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Passage 1
A typical large supermarket offers around17 000 to 20 000 items for sale and it wants to make sure that its customers seeas many of them as possible. That's why you'll only find essential goods likebread, vegetables and meat in completely different parts of the store.
Products with a high profit margin are alwaysplaced on shelves within easy reach of the customer, while lower margin itemslike sugar or flower are on the top or bottom shelves. Many people makeshopping lists before they visit supermarkets. But even so, around 60% of allsupermarket purchases are the result of decisions that are taken in the store. Forthis reason, supermarkets try to attract their customers by placing certainkinds of products next to each other.
In the UK, beer will often be found next toitems for babies because research shows that fathers of babies buy them ontheir way home from work and will buy beer at the same time. Research has alsoshown that this kind of impulse buy happens more frequently when no salesassistants are nearby. Supermarkets have made selling such a fine art thattheir customers often lose all sense of time. When interviewed, customersnormally guess they've only spent half an hour in the supermarket even whenthey have been there for over 45 minutes. But that shouldn't be too surprising.Any witty profitable supermarket knows that it should keep its clocks wellhidden.
Questions 26 to 29 are based on the passageyou have just heard.
26. Why are essential goods displayed intotally different parts of the supermarket?
27. Where are goods with a high profitmargin usually found?
28. What does the speaker say aboutsupermarket goers?
29. What shouldn't be too surprisingaccording to the speaker?
Passage 2
When Matty Sallin was working on a degreein arts and technology at university, he got an interesting assignment inelectronics class: create something for the household. He decided to create analarm clock. “Everybody has to use an alarm clock of some kind every day, andit's extremely unpleasant!” he says. He asked different people what they'd liketo wake up to instead of a noisy alarm. A lot of them said, “the smell ofbacon.” So Sallin invented a new kind of alarm clock: a wooden box with a pigface and a digital clock that uses the smell of cooking bacon rather than soundto wake someone up.
He explains, “There's no danger of burning,because I built it carefully. It uses light bulbs instead of a flame forcooking and turns off automatically after ten minutes.” Just a few easy steps arerequired to set the “alarm.” “What you do is put in a couple of frozen stripsthe night before,” says Sallin. Bacon is preserved, so there is no danger ofits spoiling overnight. “If you set the alarm for 8:00, it will turn on at 7:50and slow cook for ten minutes under the bulbs,” he says. “Then the bulbs turnoff and a fan blows the smell out through the nose of the pig. So instead of analarm, you smell yourself awake,” says Sallin. “Then you can open the door onthe side and pull the bacon out and eat it.”
Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passageyou have just heard.
30. What was Matty Sallin doing when hecreated an alarm clock?
31. What did Matty Sallin do before makingthe new type of alarm clock?
32. What makes the newly invented alarmclock so unique?
Passage 3
Most people feel lonely sometimes, but itusually only lasts between a few minutes and a few hours. For some people,though, loneliness can last for years. Psychologists are studying this complexphenomenon and have identified three different types of loneliness.
The first kind of loneliness is temporary. Itusually disappears quickly and does not require any special attention. Thesecond kind, situational loneliness, is a natural result of a particularsituation, for example, a divorce or moving to a new place.
Although this kind of loneliness can causephysical problems, it usually does not last for more than a year. Unlike thesecond type, the third kind of loneliness usually lasts more than two years andhas no specific cause. People who experience habitual loneliness have problemssocializing and becoming close to others. Unfortunately, many of them thinkthere is little or nothing they can do about it. Psychologists agree that oneimportant factor in loneliness is a person's social contacts, for example,friends, family members, etc. We depend on various people for differentreasons. For instance, our families give us emotional support and our friendsshare similar interests and activities. However, psychologists have found thatthe number of social contacts we have is not the only reason for loneliness. Itis more important how many social contacts we think or expect we should have. Inother words, though lonely people may have many social contacts, they sometimesfeel they should have more. They question their own popularity.
Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passageyou have just heard.
33. What does the speaker say aboutsituational loneliness?
34. What problem will people have if theyexperience habitual loneliness?
35.Why do some people suffer loneliness according to psychologists?
聽力填空
There was a time when any personalinformation that was gathered about us was typed on a piece of paper and lockedaway in a file cabinet. It could remain there for years and, often forgotten,never reach the outside world.
Things have done a complete about-facesince then. Responsible for the change has been the astonishingly swiftdevelopment in recent years of the computer. Today, any data that is collectedabout us in one place or another—and for one reason or another—can be stored ina computer bank.
It can then be easily passed to othercomputer banks. They are owned by individuals and by private businesses andcorporations, lending institutions, direct mailing and telemarketing firms, creditbureaus, credit card companies, and government agencies at the local, state,and federal level.
Agrowing number of Americans are seeing the accumulation and distribution ofcomputerized data as a frightening invasion of their privacy. Surveys show thatthe number of worried Americans has been steadily growing over the years as thecomputer becomes increasingly efficient, easier to operate, and less costly topurchase and maintain. In 1970, a national survey showed that 37 percent of thepeople questioned felt their privacy was being invaded. Seven years later, 47percent expressed the same worry. A recent survey by a credit bureau revealedthat the number of alarmed citizens had soared up to 76 percent.
