2003年英语专业八级考试真题听力MP3下载附试题和答案文本

2003年英语专业八级考试听力原文

PART Ⅰ

LISTENING COMPREHENSION

SECTION A TALK

When we talk about a modern company, we usually have managers, employees, products, research and development or marketing in mind. However, in reality, a company is not just made up of these elements. There are other things that make a company what it is. This morning, we are going to look at some other aspects of a company. Let’s first take a look at the offices. The physical surroundings of most modern companies, especially offices are becoming more and more similar. Although there are some differences from country to country, one office looks much like another. Office furniture and equipment tends to be similar, desks, chairs, filing cabinets, computers, etc. “What is important about offices?”you may ask, “What the atmosphere of the work place can often influence the effectiveness of a company’s employees?”Modern offices are more spacious and better laid, heated, ventilated and airconditioned than in the past. But of course, this is the feature that varies from firm to firm, and may be dependant on the size of the company and its cooperate philosophy. In some comanies, the employees work in large, open-plan offices without walls between the departments; in others, the staff members work more privately in individual offices. No matter what the office’s law is like, modern companies pay special attention to the physical surroundings in order to create an atmosphere conducive to higher working efficiency. Another related point when talking about offices is the work relations with other people at the place of work. They include relationships with fellow employees, workers or colleagues. A great part of work or job satisfaction, some people say the major portion, comes from getting on with others at work. Work relations were also included those between management and employees. These relations are not always straightforward, particularly as the management's assessment of how your performing can be crucial to your future career.

Now I’d like to say a bit more about the relations between management and employees. There will also be matters about which employees will want to talk to the management. In small businesses, the boss will probably work alongside his or her workers. Anything that needs to be sorted out will be done face to face as soon as the problem arises. There will be no formal meetings for procedures. But the larger the business, the less direct contact there will be between employees and management. Special meetings have to be held and procedures set up to say when, where, how and what circumstances the employees can talk to the management. Some companies have specially organized consultive committees for this purpose. In many countries of the world today, particularly in large firms, employees join a trade union and ask the union to represent them to the management. Through the union all categories of employees can pass on the complaints they have and try to get things changed. The process, through which unions negotiate with management on behalf of their members is called, collective bargaining. Instead of each employee trying to bargain alone with the company, the employees join together and collectively put forward their views. Occasionally a firm will refuse to recognize the right of a union to negotiate for its members, and its dispute over union recognition will arise. Whether there is an agreement, bargaining or negotiation will take place. A compromise agreement may be reached. When this is not possible, the sides can go to arbitration and bring in a third party from outside to say what they think should happen.

However, sometimes one of the sides decides to take industrial action. The management can lock out the employees and prevent them from coming to work. This used to be quite common, but it's rarely used today. The main courses of action open to a trade union are strike, a ban on working overtime, “working to rule”, that is when employees work according to the company rule book, "go slows", which means that employees may spend more time doing the same job, and “picketing”, which means the employees stand outside the entrance to the business location, hoarding outside to show that they are in conflict with the management. Every country has its own tradition of industrial relations, so it’s difficult to generalize. In some businesses, unions are not welcomed by the management, but it others, the unions play an important role both in the everyday working relations of individual companies, and also in the social and political life of the country.

SECTION B INTERVIEW

If you are going to create a TV show that plays week after week, it needs an actor who can play a believer, you know, a person who tends to believe everything. Tonight in our show we have David Duchovney, who has starred in the popular TV series, “The X·Files”. Thanks to his brilliant performance in the TV series, David has become one of best-known figures in the country.

Interviewer:  Good evening, David, I’m so glad to have you here.

David:  It’s my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me on the show.

Interviewer:  David, have you often been on the radio shows?

David:  Oh, yes, quite often. To be frank, I love to be on the show.

Interviewer:  Why?

David:  You know, I want to know what people think about the TV series and about me, my acting, etc.

Interviewer:  OK, David, let’s first talk about the character you played in ‘The X·Files’. The character, whose name is Mulder is supposed to be a believer. He deals with those unbelievable, wild and often disastrous events. He must be, I mean, Mulder, someone who really believes in the things he meets in order to keep on probing into those mysteries.

David:  That’s true. Remember those words said by Mulder: What is so hard to believe? Whose intensity makes even a most skeptical viewer believe the paranormal and our rigorous government consipiracies, without every reason to believe that life in the persistent survey is driving us out of our territorial sphere, etc., etc.

Interviewer:  I believe, I guess, David, your contribution to the hot series is quite aparent.  Now let’s talk about your personal experience. From what I have read, I know that starting from your childhood, you were always a smart boy, went to the best private school, and were accepted at most of the Ivy League colleges. Not bad for a low middle class kid from a broken family on New York’s Lower Eastside. It’s even more surprising when you, who were on your way to a doctorate at Yale to took a few acting classes and got beaten by the book.

David: You bet. My mother was really surprised when I decided to give up all that in order to become an actor.

Interviewer:  Sure. But talking about Mulder, the believer in ‘The X·Files’, what about you, David? Do you believe at all in real life, the aliens, people from outer space, you know, UFOs, government conspiracies, all the things that the TV series deal with?

