1998 年10 月听力文字_第2页

28. A: Our litter brothers are so different that I was afraid they wouldn’t like each other at
first.
B: They really hit it off right away, didn’t they?
What can be inferred about the speakers’ brothers?
29. A: Is Sally still around?

I was going to ask her if she wanted to walk to class with me.
B: I just saw her in the lobby. You may still be able to catch her.
What does the woman imply?
30. A: I am really glad our club decided to raise money for the children’s hospital and most
the people we’d phoned seemed happy to contribute.
B: Yeah, I agree! That we’ve gone through all the numbers on our list now, so I
guess we can call it a day.
What can be inferred about the women?

Part B
Hi, Mark! How is it going?
Well, not so great.
What’s wrong?
I’ve got a big problem with the poetry course that’s required for my major.
Is that all filled up?
No, no, there is plenty room, but there is a prerequisite. I’ve got to take an introduction
to poetry before I can take the special course in poets of the 1960s and the introductory
courses only offered in the evenings.
You don’t like evening classes?
No, that’s not the point. I work in the cafeteria every evening. I need the money to pay
my tuition.
Can you ask someone that work to switch hours with you? Maybe you could just switch
a couple of evenings, since the course probably only meets two times a week.
I wish I could. My boss just did me a favor by putting me on evenings, and he’ll hit the
ceiling if I ask to change again.
Wait a minute! I have an idea. Have you checked the courses over at the community
college? They might offer introductory poetry course during the day.
Hey! That’s a great idea. I’m free this afternoon. I think I’ll go over and check it out.
Yeah, their courses are actually cheaper and you can transfer the credits over here.
Thanks for the advice, Linda. I’ll let you know what happens.
Sure, Mark! Good luck!
Oh, while you are there, can you find out when their pool is open?
No problem!
31. What prevents the man from taking the poets of the 1960s class?
32. What problem does the man have with the introduction to poetry class?
33. Why doesn’t the man want to change his work schedule?
34. Why does the man want to take a class at the community college?
Listen to part of a radio interview between a reporter and a climatologist.
Doctor White, we recently learned that a large piece of the Larsen ice shelf in Western
Antarctica broke off in early January. Could you please tell us exactly what happened?
I’d be happy to. The piece that broke off was over a thousand square miles in area.
More recently and quite alarming to scientists is that the forty-mile crack, some thirty feet
wide in places has torn through the ice shelf.
I understand that the Scientific Community is quite concerned. What is the
significance of these events?
Well, some scientists believe that this is a clear sign of global warming. Back in 1978,
some American researchers predicted that Antarctica would show early signs of global
warming due to the green house effect—you know, the process of heat been trapped at
the surface of the earth by the atmosphere.
But couldn’t crumbling ice shelves also be a result of the unusual weather Antarctica
itself has experienced lately?
That’s certainly possible. But you have to remember that over the past thousands of
years, ice shelves have been through a lot of weather changes without breaking up.
Remember too that although ice shelves float on the ocean, they are attached to the
continent and can be as thick as a thousand feet.
I think most people know that if the ice cap over Antarctica melts, the level of the
oceans will rise. What’s sort of impact will this have?
Well, the ice shelves currently insulate the Antarctic continent from wind, which slows
down melting. But without ice shelves to cool the wind, it would be warmer than usual as
it flows over Antarctica. If the winds cause even a tenth of the continent’s ice to melt, the
world’s oceans could rise as much as thirty feet.
35. What are the speakers mainly discussing?
36. Why are the events important?
37. Why doesn’t the woman believe that weather is responsible for the recent events?
38. What would be the likely result of melting of the ice cap?

Part C
Questions 39- 41 Listen to part of a talk in a biology class.
Before moving onto a new topic, I want to finish up our unit on a rag nit， by looking at
what may seem a very unusual aspect of spider behavior—a species where the young
spiders actually consume the body of their mother. Unlike most other spiders, this
species lays one and only one-clutch of forty eggs in a lifetime.
The young spiders hatch in mid-spring or early summer inside a nest of eucalyptus
leaves. Their mother spends the warm summer months bringing home large insects,
often ten times of weight for meals. The catch is always significantly more than her
young spiders can eat. So the mother fattens herself up by this extra prey and stores the
nutrients in her extra unfertilized eggs. As the weather turns cooler, there are fewer
insect preys to hunt. That is when the nutrients store in those extra eggs begin to seep
into the mother’s blood stream. So, when there are no more insects to feed to the young
spiders, they attach themselves to the mother’s leg joints and draw nourishment by
sucking the nutrient-rich blood. After several weeks, the mother is depleted of all
nutrients and she dies.
But then, how do the young get nourishment? They start to feed on one another.
Now, if you recall our discussion of Darwin, you’ll see the evolutionary value of this.
Only the strongest spiders of the clutch will survive this cannibalism. And the mother
spider will have ensured that her genes have an increased chance of survival through
future generations.
39. What is the talk mainly about?
40. What happens after the mother of the young spiders dies?
41. What idea of Darwin does the professor relate to the spider’s behavior?
Questions 42-46 Listen to a talk in a Mass Communications class.
Moving away from newspapers, let’s now focus on magazines. Now the first
magazine was a little periodical called the Review and it was started in London in 1704.
It looked a lot like the newspapers of the time, but in terms of its contents it was much
different. Newspapers were concerned mainly with news events but the Review focused
on important domestic issues of the day, as well as the policies of the government.
Now, in England at the time, people could still be thrown in jail for publishing articles
that were critical of the king. And that is what happened to Daniel Defoe. He was the
outspoken founder of the review. Defoe actually wrote the first issue of the Review from
prison. You see, he had been arrested because of his writings that criticized the policies
of the Church of England, which was headed by the king. After his release, Defoe
continued to produce the Review and the magazine started to appear on a more frequent
schedule, about three times a week.
It didn’t take long for other magazines to start popping up. In 1709, a magazine
called the Tattler began publication. This new magazine contained a mixture of news,
poetry, political analysis and philosophical essays.
42. What is the main topic of the talk?
43. What is significant about the review?
44. According to the speaker, how was the Review different from early newspapers?
46. What does the speaker say about the Tattler?
Questions 47-50 Listen to a talk given by an art history professor.
There is an art exhibition here on campus which ties well of discussions we’ve had
about folk art. It’s an exhibition of wildlife art calendars from about a hundred years
ago. Like most other folk art, the calendar pictures were not considered to be art in their
own days. People just thought of them as a way of decorating a practical object. In fact,
the calendar pictures were originally painted as advertising for various companies that
made hunting or fishing produces, like guns or fishing rods. The calendars were handed
out free to customers to thank them for their business. Most people just hung the
calendars on their walls where the pictures faded in the sun and then tore the pictures off
the calendar as each month passed. As a result, collectors today place of a lot of value
on calendars that are complete and in good condition. Even through the people who
used the calendars didn’t regard them as art, the original paintings the prints were made
from were often of good quality. In fact, many famous wildlife painters created calendar
art at some point in their lives. To them, it was way of getting a work reproduced and
showed around. One aspect of the exhibit that I find very interesting is the way these
pictures reflect changing attitudes toward wildlife. The pictures in the exhibit often
portray the thrill and adventure of hunting rather than any particular concern for wildlife
preservation. But most of today’s wildlife art shows animals in their natural
surroundings without any humans in the scene. This modern wildlife art appeals to large
numbers of nature lovers, even those who oppose the practice of hunting.
47. What is the talk mainly about?
48. According to the speaker, why is it difficult to find calendar pictures that are in good
condition?
49. What was the theme of many early wildlife calendars?
50. According to the speaker, why did artists want to produce work for calendars?