托福24号2001年5月听力原文（校正版）

愿达UID: 63999

托福24号2001年5月听力原文（校正版）

愿达 江明俊

Par A

1.        W: So are you going to see the student play tonight?
M: I doubt it. I’m still getting over (克服) the flu.      
Q: What does the man mean? B.

2.        M: Gordon needs to find another place to live. The apartment he rents now has been sold to a new owner.   
W: He’d better start looking right away. When all the students come back in a few weeks, he won’t find any near the campus.  
Q: What does the woman suggest Gordon do? D.

3.        W: Mind if I borrow your Spanish workbook?      M: Not as long as I have it back in time to take to class this evening.
Q: What does the man mean? D.

4.        M: You know that quiz we took in Dr. Turner’s class today? Did you know that she was going to give it to us?      
W: Actually I was just as surprised as you were.  Q: What does the woman mean? B.

5.        W: I don’t know which color folder to use, white or brown?      
M: What difference does it make? It’s the content that’s important.  
Q: What does the man mean? C.

6.        W: You know I heard that Prof. Martin’s introduction to chemistry class is way too demanding for first year students. They say it’s as hard a course as for graduate students.
M: Yeah, but a lot of students would tell you otherwise. Go talk to anyone who’s gone on to the advanced course, like organic chemistry or who study chemistry in graduate school. They are really glad they started out with Prof. Martin.
Q: What does the man imply about Prof. Martin? A.

7.        W: Hey Mark, have you been able to sell your old piano yet?  
M: Ah, you were right. Just posting notices on bulletin boards at a couple of supermarkets wasn’t enough. I think I’ll have to place an advertisement in the local newspaper.  
Q: What does the man imply? C.

8.        M: My back has been aching ever since I started playing tennis on the weekends.     
W: Haven’t you had that checked out yet?  
Q: What does the woman imply? C.

9.        W: Hi, hum... I think something’s wrong with the washing machine. It works and I just did my laundry but it made some strange noises. Maybe you should call someone to fix it.
M: Oh, don’t worry. Someone from the repair shop is already on the way over to take a look at it.  
Q: What does the man imply? A.

10.        W: It’s so thoughtful of you to offer to drop me off at the train station. Are you sure it’s not out of your way?      
M: Not at all. The station is really close to where I’m going.   
Q: What does the man mean? B.

11.        M: I’m here about the job you advertised in the paper.     
W: You need one of those forms over there, on the table next to the file cabinet.   
Q: What does the woman imply the man should do? A.

12.        M: I know I ought to call home, but I’ve got a plane to catch and I’m already late.        
W: Well, I know you have to hurry. But it’ll only take a minute.
Q: What does the woman suggest the man do? D.

13.        W: I have to drive in to Chicago next week. Do you have a map I could borrow?
M: Sorry, I don’t, but I can pick one up for you while I’m at the bookstore.      
Q: What does the man mean? C.

14.        W: What did you think of the paintings that Ted was showing last week?
M: I never made it to the exhibit.     
Q: What does the man mean? B.

15.        M: Did you hear about the big snowstorm in Iowa yesterday? Three feet and twelve hours.
W: Yeah, and I hear it’s headed our way. We’re supposed to get the same thing tonight.      
Q: What does the woman mean? D.

16.        M: You’re joining us for dinner tonight, aren’t you?
W: Oh, I’m really sorry, but I had the wrong date for my geometry test. I just found out it’s tomorrow and I need all the time I can get to prepare.
Q: What does the woman imply? D.

17.        W: I can’t decide whether I should take physics now or wait till next semester.
M: You might as well (=you’d better) get it over with if you can.
Q: What does the man suggest the woman do? A.

18.        W: You look different today. Did you get a haircut?
M: It’s funny. You’re the third person to ask me that. But all I did was getting new frames for my eyeglasses.      
Q: What does the man imply? B.

19.        W: Dr. Eliot, I’d like you to check the way you calculated my grade for this test. I think you may have made a mistake in adding up the number of questions I got right. When I added them up I came up with the slightly higher grade than you did.
M: I’d be happy to check it for you. And if I made a mistake in determining the grade, I’ll be sure to correct it. Don’t worry.
Q: What does the man imply? B.

20.        M: That last speaker was pretty boring. But he did make a few good points at the end.
W: Really? I didn’t catch them. I must have dozed off for a minute.        
Q: What does the woman mean? C.

21.        W: If you run into Joan this afternoon, could you ask her to call me? I need that book back that I lent her yesterday.
M: No need. I saw her this morning and I’ve got it right here.         
Q: What can be inferred from the conversation? D.