David:  Well, government conspiracies, I think, are a little far fetched. Because I mean, it’s very hard for me to keep a secret with a friend of mine. And you can tell me that the entire government is going to come together and hide the aliens from us? I find that hard to believe. In terms of aliens, I think that they are real. They must be.

Interviewer:  So you could believe in aliens?

David:  Oh, yeah.

Interviewer:  The character you played in ‘The X·Files’, Fox Mulder, is so dark and moody. Are you dark and moody in life?

David:  I think so. I think what they wanted was somebody who could be this hearted, driven person, but not behave that way and therefore be hearted and driven but also appear to be normal and not crazy at the same time. And I think that I could, I can, I can afford that.

Interviewer:  What haunts you now? What drives you now?

David:  What drives me is failure and success and all those things, so ... 

Interviewer:  Where are you now? Are you haunted and driven, failed or successful, which?

David:  Yeah, both.

Interviewer:  All of the above?

David:  I always feel like a failure.

Interviewer:  Do you mean now you feel like a failure?

David:  Yeah, I mean, sometimes you know, like I come back to New York, so its like, everything is different. So I lie on bed and think, two years ago, three years ago, very different. Maybe I’m doing well, but then I think, you know there are just so many other things that I want to do and ...

Interviewer: Your father and mother divorced when you were eleven. Does that have effect on your life today that you recognize?

David:   Well, yeah, I think that the only way to think of it is that, you know, people are saying ‘your wound is your goal’, you know, 'wherever you're hurt, that's where you'll become stronger.’So, that’s what, that’s what it’s really about ...

Interviewer: OK. It’s time for short break. We’ll be back in a minute. David Duchovney in 'The X·file', don't go away.

SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

News Item 1(For Question 11)

The Bush administration is warning that continuing mid-east violence threatens to overwhelm US efforts to revise Israeli-Palestinian Peace talks, using the recommendations of the Mitchell commission to bring the two sides together. The administration officials are openly worried the violence and particularly the car bomb attack injured Isreali civilians could undermine what they see as a positive opening towards renewed peace talks presented by the Mitchell report. The US appeal came in the week of the bomb blast Wednesday in Israeli coastal town of Netanya that injured several Israelies. Responsibility for the bombing was claimed by the Palestinian group, Islamic Jihad. At the state department, sopkesman, Phillip Reeker said there can be no justification for terrorism and targeting its civilians, and he urged the Palestinian authority to do all they can to put an end to such incidents which is said to threaten to overtake the latest peace efforts.

News Item 2 (For Question 12)

Voters in Peru head to the post today to cast their ballots in a run-off presidential election that many hope will mark the end of the nation’s political crisis. Opinion polls last week show the modern candidate Arhumdred Toledo with a narrow lead over a left-leaning former President Ellen Gaceya. Both candidates have campaigned on similar populous platforms. Meanwhile pre-election Service indicates that up to 25% of voters in Peru plan to spoil or leave their ballots blank to show their dissatisfaction with both candidates.

News Item 3 (For Questions 13-15)

Canada for the seventh consecutive year ranks the best place to live in the world. But if you are a woman, you are better off in Scandinavia since the UN Human Development Report (2000) released yesterday. Norway is in second place you know for ranking followed by the United States, Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands Japan and Britain. Finland is in eleventh place followed by France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy and New Zealand. At the other end of the scale, the ten least developed countries that provide the fewest service to their people, from the bottom up, a war-devastated Sierra Leone, Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Brandi, Guinean Bissau, Mozambique, Chad, Central African Republic and Mali.

SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

Good morning, everybody. Today’s lecture is about Abraham Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. This seems like a physiological topic. Actually it is something psychological. Abraham Maslov is a psychologist, and he is especially known for his theory of human needs.

OK, first of all, what is the need? Here, we can simply define it as a personal requirement. Maslov believes that humans are wanting beings, who seek to fulfil a variety of needs. According to his theory, these needs can be arranged in an order according to their importance. It is this order that has become known as Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. In this hierarchy of needs, at the most basic level are physiological needs. Fundamentally, humans are just one species of animal. We need to keep ourselves alive. Physiological needs are what we require for survival. These needs include food and water, shelter and sleep. At this level for us humans, Maslov also includes the need for clothing. How are these needs usually satisfied? It is mainly through adequate wages.

Then what is the next level of needs? At the next level are safety needs, the things we require for physical and emotional security. Physical security is easy to understand. Everybody needs to keep his body safe from injury, illness, etc. Then what is emotional security? Well, that may be the point in this hierarchy of needs, where humans begin to differ from other animals. We are thinking animals. We have worries, what we fear may be losing a job, or being struck down by a severe disease. Besides physical Security, we need to think we are safe from misfortunes both now and in a forseeable future. How can these needs be met then? According to Maslov, safety needs may be satisfied through job security, health insurance, pension plans and safe working conditions.

