Before a new airliner goes into service, every part of it is tested again and again. But there are two tests that are more important than all the others. One of them is very strange and the other is very dangerous. The first of these is called the “tank test“. A modern airliner must fly at very high altitudes. Air must be pumped into the plane so that the passengers can breathe. The metal structure of the plane has to be very strong for this reason. When the plane is filled with air, the air presses against the skin of the plane. The pressure on a small window, for example, is like a huge, giant foot that is trying to get out. if a small part of the plane were to crack, the plane would explode in the sky. This is what happened to the first Comets. In order to test the structure of the plane, it is lowered onto a huge tank of water. Then it is filled with air. The pressure inside the plane is greater than it ever will be when it is in the air. Finally, there’s an explosion. This doesn’t cause so much damage inside the water tank as it would anywhere else. Engineers can discover which part of the plane cracked. This part is made stronger. The most dangerous test happens when the new plane goes through test flights in the air. The test pilot must find out exactly what happens when the engines are shut off suddenly. He takes the plane up very high. Then he shuts the engines off. The plane begins to fall like a stone. It is the pilot’s job to find out how he can get control of the plane again. These two tests are examples of how planes are made safe before they ever carry passengers. Q. 23. What’s the purpose of the tank test? Q. 24.Why is the tank test carried out under water? Q. 25.Where is the second part test carried out? Q. 26.What does this speaker mainly talk about? To find out how much air can be pumped into a plane. To find out how much air passengers need to breathe at certain altitudes. To find what would happen if the plane crashed in the water. To find out if there are any weak parts in the plane that would burst under pressure.

Certain phrases one commonly hears among Americans which (1) to individualism include: “Do your own thing. “ “I did it my way. “ “You’ll have to decide that for yourself. “ “You made your bed, now lie in it. “ “If you don’t (2) for yourself, no one else will.“ “Look out for number one. “ (3) the value they place on individualism is the importance Americans (4) . Americans assume that people need some time to themselves or some time alone to think about things or recover their (5) . Americans have great difficulty understanding foreigners who always want to be with another person, who (6) . If the parents can afford it, each child will have his or her own bedroom. Having one’s own bedroom, (7) , fixes in a person the notion that she is (8) a place of her own where she can be by herself, and (9) . She will have her clothes, her books and so on. These things will be hers and no one else’s. Americans assume that people will have their (10) that might never (11) . Doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and others have (12) confidentiality that are (13) information about their clients’ (14) from becoming (15) . American’s (16) can be hard for foreigners to understand. American’s houses, yards and even offices can (17) . Yet in the minds of Americans, there are boundaries that other people are simply (18) cross. When those boundaries are crossed, an American’s body will (19) and his manner will (20) .Certain phrases one commonly hears among Americans which capture their devotion to individualism include. “Do your own thing. “ “I did it my way. “ “You’ll have to decide that for yourself. “ “You made your bed, now lie in it. “ “If you don’t look out for yourself, no one else will. “ “Look out for number one. “ Closely associated with the value they place on individualism is the importance Americans assign to privacy. Americans assume that people need some time to themselves or some time alone to think about things or recover their spent psychological energy. Americans have great difficulty understanding foreigners who always want to be with another person, who dislike being alone. If the parents can afford it, each child will have his or her own bedroom. Having one’s own bedroom, even as an infant, fixes in a person the notion that she is entitled to a place of her own where she can be by herself, and keep her possessions. She will have her clothes, her books and so on. These things will be hers and no one else’s. Americans assume that people will have their private thoughts that might never be shared with anyone. Doctors, lawyers, psychologists, and others have rules governing confidentiality that are intended to prevent information about their clients’ personal situations from becoming known to others. American’s attitude about privacy can be hard for foreigners to understand. American’s houses, yards and even offices can seem open and inviting. Yet in the minds of Americans, there are boundaries that other people are simply not supposed to cross. When those boundaries are crossed, an American’s body will visibly stiffen and his manner will become cool and aloof.

It was a busy morning. After nearly five intense hours, all the clerks had a break in office, so did the general manager. He rested himself in his armchair. The rest of the chairs were the manager’s. There’s no harm in sitting down. The manager carried his chair with the others. The manager relaxed in his chair.

