M: Then how long do I have to wait till the signal returns to normal?
W: Well, a couple more days. I tell you what, I will give your feedback to our support center and if the problem still exists after two days, please give us a call and we will help you solve it.
M: Ok, thanks for your help and I really hope I won’t need to call you again for that.
Questions 23 to 25 are based on the conversation you have just heard.
23: Where could this conversation probably take place?
24: What is the man’s problem?
25: According to the woman, what could be the problem?
Section B
Directions: In this section, you will hear 3 short passages. At the end of each passage, you will hear some questions. Both the passage and the questions will be spoken only once. After you hear a question, you must choose the best answer from the four choices marked A), B), C) and D). Then mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
The diner, or what we call dining car, is only a humble restaurant, but it has a special place in American life. Diners appear in our novels, plays, poems, and movies. Many artists have used diners as scenes for their paintings. Why are diners so fascinating to us? The diner attracts many different kinds of people. It is a heaven for lonely truck drivers far away from home. Construction workers learn about new jobs in distant cities. Traveling salesman exchange gossip with one another. Teenagers sit in their booths, sipping cokes and eating hamburgers. The people who work in diners are also interesting. Where did the new waitress come from? Will she remain here or will she suddenly leave one day, as the last one did? And is the short-order cook really an escaped convict, fleeing from the law? Everyone comes to the diner for a different reason. Some want to work there, and some want to eat there. Some stay for years, and others stay only for a few minutes. But, for all of them, the diner is a bright, warm stopover between the endless stretches of the open road.
Questions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
26: What do diners here stand for?
27: What kind of clients do diners target?
28: Why do truck drivers like diners?
Passage Two
To be a good teacher, you need some of the gifts of a good actor — the key point is that you must know how to hold the attention and interest of your audience. Watch a good teacher, and you will see that he does not sit motionless before his class: he stands the whole time while teaching; he walks about, using his arms, hands and fingers to help him in his explanations, and his face to express feelings. Listen to him, and you will hear the loudness, the quality and the musical note of his voice always changing according to what he is talking about. However, all this doesn’t mean that he will indeed be able to act well on the stage, for there are very important differences between the teacher’s work and the actor’s. The actor has to speak words which he has learnt by heart; he has to repeat exactly the same words each time he plays a certain part. What he has to do is to make all these carefully learnt words and actions seem natural on the stage. A good teacher works in quite a different way. His audience takes an active part in his play; they ask and answer questions, they obey orders, and if they don’t understand something, they say so. The teacher therefore has to suit his act to the need of his audience, which is his class. He cannot learn his part by heart, but must invent it as he goes along.
Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.
29: What topic does this text mainly deal with?
30: In what way is a teacher’s work different from an actor’s?
31: What is the main difference between students in class and audiences in theaters?
Passage Three
When someone says, “Well, I guess I’ll have to go and face the music”, it does not mean he is planning to go to a concert. It is something far less pleasant, like being called in by your boss to explain why you did this or that. Sour music, indeed, but it has to be faced. The phrase “to face the music” is familiar to every American, young and old. It is at least 100 years old. Where did the expression come from? The first information came from the American writer James Fenimore Cooper. He said ―in 1851― that the expression was first used by actors while waiting in the wings to go on stage. After they got their cue to go on, they often said, “It’s time to go to face the music”. And that is exactly what they did ―face the orchestra which was just below the stage.