After this stage come the levels of needs that are particular to human beings. The immediate following level are the social needs. Under this category, Maslov puts our requirements for love and affection and the sense of belonging. We need to be loved, we need to belong to a group not just the family in which we can share with others in common interest. In Maslov’s view, this need can be satisfied through the work environment and some informal organizations. Certainly, we also need social relationships beyond the work place, for example, with family and friends. Next, the level of esteem needs. What are esteem needs then? They include both the needs of self-esteem and the need of esteem of others. Self-esteem is a sense of our own achievements and worth. We need to believe that we are successful, we are no worse if no better than others. The esteem of people is the respect and recognition we gain from other people, by or through our work or our activities in other social groups. The ways to satisfy esteem needs include personal achievements, promotion to more resposible jobs, various honors and awards and other forms of recognition.

What follows is the top level of this hierarchy of needs. These are the self-realization needs. In other words, they are the needs to grow and develop as people, the needs to become all that we are capable of being. These are the most difficult needs to satisfy. Whether one can achieve this level or not, perhaps determines whether one can be a great man or just an ordinary man. Of course, it depends on different people. The means of satisfying them tend to vary greatly with the individual. For some people, learning a new skill, starting a new career after retirement could quite well satisfy their self-realization needs. While for other people, it could be becoming the best in certain areas. It could be becoming the president of IBM, anyway, being great or ordinary is what others think, while self-realization is largely individual. Maslov suggested that people work to satisfy their physiological needs first, then their safety needs and so on up the needs ladder. In general, they are motivated by the needs at the lowest level that remain unsatisfied. However, needs at one level do not have to be completely satisfied before needs at the next higher level come into play. If the majority of a person’s physiological and safety needs are satisfied, that person will be motivated primarily by social needs. But any physiological and safety needs that remain Unsatisfied will keep playing an important role.

OK, that’s the general picture of Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. Just to sum up, I briefly introduce to you Maslov’s theory. Maslov thinks there are five kinds of human needs with each one being more important than the preceding one. I hope that you find his ideas interesting and in our next lecture, we will mainly discuss the practical implications of his theory.

Now, you have 2 minutes to check your notes, then please complete the 15-minute gap-filling task on Answer Sheet One.

This is the end of Part One.

2003年英语专业八级考试听力MP3附试题和答案

试卷一   (95 min)

Part ⅠListening Comprehension(40min)

In Sections A, B and C you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your COLORED ANSWER SHEET.

SECTION A TALK

Questions 1 to 5 refer to the talk in this section. At the end of the talk you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the talk.

1. Which of the following statements about offices is NOT true according to the talk?
A. Offices throughout the world are basically alike.
B. There are primarily two kinds of office layout.
C. Office surroundings used to depend on company size.
D. Office atmosphere influences workers' performance.

2. We can infer from the talk that harmonious work relations may have a direct impact on your ____.
A. promotion     B. colleagues     C. management        D. union

3. Supposing you were working in a small firm, which of the following would you do when you had some grievances?
A. Request a formal special meeting with the boss.
B. Draft a formal agenda for a special meeting.
C. Contact a consultative committee first.
D. Ask to see the boss for a talk immediately.

4. According to the talk, the union plays the following roles EXCPET ____.
A. mediation   B. arbitration    C. negotiation    D. representation

5. Which topic is NOT covered in the talk?
A. Role of the union.    
B. Work relations.
C. Company structure.    
D. Office layout.

SECTION B INTERVIEW

Questions 6 to 10 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.

6. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT about David's personal background?
A. He had excellent academic records at school and university.
B. He was once on a PhD programme at Yale University.
C. He received professional training in acting.
D. He came from a single-parent family.

7. David is inclined to believe in ____.
A. aliens  B. UFOs  C. the TV character   D. government conspiracies

8. David thinks he is fit for the TV role because of his ____.
A. professional training    
B. personality
C. life experience          
D. appearance

9. From the interview, we know that at present David feels ____.
A. a sense of frustration    
B. haunted by the unknown things
C. confident but moody      
D. successful yet unsatisfied

10. How does David feel about the divorce of his parents?
A. He feels a sense of anger.    
B. He has a sense of sadness.
C. It helped him grow up.        
D. It left no effect on him.

SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

Question 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.

11. What is the main idea of the news item?
A. US concern over the forthcoming peace talks.
B. Peace efforts by the Palestinian Authority.
C. Recommendations by the Mitchell Commission.
D. Bomb attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.

Question 12 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the question. Now listen to the news.

12. Some voters will waste their ballots because ____.
A. they like neither candidate
B. they are all ill-informed
C. the candidates do not differ much
D. they do not want to vote twice

Questions 13 to 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer each of the questions. Now listen to the news.

13. According to the UN Human Development Report, which is the best place for women in the world?
A. Canada.  B. The US.   C. Australia.   D. Scandinavia.    

14. ____ is in the 12th place in overall ranking.
A. Britain  B. France  C. Finland  D. Switzerland

15. According to the UN report, the least developed country is ____.
A. Ethiopia  B. Mali  C. Sierra Leon  D. Central African Republic

SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

In this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Fill in each of the gaps with ONE word. You may refer to your notes. Make sure the word you fill in is both grammatically and semantically acceptable.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow has developed a famous theory of human needs, which can be arranged in order of importance.

Physiological needs:  the most (1)____ ones for survival. They include such needs as food, water, etc. And there is usually one way to satisfy these needs.

(2)____ needs:  needs for  a) physical security; b) (3)____ security.

