5套冲刺卷4
5套冲刺卷4
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 some 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 hear two long conversation.
Conversation One
W：Can I have breakfast in my room?
And I want to know something about your service time.
M：Certainly, madam. Breakfast is served in your room
from 7 o`clock until 10. Here is the menu.
W：Ok, Thank you very much. Well,
I`m afraid that I`d like to have the Continental Breakfast.
M：Yes, Madam. And at what time would you like it?
W：About half past eight, I think. Yes, half past eight.
M：8:30. Ok, very good, dear madam.
And what kind of fruit juice would you like?
We have pineapple, orange, grapefruit as well as some other fruits.
W：I think I`d like the pineapple please.
M：Pineapple juice. And would you prefer tea or coffee?
W：Coffee please.
M：Thank you very much. Goodnight.
***
(At 8:30 the next morning, there is a light tap at the door.)
W：Yes. Come in.
M：I`ve brought you your breakfast, madam.
W:Oh yes. Thank you. (2)Could you put it on the desk over there pease?
M:Shall I pour you a cup of coffee straight away, madam?
W:No, thanks. I`ll pour it myself in a minute.
M:Is there anything else, madam?
W:No no, I don`t think so, oh, you are not the one I met yesterday,
right? But, anyway, thank you very much for your help.
Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
Questions 1
How long will the breakfast serve?
Questions 2
Where is the waiter asked to put the breakast?
Questions 3
Who will pour the coffee for her?
Questions 4
When will the woman have breakfast?
Conversation Two
M：What do you mean by a friend, Jean?
W：Oh, Robert. To me, friendship is the most important thing in life.
It`s more important even than love.
If you love someone, you can always fall out of love again,
and that can lead to a lot of hurt feelings, bitterness,
and so on. But a good friend is a friend for life.
M：Someone who likes the same things that you do,
who you can argue with and not lose your temper,
even if you don`t always agree about things.
I mean someone who you don`t have to talk to all the time
but can be silent with, perhaps.
That`s important, too. You can just sit together
and not say very much sometimes. Just relax.
I don`t like people who talk all the time.
W：Are you very good at keeping in touch with your friends
if you don`t see them regularly?
M：No, not always. I`ve lived in lots of places, and,
to be honest, once I move away, I often do drift out of touch with my friends.
And I`m not a very good letter writer, either.
Never have been. But I know that if I saw those friends again,
if I ever moved back to the same place,
or for some other reason we got back into close contact again,
I`m sure the friendship would be just as strong as it was before.
W：Several of my friends have moved away,
got married, things like that.
One of my friends has had a baby recently,
and I`ll admit I don`t see her or hear from her as much as I used to …
She lives in another neighborhood and when I phone her, she always seems busy.
But that`s an exception.
I write a lot of letters to my friends
and get a lot of letters from them. I have a friend I went to school with
and ten years ago she emigrated to Canada,
but she still writes to me every month,
and I write to her just as often.
Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
Questions 5
What do friends mean to Robert?
Questions 6
Which statement of following is true?
Questions 7
Which statement is not made by Jean?
Questions 8
Which statement is not mentioned by Robert?
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
Indian summer is a short period of extremely fair weaher and mild days in autumn.
It comes in late October or early November
while the leaves are changing color and falling from the trees.
It has no definite day of beginning or ending.
The pleasant weather follows the autumn`s first period of cold, wintry days.
The days become warmer but the nights remain chilly.
An Indian summer moon often has a soft yellow or orange hue.
Indian summer lasts from a week to ten days and sometimes for two weeks.
Then winter starts. Indian summer is caused
by a large mass of warm tropical air.
South winds carry these masses northward.
The American Indian enjoyed Indian summer
and called it a gift of a favorite God,
Cautantowwit, the god of the southwest.
Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Questions 9
Which of the following can be understood from the pasage?
Questions 10
What causes Indian summer?
Questions 11
What was NOT mentioned as a feature of Indian summer?
Passage Two
Today I`m going to discuss transportation and communication
in the early 19th century in the United States.
At that time, inland waterways provided North America`s
most popular form of long distance transportaion.
