What is the conversation mainly about?M: Doctor Thomas? This is Keith Bradley from The Daily News. I’d like to ask you some questions about the new official standard weight that you purchased. W: I’ d be happy to help you. What would you like to know? M: First of all, how is the standard weight used? W: Well, the people in our department use it to check the scales all over the country. The Department of Weights and Measures—we’ re a government agency—it’ s our responsibility to see that all the scales measure a kilogram accurately. So this is the weight we use to adjust the scales. M: How did you check the scales before? W: We have an old standard weight that we used to use. It had to be replaced because it was imprecise. You see, it was made of poor quality metal that was too porous—it absorbed too much moisture. M: Oh, so when the weather was humid, it weighed more. And when it was dry, it weighed less. W: Exactly. And that variation can affect the standards of the whole country. So our department had the new weight made out of higher quality metal. M: How much did it cost? W: About forty-five thousand dollars. M: Forty-five thousand dollars! For a one kilogram weight! That’ s more expensive than gold. Is it really worth that much? W: I’ m sure it is. Industries depend on our government agency to monitor the accuracy of scales, so that when they buy and sell their products there’ s one standard. Think of the drug industry, for example, those companies rely on high accuracy scales to manufacture and package medicine. A standard unit for measuring weight. How to care for precious metals. The value of precious metals. Using the metric system.

Why does a newborn baby have to spend the first year of his life learning to listen?A baby spends the first year of life learning to listen. A newborn child comes equipped with a finely tuned pair of ears, but he doesn’ t yet know how to use them. A buzz of meaningless noise surrounds him. No one sound means more than any other. Unlike his ears, the hearing center of his brains is still immature. As the baby grows, two things happen. First, he becomes better at picking out certain sounds. Second, he begins to remember them. This development is easy to see. If you make a loud sound near a one-day-old baby’s head, you will not see any reaction. Only a check on his pulse or breathing rate will show a change. But just two weeks later, the same noise will make him jerk. He may even turn his head toward you, now the human voice means something to him. If he hears another baby crying, he may cry. By his fourth to sixth week, sounds like the doorbell or the closing of a door no longer surprise him. What is actually happening is that he is starting to learn to listen. He can select certain sounds and memorize them. When he hears that sound a-gain, he can match it with the one he has heard before. These skills are basic to all learning. At the same time these early hearing and language skills get under way, the child begins to practice making sounds. His first sounds are the discomfort sounds. These sounds are heard when he is not quiet or sleeping. These sounds mean nothing to him yet. To his mother they say he is wet, uncomfortable, or hungry. Within the baby’ s first month, another sound appears: the comfort sounds. These are different from the discomfort sounds. As the child grows, his comfort sounds will use more of the vowels and consonants and rhythms which he will later use. These sounds will come together to form the first word. This special event will be long remembered by the proud parents. Because he likes learning. Because his hearing center is still immature. Because his ears are immature. Because he wants to know how to use his ears.

Pollution is a “dirty“ word. To pollute means to contaminate—topsoil or something by introducing impurities which make【C1】______unfit or unclean to use. Pollution comes in many forms. We see it, smell it,【C2】______it, drink it, and stumble through it. We literally lived in and breathe pollution, and not surprisingly, it is beginning to【C3】______our health, our happiness, and our civilization. Once we thought of pollution【C4】______meaning simply the smog—the choking, stinging, dirty air that hovers over cities. But air pollution, while it is【C5】______the most dangerous, is only one type of contamination among several【C6】______attack the most basic life functions. Through the uncontrolled use of insecticides, man has polluted the land, killing the wildlife. By【C7】______sewage and chemicals into rivers and lakes, we have contaminated our 【C8】______water. We are polluting the oceans, too, killing the fish and【C9】______depriving ourselves of an invaluable food supply. Part of the problem is our exploding【C10】______. More and more people are producing more wastes. But this problem is intensified by our “throw-away“technology. Each year Americans【C11】______of 7 million autos, 20 million tons of waste paper, 25 million pounds of toothpaste tubes and 48 million cans. We throw away gum wrappers, newspapers, and paper plates. It is no longer wise to【C12】______anything. Today almost everything is disposable. Instead of repairing a toaster or a radio, it is easier and cheaper to buy another one and discard the old, even 【C13】______95 percent of its parts may still be functioning. Baby diapers, which used to be made of reusable cloth, are now paper throw-aways. Soon we will wear clothing made of【C14】______:“Wear it once and throw it away“ will be the slogan of the fashionable-consciousness. Where is this all to end? Are we turning the world into a gigantic dump, or is there hope that we can solve the pollution problem?【C15】______, solutions are in sight. A few of them are positively ingenious.