The former means no illness or injury, while the latter is concerned with freedom from (4)____, misfortunes, etc. These needs can be met through a variety of means, e.g. job security, (5)____ plans, and safe working conditions.

Social needs:  human requirements for a) love and affection; b) a sense of belonging.  

There are two ways to satisfy these needs:  a) formation of relationships at workplace; b) formation of relationships outside workplace.

Esteem needs:  a) self-esteem, i.e. one's sense of achievement; b) esteem of others, i.e. others' respect as a result of one's (6)____.

These needs can be fulfilled by achievement, promotion, honors, etc.  

Self-realization needs:  need to realize one's potential. Ways to realize these needs are individually (7)____.

Features of the hierarchy of needs:  a) Social, esteem and self-realization needs are exclusively (8)____ needs. b) Needs are satisfied in a fixed order from the bottom up. c) (9)____ for needs comes from the lowest un-met level. d) Different levels of needs may (10)____ when they comes into play.

(1) ______ (2) ______ (3) ______ (4) ______ ( 5 ) ______
(6) ______ (7) ______ (8) ______ (9) ______ (10) ______

PART II PROOFREADING AND ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)

The following passage contains TEN errors. Each line contains a maximum of one error and three are free from error. In each case, only one word is involved. You should proofread the passage and correct it in the following way.

For a wrong word, underline the wrong word and write the correct one in the blank provided at the end of the line.
For a missing word, mark the position of the missing word with a “∧” sign and write the word you believe to be missing in the blank provided at the end of the line.
For an unnecessary word, cross out the unnecessary word with a slash “／” and put the word in the blank provided at the end of the line.
If the line is correct, place a V in the blank provided at the end of the line
Example
When ^ art museum wants a new exhibit,             (1) an
It never buys things in finished form and bangs         (2) never
them on the wall. When a natural history museum       (3) v
wants an exhibition, it must often build it.             (4) exhibit

Demographic indicators show that Americans in the postwar period
were more eager than over to establish families. They quickly brought
down the age at marriage for both men and women and brought the
birth rate to a twentieth century height after more than                      (1)____
a hundred years of a steady decline, producing the "baby boom".              (2)____
There young adults established a trend of early marriage and relatively
large families that went for more than two decades and caused a major but      (3)____
temporary reversal of long-term demographic patterns. From the 1940s through the
early 1960s, Americans married at a high rate and at a                      (4)____
younger age than their Europe counterparts.                              (5)____
Less noted but equally more significant, the man and women                (6)____
who formed families between 1940 and 1960 nevertheless reduced           (7)____
the divorce rate after a postwar peak; their marriages remained intact
to a greater extent than did that of couples who married in earlier             (8)____
as well as later decades. Since the United States maintained its               (9)____
dubious distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world,
the temporary decline in divorce did not occur in the same extent in          (10)____
Europe. Contrary to fears of the experts, the role of breadwinner
and homemaker was not abandoned.

Part Ⅲ  Reading Comprehension    (40  min)

SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION   (30  min)

In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your COLORED ANSWER SHEET.

TEXT A

Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europe in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metal-smiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Romany word for "man". But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies.

In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery-it wasn't until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families.

But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group, and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent's largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americans and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own-unlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. "Romanestan,"said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, "is where my two feet stand."

16. Gypsies are united only when they ____.
A. are engaged in traditional crafts
B. call themselves Roma
C. live under a clan system
D. face external threats

17. In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all the following EXCEPT ____.
A. the Egyptians    
B. the state
C. the church      
D. the Nazis

18. According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of ____.
A. language  
B. culture  
C. identity  
D. custom

Text B

I was just a boy when my father brought me to Harlem for the first time, almost 50 years ago. We stayed at the Hotel Theresa, a grand brick structure at 125th Street and Seventh Avenus. Once, in the hotel restaurant, my father pointed out Joe Louis. He even got Mr. Brown, the hotel manager, to introduce me to him, a bit paunchy but still the champ as far as I was concerned.

Much has changed since then. Business and real estate are booming. Some say a new renaissance is under way. Others decry what they see as outside forces running roughshod over the old Harlem.

New York meant Harlem to me, and as a young man I visited it whenever I could. But many of my old haunts are gone. The Theresa shut down in 1966. National chains that once ignored Harlem now anticipate yuppie money and want pieces of this prime Manhattan real estate. So here I am on a hot August afternoon, sitting in a Starbucks that two years ago opened a block away from the Theresa, snatching at memories between sips of high-priced coffee. I am about to open up a piece of the old Harlem-the New York Amsterdam News-when a tourist asking directions to Sylvia's, a prominent Harlem restaurant, penetrates my daydreaming. He's carrying a book: Touring Historic Harlem.

History. I miss Mr. Michaux's bookstore, his House of Common Sense, which was across from the Theresa. He had a big billboard out front with brown and black faces painted on it that said in large letters:"World History Book Outlet on 2 000 000 000 Africans and Nonwhite Peoples."An ugly state office building has swallowed that space.

I miss speaker like Carlos Cooks, who was always on the southwest corner of 125th and Seventh, urging listeners to support Africa. Harlem's powerful political electricity seems unplugged-although the streets are still energized, especially by West African immigrants.

