Passage Two
Many people think that sitting is easier on their backs than standing or lifting. Not true. People whose jobs require them to sit for long periods of time suffer as much from back pain as people who lift all day long. Many world-class researchers believe that the huge increase in back pain over the past couple of decades – and it is huge – has a lot to do with the fact that more and more of us are spending our work days in chairs. A lot of people have the notion that, if their back pain gets bad enough, they can always resort to surgery. Nothing could be further from the truth. The amount of pain someone has has very little to do with whether or not he or she would benefit from surgery. One British researcher has estimated that for every 10,000 people who experience back pain, only four need surgery. Not very many years ago, back pain patients were routinely put to bed, sometimes for weeks or months. No longer. Two or three days of bed-rest is now the norm. After that, people are advised to return to their normal activities, gradually if necessary. The reasons for the 180°shift are interesting. For starters, if you stay in bed, your muscle strength can decline by as much as three percent a day.
Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
29. What misunderstanding about back pain do people hold in the beginning?
30. What role does surgery play in curing back pain?
31. Why don’t back pain patients get put to bed for more than two or three days?
Passage Three
No one knows who made the first ice cream. Some people think that water ices and milk ices may have been made by the Chinese between three thousand and four thousand years ago. In time, the dish reached India. The Indians, in turn, may have passed on the secret to the Arabs and the Persians. The Persians called their dish sharbat, from which our word sherbet comes. Marco Polo, an Italian who traveled widely in the thirteenth century, noted that he found the Chinese had long been making ices out of fruit juices and milk. From the fourteenth century on, ices became popular, first in Venice and then throughout Italy. In 1533, when Catherine de Medici left Italy to marry the future Kind Henry Ⅱof France, she took her cooks with her. They made desserts the French had never tasted before. Among them was “ice cream”. For each day of the wedding festivities Catherine’s cooks prepared a different flavor of her favorite dessert - “ice cream”. At first ice cream was a luxury in France. Only rich people had the money to buy it. Then, in 1660, a young man from Sicily, Francisco Procopio, arrived in Paris. He opened a shop that sold ice cream at prices people could afford. Procopio’s “ice cream parlor” became so popular that other shops were opened. About 1640, King CharlesⅠintroduced ice cream to England. He had heard it was the rage in Italy and France. He served ice cream for dessert at a banquet. The surprise dish was a great success. The king ordered his cook to keep the recipe for ice cream a secret. Charles felt that only royalty should be served the dessert. But the secret soon leaked out. Ice cream quickly became the rage in England too.
Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
32. What is the passage mainly about?
33. According to the passage, who made the first ice cream?
34. When did ice cream become popular in Italy?
35. Why did Charles order his cook to keep the recipe for ice cream a secret?
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