22.        W: I told my student today that I’d be taking a sabbatical(周期性的休假) next semester. But they didn’t seem very surprised.
M: Well, last week I let your plans slip to some of my students. So more than likely the word got around (消息传开).      
Q: What does the man explain to the woman? D.

23.        M: Mary, I’ve got the bowls out for the stew. Do you think it needs any more pepper before I serve it?
W: It’s really quite nice, and we did exactly what the recipe says. Why take a chance of ruining it?   
Q: What does the woman imply the man should do? D.

24.        M: Those were such funny stories Tom told last night. He was like a totally different guy.
W: Yeah, really. He is normally so serious. What do you think brought all that out of him?
Q: What does the woman imply? D.

25.        W: Wow, look at all these old books on this shelf. They’ve got to be at least one hundred years old. I’ll bet they’re worth a lot to collectors.
M: Well, they’ve got a lot of sentimental value for me, but that’s about it.      
Q: What does the man mean? D.

26.        M: Hi, Susan, would you like to go out to eat with us? Several of us are going over to the Macardy’s.
W: Well, that sure beats (胜过) sticking around  (逗留) here. Uh... just let me pack up my things.      
Q: What is the woman going to do? A.

27.        W: I thought you said you and your friends were just planning a small gathering. I could hear you from all the way up on the fourth floor of the building.
W: Oh, Gee, I’m really sorry. I guess we did get a little carried away (忘形), didn’t we?      
Q: What can be inferred from the conversations? C.

28.        M: I kept looking for Mary at the seminar but never did see her. I can’t imagine she forgot about it. She’d be talking about it for weeks.
W: Oh she didn’t. It’s just that she caught a really bad cold a couple of days ago.      
Q: What can be inferred from the conversation? D.

29.        M: Our history presentation is Thursday. When do you want to get together to work on it?
W: Well, how about Monday? That way we will still have enough time to figure out anything we are having trouble with.      
Q: What does the woman suggest they do? B.

30.        M: Hey, thanks for your help. I guess I can handle the rest myself. But just in case, are you going to be around later?
W: I don’t know, but you can always ask Judy. She’s really good with these kinds of problems.         Q: What does the woman imply? B.


Part B
Questions 31 through 34. Listen to a conversation between two students:
M:         Hey, Janet, you’re so lucky to be done with your final exams and term papers. I still have two more finals to take.
W:         Really?
M:         Yeah. So what are you doing this summer? Anything special?
W:         Well, actually yeah. See, my parents have always liked taking my sister and me to different places in the United States, you know, places with historical significance. I guess they wanted to reinforce the stuff we learned in school about history. And so, even though we are older now, they still do once in a while.
M:         Oh. So where are you going this summer?
W:         Well, this summer it’s finally going to be Gettysburg.
M:         Finally? They…You haven’t been there yet? I mean, Gettysburg—it’s probably the most famous civil war site in the country. It’s only a couple of hours away. You’d think that’d be one of the first places that they’d have taken you. I have been there a couple of times.
W:         Well, we were gonna to go about ten…oh, no, it was exactly ten years ago, but I don’t know. Something happened. I cannot remember what.
M:         Something changed your plans?
W:         Yeah, don’t ask me what it was, but we ended up not going anywhere that year. I hope that doesn’t happen again this year. I…eh…wrote a paper about Gettysburg last semester for a history class I was taking, well, about the political situation in the United States right after the battle at Gettysburg. So I’m eager to see the place.

31.        What are the students mainly discussing? D.
32.        What does the man find surprising about the woman? A.
33.        What is the woman unable to remember? B.
34.        What does the woman imply about Gettysburg? D.

Questions 35 through 39. Listen to a conversation between two students:
M:         What are you doing?
W:         I’m ordering some filing cabinet out of a catalog.
M:        What do you need them for?
W:         There’s so much stuff piling up in my dormitory room. If I don’t do something soon, I won’t be able to move in there.  
M:         Do you usually order from a catalog?
W:        Sometimes. Why?
M:         Oh, it’s just in the history class today we were talking about how the catalog sales business first got started in the US. A Chicago retailer, Montgomery Ward started it in the late 1800s. It was really popular among farmers. It was difficult for them to make it to the big city stores, so they ordered from catalogs.
W:         Was Ward the only one in the business?
M:        At first, but another person named Richard Sears started his own catalog after he heard how much money Ward was making.
W:        What made them so popular?
M:         Farmers trusted Ward and Sears for one thing. They delivered the products the farmers paid for and even refunded the price of things the farmers weren’t satisfied with. The catalog became so popular some country schoolteachers even used them as textbooks.
W:         Textbooks?
M:         Yeah. Students practiced spelling the names and adding up the prices of things in the catalogs.
W:         Was everybody that thrilled about it?
M:         That’s doubtful. Say they drove some small storeowners out of business. Sears and Ward sold stuff in such large quantities they were able to undercut the prices at some small family owned stores.

