Passage Two
The number of speakers of English in Shakespeare's time is estimated to have been about five million. Today it is estimated that some 300 million people speak it as a native language, mainly in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In addition to the standard varieties of English found in these areas, there are a great many regional and social varieties of the language as well as various levels of usage that are employed both in its spoken and written forms. In fact, [30]it is impossible to estimate the number of people in the world who have acquired an adequate working knowledge of English in addition to their own language. The purpose for English learning and the situations in which such learning takes place are so varied that it is difficult to explain and still more difficult to judge what forms an adequate working knowledge for each situation.
The main reason for the widespread demand for English is its present importance as a world language. Besides serving the indefinite needs of its native speakers, English is a language in which some of important works in science, technology and other fields are being produced, and not always by native speakers. It is widely used for such purposes as airport communications, international conferences, and the spread of information over the radio and television networks of many nations. It is a language of wider communication for a number of developing countries, especially former British colonies. [31]Many of these countries have multilingual populations and need a language for internal communication in such matters as government, commerce, industry, law and education as well as for international communication and for entrance to the scientific and technological developments in the West.

答案解析：
29. What is the speaker mainly talking about?
[B]解析：主旨題。瀏覽各題選項，關鍵詞language，English提示短文內容與“英語”這門語言有關。通過本文多次出現的English，language，world，wide-spread，importance，widely used等關鍵詞可知，只有選項B完整地概括了本文的主旨，故B正確。
30. According to the passage, what is hard to estimate about English?
[B]解析：細節題。考點是一個結構比較復雜的長句，形式主語it以及真實主語部分的定語從句都會給理解帶來難度。但B基本上是原文內容的照搬，聽到即能作答。符合“聽到什么選什么”的原則。注意長句的聽力理解技巧是抓結構。
31. Why do some former British colonies widely use English?
[D]解析：細節題。短文提到，這些國家（許多發展中國家和前英國殖民地國家）的人口是多語型的，這樣就需要在某些事務的內部交流上使用一種共同語言。D基本上是照搬原文，故正確。