TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (2007)
-GRADE EIGHT-
TIME LIMIT: 195 MIN
PART I LISTENING COMPREHENSION (35 MIN)
SECTION A MINI-LECTURE
In this section you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after a mini-lecture. When the lecture is over, you will be given two minutes to check your note, and another ten minutes to check your notes, and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.
SECTION B INTERVIEW
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on you colored answer sheet.
Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions. Now listen to the interview.
1. According to Nigel, most problems of air travel are caused by
A. unfavourable weather conditions.
B. airports’ handling capacity.
C. inadequate ticketing service.
D. overbooking.
2. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as compensation for volunteers for the next flight out?
A.Free ticket.
B. Free phone call.
C. Cash reward.
D. Seat reservation.
3.
Why does Nigel suggest that business travelers Avoid big airports?
A. Because all flights in and out of there are full
B. Because the volume of traffic is heavy.
C. Because there are more popular flights.
D. Because there are more delays and cancellations.
4. According to Nigel, inexperienced travelers are likely to make the following mistakes EXCEPT
A. booking on less popular flights.
B. buying tickets at full price.
C. carrying excessive luggage.
D. planning long business trips.
5. Which of the following statements is INCORRECT-?
A. The possibility of discounts depends on a travel agent's volume of business.
B. Longer flights to the same destination may be cheaper.
C. It is advisable to plan every detail of a trip in advance.
D. Arranging for stopovers can avoid overnight travel.
SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your colored answer sheet.
Question 6 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question.
Now listen to the news.
6. What happened or Monday?
A. A train crash occurred causing minor injuries.
B. Investigators found out the cause of the accident
C. Crews rescued more passengers from the site.
D. A commuter train crashed into a building
Question 7and 8 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question.
Now listen to the news.
7. Which of the following was NOT on the agenda of the G20 meeting?
A. Iraq debts.
B. WTO talks,
C. Financial disasters.
D. Possible sanctions.
8. The G20 is a(n)________ organization.
A. international
B. European
C. regional
D. Asian
Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions.
Now listen to the news.
9. The UN Charter went into effect after
A. it was signed by the 50 original member countries.
B. it was approved by the founders and other member countries.
C. it was approved by the founding members.
D. it was signed by the founding members.
10. Which of the following best describes the role of the Charter?
A. The Charter only describes powers of the UN bodies.
B. The Charter mainly aims to promote world economy.
C. The Charter is a treaty above all other treaties.
D. The Charter authorizes reforms in UN bodies.
PART II READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)
In this section there are several reading passage followed by a total of twenty multiple-choice questions. Read the passage and then mark your answers on your answer sheet.
TEXT A
The Welsh language has always been the ultimate marker of Welsh identity, but a generation ago it looked as if Welsh would go the way of Manx, once widely spoken on the Isle of Man but now extinct. Government financing and central planning, however, have helped reverse the decline of Welsh. Road signs and official public documents are written in both Welsh and English, and schoolchildren are required to learn both languages. Welsh is now one of the most successful of Europe's regional languages, spoken by more than a half million of the country's three million people.
The revival of the language, particularly among young people, is part of a resurgence of national identity sweeping through this small, proud nation. Last month Wales marked the second anniversary of the opening of the National Assembly, the first parliament to be convened here since 1404. The idea behind devolution was to restore the balance within the union of nations making up the United Kingdom. With most of the people and wealth, England has always had bragging rights. The partial transfer of legislative powers from Westminster, implemented by Tony Blair, was designed to give the other members of the club-Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales⺷a bigger say and to counter centrifugal forces that seemed to threaten the very idea of the union.
The Welsh showed little enthusiasm for devolution. Whereas the Scots voted overwhelmingly for a parliament, the vote for a Welsh assembly scraped through by less than one percent on a turnout of less than 25 percent. Its powers were proportionately limited. The Assembly can decide how money from Westminster or the European Union is spent. It cannot, unlike its counterpart in Edinburgh, enact laws. But now that it is here, the Welsh are growing to like their Assembly. Many people would like it to have more powers. Its importance as a figurehead will grow with the opening, in 2003, of a new debating chamber, one of many new buildings that are transforming Cardiff from a decaying seaport into a Baltimore-style waterfront city. Meanwhile a grant of nearly two million dollars from the European Union will tackle poverty. Wales is one of the poorest regions in Western Europe - only Spain, Portugal, and Greece have a lower standard of living.
Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories about great Welsh men and women, boosting self-esteem. To familiar faces such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton have been added new icons such as Catherine Zeta-Jones, the movie star, and Bryn Terfel, the opera singer. Indigenous foods like salt marsh lamb are in vogue. And Wales now boasts a national airline, Awyr Cymru. Cymru, which means "land of compatriots," is the Welsh name for Wales. The redaragon, the nation's symbol since the time of King Arthur, is everywhere - on T-shirts, rugby jerseys and even cell phone covers.