Hardworking southern newcomers formed the bulk of the community back in the 1920s and '30s, when Harlem renaissance artists, writers, and intellectuals gave it a glitter and renown that made it the capital of black America. From Harlem, W. E. B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Zora Hurston, and others helped power America's cultural influence around the world.

By the 1970s and '80s drugs and crime had ravaged parts of the community. And the life expectancy for men in Harlem was less than that of men in Bangladesh. Harlem had become a symbol of the dangers of inner-city life.

Now, you want to shout "Lookin' good!"at this place that has been neglected for so long. Crowds push into Harlem USA, a new shopping centre on 125th, where a Disney store shares space with HMV Records, the New York Sports Club, and a nine-screen Magic Johnson theatre complex. Nearb, a Rite Aid drugstore also opened. Maybe part of the reason Harlem seems to be undergoing a rebirth is that it is finally getting what most people take for granted.

Harlem is also part of an "empowerment zone"-a federal designation aimed at fostering economic growth that will bring over half a billion in federal, state, and local dollars. Just the shells of once elegant old brownstones now can cost several hundred thousand dollars. Rents are skyrocketing. An improved economy, tougher law enforcement, and community efforts against drugs have contributed to a 60 percent drop in crime since 1993.

19. At the beginning the author seems to indicate that Harlem ____.
A. has remained unchanged all these years
B. has undergone drastic changes
C. has become the capital of Black America
D. has remained a symbol of dangers of inner-city life

20. When the author recalls Harlem in the old days, he has a feeling of ____.
A. indifference   B. discomfort   C. delight   D. nostalgia

21. Harlem was called the capital of Black America in the 1920s and '30s mainly because of its ____.
A. art and culture   B. immigrant population  C. political enthusiasm    D. distinctive architecture

22. From the passage we can infer that, generally speaking, the author ____.
A. has strong reservations about the changes
B. has slight reservations about the changes
C. welcomes the changes in Harlem
D. is completely opposed to the changes

TEXT C

The senior partner, Oliver Lambert, studied the resume for the hundredth time and again found nothing he disliked about Mitchell Y. McDeere, at least not on paper. He had the brains, the ambition, the good looks. And he was hungry; with his background, he had to be. He was married, and that was mandatory. The firm had never hired an unmarried lawyer, and it frowned heavily on divorce, as well as womanizing and drinking. Drug testing was in the contract. He had a degree in accounting, passed the CPA exam the first time he took it and wanted to be a tax lawyer, which of course was a requirement with a tax firm. He was white, and the firm had never hired a black. They managed this by being secretive and clubbish and never soliciting job applications. Other firms solicited, and hired blacks. This firm recruited, and remained lily white. Plus, the firm was in Memphis, and the top blacks wanted New York or Washington or Chicago. McDeere was a male, and there were no women in the firm. That mistake had been made in the mid-seventies when they recruited the number one grad from Harvard, who happened to be a she and a wizard at taxation. She lasted four turbulent years and was killed in a car wreck.

He looked good, on paper. He was their top choice. In fact, for this year there were no other prospects. The list was very short. It was McDeere, or no one.

The managing partner, Royce McKnight, studied a dossier labeled "Mitchell Y. McDeere-Harvard."An inch thick with small print and a few photographs; it had been prepared by some exCIA agents in a private intelligence outfit in Bethesda. They were clients of the firm and each year did the investigating for no fee. It was easy work, they said, checking out unsuspecting law students. They learned, for instance, that he preferred to leave the Northeast, that he was holding three job offers, two in New York and one in Chicago, and that the highest offer was $ 76 000 and the lowest was $ 68 000. He was in demand. He had been given the opportunity to cheat on a securities exam during his second year. He declined, and made the highest grade in the class. Two months ago he had been offered cocaine at a law school party. He said no and left when everyone began snorting. He drank an occasional beer, but drinking was expensive and he had no money. He owed close to $ 23 000 in student loans. He was hungry.

Royce McKnight flipped through the dossier and smiled. McDeere was their man.

Lamar Quin was thirty-two and not yet a partner. He had been brought along to look young and act young and project a youthful image for Bendini, Lambert & Locke, which in fact was a young firm, since most of the partners retired in their late forties or early fifties with money to burn. He would make partner in this firm. With a six-figure income guaranteed for the rest of his life, Lamar could enjoy the twelve-hundred-dollar tailored suits that hung so comfortably from his tall, athletic frame. He strolled nonchalantly across the thousanddollaraday suite and poured another cup of decaf. He checked his watch. He glanced at the two partners sitting at the small conference table near the windows.

Precisely at two-thirty someone knocked on the door. Lamar looked at the partners, who slid the resume and dossier into an open briefcase. All three reached for their jackets. Lamar buttoned his top button and opened the door.

23. Which of the following is NOT the firm's recruitment requirement?
A. Marriage.  B. Background.  C. Relevant degree.  D. Male.