Since the dawn of human ingenuity, people have devised ever more cunning tools to cope with work that is dangerous, boring, burdensome, or just plain nasty. That compulsion has resulted in robotics - the science of conferring various human capabilities on machines. And if scientists have yet to create the mechanical version of science fiction, they have begun to come close. As a result, the modern world is increasingly populated by intelligent gizmos whose presence we barely notice but whose universal existence has removed much human labor. Our factories hum to the rhythm of robot assembly arms. Our banking is done at automated teller terminals that thank us with mechanical politeness for the transaction. Our subway trains are controlled by tireless robot drivers. And thanks to the continual miniaturization of electronics and micromechanics, there are already robot systems that can perform some kinds of brain and bone surgery with submillimeter accuracy -far greater precision than highly skilled physicians can achieve with their hands alone. But if robots are to reach the next stage of laborsaving utility, they will have to operate with less human supervision and be able to make at least a few decisions for themselves - goals that pose a real challenge. “While we know how to tell a robot to handle a specific error, “ says Dave La-very , manager of a robotics program at NASA, “ we can’ t yet give a robot enough ’ common sense’ to reliably interact with a dynamic world. Indeed the quest for true artificial intelligence has produced very mixed results. Despite a spell of initial optimism in the 1960s and 1970s when it appeared that transistor circuits and microprocessors might be able to copy the action of the human brain by the year 2010, researchers lately have begun to extend that forecast by decades if not centuries. What they found, in attempting to model thought, is that the human brains roughly one hundred billion nerve cells are much more talented - and human perception far more complicated - than previously imagined. They have built robots that can recognize the error of a machine panel by a fraction of a millimeter in a controlled factory environment. But the human mind can glimpse a rapidly changing scene and immediately disregard the 98 percent that is irrelevant, instantaneously focusing on the monkey at the side of a winding forest road or the single suspicious face in a big crowd. The most advanced computer systems on Earth cant approach that kind of ability, and neu-roscientists still don’t know quite how we do it.

Education is primarily the responsibility of the states. State constitutions set up certain standards and rules for the establishment of school. State laws require children to go to school until they reach a certain age. The actual control of the schools, however, is usually a local matter. The control of the schools does not usually come directly from the local government. In each of the three types of city government, public schools are generally quite separate and independent. They cooperate with local officials but are not dominated by the municipal government. Most A-mericans believe that schools should be free of political pressures. They believe that the separate control of the school systems preserves such freedom. Public schools are usually maintained by school districts. The state often sets the district boundaries. Sometimes the school district has the same boundaries as the city. Sometimes it is larger than the city. In the South, county boards of education members are elected. In some places they are appointed by the mayor or city council. The state legislature decides which method should be used. Most district boards of education try to give all pupils a chance to get a good education. A good education prepares a person to live a better life. It helps him to become a better citizen. Nearly all states give financial aid to local school districts. State departments of education offer other kinds of aid. States offer help with such things as program planning and the school districts. The federal government also helps. The National Defense Education Act allows school districts to get financial aid for certain purposes. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 added many other kinds of financial help. But neither the state nor the federal government dictates school policy. This is determined by local school boards.

Read the following text(s) and write an essay to 1) summarize the main points of the text(s), 2) make clear your own viewpoints, and 3) justify your stand. In your essay, make full use of the information provided in the text(s). If you use more than three consecutive words from the text(s), use quotation marks (“ “). You should write 160 -200 words on the ANSWER SHEET. It is natural for young people to be critical of their parents at times and to blame them for most of the misunderstandings between them. They have always complained, more or less justly, that their parents are out of touch with modern ways; that they are possessive and dominant that they do not trust their children to deal with crises; that they talk too much about certain problems and that they have no sense of humor, at least in parent-child relationships. I think it is true that parents often underestimate their teenage children and also forget how they themselves felt when young. Young people often irritate their parents with their choices in clothes and hairstyles, in entertainers and music. This is not their motive. They feel cut off from the adult world into which they have not yet been accepted. So they create a culture and society of then-own. Then, if it turns out that their music or entertainers or vocabulary or clothes or hairstyles irritate their parents, this gives them additional enjoyment. They feel they are superior, at least in a small way, and that they are leaders in style and taste. This is a passive way of looking at things. It is natural enough after long years of childhood, when you were completely under your parents’ control. But it ignores the fact that you are now beginning to be responsible for yourself. If you plan to control your life, co-operation can be part of that plan. You can charm others, especially parents, into doing things the ways you want. You can impress others with your sense of responsibility and initiative, so that they will give you the authority to do what you want to do.

