Participants in Girls on Rock get to explore forests, hike mountains and sleep under the stars. But that is only part of the experience the young women seek in the free Colorado-based educational program. The program also provides them the chance to carry out field research with actual scientists. Girls on Rock is part of the organization Inspiring Girls Expeditions. The group supports similar programs in the American states of Alaska and Washington, and in the countries of Canada and Switzerland. In late July, a team of nine girls and five instructors launched the first Girls on Rock trip. The group spent 12 days in the Gore Mountains near Frisco, Colorado. Each girl took turns climbing a wall of rock. After climbing, the girls took a hike. During the hike, they stopped for a lesson on map reading. They also learned how to find their position on Earth using nothing but a thin rope and information about their current elevation. The young women had several reasons for wanting to enter the program. They wanted to meet new people, be involved in science during the summer break and face fears. They were surprised by how quickly they made friends as they learned how to trust themselves and others. Girls on Rock does not consider academic performance when choosing participants. Instead, interested girls are asked to explain in writing why they want to participate in the program. Questions 9 to 11 are based on the passage you have just heard. 9. What can we learn about the program Girls on Rock? 10. How many people were involved in the first Girls on Rock trip? 11. What can we learn about Girls on Rock from the end of the talk? It is a program for girls to practice outdoor skills. It is a program for women explorers. It is a program charging no fee. It is a program for mountaineering enthusiasts.

M: Good morning. Welcome to Bank of the USA. How may I help you today? W: Hi, I need to transfer some money to another account. It’s urgent. M: OK. Have you made a wire transfer at our bank before? W: No. I’ve never made a transfer before. M: It’s alright. I will take you through the procedure. Are you transferring funds to a company or an individual account? W: A company account. I need to pay a bill. M: OK. I’ll need the name of the company and their bank routing number as well as their bank’s address and phone number. W: I have all the information in this folder. M: Well, you’ve come prepared. I have all the necessary materials, so we can go ahead and make the transfer right now. It’s a simple transaction, and we can process it today. W: Oh, that’s such a relief. I didn’t want the payment to be overdue. Thank you so much. M: It’s my pleasure. Is there anything else that I can do for you? W: One more thing. I would like to withdraw my money and close my personal account now. M: May I see your passbook? W: Here you are. M: This is a sizable sum. Is there any reason you are closing your account with us? W: I will be leaving the city soon, so I have no need for this account. M: I see. Well, for this amount I will have to get my manager’s approval. W: No problem. I’ll wait over there. M: Thank you. This should only be a few minutes. If you would like, there is coffee by those sofas over there. W: No, thanks. Coffee makes me wired and I will be nervous enough carrying all that cash. M: Our bank also offers customers security service. We will send a guard to accompany you to your destination if necessary. W: Well, that is some consolation. Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 1. Why does the woman come to the bank? 2. When can they make the transaction? 3. Why does the man have to get his manager’s approval to close the woman’s account? 4. How does the woman feel after drinking coffee? Open a deposit account for her company. Withdraw some money to pay a bill. Transfer some money to a company account. Change her address she registered in the bank before.

Major world automakers have already invested heavily in electric vehicles and related technology— and they are committed to keep doing so. Some have even promised to stop producing vehicles that run only on gas or diesel fuel in the future. The changes to the auto industry demonstrate the growing number of buyers willing to spend more money on environmentally friendly cars. But one of the main issues with the technology is that drivers need to charge the batteries often to be able to travel longer distances. The batteries themselves can also greatly increase the price of the vehicles. They can also be very costly to replace. Now, a new technology is being developed and tested in Sweden to help resolve these issues. Engineers there have created what is thought to be the world’s first operating electrified road. A Swedish company, Elways, invented the technology. The project, involving several companies, is called eRoadArlanda. A large, specially built electric truck transports goods along a two-kilometer-long stretch of road from Stockholm’s Arlanda airport. The truck’s battery is charged from the electrified road as it travels. CEO Hans Saell has led the project since 2013. He explains that the technology works in a simple way. A 15-centimeter-wide electrical rail is built into the road. The vehicle contains equipment that automatically senses the electrified road. An arm then lowers from the vehicle to make contact with the rail. Saell says the system is designed to make continuous charging on the road effortless for the driver. He says the system can be built into existing roads to reduce costs. He estimates that putting in a highly developed version of eRoadArlanda’s technology would cost about 1 million dollars per kilometer. That amount sounds like a big number and could add up fast over thousands of kilometers. But Saell says the cost is still a lot less when compared to other transportation infrastructure projects. He added that the vehicle equipment also costs much less than systems that would require electrical equipment above ground, such as railways or street cars. Project leaders say the electrified road has been tested in all kinds of weather and even proved effective in snow and ice. Saell says the powered road is also safe because the electricity is below the surface and well covered. The road is also not electrified all the time. The electricity turns on in 50-meter stretches only when an equipped vehicle is travelling on the road. Saell says the eRoadArlanda system still needs a lot of development before it will be ready for wide industrial use. But he estimates this could happen in just 5 to 10 years. Questions 19 to 22 are based on the recording you have just heard. 19. What does the changes to the auto industry show? 20. What is a major issue with the electric vehicles? 21. What does Hans Seall say about eRoadArlanda system? 22. What can we learn about eRoadArlanda system? People tend to choose the latest brand of cars. The auto industry is undergoing intense competition. More and more buyers want to buy eco-friendly cars. A large number of automakers are desperate for innovation.

