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.

Conversation One

W:  Exercise, exercise, exercise. We hear so much about it these days,

yet even the experts can`t agree on which exercise is best.

Now some doctors are strongly encouraging arm exercises.

M:  Arm exercises? Is that because our arms are too fat or flabby?

W:  Actually, that`s not the main reason.

They say that arm exercise is an ideal way to become physically fit.

M:  But don`t arm exercises raise your blood pressure?

W:  That they do. But the article I read mentioned ways to compensate for that.

M: How?

W:  By adding leg exercises, so the arms don`t do all the work.

Arm exercises alone aren`t enough to increase metabolism before fatigue sets in.

The more of the body that`s involved in the exercise, the better.

M:  And in turn, I`m sure that there`s a greater chance of losing weight.

W: Sounds right to me.

M:  So what exercises do the experts recommend?

W:  They mentioned quite a few but some of the more popular ones are cycling

with special bicycles that make you use both your arms and legs,

and walking vigorously while you wear arm weights.

M:  I must try that, I like to walk a lot.

Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

1.According to the conversation, what is one problem with arm exercise?

2.How did the woman obtain the information about arm exercises?

3.According to the conversation, what are the experts now recommending?

4.Which of the following exercise is suggested?

Conversation Two

W:  I`m sorry. I just don`t agree with you at all.

M:  Look. Take the example of an international student applying for university admission.

If the student has a 500 on the TOEFL or an 80 on the Michigan Test,

most admissions officers will accept the applicant.

The student with a 499 or 79 won`t be considered.

The officer won`t even look at transcripts.

W:  Right. But I think that proves my point, not yours.

M:  How?

W:  Well, it`s the admissions officer who decides how to use the test.

The TOEFL and the Michigan are good English proficiency tests,

but that`s all they are. And English proficiency

is necessary for success in an American university,

but so are several other factors, including good academic preparation.

M:  Good academic preparation is more important.

W:  Maybe. I don`t really know.

But what I`m trying to explain to you is that admissions officers

should use the proficiency test as one of many considerations,

and as such, they really shouldn`t insist on a rigid cut off score like 500 or 80.

M:  I don`t agree with having the tests, Sally,

and that`s my position.

W:  But Paul, what would you do to evaluate the English proficiency

of a student ten thousand miles away without a standardized test?

M:  I admit that`s a big problem.

W:  It sure is. I believe that the tests are good.

Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard.

5.According to the conversation, what`s the cut off score

for the applicant to be accepted by American universities?

6.What do the speakers mainly discuss?

7. What is Paul`s opinion about the TOEEL and the Michigan Test?

8.What does Sally say about the admissions officers?

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

Although many species of animals lived in social groups in prehistoric times,

the capacity for speech is one of the most important behavioral

attributes distinguishing humans from other animals.

However, the question of when the capacity for

speech developed has fascinated scientists over the years.

Determining when humans acquired the ability to speak is difficult.

Scientists have generally agreed that human beings capable of speech

created the cave art which began to appear in Europe and Africa some 40,000 years ago.

The complexity of the paintings strongly suggests

their creation would have been the result of considerable cooperation requiring speech.

Now scientists at Duke University studying fossil anatomy have

come up with physical evidence that humans may already have

possessed the anatomical structures necessary for speech as early as 400,000 years ago.

Fossils show that by that time, human ancestors probably had

the same number of these nerves leading to the muscles of the

tongue as modern humans do. The number of these nerves can

be estimated by studying the size of the canal at the bottom

of the back of the skull. This canal houses the nerves controlling the tongue.

Nerve fibers run through the canal,

from the brain to the muscles of the tongue.

In chimpanzees and gorillas incapable of speech,

the canal is about half the size of the canal of a human.

In skulls from about 400,000 years ago,

the canals are already the same size as those in modern day human skulls.

Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard.

9.What is one of the most important differences between animals and humans?

10.Approximately how long ago did cave art begin to appear in Europe and Africa?

11.Where is the canal that scientists have been studying to learn more about very early speech?

Passage Two

I want to begin this class on the history of filmmaking

with a discussion of a filmmaker who is known to people throughout the world.

You`ve all heard of Walt Disney. No one has ever delighted more children or adults

than Walt Disney, the winner of 31 Academy Awards.

Almost everyone has heard of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck,

and his other popular characters, such as Minnie Mouse, Pluto, and Goofy.

Walt Disney started creating cartoon animations in 1920,

but it was in 1928 when his best known character, Mickey Mouse,

came to life. Disney also created the first sound cartoon,

which he called Steamboat Willie.

It was in this cartoon that he introduced Mickey to the public.

In 1937, Walt Disney made movie history again with the first full length cartoon film,

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In the 1950s, Walt Disney created a series of nature films.

He was always planning something new. In 1955, he opened Disneyland,

the “magic kingdom,” in Anaheim, California. Even at his death in 1966,

he was planning another massive project:

Florida`s Walt Disney World. Since Walt Disney`s death,

his film company has continued to grow and attract the public,

even producing new cartoons by computer animation.

Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

12.What is the speaker mainly discussing?

13.In which year did Walt Disney first begin creating cartoon animations?

14.What was the name of Disney`s first full length cartoon film?

15.Which of the following was NOT planned by Walt Disney himself?

Section C

Directions:

In this section,

you will hear three recordings of lectures or talks

followed by three or four 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.

Recording  One

Hello, everyone, and welcome to today`s talk about the current

trends in health and fitness. Nowadays it seems as though everyone

in the wealthiest part of the world is battling with their weight.