Travel by river was often more convenient than
taking a wagon over primitive country roads,
especially when shipping heavy loads of farm products or household goods.
Where the natrual waterways were inadequate, shallow canals were built.
The Erie Canal, opened in 1825,
connected the Great Lakes with the upper Hudson River.
It allowed settlers in the Great Lakes region
to send their crops eastward
to New York City at the mouth of the Hudson at a much lower cost.
From there, crops could be shipped to other Atlantic ports.
The construction of the Erie Canal
also encouraged westward migration along inland waterways
and helped populate the frontier.
The City of Detroit grew up between two of the Great Lakes.
Later a canal joined the Great Lakes
with the Mississippi river system and Chicago became a thriving city.
Politically the waterway system united the nation in a way few had imagined possible.
By the mid—1800`s faster and cheaper railroads became more popular
and the canal system decliend. Railroads could be used year round
whereas canals were often frozen in the winter.
During the first third of the century, however,
transportation on rivers,lakes and canals aided greatly in the growth of the United States.
Next week we`ll discuss the railroads in greater detail.
Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.
Questions 12
What is the main idea of this lecture?
Questions 13
When was inland waterway travel most popular?
Questions 14
What was usually transported from west to east?
Questions 15
What was not a result of the inland water system in the United States?
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.
Now listen to the following recording and answer questions 16 to 19.
At this time of year, few sights evoke more feelings of cheer
and goodwill than the twinkling lights of a Christmas tree.
The popularity of a tree at Christmas is due in part
to my great great grandparents,
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
After this touching picture was published,
many families wanted a Christmas tree of their own, and the custom soon spread.
In 1949, I spent Christmas in Malta as a newly married naval wife.
We have returned to that island over the years,
including last month for a meeting of Commonwealth leaders,
and this year I met another group of leaders:
The Queen`s Young Leaders, an inspirational group,
each of them a symbol of hope in their own Commonwealth communities.
Gathering round the tree gives us a chance to think about the year ahead—
I am looking forward to a busy 2016,
though I have been warned I may have Happy Birthday sung
to me more than once or twice.
It also allows us to reflect on the year that has passed,
as we think of those who are far away or no longer with us.
Many people say the first Christmas
after losing a loved one is particularly hard.
But it`s also a time to remember all that we have to be thankful for.
It is true that the world has had to confront moments of darkness this year,
but the Gospel of John contains a verse
of great hope, often read at Christmas carol services:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”.
One cause for thankfulness this summer was marking
70 years since the end of the Second World War.
At the end of that war, the people of
Oslo began sending an annual gift of a Christmas tree for Trafalgar Square.
It has 500 light bulbs and is enjoyed not
just by Christians but by people of all faiths, and of none.
At the very top sits a bright star, to represent the Star of Bethlehem.
The custom of topping a tree also goes back to Prince Albert`s time.
For his family`s tree, he chose an angel,
helping to remind us that the focus
of the Christmas story is on one particular family.
For Joseph and Mary, the circumstances
of Jesus`s birth—in a stable—were far from ideal,
but worse was to come as the family was forced to flee the country.
It`s no surprise that such a human story still captures our imagination
and continues to inspire all of us who are Christians, the world over.
Despite being displaced and persecuted throughout his short life,
Christ`s unchanging message was not one of revenge
or violence but simply that we should love one another.
One of the joys of living a long life is watching one`s children,
then grandchildren, then great grandchildren,
help decorate the Christmas tree.
And this year my family has a new member to join in the fun.
The customary decorations have changed little in the years since
that picture of Victoria and Albert`s tree first appeared,
although of course electric lights have replaced the candles.
There`s an old saying that
“it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness”.
There are millions of people lighting candles of hope in our world today.
Christmas is a good time to be thankful for them,
and for all that brings light to our lives.
I wish you a very happy Christmas.
Now listen to the following recording and answer questions 20 to 22.
The world`s largest and most devastating environmental
and industrial project is situated in the heart of the
largest and most intact forest in the world, Canada`s Boreal Forest.
It stretches right across northern Canada, in Labrador,
it`s home to the largest remaining wild caribou herd in the world,
the George River caribou herd, numbering approximately 400,000 animals.
