[00:01.53]Section A
[00:03.27]Question 1
[00:05.77]W: Raise your head a little bit and hold the saddle and smile a little.
[00:10.13]You look wonderful posing like that. Shall I press the shutter?
[00:14.61]M: Wait a minute. Let me put on a cowboy hat.
[00:18.65]What are the speakers doing?
[00:24.52]Question 2
[00:27.00]M: I'm still waiting for my sister to come back and type the application letter for me.
[00:32.51]W: Why bother her. I'll show you how to use the computer. It's quite easy.
[00:37.40]What does the woman mean?
[00:43.30]Question 3
[00:46.61]M: Hey, where did you find the journal? I need it, too.
[00:51.13]W: Right here on the shelf. Don t worry, John.
[00:54.34]I'll take it out on my card for both of us.
[00:57.38]What does the woman mean?
[01:03.04]Question 4
[01:05.84]M: Thank you for your helpful assistance.
[01:08.74]Otherwise, I'd surely have missed it.The place is so out of the way.
[01:14.36]W: It was a pleasure meeting you. Good bye!
[01:17.72]Why did the man thank the woman?
[01:24.08]Question 5
[01:26.64]W: We are informed that the eleven thirty train is late again.
[01:30.66]M: Why did the railway company even bother to print a schedule?
[01:35.25]What do we learn from the conversation?
[01:42.12]Question 6
[01:45.04]M: Maybe I ought to subscribe to the Engineering Quarterly.
[01:48.75]It contains a lot of useful information.
[01:51.97]W: Why not read it in the library and save some money?
[01:55.59]What is the woman s advice to the man?
[02:02.48]Question 7
[02:05.49]M: I've been waiting all week for this concert.
[02:08.13]The performance is said to be excellent and with a student's discount,
[02:12.72]the tickets will be really cheap.
[02:15.40]W: Ah-huh. I'm afraid I left my Student ID card in the dorm.
[02:20.30]What does the woman imply?
[02:26.25]Question 8
[02:29.11]M: Mr.Smith,our history professor,announced we would be doing two papersand three exams this semester.
[02:36.17]I wonder how I m going to pull through when two other courses have similar requirements.
[02:41.07]W: Well, can't you drop one course and pick it up next semester?
[02:46.35]What does the woman suggest the man do?
[02:54.02]Question 9
[02:56.42]W: Renting a Conference Room at the hotel will cost us too much.
[03:00.74]We are already running in the red.
[03:03.03]M: How about using our dining room for the meeting?
[03:06.39]What's worrying the woman?
[03:13.23]Question 10
[03:15.45]W: Jerry, can you pick me up after work today? I left my car at the garage.
[03:21.31]M: I'm afraid I can't. I have scheduled an appointment with a client at dinner time.
[03:27.26]What is the man going to do?
[03:34.56]Setion B
[03:36.23]Passage One
[03:38.53]A few months ago, millions of people in London heard alarms all over the town.
[03:43.96]Emergency services, the Fire Departments, the Police, hospitals,
[03:48.94]and ambulances stood by, ready to go into action.
[03:53.06]In railway underground stations, people read notices and maps ,
[03:57.89]which told them where to go and what to do in the emergency.
[04:02.13]This was Exercise Flood Call, to prepare people for a flood emergency.
[04:07.27]London wasn't flooded yet, but it is possible that it would be.
[04:12.75]In 1236 and in 1663, London was badly flooded.
[04:18.46]In 1928, people living in Westminster, the heart of London, drowned in floods.
[04:24.95]And in 1953, one hundred people, living on the eastern edge of the London suburbs were killed,
[04:31.19]again, in the floods.
[04:33.42]At last, Greater London Counciltook actions to prevent this disaster from happening again.
[04:39.77]Though a flood wall ias built in the 1960s,
[04:42.73]Londoners still must be prepared for the possible disaster.
[04:46.66]If it happens, 50 underground stations will be under water.
[04:51.10]Electricity, gas and phone services will be out of action.
[04:55.91]Roads will be drowned.
[04:57.25]It will be impossible to cross any of the bridges between north and south London.
[05:02.15]Imagine: London will be like the famous Italian city, Venice.
[05:06.88]But this Exercise Flood Call didn't cause panic among Londoners.