And as a consequence, more and more people are joining the local gyms

or buying home exercise machines. In fact,

according to the International Health,

Racquet and Sportsclub Association,

membership in health clubs in America doubled from a

little over 17 million in 1997 to more than 36 million in 2005.

While the figures in Europe are harder to come by,

evidence over the last decade suggested that

health club membership has doubled there as well.

What few people nowadays realize is that the average

person in developed world is now burning 800 fewer

calories a day than generation ago.

This means even if people today ate no more than previous generation,

they will still be getting fatter.

Unfortunately, instead of eating less than their parents did,

as they should, many people consume a lot more.

So what exactly has brought about this changing fitness levels?

Well, people in developed countries are not only eating more,

but also doing less exercise. Increased technology has not helped us.

The car and other machines designed to help

reduce our work load are as much to blame as deep fried fast food.

On top of this, this changes in how and

where we work has reduced the amount of daily calories people actually need.

Such factors are taking their toll on our health, with health costs soaring.

And this is where exercise machines come in.

Walking machines or tread mills and the like may not be the most

efficient way of burning off those excess calories

and boosting cardiovascular fitness, but they are certainly the most common.

According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association International,

some 45 million Americans used treadmills in 2003.

That`s an amazing number of people and awful lot of treadmills.

An exercise machine that did not even exist a decade ago,

the elliptical cross trainer is fast replacing the traditional treadmill.

As its naming implies, the machine delivers an elliptical or swimming motion,

with both hands and feet tracing semicircular patterns.

The feet on two moving platforms rather than bicycle paddles,

and the hands, gripping handles that move, but not meant to support any weight,

which is important as there is no seat.

Since the machine was introduced in 1998,

the number of people using elliptical machines

in America has tripled to more than 11 million a year.

We are doing some tests to find out if these machines are actually

better than previous machines or if they are just another passing trend.

Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard.

16.What does the speaker mainly talk about?

17.Which of the following is NOT true?

18.What is the speaker`s attitude to the popularity of the elliptical trainer?

19.Which of the statements is true about the elliptical trainer?

Recording Two

All right, I want to see a show of hands:

how many of you have unfriended someone on Facebook because they

said something offensive about politics or religion, childcare, food?

This world in which every conversation has the potential to devolve into an argument,

where our politicians can`t speak to one another and where even the most trivial of issues

have someone fighting both passionately for it and against it,

it`s not normal. Pew Research did a study of 10,000 American adults,

and they found that at this moment,

we are more polarized, we are more divided, than we ever have been in history.

We`re less likely to compromise, which means we`re not listening to each other.

And we make decisions about where to live,

who to marry and even who our friends are going to be,

based on what we already believe.

Again, that means we`re not listening to each other.

A conversation requires a balance between talking and listening,

and somewhere along the way, we lost that balance.

Now, part of that is due to technology.

The smartphones that you all either have in your

hands or close enough that you could grab them really quickly.

According to Pew Research, about a third of American teenagers

send more than a hundred texts a day.

And many of them, almost most of them,

are more likely to text their friends than they are to talk to them face to face.

Now, I make my living talking to people: Nobel Prize winners,

truck drivers, billionaires, kindergarten teachers, heads of state, plumbers.

I talk to people that I like.

I talk to people that I don`t like. I talk to some people that

I disagree with deeply on a personal level.

But I still have a great conversation with them.

So I`d like to spend the next 10 minutes or so teaching you how to talk and how to listen.

Many of you have already heard a lot of advice on this,

things like look the person in the eye,

think of interesting topics to discuss in advance,

look, nod and smile to show that you`re paying attention,

repeat back what you just heard or summarize it.

So I want you to forget all of that.

Questions 20 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard.

20.Which is true according to a study of conducted by Pew Research?

21.Which is one of the reasons that cause the loss of balance in a conversation?

22.What`s the suggestion given by the speaker?

Recording Three

So, why would people matter to us?

Where does compassion come from?

You can imagine different possibilities.

You can imagine people have compassion of a sort,

just out of selfishness.

It might be that your pleasure matters to me because in some way we`re

in the sort of a relationship where you being happy leads to be being happy.

Maybe we`re sort of business partners working together

or something or we`re in some sort of mutual benefit system,

where your benefit is my benefit and your suffering is my suffering.

I`ll leave it for a question for later whether this even counts as compassion,

but it`s one source of nice behavior towards others.

We might care about other people because of our religious code.

You could imagine we care about other people because we believe that God wishes us to.

We might care about other people because we are committed

to some philosophical theory of morality of the sort

we discussed earlier like consequentialsm or Kantian theory

in which other people`s happiness and feelings and goals matter to us.

But many people have argued that a lot of

what of goes on in compassion comes from our gut,

comes from our heart. It is not a,

it`s not for self serving benefit, nor is it because of our belief system.

But, rather it`s because we`re wired up to care about other people.

And the specific proposal as to what could drive compassion,

and some people argue drive morality more generally,

is that empathy plays an important role.

So, let me define empathy. Empathy is based on a German word.

The term is a new term, it was coined in the early 1900s,

and it means to feel one`s way into and when you think about empathy,

you can think of it as being in someone else`s shoes,

putting yourself in someone else`s shoes.

Now, the idea that empathy plays a big role in,

our morality and our compassion, is something again,

you find in Adam Smith.

So, Adam Smith argues that sort of foundation for caring about other people,

is imagining yourself in their shoes.

And he gives an example of how this can be, can be done.

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

23.Who are not mentioned to have compassion?

24.What have many people argued about compassion?

25.Which is true about “empathy” according to the speaker?