24. The details of the private investigation show that the firm ____.
A. was interested in his family background
B. intended to check out his other job offers
C. wanted to know something about his preference
D. was interested in any personal detail of the man

25. According to the passage, the main reason Lama Quin was there at the interview was that ____.
A. his image could help impress McDeere
B. he would soon become a partner himself
C. he was good at interviewing applicants
D. his background was similar to McDeere's

26. We get the impression from the passage that in job recruitment the firm was NOT ____.
A. selective  B. secretive  C. perfunctory  D. racially biased

TEXT D

Harry Truman didn't think his successor had the right training to be president. "Poor Ike-it won't be a bit like the Army,"he said. "He'll sit there all day saying 'do this, do that,'and nothing will happen."Truman was wrong about Ike. Dwight Eisenhower had led a fractious alliance-you didn't tell Winston Churchill what to do-in a massive, chaotic war. He was used to politics. But Truman's insight could well be applied to another, even more venerated Washington figure: the CEO-turned cabinet secretary.

A 20-year bull market has convinced us all that CEOs are geniuses, so watch with astonishment the troubles of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul O' Neill. Here are two highly regarded businessmen, obviously intelligent and well-informed, foundering in their jobs.

Actually, we shouldn't be surprised. Rumsfeld and O' Neill are not doing badly despite having been successful CEOs but because of it. The record of senior businessmen in government is one of almost unrelieved disappointment. In fact, with the exception of Robert Rubin, it is difficult to think of a CEO who had a successful career in government.

Why is this? Well, first the CEO has to recognize that he is no longer the CEO. He is at best an adviser to the CEO, the president. But even the president is not really the CEO. No one is. Power in a corporation is concentrated and vertically structured. Power in Washington is diffuse and horizontally spread out. The secretary might think he's in charge of his agency. But the chairman of the congressional committee funding that agency feels the same. In his famous study "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents,"Richard Neustadt explains how little power the president actually has and concludes that the only lasting presidential power is "the power to persuade."

Take Rumseld's attempt to transform the cold-war military into one geared for the future. It's innovative but deeply threatening to almost everyone in Washington. The Defense secretary did not try to sell it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Congress, the budget office of the White House. As a result, the idea is collapsing.

Second, what power you have, you must use carefully. For example, O' Neill's position as Treasury secretary is one with little formal authority. Unlike Finance ministers around the world, Treasury does not control the budget. But it has symbolic power. The secretary is seen as the chief economic spokesman for the administration and, if he plays it right, the chief economic adviser for the president.

O' Neill has been publicly critical of the IMF's bailout packages for developing countries while at the same time approving such packages for Turkey, Argentina and Brazil. As a result, he has gotten the worst of both worlds. The bailouts continue, but their effect in holstering investor confidence is limited because the markets are rattled by his skepticism.

Perhaps the government doesn't do bailouts well. But that leads to a third rule: you can't just quit. Jack Welch's famous law for re-engineering General Electric was to be first or second in any given product category, or else get out of that business. But if the government isn't doing a particular job at peak level, it doesn't always have the option of relieving itself of that function. The Pentagon probably wastes a lot of money. But it can't get out of the national-security business.

The key to former Treasury secretary Rubin's success may have been that he fully understood that business and government are, in his words, "necessarily and properly very different."In a recent speech he explained, "Business functions around one predominate organizing principle, profitability ... Government, on the other hand, deals with a vast number of equally legitimate and often potentially competing objectives-for example, energy production versus environmental protection, or safety regulations versus productivity."

Rubin's example shows that talented people can do well in government if they are willing to treat it as its own separate, serious endeavour. But having been bathed in a culture of adoration and flattery, it's difficult for a CEO to believe he needs to listen and learn, particularly from those despised and poorly paid specimens, politicians, bureaucrats and the media. And even if he knows it intellectually, he just can't live with it.

27. For a CEO to be successful in government, he has to ____.
A. regard the president as the CEO
B. take absolute control of his department
C. exercise more power than the congressional committee
D. become acquainted with its power structure

28. In commenting on O' Neill's record as Treasury Secretary, the passage seems to indicate that ____.
A.O' Neill has failed to use his power well
B.O' Neill policies were well received
C.O' Neill has been consistent in his policies
D.O' Neill uncertain about the package he's approved

29. According to the passage, the differences between government and business lie in the following areas EXCEPT ____.
A. nature of activity
B. option of withdrawal
C. legitimacy of activity
D. power distribution

30. The author seems to suggest that CEO-turned government officials ____.
A. are able to fit into their new roles
B. are unlikely to adapt to their new roles
C. can respond to new situations intelligently
D. may feel uncertain in their new posts

SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING  (10  min)

In this section there are seven passages with ten multiple-choice questions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on COLORED ANSWER SHEET.

TEXT E

First read the question.

31. The passage is mainly concerned with ____ in the U.S.A.
A. traveling   B. big cities   C. cybercafes    D .inventions

Now go through TEXT E quickly to answer question 31.

Planning to answer your e-mail while on holiday in New York? That may not be easy. The Internet may have been invented in the United States, but America is one of the least likely places where a traveller might find an Internet cafe. "Every major city in the world has more cybercafes than New York,"says Joie Kelly, who runs CyberCafeGuide.com. The numbers seem to bear her out: according to various directories, London has more than 30, Paris 19, Istanbul 17, but New York has only 8. Other U.S. cities fare just as poorly: Los Angeles has about 11, Chicago has 4. "Here it's quite hard work to find a cafe. I was surprised,"says Michael Robson, a sportswriter from York, England, who was visibly relieved to be checking his e-mail at CyberCafe near New York's Times Square.