Unfortunately, when I was there
I couldn`t find one of them, but you have the antlers as proof.
All across the Boreal, we`re blessed with this incredible abundance of wetlands.
Wetlands globally are one of the most endangered ecosystems.
They`re absolutely critical ecosystems, they clean air,
they clean water, they sequester large amounts of greenhouse gases,
and they`re home to a huge diversity of species. In the Boreal,
they are also the home where almost 50 percent of the 800 bird
species found in North America migrate north to breed and raise their young.
In Ontario, the Boreal marches down south to the north shore of Lake Superior.
And these incredibly beautiful Boreal forests were the inspiration
for some of the most famous art in Canadian history,
the Group of Seven were very inspired by this landscape,
and so the Boreal is not just a really key part of our natural heritage,
but also an important part of our cultural heritage.
In Manitoba, this is an image from the east side of Lake Winnipeg,
and this is the home of the newly designated UNESCO Cultural Heritage site.
In Saskatchewan, as across all of the Boreal,
home to some of our most famous rivers, an incredible network of rivers
and lakes that every school age child learns about, the Peace,
the Athabasca, the Churchill here, the Mackenzie,
and these networks were the historical routes for the voyageur and the visitor,
is the first non Aboriginal explorers of northern Canada that,
taking from the First Nations people,
used canoes and paddled to explore for a trade route,
a Northwest Passage for the fur trade.
In the North, the Boreal is bordered by the tundra, and just below that,
in Yukon, we have this incredible valley, the Tombstone Valley.
And the Tombstone Valley is home to the Porcupine caribou herd.
Now you`ve probably heard about the Porcupine caribou herd in the context
of its breeding ground in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Well, the wintering ground is also critical and it also is not protected,
and is potentially, could be potentially, exploited for gas and mineral rights.
The western border of the Boreal in British Columbia is marked by the Coast Mountains,
and on the other side of those mountains is the
greatest remaining temperate rainforest in the world,
the Great Bear Rainforest,
and we`ll discuss that in a few minutes in a bit more detail.
All across the Boreal, it`s home for a huge incredible range of indigenous peoples,
and a rich and varied culture.
And I think that one of the reasons why so many of these groups have retained a link to the past,
know their native languages, the songs, the dances,
the traditions, I think part of that reason is because of the remoteness,
the span and the wilderness of this almost 95 percent intact ecosystem.
Now listen to the following recording and answer questions 23 to 25.
I want you to take a look at this baby.
What you`re drawn to are her eyes and the skin you love to touch.
But today I`m going to talk to you about
something you can`t see—what`s going on up in that little brain of hers.
The modern tools of neuroscience are demonstrating to us
that what`s going on up there is nothing short of rocket science.
And what we`re learning is going to shed some light on what
the romantic writers and poets described as the “celestial openness” of the child`s mind.
What we see here is a mother in India,
and she`s speaking Koro, which is a newly discovered language.
And she`s talking to her baby. What this mother—and the 800 people
who speak Koro in the world—understands that,
to preserve this language,
they need to speak it to the babies.
And therein lies a critical puzzle.
Why is it that you can`t preserve a language by speaking to you and I,
to the adults? Well, it`s got to do with your brain.
What we see here is that language has a critical period for learning.
The way to read this slide is to look at your age on the horizontal axis.
And you`ll see on the vertical your skill at acquiring a second language.
Babies and children are geniuses until they turn seven,
and then there`s a systematic decline. After puberty,
we fall off the map. No scientists dispute this curve,
but laboratories all over the world are trying to figure out why it works this way.
Work in my lab is focused on the first critical period in development—
and that is the period in which babies try to
master which sounds are used in their language.
We think, by studying how the sounds are learned,
we`ll have a model for the rest of language,
and perhaps for critical periods that may exist in childhood for social,
emotional and cognitive development.
So we`ve been studying the babies using a technique that we`re using
all over the world and the sounds of all languages.
The baby sits on a parent`s lap,
and we train them to turn their heads
when a sound changes—like from “ah” to “ee.”
If they do so at the appropriate time,
the black box lights up and a panda bear pounds a drum.
A six month adores the task.