W: Today we have Daniel Leviton with us to share his opinion on confidence. Daniel is an author, neuroscientist, doctor, and teacher. Welcome! M: Thank you. Today, I would like to tell you that having confidence will help you a lot, but being over-confident will lead you to something bad. Like this Mark Twain quote: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just isn’t so.” W: What does that mean? M: I will give you an example in the medical field. If you’re sure that an alternative treatment will help cure you better than Western medicine, you will abandon the traditional treatment. Two thirds of cancer patients think that alternative medicine will prolong their lives. W: Then what is the result of this? M: In fact, patients who turn to an alternative treatment are twice as likely to die of their cancers, and they die earlier. W: That is because if you’re sure that your choice of something is right, you’re not gonna be open-minded about any new evidence that might come in that could or should cause you to change your mind. Am I right? M: You are totally right. In addition to being a doctor, I’m a college professor as well, and I train PhD students for careers as neuroscientists. They come into my laboratory full of confidence. They have been at the top of every class in their entire lives. I spend most of my time trying to teach them that they don’t know everything they think they do. My job as a teacher really is to unteach them. W: But how can you unteach students when your job is to teach them? M: I’m always asking, why do you think that? What’s the evidence? Knowledge can only be created in an environment where we’re open to the possibility that we’re wrong. I think that all of us should be capable of this kind of critical thinking. W: A great lesson for all of us. Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you have just heard. 5. What are the speakers mainly talking about? 6. What does the man say about patients who turn to an alternative treatment? 7. What does the man say about his students? 8. What can we learn from the end of the conversation? How confidence helps people. How lack of confidence harms people. How over-confidence harms people. How to develop self-confidence.

Lionfish are known for their beauty and unusual look. But lionfish are also poisonous, with extremely long and separated spines to carry and shoot poison. The native environment for lionfish includes the South Pacific and Indian Ocean. However, sea experts say lionfish were at some time released into the Atlantic Ocean, likely by people who had kept them in tanks. Lionfish are currently considered a great threat to coral reefs and related sea life in coastal waters of the southeastern United States and Caribbean. Scientists say the fish is a top predator that competes for food and space with native fish in the area. Now there is a new solution for fighting back. University researchers are developing an underwater robot to hunt down, kill and collect lionfish. A student-led team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts developed the robot. The team recently demonstrated the device and is continuing to test and make changes to it. The team says that the robot is designed to recognize the lionfish, chase it and shoot the animal with a spear, which then separates from the robot and floats the fish to the surface for collection. Craig Putnam is a computer science professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and a director of the school’s Robotics Engineering Program. He says the robot was built to simplify the process of hunting down and collecting this aggressive fish. Putnam said his team trained the robot system by showing it thousands of images of lionfish in different colours, from many directions and under different lighting conditions. The robot can correctly identify lionfish about 95% of the time, he added. Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard. 12. What does the speaker say about lionfish? 13. What are lionfish doing to the Atlantic Ocean? 14. What can we learn about the team that developed the robot? 15. How did the team train the robot system to hunt down the lionfish? They are terrifying in appearance. They are attractive but poisonous. They are on the edge of extinction. They are native to the North Pacific.

