PART C
Directions: You will hear three dialogues or monologues. Before listening to each one, you will have 5 seconds to read each of the questions which accompany it. While listening, answer each question by choosing A, B, C or D. After listening, you will have 10 seconds to check your answer to each question. You will hear each piece ONLY ONCE.
听力原文: Poe was born in Boston in 1809. He attended the University of Virginia, where he was a distinguished student and developed his lifelong taste for liquor. Afterward, he enlisted in the U. S. Army and rose to the rank of sergeant major. He was expelled from West Point after a year, loosing his hopes of becoming a career officer.
Poe started publishing his poetry and stories in the early 1830s and pursued a career in journalism to ensure some sort of financial security. In 1843, he published several works, including The Tell-Tale Heart and The Gold Bug which won a $100 prize in a contest sponsored by the Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper. The story made Poe famous with the fiction reading public. His poem "The Raven" which appeared in the New York Evening Mirror in January 1845, was a critical and commercial success. Along with "To Helen" and "Annabel Lee", "The Raven' is considered one of Poe's finest poems. The Fall of the House of Usher and The Murders in the Rue Morgue are arguably two of his best short stories. But both Poe and his wile Virginia's poor health kept the pair in financial and emotional distress. Poe died in 1849.
When did Poe start publishing his poetry and stories and pursue a career in journalism?
A. In the early 1810s.
B. In the early 1820s.
C. In the early 1830s.
D. In the early 1840s.
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Why didn't Miss Smith continue her study after she finished school?
A. She did not like to study.
B. She had to work to support her family.
C. A friend of his father's offered her a job.
D. Her father did not like her to study art.
听力原文: Japanese people, who never miss a chance to be photographed, were lining up to get their picture on a postage stamp. Vanity stamps that feature personal photographs went on sale for the first time in Japan as part of an international postage stamp exhibition. The customer's photo is taken with a digital camera and then printed on stamp sheets, a process that takes about five minutes. Sold in a sheet of 10 stamps for $8.80, little more than the cost of lunch in Tokyo, each stamp features a different scene from traditional Tokyo -- along with the photo. The stamps can be used normally to mail a letter, and postal officials hope they will help promote interest in letter writing in the Internet age. "Certainly E-mail is a useful method of communication, but letters are fun in a different way," said an official in the Posts Ministry. "We want to show young people that letters can be fun too." While similar stamp sheets debuted in Australia in 1999 and are now sold in some 12 nations and territories l Japan's fondness for commemorative photos is likely to make them especially popular here. Indeed, officials had prepared 1,000 sheets but they were sold out in less than 30 minutes. Although the stamps are currently only available as a special service during the exhibition, postal officials said they might start selling them on a regular basis in the future.
What does each vanity stamp cost?
A. $8.80.
B. $0.88.
C. $10.
D. $5.
I inherited my one litmus test from my father, Jim Alter, who flew 33 harrowing missions over Nazi Germany during World War 11. My father is not just a veteran who by all odds should not have survived. He is a true patriot. His litmus test is the proposal to amend the Constitution to ban flag burning, which will come up for a vote next week in the U. S. Senate. For dad—and me—any member of Congress who supports amending the Bill of Rights for the first time in the history of this country for a nonproblem like flag burning is showing serious disrespect for our Constitution and for the values for which brave Americans gave their lives. Such disrespect is a much more serious threat than the random idiots who once every decade or so try (often unsuccessfully) to burn a flag.
Our understandable outrage at flag burning shouldn't turn our brains to mush. "I feel the same sense of outrage, but I would not amend that great shield of democracy (the Constitution) to hammer a few miscreants," Colin Powell said when the issue last came up (his position has not changed). "The flag will be flying proudly long after they have slunk away." Powell argues that a constitutional ban on flag burning is a sign of weakness and fear.
John Glenn, another of the thousands of combat veterans against the amendment (they have banded together in a group called Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights), notes that "those 10 amendments we call the Bill of Rights have never been changed or altered by one iota, not by one word, not a single time in all of American history. There was not a single change during any of our foreign wars, and not during recessions or depressions or panics. Not a single change when we were going through times of great emotion and anger like the Vietnam era, when flag after flag was burned or desecrated. There is only one way to weaken our nation. The way to weaken our nation would be to erode the freedom that we all share."
Actually, even during the Vietnam War, flag burning was rare. By one count, there have been only 45 such incidents in 200 years, and fewer than half a dozen since it was outlawed in 1989. Should the Constitution be amended, however, the incidence of flag burning is expected to surge as a form. of civil disobedience. What began as a phony issue designed to prove patriotism (usually on the part of those who never served, the primary sponsors) could become a real concern.