Why the lack of places to plug in? Americans enjoy one of the highest rates of Internet access from work and home in the world, and they've never really taken to cafes. About 80 percent of CyberCafe's clients, for instance, are tourists from overseas. Greek tycoon Stelios HajiIoannou also thinks high prices drive away locals. Last November he oppened a branch of his Internet-cafe chain easyEverything in Times Square. With 800 terminals, it's the largest Net cafe in the world. While the typical American cafe charges $ 8 to $ 12 an hour, easyEverything charges $ 1 to 4. Marketing manager Stephaine Engelsen says half the cafe's customers are locals. "We get policemen, firemen, nurses who don't work at desks with computers, actors between auditions. "easyEverything is now planning to open new locations in Harlem, and possibly SoHo. Unless there's some cultural shift afoot, however, New York will continue to lag behind metropolises from Mexico City to Moscow.

TEXT F

First read the question.

32. In the passage below the author primarily attempts to ____.
A. criticize yogis in the West    
B. define what yoag is
C. teach yoga postures            
D. experiment with yoga

Now go through TEXT F quickly to answer question 32.

Most of the so-called yogis in the West seem to focus on figure correction, not true awareness. They make statements about yoga being for the body, mind and soul. But this is just semantics. Asanas (postures), which get such huge play in the West, are the smallest aspect of yoga. Either you practice yoga as a whole or you don't. If one is practicing just for health, better to take up walking. Need to cure a disease? See a doctor. Yoga is not about fancy asanas or breath control. Nor is it a therapy or a philosophy. Yoga is about inside awareness. It is the process of union of the self with the whole. Yoga is becoming the Buddha.

Yogis are experimentalists. In the West, scientists research mainly external phenomena. Yogis focus on the inside. They know that the external world is maya (illusionary) and everything inside is sathya (truth). In maya everything goes, but if you know yourself nothing goes. The West tends to practice only what we call cultural asanas that focus on the external. We don't practice asanas just to become fit. Indian yogis have discovered 8.4 million such postures. It is essential to train our bodies to find the most comfortable pose that we can sit in for hours. Beyond that there is no role for physical yoga.

Basically yoga is made up of two parts: bahirang (external yoga) and antarang (internal yoga). The West practices only the former. It needs to enter into antarang yoga. After that begins the trip to the unknown where the master makes the student gradually aware at every stage, where you know that you are not the body or the mind and not even the soul. That is when you get the first taste of moksha, or enlightenment. It is the sense of the opening of the silence, the sense where you lose yourself and are happy doing it, where for the first time your ego has merged with the superconsciousness. You feel you no longer exist, for you have walked into the valley of death. And if you start walking more and more in this valley, you become freer.

TEXT G

First read the question.

33. The reviewer's comments on Henry Kissinger's new book are basically ____.
A. negative    B. noncommittal    C. unfounded    D. positive

Now go through TEXT G quickly to answer question 33.

Whatever you think of Henry Kissinger, you have to admit: the man has staying power. With a new book- Does America Need a Foreign Policy? -on the shelves, Kissinger is once again helping to shape American thinking on foreign relations. This is the sixth decade in which that statement can be said to be true.

Kissinger's new book is terrific. Plainly intended as an extended tutorial on policy for the new American Administration, it is full of good sense and studded with occasional insights that will have readers nodding their heads in silent agreement. A particularly good chapter on Asia rebukes anyone who unthinkingly assigns China the role once played by the Soviet Union as the natural antagonist of the U.S.

Kissinger's book can also be read in another, and more illuminating, light. It is, in essence, an extended meditation on the end of a particular way of looking at the world: one where the principal actors in international relations are nation-states, pursuing their conception of their own national interest, and in which the basic rule of foreign policy is that one nation does not intervene in the internal affairs of another.

Students of international relations call this the "Westphalian system," after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia that ended Europe's Thirty Years War, a time of indescribable carnage waged in the name of competing religions. The treaties that ended the war put domestic arrangements-like religion-off limits to other states. In the war's aftermath a rough-rand-ready commitment to a balance of power among neighbours took shape. Kissinger is a noted school of the balance of power. And he is suspicious of attempts to meddle in the internal business of others.

Yet Kissinger is far too sophisticated to attempt to recreate a world that is lost. "Today," he writes, "the Westphalian order is in systematic crisis."In particular, nation-states are no longer the sole drivers of the international system. In some cases, groups of states-like the European Union or Mercosur-have developed their own identities and agendas. Economic globalization has both blurred the boundaries between nations and given a substantial international role to those giant companies for whom such boundaries make little sense. In today's world, individuals can be as influential as nations; future historians may consider the support for public health of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to be more noteworthy than last week's United Nations conference on AIDS. And a large number of institutions are premised on the assumption that intervention in the internal affairs of others is often desirable. Were that not the case, Slobodan Milosevic would not have been surrendered last week to the jurisdiction of the war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

The consequences of these changes are profound. Kissinger is right to note that globalization has undermined the role of the nation-state less in the case of the U.S. (Why? Because it's more powerful than anyone else.) Elsewhere, the old ways of thinking about the "national interest"-that guiding light of the Westphalian system-have fewer adherents than they once did.

