Section B
Directions: In this section, you will hear3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you willhear some questions. Boththe passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After youhear aquestion, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B),C), andD).Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 1with a singleline through the centre.
Passage One
Most American college students need to be efficient readers. This is necessary because full-time students probably have to read several hundred pages every week. They don't have timeto read a chapter three or four times. They need to extract as much information as possiblefrom the first or second reading.
An extraordinarily important study skill is knowing how to mark a book. Students mark the mainideas and important details with a pen or pencil, yellow or blue or orange. Some students marknew vocabulary in a different color. Most students write questions or short notes in themargins. Marking a book is a useful skill, but it's important to do it right. First, read a chapterwith one pen in your hand and others next to you on the desk. Second, read a wholeparagraph before you mark anything. Don't mark too much. Usually you will mark about 10% ofa passage. Third, decide on your own system for marking. For example, maybe you will markmain ideas in yellow, important details in blue and new words in orange. Maybe you will putquestion marks in the margin when you don't understand something and before an exam.Instead, you just need to review your marks and you can save a lot of time.
16. What should American college students do to cope with their heavy reading assignments?
17. What suggestion does the speaker give about marking a textbook?
18. How should students prepare for an exam according to the speaker?
Passage Two
The thought of having no sleep for 24 hours or more isn't a pleasant one for most people. Theamount of sleep that each person needs varies. In general, each of us needs about 8 hours ofsleep each day to keep us healthy and happy. Some people, however, can get by with just a fewhours of sleep at night.
It doesn't matter when or how much a person sleeps. But everyone needs some rest to stayalive. Few doctors would have thought that there might be an exception to this. Sleep is, afterall, a very basic need. But a man named Al Herpin turned out to be a real exception, forsupposedly, he never slept!
Al Herpin was 90 years old when doctors came to his home in New Jersy. They hoped tochallenge the claim that he never slept. But they were surprised. Though they watched himevery hour of the day, they never saw Herpin sleeping. He did not even own a bed. He neverneeded one.
The closest that Herpin came to resting was to sit in a rocking chair and read a half dozennewspapers. His doctors were puzzled by the strange case of permanent sleeplessness.Herpin offered the only clue to his condition. He remembered some talk about his mother havingbeen injured several days before he had been born. Herpin died at the age of 94, never, itseems, having slept at all.
19. What is taken for granted by most people?
20. What do doctors think of Al Herpin's case?
21. What could have accounted for Al Herpin's sleeplessness?
Passage Three
Hetty Green was a very spoiled, only child. She was born in Massachusetts USA in 1835. Herfather was a millionaire businessman. Her mother was often ill, and so from the age of two herfather took her with him to work and taught her about stocks and shares. At the age of six shestarted reading the daily financial newspapers and opened her own bank account. Her fatherdied when she was 21 and she inherited 7.5 million dollars. She went to New York and investedon Wall Street. Hetty saved every penny, eating in the cheapest restaurants for 15 cents. Shebecame one of the richest and most hated women in the world. At 33 she married EdwardGreen, a multi-millionaire, and had two children, Ned and Sylvia.
Hetty’s meanness was well-known. She always argued about prices in shops. She walked to thelocal grocery store to buy broken biscuits which were much cheaper, and to get a free bone forher much loved dog. Once she lost a two-cent stamp and spent the night looking for it. Shenever bought clothes and always wore the same long, ragged black skirt. Worst of all, when herson, Ned, fell and injured his knee, she refused to pay for a doctor and spent hours looking forfree medical help. In the end Ned lost his leg. When she died in 1916 she left her children 100million dollars. Her daughter built a hospital with her money.
22. What do we learn about Hetty Green as a child?
23. How did Hetty Green become rich overnight?
24. Why was Hetty Green much hated?
25. What do we learn about Hetty's daughter?