35.        What is the conversation mainly about? C.
36.        Why was the woman reading a catalog? C.
37.        Who were the main customers of Sears and Ward’s businesses? B.
38.        What an unusual way were the catalogs used? A.
39.        What was one of the negative effects of the catalog business? D.

Part C
Questions 40 through 42. Listen to a lecture in a zoology class.
The birds you see here in this slide are peregrine falcons. These birds represent a success story among animals on the endangered species list.

In the 1970s, the peregrine falcons almost disappeared as a result of the contamination of its food chain by the DDT in pesticide. The presence of the poison in their systems resulted in eggs too weak to support the incubating chicks. Their remarkable recovery is a result of the ban of DDT as a pesticide, aggressive captive feeding programs and their own resiliency. The peregrine falcon is one of the fastest birds alive. They’ve been clocked at 140 to 200 miles per hour in successful pursuit of pray. In addition to speed, these birds fly directly into head winds and they are capable of flying more than 600 miles per day with favorable tail winds.

Today with the sophistication of telemetry (遥感勘测), the speeds of these birds can be tracked by orbiting satellites, by means of transmitters attached to the bird. For example, peregrine falcons stage in warmer climate. In other words, they spend time in the southern US awaiting hormone changes preparing them to breed in the Arctic. Then they migrate north to the much colder Arctic regions. Birds have been tracked from Texas in late April to their nesting ground in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Now let’s move on to another species of birds, the bald eagles.

40.        What is the talk mainly about? B.
41.        According to the passage, what makes the peregrine falcon a good hunter? A.
42.        How did biologists track peregrine falcons over long distances? D.

Questions 43 through 46. Listen to part of a talk in a music class. The class has been discussing a history of jazz music.
Okay, so in our last class we were discussing Big Band swing music. You remember this was a kind of dance music with a steady rhythm. But today we deal with the style of music played by smaller jazz bands. It’s called bebop.

Now bebop may use all sorts of new types of rhythms, some of them very irregular. We’ll talk more about that later. But first I want to talk about some of the social elements that I believe contributed to the development of bebop music. To do this, we have to look at when bebop arose and started becoming so popular, which was from the late 1930s through the 1940s, from the time of the Great Depression right in the Second World War. Now one factor helped to create the environment for bebop music was the decline of the United States economy. During the Great Depression, the economy suffered tremendously and fewer people had money to spend on entertainment.

Then during the Second World War the government imposed a new tax on public entertainment, what you might call a performance tax. The government collected money on performances that included any types of acting, dancing, or singing, but not instrumental music. So to avoid this new tax, some jazz bands stop using singer altogether. They started relying on the creativity of the instrumentalists to attract the audiences. This was what bebop bands did. Now remember a lot of bands have singers. So the instrumentalists simply played in the background and had occasional solos while the singer sang the melody to the songs, but not bebop bands. So the instrumentalists had much more freedom to be creative. So they experimented playing the music faster and using new irregular sorts of rhythms.

43.        What is the talk mainly about? B.
44.        How did the bebop bands avoid the performance tax? A.
45.        Why does the professor mention the decline of the United States economy during the Great Depression? A.
46.        What does the professor describe as a significant characteristic of bebop music? D.

Questions 47 through 50. Listen to a geologist giving a lecture to an engineering class
Your professor has asked me to talk to you today about the topic that should be of real concern to civil engineers: the erosion of the United States beaches.

Let me start with some statistics. Did you know that 90% of the coast in this country is eroding, on the Gulf of Mexico for instance. Erosion averages 4 to 5 feet per year. Over the past 20 years, there has been an increase in building along the coast, even though geologists and environmentalists have been warning communities about problems like erosion. Someway communities have tried to protect their buildings and roads and to build seawalls. However, geologists have found that such stabilizing structure actually speed up the destruction of the beaches. These beaches with seawalls, called stabilized beaches, are much narrower than beaches without them.

You may wonder how seawalls speed up beach loss. The explanation is simple. If the flow of the beaches is gentle, the water energy is lessened as it washes up along the shore. It is reduced even more that returns to the sea so it doesn’t carry back much sand. On the other hand, when the water hit the nearly vertical face of the seawall, it goes straight back to the sea with the full force of its energy and carries back a great deal of sand. Because of the real risk of losing beaches, many geologists support a ban on all types of stabilizing construction on the shoreline.

47.        What is the speaker mainly discussing? C.
48.        Why do communities build seawalls? A.
49.        How does a gently sloping beach help prevent erosion? B.
50.        What would the speaker probably advise engineers to do? D.