively, which one is bigger.

Scientists at the University of Oxford led by Roi Cohen Kadosh

have been trying to understand what goes on in the brain when we work with numbers.

In the latest in a series of research papers,

Cohen Kadosh describes how electrical brain stimulation can affect the process.

“We wanted to see if, when we give numerical information for people to learn—

so, to learn a new numerical system—

if stimulating their brain will improve their ability to learn and to act on this learned material,”

To try to answer the question, the scientists recruited a small group of people, just 15,

and divided them into groups.

Some of the subjects got a small electric current directed

at the part of the brain that handles mathematical tasks.Not enough for a shock,

just a brief tingle.Others got a fake, placebo treatment.

Then, they were given tests to evaluate their skill with numbers,

using a set of madeup symbols instead of actual numbers.

Some people who got the electric stimulation showed significantly better performance in the tests.

Others were significantly worse, depending on how the current was applied.

20.What is the purpose of  Cohen Kadosh`s experiments?

21.Why did the scientists recruit 15 people in an experiment?

22.Which of the description about the result of the experiment is true?

Passage 3

European Union foreign policy Chief Catherine Ashton spoke to reporters briefly in Brussels,

where leaders from the 27member block wrapped up a twoday summit.

“I just wanted to let you know that this morning I have had a letter delivered through the ambassador

from Iran...to say that he welcomes the fact that I have been in touch with him

and that he is agreeable to beginning discussions after the 10th of November

and wants to agree on a time and a place.”

Earlier this month, Ashton proposed a new round of talks with Iran on its nuclear program in Vienna.

This followed reports that Iran's top nuclear negotiator was interested in meeting with Ashton

on behalf of a sixnation group－the U.S., Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany.

Ashton calls this latest Iranian overture significant.

“I think this is a very significant move and we're not in touch with Iran this morning

to see whether we can agree on the time and the place as quickly as possible.”

Iran and the international community have been at loggerheads over Tehran's nuclear program.

Negotiations have stalled since October, 2009.

Iran insists its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes.

But many nations fear Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran's new overture comes a day after the White House warned

that Tehran's continued enrichment of uranium would mean that the international community would,

in turn, be tougher on its future dealings with the Middle East nation.

23.What is the letter Ashton received mainly about?

24.Who suggested  new talks Iranian nuclear program earlier this month?

25.Which one is not indicated in the recording?