2006年12月23日四级听力原文

section a: conversations
short conversations
　　11. m: christmas is around the corner. and i’m looking for a gift for my girlfriend. any suggestions?
　　w: well you have to tell me something about your girlfriend first. also, what’s your budget?
　　q: what does the woman want the man to do?
　　12. m: what would you like for dessert? i think i’ll have apple pie and ice cream.
　　w: the chocolate cake looks great, but i have to watch my weight. you go ahead and get yours.
　　q: what would the woman most probably do?
　　13. w: having visited so many countries, you must be able to speak several different languages.
　　m: i wish i could. but japanese and of course english are the only languages i can speak.
　　q: what do we learn from the conversation?
　　14. m: professor smith asked me to go to his office after class. so it’s impossible for me to make it to the bar at ten.
　　w: then it seems that we’ll have to meet an hour later at the library.
　　q: what will the man do first after class?
　　15. m: it’s already 11 now. do you mean i ought to wait until mr. bloom comes back from the class?
　　w: not really. you can just leave a note. i’ll give it to her later.
　　q: what does the woman mean?
　　16. m: how is john now? is he feeling any better?
　　w: not yet. it still seems impossible to make him smile. talking to him is really difficult and he gets upset easily over little things.
　　q: what do we learn about john from the conversation?
　　17. m: do we have to get the opera tickets in advance?
　　w: certainly. tickets at the door are usually sold at a higher price.
　　q: what does the woman imply?
　　18. m: the taxi driver must have been speeding.
　　w: well, not really. he crashed into the tree because he was trying not to hit a box that had fallen off the truck ahead of him.
　　q: what do we learn about the taxi driver?

 long conversations:
　　conversation 1
　　w: hey, bob, guess what? i’m going to visit quebec next summer. i’m invited to go to a friend’s wedding.
　　but while i’m there i’d also like to do some sightseeing.
　　m: that’s nice, shelly. but do you mean the province of quebec, or quebec city?
　　w: i mean the province. my friend’s wedding is in montreal. i’m going there first. i’ll stay for five days. is montreal the capital city of the province?
　　m: well, many people think so because it’s the biggest city. but it’s not the capital. quebec city is. but montreal is great. the saint royal river runs right through the middle of the city. it’s beautiful in summer.
　　w: wow, and do you think i can get by in english? my french is ok, but not that good. i know most people there speak french, but can i also use english?
　　m: well, people speak both french and english there. but you’ll hear french most of the time. and all the street signs are in french. in fact, montreal is the third largest french speaking city in the world. so you’d better practice your french before you go.
　　w: good advice. what about quebec city? i’ll visit a friend from college who lives there now. what’s it like?
　　m: it’s a beautiful city, very old. many old buildings have been nicely restored. some of them were built in the 17th or 18th centuries. you’ll love there.
　　w: fantastic. i can’t wait to go.
　　questions:
　　19. what’s the woman’s main purpose of visiting quebec?
　　20. what does the man advise the woman to do before the trip?
　　21. what does the man say about the quebec city?

conversation 2
　　m: hi, miss rowling, how old were you when you started to write? and what was your first book?
　　w: i wrote my first finnish (finished) story when i was about six. it was about a small animal, a rabbit, i mean. and i’ve been writing ever since?
　　m: why did you choose to be an author?
　　w: if someone asked me how to achieve happiness. step one would be finding out what you love doing most. step two would be finding someone to pay you to do this. i consider myself very lucky indeed to be able to support myself by writing
　　m: do you have any plans to write books for adults?
　　w: my first two novels were for adults. i suppose i might write another one. but i never really imagine a target audience when i’m writing. the ideas come first. so it really depends on the ideas that grasp me next.
　　m: where did the ideas for the “harry potter” books come from?
　　i’ve no ideas where the ideas came from. and i hope i’ll never find out. it would spoil my excitement if it turned out i just have a funny wrinkle on the surface of my brain, which makes me think about the invisible train platform.
　　m: how did you come up with the names of your characters?
　　i invented some of them. but i also collected strange names. i’ve got one from ancient saints, maps, dictionaries, plants, war memoirs and people i met.
　　m: oh, you are really resourceful.
　　questions:
　　22. what do we learn from the conversation about miss rowling’s first book?
　　23. why does miss rowling consider her so very lucky?
　　24. what dictates miss rowling’s writing?
　　25. according to miss rowling where did she get the ideas for the harry porter books?
　　

section b: passages
passage 1
　　reducing the amount of sleep students get at night has a direct impact on their performance at school during the day. according to classroom teachers, elementary and middle school students who stay up late exhibit more learning and attention problems. this has been shown by brown medical school and bradley hospital research. in the study, teachers were not told the amount of sleep students received when completing weekly performance reports, yet they rated the students who had received eight hours or less as having the most trouble recalling all the material，learning new lessons and completing high-quality work. teachers also reported that these students had more difficulty paying attention. the experiment is the first to ask teachers to report on the effects of sleep deficiency in children. just staying up late can cause increased academic difficulty and attention problems for otherwise healthy, well-functioning kids, said garharn forlone, the study’s lead author. so the results provide professionals and parents with a clear message: when a child is having learning and attention problems, the issue of sleep has to be taken into consideration. “if we don’t ask about sleep, and try to improve sleep patterns in kids’ struggling academically, then we aren’t doing our job”, forlone said. for parents, he said, the message is simple, “getting kids to bed on time is as important as getting them to school on time”.
　　questions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.
　　question 26: what were teachers told to do in the experiment?
　　question 27: according to the experiment, what problem can insufficient sleep cause in students?
　　question 28: what message did the researcher intend to convey to parents?
　　

passage 2
　　patricia pania never wanted to be a public figure. all she wanted to be was a mother and home-maker. but her life was turned upside down when a motorist, distracted by his cell phone, ran a stop sign and crashed into the side of her car. the impact killed her 2-year-old daughter. four months later, pania reluctantly but courageously decided to try to educate the public and to fight for laws to ban drivers from using cell phones while a car is moving. she wanted to save other children from what happened to her daughter. in her first speech, pania got off to a shaky start. she was visibly trembling and her voice was soft and uncertain. but as she got into her speech, a dramatic transformation took place. she stopped shaking and spoke with a strong voice. for the rest of her talk, she was a forceful and compelling sp