[*]W = Reporter M = Jim W: Hello Jim. I’m from your local newspaper the Daily Post and I’d like to ask you some questions about the London marathon race that you’ve just finished. M: That’s right. What would you like to know? W: Firstly, for the benefit of our readers, exactly how long is the marathon? M: It’s 26 miles 385 yards, or if you’d like it in metric it’s 42,195 kilometers. W: Thanks. Now how many runners were there altogether? M: More than ever this year...there were 16,417. W: My goodness, that’s a lot! What position did you finish in the race, Jim? M: Well, I’m quite pleased with my performance. I came 2,014th. W: That’s better than last year, isn’t it? M: Yes, I finished 3,470th then—but it was my first effort. W: By the way, what time did the race start today? M: 9 o’clock. And the winner finished at 11: 30. W: So he took two and a half hours. That’s excellent. How long did you take? M: Three and three quarter hours—but I know I can do better. Did you know that the record is 2 hours 10 minutes? W: I didn’t know. That’s fantastic! Do you know how long the slowest runner took? M: No...he hasn’t finished yet!

[*]W: Hi, Kevin. M: Hi, Lora, long time no see. What have you been up to lately? W: Not much I can assure you. And you? M: Much the same except I do have some big news. W: Come on, the suspense is killing me. M: Not really, what have you been doing these past few weeks? The last time I saw you, you were looking for a new job. W: Well, that’s not exactly true. I was thinking about changing jobs. Luckily, they offered me a new position in the accounting department. M: A step up in the big business world. W: I wouldn’t exaggerate, but I’m pleased. I had been hoping to get promotion for a while, so when it finally came through I was relieved. Actually, that’s why I was looking for a new job. I just didn’t want to work there anymore if they weren’t going to recognize my efforts. M: Right, sometimes you can do your best and it seems like the others don’t know your existence. I hope the money is better. W: I got a reasonable raise. Now, enough about me. I’m dying to hear your news. M: I’m getting married. W: No, you said you’d never get married. M: That was then, and this is now, you’ve got to meet Andrea. She is great. W: This is all news to me. I didn’t even know you were dating. M: We weren’t. We’ve just been dating for two weeks now. W: And you are getting married? M: I know. I can’t help it. I just know she is the one. W: Well, congratulations. That’s fantastic. M: Thanks, I’m glad to hear you feel that way.

What’s the main topic of the monologue?Today’s discussion is about a common animal reaction—the yawning. The dictionary defines a yawn as “ an involuntary reaction to fatigue or boredom“. That’s definitely true for human yawns but not necessarily for animal yawns. The same action, the yawn, can have quite different meanings in different species. For instance, some animals yawn to intimidate intruders on their territory. Fish and lizards are examples of this. Hippos use yawns when they want to resolve a quarrel. Observers have seen two hippos yawn at each other for as long as two hours before they stop quarreling. As for social animals like baboons or lions—they yawn to set up the pecking order within social groups,and lions often yawn to calm social tensions. Sometimes these animals yawn for a strictly physiological reason— that is to increase oxygen levels. And curiously enough, when they yawn for a physical reason like that, they do what men do—they try to stifle the yawn by looking away or by covering their mouths. Different animals’ yawns. Human’s yawn. Fish’s yawn. Social animals’ yawns.

Think of those fleeting moments when you look out of an aeroplane window and realise that you are flying, higher than a bird. Now think of your laptop, thinner than a brown-paper envelope , or your cellphone in the palm of your hand. Take a moment or two to wonder at those marvels. You are the lucky inheritor of a dream come true. The second half of the 20th century saw a collection of geniuses, warriors, entrepreneurs and visionaries labour to create a fabulous machine that could function as a typewriter and printing press, studio and theatre, paintbrush and gallery, piano and radio, the mail as well as the mail carrier. 【R1】______. The networked computer is an amazing device, the first media machine that serves as the mode of production, means of distribution, site of reception, and place of praise and critique. The computer is the 21st century’ s culture machine. But for all the reasons there are to celebrate the computer, we must also tread with caution.【R2】______. I call it a secret war for two reasons. First, most people do not realize that there are strong commercial agendas at work to keep them in passive consumption mode. Second , the majority of people who use networked computers to upload are not even aware of the significance of what they are doing. All animals download, but only a few upload. Beavers build dams and birds make nests. Yet for the most part, the animal kingdom moves through the world downloading. Humans are unique in their capacity to not only make tools but then turn around and use them to create superfluous material goods—paintings, sculpture and architecture—and superfluous experiences—music, literature, religion and philosophy. 【R3】______. For all the possibilities of our new culture machines, most people are still stuck in download mode. Even after the advent of widespread social media, a pyramid of production remains, with a small number of people uploading material, a slightly larger group commenting on or modifying that content, and a huge percentage remaining content to just consume. 【R4】______. Television is a one-way tap flowing into our homes. The hardest task that television asks of anyone is to turn the power off after he has turned it on. 【R5】______. What counts as meaningful uploading? My definition revolves around the concept of “stickiness“—creations and experiences to which others adhere. [A] Of course, it is precisely these superfluous things that define human culture and ultimately what it is to be human. Downloading and consuming culture requires great skills, but failing to move beyond downloading is to strip oneself of a defining constituent of humanity. [B] Applications like tumblr. com, which allow users to combine pictures, words and other media in creative ways and then share them, have the potential to add stickiness by amusing, entertaining and enlightening others. [C] Not only did they develop such a device but by the turn of the millennium they had also managed to embed it in a worldwide system accessed by billions of people every day. [D] This is because the networked computer has sparked a secret war between downloading and uploading—between passive consumption and active creation—whose outcome will shape our collective future in ways we can only begin to imagine. [E] The challenge the computer mounts to television thus bears little similarity to one format being replaced by another in the manner of record players being replaced by CD players. [F] One reason for the persistence of this pyramid of production is that for the past half-century, much of the world’ s media culture has been defined by a single medium—television—and television is defined by downloading. [G] The networked computer offers the first chance in 50 years to reverse the flow, to encourage thoughtful downloading and, even more importantly, meaningful uploading.