I live in the land of Disney, Hollywood and year-round sun, You may think people in such a glamorous, fun-filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness. Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more abiding emotion. Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends. I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful individuals have constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells “happiness“. But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children and profound loneliness. Ask a bachelor why he resists marriage even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment. For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features. Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out whenever they want and sleep as late as they want. Couples with infant children are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children. Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time. now we can devote more hours to activities that can genuinely increase our happiness. It liberates money, buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy: we now understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.

Let children learn to judge their own work. A child learning to talk does not learn by being corrected all the time; if corrected too much, he will stop talking. He notices a thousand times a day the difference between the languages he uses and the language those around him use. Bit by bit, he makes the necessary changes to make his language like other people. In the same way, when children learn to do all the other things they learn to do without being taught--to walk, run, climb, whistle, ride a bicycle—compare those performances with those of more skilled people, and slowly make the needed changes. But in school we never give a child a chance to find out his own mistakes for himself, let alone correct them. We do it all for him. We act as if we thought that he would never notice a mistake unless it was pointed out to him, or correct it unless he was made to. Soon he becomes dependent on the teacher. Let him do it himself. Let him work out, with the help of other children if he wants it, what this word says, what answer is to that problem, whether this is a good way of saying or doing this or not. If it is a matter of right answers, as it may be in mathematics or science, give him the answer book. Let him correct his own papers. Why should we teachers waste time on such routine work? Our job should be to help the child when he tells us that he can’t find the way to get the right answer. Let’s end this nonsense of grades, exams, marks. Let us throw them all out, and let the children learn what all educated persons must someday learn, how to measure their own understanding, how to know what they know or do not know. Let them get on with this job in the way that seems sensible to them. With our help as school teachers if they ask for it. The idea that there is a body of knowledge to be learnt at school and used for the rest of one’s life is nonsense in a world as complicated and rapidly changing as ours. Anxious parents and teachers say, “But suppose they fail to learn something essential, something they will need to get in the world?“ Don’t worry! If it is essential, they will go out into the world and learn it.

Andy got up late this morning and had a quick breakfast. What she had was just a cup of coffee. She really liked coffee. Andy got up early this morning. Andy disliked to drink this kind of coffee. Is this the coffee that Andy drank? Andy had a coffee for breakfast?

M: How did you like yesterday’s astronomy class? W: It was interesting, but the point she was trying to make seemed a little farfetched. M: Oh, that new theory that ocean water came from comets. W: Yeah. Do you remember what it’s based on? M: Some recent satellite photos, I think. Apparently, space satellites recently detected thousands of small comets colliding with earth’s outer atmosphere, almost 40,000 per day. W: Ok, so they collide with the atmosphere. So that’s what created the water? M: It’s not that the collision created water. Comets contain water. They are made up mostly of cosmic dust and water. When they collide with the atmosphere, they break up and the water they contain rains down to earth. Ocean water came from that rain. W: Oh, well, this morning, I asked my geology professor about that. He said most geologists don’t accept it. M: Why not? W: Well, their researches indicate that most of the water molecules from the comets will have burn up as they fell through the’ atmosphere. Enough rain couldn’t have reached the earth to fill up the ocean. M: Well, do the geologists have an alternative theory to explain where ocean water came from? W: Yeah, he said the most traditional view is that ocean water came from volcanoes. M: From volcanoes? W: Right! As the volcanic fumes are mostly steam. And they claim that it was volcanical steam that create the oceans, not rain from comets. Q. 11. What are the speakers mainly discussing? Q. 12.What did recent photographs from a space satellite indicate? Q. 13.According to the new theory, where did ocean water come from? Q. 14.What aspect of volcanoes do the geologists mention? The effect of the atmosphere on rainfall. How conditions on Earth support life. How water originated on Earth. A new estimate of the age of Earth.