The flag-burning amendment, which already passed the House, is apparently just short of the 67 needed in the Senate. With one or two absences, the amendment would be approved. It would then go to the states for ratification, where its chances for approval appear good.
Senators afraid of being seen as soft on flag burners should just adopt the Hillary Clinton dodge: support for a statute, but not an amendment. Another law is a dopey idea (an earlier one was struck down by the Supreme Court), but it's politically safe and better than perverting the Constitution.
To make matters worse, the amendment is vaguely worded, which led to fatuous debate in the Senate over whether a woman wearing a skimpy bathing suit patterned with stars and stripes was guilty of desecration. Bloggers wondered the same thing about President Bush's new habit of autographing flags when he shakes hands on rope lines. Unconstitutional? With a war on and a hundred other pressing problems, it's nice to see our elected representatives focused on what really counts.
The usual litmus tests-abortion, gun control, Iraq-shouldn't be. Reasonable and sincere people can disagree, w
A. The effectiveness of litmus test is greatly undermined by its failure to judge politicians on a variety of positions.
B. It's unfair to exclude a politician who fails a certain litmus test from the presidency.
Current litmus tests like abortion or gun control are not reliable indicators of public opinions.
D. Some specific litmus tests on certain issues axe fundamental in shaping people' s judgment of politicians.
Nobody much likes tourists. They have a reputation for being loud, rude and disruptive. They are blamed for everything from prostitution to environmental degradation. "They want to have a good time, they are not well informed and want a short 'wow' factor," says Xavier Font, professor of tourism management at Britain's Leeds Metropolitan University. "Many locals see tourists as stupid."
Yet tourism may in fact be the true salvation of humankind's cultural heritage. After all, it's the main countervailing force to internationalization—that is, the global blah of TV, T shirts, tract housing, fast-food chains, business suits, malls and brand names. Internationalization has, in practice, been a process of everyone's coming to live and act the same; the Japanese gave up their kimonos because they were considered "unmodern". But tourists are looking for something old and something different—and they'll pay for it.
The effect can be seen across the globe, rescuing traditional cities and cultures from the brink of extinction. Just five years ago the indigenous community of the Cayapas lived in little concrete houses with television sets, having moved from file banks of the Canande River in northwestern Ecuador to settle alongside the highway. They had nearly all abandoned the traditional hand-woven garb of their ancestors, and instead donned Nikes. "That's what progress meant to them," says Pedro Armend riz, a tourism and development-planning engineer based in Quito. "It meant wearing tennis shoes and jeans, and having a TV so all the women could watch their soap operas every day."
Thanks to an influx of tourists, things have recently changed for the Cayapas. With visitors coming in search of community, or ethnic, tourism—to eat, work and often even live with the indigenous people—the Cayapas are embracing the nearly forgotten culture of their ancestors. Once again, they are wearing traditional clothes, building old-style. homes and using traditional agricultural techniques. "They have become a sustainable community microbusiness, with a preservationist conscience, because they have understood that their indigenous roots are what interest tourists," says Amend riz. "It makes them value their ancestral culture."
The situation is similar throughout Latin America, where interest in cultural and ecological tourism has been on the rise in recent years. Tourism to Guatemala, for example, with its Mayan heritage, lush rain forests and lakes surrounded by volcanoes, has doubled in the past decade to nearly 2 million foreign visitors a year. Their dollars have kept young indigenous women interested in learning the specialized craft of weaving on the Mayans' backstrap looms, says Alejandrina Silva, head of the Guatemalan Tourism Ministry's Cultural Heritage Office. "Indigenous artisanry forms an important part of the Guatemalan touristic product," she says. "If this were not the case, such crafts could die off and the younger generations would have to look for new trades that would allow them to survive."
Indeed, the souvenir trade—often maligned for promoting kitsch—can almost single-handedly keep fading cultures alive. In the Tatra National Park in Zakopane, in southern Poland, the highlander tradition of making smoked sheep cheese—dying out among the younger generation—has earned a new lease on life thanks to tourists' desire for unforgettable souvenirs. Highlanders make the cheese, or oscypek, in theft huts, forming it by hand and smoking it over a fire. Visitors feel free to chat with the locals as they watch, have a taste of the cheese and a glass of fresh goat's milk; most leave some money. They also snatch up the traditional clothing, wool hats, slippers and jackets—as well as sheep and goat cheese—on sale all over the city.
Tourism is not just about preserving old cultures; it can also influence modem ones. Catering to tourist whims provides a quick education for fledgling ent
A. being loud, rude and disruptive.
B. saving humankind's cultural heritage.
C. prostitution.
D. environmental degradation.