Karen Rusa was a 30-year-old woman and the mother of four children. For the past several months Karen had been experiencing repetitive thoughts that centered around her children’ s safety. She frequently found herself imagining that a serious accident had occurred; she was unable to put these thoughts out of her mind. On one such occasion she imagined that her son, Alan, had broken his leg playing football at school. There was no reason to believe that an accident had occurred, but she kept thinking about the possibility until she finally called the school to see if Alan was all right. Even after receiving their assurance that he had not been hurt, she described herself as being somewhat surprised when he later arrived home unharmed. Karen also noted that her daily routine was seriously hampered by an extensive series of counting work that she performed throughout each day. Specific numbers had come to have a special meaning to her; she found that her preoccupation with these numbers was hampering her ability to perform everyday activities. One example was grocery shopping. Karen believed that if she selected the first item on the shelf, something terrible would happen to her oldest child. If she selected the second item, some unknown disaster would fall on her second child, and so on for the four children. Karen’ s preoccupation with numbers extended to other activities, most notable the pattern in which she smoked cigarettes and drank coffee. If she had one cigarette; she believed that she had to smoke at least four in a row, or one of her children would be harmed in some way. If she drank one cup of coffee, she felt compelled to drink four. Karen acknowledged the unreasonableness of these rules, but, nevertheless, maintained that she felt more comfortable. When she observed them earnestly, when she was occasionally in too great a hurry to observe these rules, she experienced considerable anxiety, in the form of a subjective feeling of dread and fear. She described herself as tense, uneasy, and unable to relax during these periods. The occurrence of rarely minor accidents does not reduce her belief that she had been directly responsible because of her inability to observe the rules about number.

“Intelligence“at best is an assumptive construct — the word’ s meaning has never been clear. 【T1】There is more agreement on the kinds of behavior referred to by the term than there is on how to interpret or classify them. But it is generally agreed that a person who has high intelligence is one who can grasp ideas readily, make distinctions, reason logically, and use verbal and mathematical symbols in solving problems. An intelligence test is a rough measure of a child’s capacity for learning, particularly for learning the kinds of things required in school. It does not measure character, social adjustment, physical endurance, manual skills, or artistic abilities. It is not supposed to — it was not designed for such purposes. 【T2】To criticize it for such failure is roughly comparable to criticizing a thermometer for not measuring wind velocity. The other thing we should notice is that the assessment of the intelligence of any subject is essentially a comparative affair. 【T3】Now since the assessment of intelligence is a comparative matter we must be sure that the scale with which we are comparing our subjects provides a “valid“ or “fair“ comparison. It is here that some of the difficulties which interest us begin. Any test performed involves at least three factors: the intention to do one’s best, the knowledge required for understanding what you must do, and the intellectual ability to do it. 【T4】The first two must be equal for all who are being compared, if any comparison in terms of intelligence is to be made. In school populations in our culture these assumptions can be made fair and reasonable, and the value of intelligence testing has been proved thoroughly. Its value lies, of course, in its providing a satisfactory basis for prediction. Nobody is in the least interested in the marks a little child gets on his test; what we are interested in is whether we can conclude from his mark on the test that the child will do better or worse than other children of his age at tasks which we think require“general intelligence“. 【T5】On the whole, such a conclusion can be drawn with a certain degree of confidence, but only if the child can be assumed to have had the same attitude towards the test as the other with whom he is being compared, and only if he was not punished by lack of relevant information which they possessed.

How is the weight used?

What does Doctor Thomas probably think about the cost of the new weight?