I hope you all enjoyed your visit to Capitol Hill. If you look back behind you, you can get an excellent look at the Capitol Building, with its beautiful dome and the Statue of Freedom on top. I forgot to mention that the design for the original building was chosen by George Washington himself back in the 1790s. That building was opened in 1800, but it was burned down by the British during the War of 1812, and it had to be completely rebuilt. Well, to continue our tour, ladies and gentlemen, we are now traveling west on Madison Drive. Our next stop will be the Washington Monument--five hundred and fifty-five feet high and dedicated to George Washington, our first president. In the meantime, if you will look out of the window on the right, we’re just passing the National Gallery, which houses an extensive collection of European and American art from the 13 th to 20th centuries... By the way, this park-like area that we’re traveling along is called the Mall. It extends from the Capitol to the Washington Monument... Across the Mall, on the left, is the National Air and Space Museum, with exhibits on aviation history and the space age. If you have time, I highly recommend you to visit the Air and Space Museum for a fascinating look at the history of air and space travel... If you look straight ahead now, folks, you will see the Washington Monument. The Monument, an obelisk that stands five hundred and fifty-five feet high, was finished in 1884. We’ 11 be stopping there shortly, and those of you who wish will be able to take photographs from the observation level {ire hundred feet up. There is an elevator to take you there, and it’s safe. All right, everyone, here we are. We’ll be staying here approximately twenty minutes. For those of you who do take the elevator up to the top, if you look directly north, you’ll be able to get an excellent view of our next stop, the White House--the home of all our presidents since the second president, John Adams... Ok, remember to take all your personal belongings as you get off the bus. We’ll meet back here in twenty minutes... Q. 15. Where will the passengers stop for twenty minutes? Q. 16.What are the tourists able to do when they get to the Washington Monument? Q. 17.Which of the following can NOT be learnt from the passage? Q. 18.What is the tour route? The White House. Capitol Hill. The Washington Monument. The Mall.

W: Right, this is tennis club reception area. As a member, you don’t have to register when you arrive. But you must remember to register your guests. And you must be able to produce your membership card if a club official asks to see it. M: How many guests can I bring with me? W: You can bring up to 3 at any one time. M: Hum. That’s good. W: Yes, well, we want to attract people to our club. Now here are the changing rooms with showers and lockers for your clothes and things. Obviously, you don’t have to leave your clothes in the lockers. But we strongly advise you to. It’s much safer. M: How much do the lockers cost? W: Forty cents. But you get the coin back when you take your things out. Right, and the tennis courts are round here to the left. M: Hum. And we can play for an hour at a time? W: You can take the courts for thirty minutes or an hour. But you can carry on playing until the next player arrives. M: Of course. What about care or bar? W: Yes, we have a club room which serves drink and food behind the reception. The club room is open until 11 o’clock. But all players must leave the courts by 10 o’clock. M: Hum. That seems very good. Thank you very much for showing us around. W: Pleasure. Q. 19. What members of the club are required to do? Q. 20.Which of the following details about the changing rooms is NOT correct? Q. 21.How tong can members play according to the club’s rules? Q. 22.Which of the following details is NOT correct? Register when they arrive. Bring up to three guests. Register their guests. Showing membership cards on arrival.

So long as the Dalai Lama can give up his divisive stand and admit that Tibet is an inalienable part of China．the central government is willing to hold talks at any time with him. The Dalai Lama is warmly welcome to return to the embrace of the motherland at an early date and do some work that is conducive to maintaining the motherland’s unification，the national unity, as well as the affluent and happy lives of the Tibetan people.

It was the worst tragedy in maritime history, six times more deadly than the Titanic. When the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff was hit by torpedoes fired from a Russian submarine in the final winter of World War Ⅱ, more than 10,000 people--mostly women, children and old people fleeing the final Red Army push into Nazi Germany--were packed aboard. An ice storm had turned the decks into frozen sheets that sent hundreds of families sliding into the sea as the ship tilted and began to go down. Others desperately tried to put lifeboats down. Some who succeeded fought off those in the water who had the strength to try to claw their way aboard. Most people froze immediately. “I’ll never forget the screams,“ says Christa Ntitzmann, 87, one of the 1,200 survivors. She recalls watching the ship, brightly lit, slipping into its dark grave—and into seeming nothingness, rarely mentioned for more than half a century. Now Germany’s Nobel Prize-winning author Guenter Grass has revived the memory of the 9,000 dead, including more than 4,000 children--with his latest novel Crab Walk, published last month. The book, which will be out in English next year, doesn’t dwell on the sinking; its heroine is a pregnant young woman who survives the catastrophe only to say later. “Nobody wanted to hear about it, not here in the West (of Germany) and not at all in the East. “ The reason was obvious. As Grass put it in a recent interview with the weekly Die Woche: “Because the crimes we Germans are responsible for were and are so dominant, we didn’t have the energy left to tell of our own sufferings. “ The long silence about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was probably unavoidable--and necessary. By unreservedly owning up to their country’s monstrous crimes in the Second World War, Germans have managed to win acceptance abroad, marginalize the neo-Nazis at home and make peace with their neighbors. Today’s unified Germany is more prosperous and stable than at any time in its long, troubled history. For that, a half century of willful forgetting about painful memories like the German Titanic was perhaps a reasonable price to pay. But even the most politically correct Germans believe that they’ve now earned the right to discuss the full historical record. Not to equate German suffering with that of its victims, but simply to acknowledge a terrible tragedy.