TEXT H

First read the question

34. In the passage the author expresses his concern about ____.
A. the survival of small languages
B. globalization in the post-Cold War era
C. present-day technological progress
D. ecological imbalance

Now go through TEXT H quickly to answer question 34.

During the past century, due to a variety of factors, more than 1 000 of the world's languages have disappeared, and it is possible to foresee a time, perhaps 100 years from now, when about half of today's 6 000 languages will either be dead or dying.

This startling rate of linguistic extinction is possible because 96 per cent of the world's languages are now spoken only by 4 per cent of the world's population.

Globalization in the post-Cold War era has witnessed the coming of the information age, which has played an important role in promoting economic co-operation but which has, at the same time, helped facilitate the assimilation of smaller cultural systems into a larger, mostly English-speaking whole.

Internet and other forms of mass media have succeeded in making English the worldwide standard. In 1998, the Seminar on Technological Progress & Development of the Present-day World was held in China. At the seminar, many participants expressed concern over the potential risks associated with excessive dependency on information technology. These critics claimed a move from "information monopoly" to "information hegemony" could possibly become just another way for the strong to dominate the weak, culturally as well as economically.

In other words, life in a technology-and information-based global society may lead to a new social stratification, in which linguistic assimilation will lead to cultural assimilation and social injustice will abound.

In the 20th century, human society's over-development caused the deterioration of the environment and ecological imbalance. The extinction of myriad biological species aroused deep concern which led people to an understanding of the special importance of protecting rare animals and plants on the brink of extinction.

Now we face the question, is the maintenance of cultural and linguistic diversity as important as the preservation of pandas and Chinese white-flag dolphins

Given the open society in which we live, or wish to live, this question becomes complicated. A balance must be struck between promoting international exchanges on the one hand, and taking measures to protect "small" languages on the other hand.

Most widely used languages, such as the six working languages-including English and Chiese-used in the United Nations, have little to fear and need no special protection.

But for other, more marginal languages some measures should be taken. Professionals should be trained to study and use them in order to keep them alive. Effective measures such as bilingual or multilingual education should also be implemented to protect them from extinction.

To some, 6 000 may seem like an inexhaustible number of languages. To those same people, it may seem irrelevant if one or two of those languages cease to be used.

But what many fail to realize is that language and culture are linked. Without one, the other dies, and so with the death of different languages we have the death of different cultures. The extinction of languages is equal to animal extinction in this respect. The fading away of a language, no matter how small, causes real damage to the "ecological balance" in the field of culture.

TEXT I

First read the questions.

35. The work of Project Manager is chiefly concerned with ____.
A. emergency relief programmes        
B. agricultural rehabilitation
C. helicopter assisted surveys        
D. strategic planning

36. The working contract is offered on a ____ basis.
A. two-month    B. twenty-month    C. ten-month    D. twelve-month

Now go through TEXT I quickly to answer questions 35 and 36.

Project Manager AGRICULTURAL REHABILITATION PROJECT, NORTHERN ETHIOPIA    

SCF started work in Ethiopia in 1973 with an emergency relief programme in response to the famine of that year. Since then SCF has been involved in a range of longer-term relief and development programmes to secure lasting benefits for children.

As a result of a helicopter assisted survey undertaken in the northem highlands of Ethiopia in 2000, SCF has been involved in a number of interventions aimed at engaging with the agricultural sector in order to promote food security in the most vulnerable areas of North Wollo.

As Project Manager your key task will be to manage, promote and develop all SCF's activities in the agriculture / livestock and natural resources sectors in Wollo. You will also play a major role in developing policy at national level.

To meet the challenge of this exciting new post you will need a relevant post graduate qualification; substantial experience in managing agricultural development projects in Africa with an emphasis on providing institutional support to the capacity of extension services while prompting farmer participation; ability to think and plan strategically; proven team management skills; report writing and financial skills; willingness to travel extensively and live and work in an isolated location.

This post is offered on a twelve-month contract with a salary of ￡ 19 294(normally tax-free). You can also expect a generous benefits package including all flights and reasonable living and accommodation expenses.

For further details and an application form please apply with CV to Jenny Thomas, Overseas Personnel Administrator, SCF, 17 Grove Lane, London SE5 8RD

Closing date: 30th November 2001.  

TEXT J

First read the questions.

37. Who have found a protein called M2
A. Scientists from a Belgium University.  
B. Drug-makers in Belgium.
C. Doctors in a Belgium hospital.          
D. It is not mentioned.

38. How many causes of bad breath does the passage cite
A. One.   B. Two.   C. Three.   D. Four.

Now go through TEXT J quickly to answer questions 37 and 38.

The Common Cold

The conventional wisdom says no, but by mid-century that assessment-along with the sniffles-may well be ancient history. Colds are considered incurable today because it would take months to come up with a vaccine for every new strain. That's fine for the flu, which breeds in animals and only jumps over to humans every year or two. But colds mutate even while they're infecting you, and new strains pop up so often that by the time drug-makers create a vaccine against one variation, the serum is already out of date.