The non-governmental environmental group Greenpeace reports that plastic and chemical pollution is often found in snow and seawater collected by researchers in Antarctica. Greenpeace said its scientists gathered water and snow samples from Antarctica during a visit between January to March of this year. Laboratory tests confirmed the effect of humanity on the continent. “It was about one microplastic piece at least per liter. When you think of extrapolating that out to the scale or the Antarctic Ocean, it’s really, really significant,” said Greenpeace’s Louisa Casson. She noted that, in the past, scientists thought the currents around the Antarctic Ocean might protect it from plastic pollution found in much of the world’s oceans. But now, she said, evidence is increasingly showing that there might be little, if any, protection. Microplastics are extremely small particles of plastic. They come from the breakdown of bottles and other plastic waste in the world’s oceans. In addition to microplastics, the Greenpeace study also confirmed the presence of chemicals widely used in industrial processes, and have been linked to reproductive and developmental problems for wildlife. The United Nations estimates that 8 million tons of plastic are dropped into the oceans every year. Plastic has been shown to harm wildlife. An example of this happened several days ago in southern Thailand. That was when a pilot whale died after swallowing 80 pieces of plastic waste. Tests showed the waste weighed about eight kilograms. International concern about plastic pollution is rising. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently promised to ban all single-use plastic by 2022. In the city of Mumbai, Bollywood movie stars have been taking part in waste clean-up activities at Versova beach. Actress Abigail Pande told reporters she was surprised at the amount of waste she found. “I am having fun cleaning this place. But it is also very sad because once I came here, I got to know that the amount of waste is so high that if you dig the ground four feet, you will still find plastic inside. And it will take years to properly clean the beach,” Pande said. Plastic has now been found in every corner of the world’s oceans, from the bottom of the Pacific Mariana Trench to Antarctica. In October, world governments will decide on a European Union proposal to create an Antarctic Ocean sanctuary. At 1.8 million square kilometers, the sanctuary would be the largest protected area on Earth. Questions 16 to 18 are based on the recording you have just heard. 16. What can we learn about the group Greenpeace? 17. How many plastics are dropped into the oceans every year according to the United Nations? 18. What will India do to reduce plastic pollution according to Prime Minister Narendra Modi? It is a scientific group doing research in Antarctica.. It is an independent group aiming to protect the wildlife. It is an independent group aiming to protect the environment. It is a scientific group exploring the currents around the Antarctica Ocean.

There have been many improvements in how weather experts predict the path of hurricanes, powerful storms that form in the ocean. However, forecasters still struggle when trying to estimate one quality of a coming storm: its intensity. Intensity measurements would help people prepare for flooding and deadly winds. In 2017, the US government’s National Hurricane Centre reported that it had failed to correctly predict the sudden intensification of the 2016 hurricane called Matthew. That storm strengthened very quickly, with winds reaching up to 270 kilometers per hour. It caused major destruction in the Caribbean, including killing more than 1,000 people in Haiti, according to Reuters. Scientists say there are several scientific models for predicting hurricane intensity, but they are all of limited use. The current science of tracking a storm’s path depends heavily on information about conditions on its edges. But, intensity is based on what is happening in the middle of it. Generally, measurements are taken one of three ways. Sometimes researchers fly a “hurricane hunter” aircraft into the storm. Other times, they use a device called a weather buoy to measure wind speeds as a storm passes over. Or, they get information from satellites. One project to gather more information to predict intensity is the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, or CYGNSS for short. CYGNSS is a group of eight low-orbit satellites. The American space agency, NASA launched it in 2016. Earlier satellites had trouble measuring ocean surface winds at the centre of storms. Heavy rain at the centre often weakened their signals, NASA officials said. Christopher Ruf is a lead investigator with CYGNSS and a climate science professor at the University of Michigan. He noted, “For storms that are changing really quickly, you could miss something like rapid intensification.” NASA designed CYGNSS to measure surface winds in and near the centre of tropical storm systems. Researchers said that having more satellites means they can pass over the storms more often. And the low-orbit satellites are closer to the storms. So, experts get more real-time information to use for predicting intensity. At present, researchers are focusing on the 2017 season when hurricanes severely affected Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Storms caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. And researchers are re-examining information gathered from CYGNSS to see how it affected the quality of the forecasts and how it can be better used to predict intensity. CYGNSS could be fully operational next year, researchers said. Questions 23 to 25 are based on the recording you have just heard. 23. Which quality of a coming storm bothers forecasters? 24. What do scientists say about current scientific models for predicting hurricane intensity? 25. What can we learn about CYGNSS? Its moving path. Its intensity. Its formation. Its scale.