Recent research has claimed that an excess of positive ions in the air can have an ill effect on people’s physical or psychological health. What are positive ions? Well, the air is full of ions, electrically charged particles, and generally there is a rough balance between the positive and the negative charged. But sometimes this balance becomes disturbed and a larger proportion of positive ions are found. This happens naturally before thunderstorm, earthquakes when winds such as the Mistral, Hamsin or Sharav are blowing in certain countries. Or it can be caused by a build-up of static electricity indoors from carpets or clothing made of man-made fibres, or from TV sets, duplicators or computer display screens. When a large number of positive ions are present in the air many people experience unpleasant effects such as headaches, fatigue, irritability, and some particularly sensitive people suffer nausea or even mental disturbance. Animals are also affected, particularly before earthquakes, snakes have been observed to come out of hibernation, rats to flee from their burrows, dogs howl and cats jump about unaccountably. This has led the U. S. Geographical Survey to fund a network of volunteers to watch animals in an effort to foresee such disasters before they hit vulnerable areas such as California. Conversely, when large numbers of negative ions are present, then people have a feeling of well-being. Natural conditions that produce these large amounts are near the sea, close to waterfalls or fountains, or in any place where water is sprayed, or forms a spray. This probably accounts for the beneficial effect of a holiday by the sea, or in the mountains with tumbling streams or waterfalls. To increase the supply of negative ions indoors, some scientists recommend the use of ionisers: small portable machines, which generate negative ions. They claim that ionisers not only clean and refresh the air but also improve the health of people sensitive to excess positive ions. Of course, there are the detractors, other scientists, who dismiss such claims and are skeptical about negative/ positive ion research. Therefore people can only make up their own minds by observing the effects on themselves, or on others, of a negative rich or poor environment. After all it is debatable whether depending on seismic readings to anticipate earthquakes is more effective than watching the cat.

糊涂一词在字典中的定义是：愚蠢的，傻的，荒谬的。我知道很多人都不想被人看作愚笨。所以他们在生活中始终一脸严肃，而这在本质上才是真正的愚笨。人无完人，我重申一次：没有人是完美的。我不在乎一个人学识多深，身材多好，外表多美，思想多浅薄，生活多俭朴，多富有，等等……人无完人!那么，为什么要伪装成我们实际上本不是的呢?人生何其短暂……你不会知道这美好的征程何时会结束。那么，为什么要浪费一分一秒，让自己变得棱角分明?这里引用索萨(Souza)的话，我觉得她一语中的，是人生的一大秘方：“跳舞吧，就像没有人欣赏一样；去爱吧，就像没有受到伤害一样；唱歌吧，就像没有人倾听一样；生活吧，就像今天是最后一天一样。”

W: Good evening, sir. Can I help you? M: Yes. I think I left my digital camera on the train from London earlier today. W: Did you, sir? Oh, well, in that case, we’d better fill in a Lost Property Form. Can you tell me your name? M: Yes, it’s Mark Adams. W: Ok. You address? You live in Britain or in the States? How long are you staying? M: Oh, I’ve still got a few months in Britain. W: Ok. Then can you give me your address here? M: Right. It is 18 Linden Drive, Laten Essex. Do you want the phone number? W: Yes, I’d better have that too. M: Ok. 080945233. W: Thanks. And you say it was a digital camera. What make and model? M: It’s Samsung J302. At 4:45 this afternoon. W: Well then, if we find it, sir, shall we phone you or write to you? M: No, I think I will drop in the day after tomorrow to check out. W: Right you’re, sir. We’ll do our best. Q. 27. Which of the following is NOT needed for the Lost Property Form? Q. 28.Where does the man come from? Q. 29.What will Mark Adams do the day after tomorrow? Q. 30.Which of the following is NOT correct according to the passage? Name. Nationality. Address. Phone number.

