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2008年12月英语四级听力模拟题(三)
2008-11-16来源:和谐英语
Passage Two
If you plan to remain in the United States for any length of time, you will soon find it too expensive to stay in a hotel and will want to find another place to live. As is true in cities anywhere in the world, the farther you live outside the city, generally the lower the rent will be. However, traveling to and from the city by bus, car, or train may make it as expensive as living in the city. Naturally, it is easier to join in the life of a city if one is close to the center. For that reason, you may prefer to live as close to the center of the city as possible. Or, you may prefer to rent a place for only a month or two until you become more familiar with the area.
Your best source of information about either houses or apartments is likely to be the local newspaper. Usually, the week’s most complete listing of houses or apartments to rent appears in the Sunday newspaper, which, in many cities, can be obtained late Saturday night. Many people looking for houses or apartments believe that they have a better chance of finding a place to live if they have all the information as soon as possible. On Sunday morning, they are ready to call or visit.
Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
29. If you would like to pay lower rent, where should you live?
30. What is good about living close to the city center?
31. When do most people go visiting houses or apartments?
Passage Three
In recent years, American society has become increasingly dependent on its universities to find solutions to its major problems. It is the universities that have been charged with the principal responsibility for developing the expertise to place men on the moon; to deal with our urban problems and our deteriorating environment; to develop the means to feed the world’s rapidly increasing population. The effort involved in meeting these demands presents its own problems. In addition, this concentration on the creation of new knowledge significantly impinges on the universities’ efforts to perform their other principal functions--the transmission and interpretation of knowledge, that is, the imparting of the heritage of the past and the preparing of the next generation to carry it forward.
With regard to this, perhaps their most traditionally sanctioned task, colleges and universities today generally find themselves in a serious bind. On the one hand, there is the American commitment, entered into especially since World War II, to provide higher education for all young people who can profit from it. The result of the commitment has been a dramatic rise in enrollment in our universities, coupled with a radical shift from the private to the public sector of higher education. On the other hand, there are serious and continuing limitations on the resources available for higher education.
While higher education has become a great “growth industry,” it is also simultaneously a tremendous drain on the resources of this nation. With the vast increase in enrollment and the shift in priorities away from education in state and federal budgets, there is in most of our public institutions a significant decrease in per capita outlay for their students. One crucial aspect of this drain on resources lies in the persistent shortage of trained faculty, which has led, in turn, to a declining standard of competence in instruction.
Intensifying these difficulties is, as indicated above, the concern with research, with its competing claims on resources and faculty. In addition, there is a strong tendency for the institutions’ organization and functionality to conform to the demands of research rather than those of teaching.
Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
32. What is the most important function of institutions of higher education?
33. What is one of the causes of the difficulties of American higher education?
34. What is a serious outcome brought about by the shortage of resources?
35. What is the main topic of the passage?
If you plan to remain in the United States for any length of time, you will soon find it too expensive to stay in a hotel and will want to find another place to live. As is true in cities anywhere in the world, the farther you live outside the city, generally the lower the rent will be. However, traveling to and from the city by bus, car, or train may make it as expensive as living in the city. Naturally, it is easier to join in the life of a city if one is close to the center. For that reason, you may prefer to live as close to the center of the city as possible. Or, you may prefer to rent a place for only a month or two until you become more familiar with the area.
Your best source of information about either houses or apartments is likely to be the local newspaper. Usually, the week’s most complete listing of houses or apartments to rent appears in the Sunday newspaper, which, in many cities, can be obtained late Saturday night. Many people looking for houses or apartments believe that they have a better chance of finding a place to live if they have all the information as soon as possible. On Sunday morning, they are ready to call or visit.
Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
29. If you would like to pay lower rent, where should you live?
30. What is good about living close to the city center?
31. When do most people go visiting houses or apartments?
Passage Three
In recent years, American society has become increasingly dependent on its universities to find solutions to its major problems. It is the universities that have been charged with the principal responsibility for developing the expertise to place men on the moon; to deal with our urban problems and our deteriorating environment; to develop the means to feed the world’s rapidly increasing population. The effort involved in meeting these demands presents its own problems. In addition, this concentration on the creation of new knowledge significantly impinges on the universities’ efforts to perform their other principal functions--the transmission and interpretation of knowledge, that is, the imparting of the heritage of the past and the preparing of the next generation to carry it forward.
With regard to this, perhaps their most traditionally sanctioned task, colleges and universities today generally find themselves in a serious bind. On the one hand, there is the American commitment, entered into especially since World War II, to provide higher education for all young people who can profit from it. The result of the commitment has been a dramatic rise in enrollment in our universities, coupled with a radical shift from the private to the public sector of higher education. On the other hand, there are serious and continuing limitations on the resources available for higher education.
While higher education has become a great “growth industry,” it is also simultaneously a tremendous drain on the resources of this nation. With the vast increase in enrollment and the shift in priorities away from education in state and federal budgets, there is in most of our public institutions a significant decrease in per capita outlay for their students. One crucial aspect of this drain on resources lies in the persistent shortage of trained faculty, which has led, in turn, to a declining standard of competence in instruction.
Intensifying these difficulties is, as indicated above, the concern with research, with its competing claims on resources and faculty. In addition, there is a strong tendency for the institutions’ organization and functionality to conform to the demands of research rather than those of teaching.
Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
32. What is the most important function of institutions of higher education?
33. What is one of the causes of the difficulties of American higher education?
34. What is a serious outcome brought about by the shortage of resources?
35. What is the main topic of the passage?
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