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Passage One
Good afternoon. This is Diane Martinet with the midday news on KALF. (16)Fires in California continue to burn out of control, and several small towns in the forests near San Francisco are still in danger. One of the greatest dangers to the 500 firefighters, however, comes not from the fires, but from poison plants in the forest. (17)Many firefighters have got skin problems after touching the plants, and at least three have had to go to the hospital for treatment for their skin problems.
NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, today announced in Florida that the next space shuttle mission has been canceled. The mission was scheduled for an 11:30 a.m. takeoff on Tuesday. (18)However, the flight has been canceled because of problems with the spaceship’s central computer system. NASA technicians noticed the computer problems during last-minute checks.
Seven teenager computer specialists have been arrested by police in New Jersey. (19) After taking an advanced computer course at school, the seven boys, all from Princeton, New Jersey, illegally obtain top-secret information from government computers in Washington. They also started to use their home computers to access telephone networks.
In New York, the value of the dollars stayed the same today. But in Tokyo, the dollar fell dramatically. At the end of the day, it was worth 83 yen, compared to 88 yen yesterday.
16. What does the midday news on KALF say about fires in California?
17. What do we learn about many of the firefighters?
18. What do we learn from the news about the space shuttle mission?
19. What do we learn about the seven boys in New Jersey?
Passage Two
(20) When you live in an apartment building, where only wall separates you from your neighbors, everyone needs to be considerate of each other. That’s not what happened in my apartment building. Someone was always leaving the clothes in the washers and dryers in the laundry room. I got tired of running up and down the stairs to see if the clothes had been removed，so I could start my own one. Obviously someone else got tired, too. (21)Because one day, someone took clothes from the washer and dryer，and dumped them in the corner. This act started a battle of letters posted on the wall of the laundry room. The first letter was from Mindy Lance who was really angry that her clothes had been removed from the washer and dryer, and dumped. She then threatened to dump everybody else's clothes she herself found in the washer and dryer. Mindy Lance’s letter enraged other residents and they posted the letters to her. Eventually, Mindy began to behave properly but hard feelings remained. (22)The problem couldn't have been resolved better. If residents had informed the building manager> she then could inform all residents that the clothes should be removed from the washers and dryers within 50 minutes after their wash is done. Those who refuse to obey might not have their leases renew. That could be a fare consent solution. Neighbor problems may sometimes seem inevitable, but it’s important to resolve them fairly.
20. What does the speaker think residents in an apartment building need to be?
21. What started a battle of letters in the laundry C) room?
22.What does the speaker think might be a better way to resolve the problem?
Passage Three
In today’s class, we'll discuss Toni Morrison's novel Beloved. As I’m sure you all know, (23)Morrison is both a popular and highly respected author and it’s not easy to be both. Born in 1931, Morrison has written some of the most touching and intelligent works on the African-American experience ever written by anyone. And yet to call her an African-American writer doesn’t seem to do her justice. In many ways, she’s simply an American writer and certainly one of the best. Beloved is a truly remarkable work. It was recommended for nearly every nature literary class, including the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it in fact won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1988. (24) Morrison herself is distinguished for having won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993. What makes Beloved unique is the skillful sure way in which Morrison blends intensely personal storytelling and American history, racial themes and gender themes, the experience of blacks with the experience of all people everywhere, the down-to-earth reality of slavery with the sense of mysterious spirituality. We will be paying special attention to these themes as we discuss this work and I’m particularly interested in your views on the relative importance of grace and gender in this book. (25)Is it more important that Sethe, the main character is black, or that she is a woman? Which contributes more to her being? What does Morrison tell us about both?
23. What do we learn about Toni Morrison?
24. What honor did Toni Morrison receive in 1993?
25. What does the speaker tell us about Sethe, the main character, in Morrison’s novel Beloved"!