Even a self-confident person needs to practice before making a speech in public.

If the old maxim that the customer is always right still has meaning, then the airlines that ply the world’s busiest air route between London and Paris have a fight on their hands. The Eurostar train service linking the UK and French capitals via the Channel Tunnel is winning customers in increasing numbers. In late May, it carried its one millionth passengers, having run only a limited service between London, Paris and Brussels since November 1994, starting with two trains a day in each direction to Paris and Brussels. By 1997, the company believes that it will be carrying ten million passengers a year, and continue to grow from there. From July, Eurostar steps its service to nine trains each way between London and Paris, and five between London and Brussels. Each train carries almost 800 passengers, 210 of them in first class. The airlines estimate that they will initially lose around 15%- 20% of their London-Paris traffic to the railways once Eurostar starts a full service later this year (1995), with 15 trains a day each way. A similar service will start to Brussels. The damage will be limited, however, the airlines believe, with passenger numbers returning to previous levels within two to three years. In the short term, the damage caused by the 1 million people-levels traveling between London and Paris and Brussels on Eurostar trains means that some air services are already suffering. Some of the major carriers say that their passenger numbers are down by less than 5% and point to their rivals--Particularly Air France--as having suffered the problems. On the Brussels route, the railway company had less success, and the airlines report anything from around a 5% drop to no visible decline in traffic. The airlines’ optimism on returning traffic levels is based on historical precedent. British Midland, for example, points to its experience on Heathrow Leeds Bradford service which saw passenger numbers decrease by 15% when British Rail electrified and modernized the railway line between London and Yorkshire. Two years later, travel had risen between the two destinations to the point where the airline was carrying record numbers of passengers.

We can begin our discussion of “population as global issue“ with what most persons mean when they discuss “the population problem“: too many people on earth and a too rapid increase in the number added each year. The facts are not in dispute, it was quite right to employ the analogy that likened demographic growth to “a long, thin powder fuse that burns steadily and haltingly until it finally reaches the charge and explodes. “ To understand the current situation, which is characterized by rapid increases in population, it is necessary to understand the history of population trends. Rapid growth is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Looking back at the 8,000 years of demographic history, we find that populations have been virtually stable or growing very slightly for most of human history. For most Of our ancestors, life was hard, often nasty, and very short. There was high fertility in most places, but this was usually balanced by high mortality. For most of human history, it was seldom the case that one in ten persons would live past forty, while infancy and childhood were especially risky periods. Often, societies were in clear danger of extinction because death rates could exceed their birthrates. Thus, the population problem throughout most of history was how to prevent extinction of the human race. This pattern is important to notice. Not only does it put the current problems of demographic growth into a historical perspective, but it suggests that the cause of rapid increase in population in recent years is not a sudden enthusiasm for more children, but an improvement in the conditions that traditionally have caused high mortality. Demographic history can be divided into two major periods, a time of long, slow growth which extended from about 8,000 B. C. till approximately A. D. 1650. In the first period of some 9,600 years, the population increased from some 8 million to 500 million in 1650. Between 1650 and the present, the population has increased from 500 million to more than 4 billion. And it is estimated that by the year 2000 there will be 6.2 billion people throughout the world. One way to appreciate this dramatic difference in such abstract numbers is to reduce the time frame to something that is more manageable. Between 8,000 ]3. C and 1650, an average of only 50,000 persons was being added annually to the world’s population each year. At present, this number is added every six hours. The increase is about 80,000,000 persons annually.

Brains or beauty? Women are still in dilemma. A poll released Tuesday found 25 percent of those questioned would rather win the “America’s Next Top Model“ TV show than the Nobel Peace Prize. And although 75 percent of women interviewed said they’d be willing to shave their heads to save the life of a stranger, more than a quarter of those taking part admitted they would make their best friend fat for life, if it meant they could be thin. The poll was made for U. S. television network Oxygen targeted at young women. And more than 2,000 women aged 18-34 were surveyed for the poll. It also found that 88 percent of 18- to 34-year-old women would happily give up their cell phone, jewelry and makeup to keep a friendship. This survey proves an interesting dissection of today’s woman and how she relates her personal image with what she values in her life. As shown in several results, women today are a complex combination of altruistic and materialistic, vain and insecure, loyal and self-serving. This survey highlights the dichotomy in all of us.