[05:11.47]Most people knew it was just a warning.
[05:14.06]One lady said,
[05:15.31]"Its a flood warning, isn t it? The water doesn t look high to me."
[05:20.28]Questions 11 to 13 are based on the passage you have just heard.
[05:26.40]Question 11: What happened in London a few months ago?
[05:35.94]Question 12: What measure was taken against floods in London in the 1960s?
[05:47.13]Question 13: What can we learnt from the lady s comment?
[06:07.15]Passage Two
[06:10.56]America's national symbol, the bald eagle, almost went extinct twenty years ago,
[06:16.68]but it did made a comeback.
[06:19.37]In fact, the U.S. Fish and Wild Life Service is considering the possibility
[06:24.65]of taking it off the Endangered Species List.
[06:28.25]Once,more than fifty hundred pairs of bald eagles nested across the country,
[06:34.23]but by 1960 that number had fallen below four hundred.
[06:39.22]The chief killer was the widely used DDT.
[06:43.76]Fish, soaked up DDT, died, and were washed up on shores,
[06:49.34]where bald eagles feasted on them.
[06:52.45]DDT prevented eagle egg shells from thickening.
[06:56.62]The shells became so thin that they shattered before the babies hatched.
[07:01.24]Fortunately, in 1972,a law was passed to ban DDT,
[07:07.31]which saved the bald eagle from total wipeout.
[07:11.42]And since then wild life biologists had reintroduced bald eagles from Canada to America.
[07:18.70]The result was that last year U.S. bird watchers
[07:22.70]counted eleven thousand six hundred and ten bald eagles in the country.
[07:28.59]If it were dropped from the Endangered Species List,
[07:32.39]the bald eagle would still be a threatened species.
[07:36.35]That means the bird would continue to get the same protection.
[07:40.55]No hunting allowed, and no disturbing of nests.
[07:44.78]But bald eagles still face tough times.
[07:48.80]The destruction ctheir natural homes could be the next DDT causing eagle numbers to drop quickly.
[07:57.97]Questions 14 to 16 are based on the passage you have just heard.
[08:03.58]Question 14: What was the main harmful effect of the pests killer DDT on baldeagles?
[08:15.41]Question 15: What measure did the wild life biologist take to increase the number of bald eagles?
[08:28.38]Question 16: According to the speaker, what is the possible danger facing baldeagles?
[08:39.83]Passage Three
[08:42.71]If the earth gets hotter in the new century,
[08:45.34]what will harm animals and the plants which animals depend on for survival?
[08:50.07]The question offers another way of looking at the "Greenhouse Effect".
[08:54.91]People have talked about the general problem of "Global Warming" for some time.
[09:00.73]But they were usually worried about things like whether to buy a home on the coast.
[09:05.19]Biologists and other scientists turn their attention to plants
[09:09.51]and animals at an important meeting that took place last October.
[09:13.51]They reviewed evidence that plants and animals are sensitive to climate.
[09:18.24]Since the Ice Age ended ten thousand years ago
[09:21.81]and warmer temperatures returned to the northern latitudes,
[09:25.33]many species have migrated north.
[09:28.36]If the predictions about the Greenhouse are correct,
[09:31.75]temperatures will rise by the same amount in the next one hundred years
[09:35.41]as they did in the past ten thousand.
[09:38.67]Will animals and plants beable to adapt that quickly to change in the environment?
[09:43.75]Many won't.
[09:45.46]Certain species will probably become very rare.
[09:49.11]Experts say plants under climate stress will be very open to disease and fire.
[09:55.25]Forest fires may become more common.
[09:58.51]That,in turn, may harm animals that depend on the trees for food or shelter.
[10:04.11]Any preserves we set up to protect endangered species may become useless
[10:09.93]as the species are forced to migrate along with their natural homes.
[10:14.20]Change is a part of life, but rapid change, says scientist George Woodwell, is the enemy of life.
[10:22.19]Questions 17 to 20 are based on the passage you have just heard.
[10:28.47]Question 17: What is the concern of ordinary people about the "GreenhouseEffect"?
[10:39.04]Question 18: What has happened since the end of the ICE AGE?
[10:50.06]Question 19: What will be a possible threat to plants in the future?
[11:00.23]Question 20: According to the passage, what will probably happen to the endangered species?