"Until very recent times most Welsh people had this feeling of being second-class citizens," said Dyfan Jones, an 18-year-old student. It was a warm summer night, and I was sitting on the grass with a group of young people in Llanelli, an industrial town in the south, outside the rock music venue of the National Eisteddfod, Wales's annual cultural festival. The disused factory in front of us echoed to the sounds of new Welsh bands.
"There was almost a genetic tendency for lack of confidence," Dyfan continued. Equally comfortable in his Welshness as in his membership in the English-speaking, global youth culture and the new federal Europe, Dyfan, like the rest of his generation, is growing up with a sense of possibility unimaginable ten years ago. "We used to think: We can't do anything, we're only Welsh.
Now I think that's changing.
11. According to the passage, devolution was mainly meant to
A. maintain the present status among the nations.
B. reduce legislative powers of England.
C. create a better state of equality among the nations
D. grant more say to all the nations in the union.
12. The word centrifugal in the second paragraph means
A. separatist.
B. conventional.
C. feudal.
D. political.
13. Wales is different from Scotland in all the following aspects EXCEPT
A. people’s desire for devolution.
B. locals’ turnout for the voting,
C. powers of the legislative body.
D. status of the national language.
14. Which of the following is NOT cited as an example of the resurgence of Welsh national identity?
A. Welsh has witnessed a revival as a national language.
B. Poverty-relief funds have come from the European Union,
C. A Welsh national airline is currently in operation,
D. The national symbol has become a familiar sight.
15. According to Dyfan Jones, what has changed is
A. people’s mentality
B. pop culture
C. town’s appearance
D. possibilities for the people
TEXT B
Getting to the heart of Kuwaiti democracy seems hilariously easy. Armed only with a dog-eared NEWSWEEK ID, I ambled through the gates of the National Assembly last week. Unscanned, unsearched, my satchel could easily have held the odd grenade or an anthrax-stuffed lunchbox. The only person who stopped me was a guard who grinned and invited me to take a swig of orange juice from his plastic bottle.
Were I a Kuwaiti woman wielding a ballot, I would have been a clearer and more present danger. That very day Parliament blocked a bill giving women the vote; 29 M.P.s voted in favour and 29 against, with two abstentions. Unable to decide whether the bill had passed or not, the government scheduled another vote in two weeks - too late for women to register for June's municipal elections. The next such elections aren't until 2009.
Inside the elegant, marbled Parliament itself, a sea of mustachioed men in white robes sat in green seats, debating furiously. The ruling emir has pushed for women's political rights for years; ironically, the democratically elected legislature has thwarted him. Traditionalists and tribal leaders are opposed. Liberals fret, too, that Islamists will let their multiple wives vote, swelling conservative ranks. "When I came to Parliament today, people who voted yes didn't even shake hands with me," said one Shia cleric. "Why can't we respect each other and work together?"
Why not indeed? By Gulf standards, Kuwait is a democratic superstar. Its citizens enjoy free speech (as long as they don't insult their emir, naturally) and boast a Parliament that can actually pass laws. Unlike their Saudi sisters, Kuwaiti women drive, work and travel freely. They run multibillion-dollar businesses and serve as ambassadors. Their academic success is such that colleges have actually lowered the grades required for male students to get into medical and engineering courses. Even then, 70 percent of university students are females.
In Kuwait, the Western obsession with the
higab finds its equivalent. At a fancy party for NEWSWEEK's Arabic edition, some Kuwaiti women wore them. Others opted for tight, spangled, sheer little numbers in peacock blue or parrot orange. For the party's entertainment, Nancy Ajram, the Arab world's answer to Britney Spears, sang passionate songs of love in a white mini-dress. She couldn't dance for us, alas, since shaking one's body onstage is illegal in Kuwait. That didn't stop
whole tables of men from raising their camera-enabled mobile phones and clicking her picture.
You'd think not being able to vote or dance in public would anger Kuwait's younger generation of women. To find out, I headed to the malls - Kuwait's archipelago of civic freedom. Eager to duck strict parents and the social taboos of dating in public, young Kuwaitis have taken to cafes, beaming flirtatious infrared e-mails to one another on their cell phones. At Starbucks in the glittering Al Sharq Mall, I found only tables of men, puffing cigarettes and grumbling about the service. At Pizza Hut, I thought I'd got an answer after encountering a young woman who looked every inch the modern suffragette - drainpipe jeans, strappy sliver high-heeled sandals and a higab studded with purple rhinestones. But, no, Mariam Al-Enizi, 20, studying business administration at Kuwait University, doesn't think women need the vote. "Men are better at politics than women," she explained, adding that women in Kuwait already have everything they need. Welcome to democracy, Kuwaiti style.
16. According to the passage, which of the following groups of people might be viewed as being dangerous by the guards?
A. Foreign tourists.
B. Women protestors.
C. Foreign journalists.
D. Members of the National Assembly
17. The bill giving women the vote did not manage to pass because
A. different interest groups held different concerns,
B. liberals did not reach consensus among themselves.
C. Parliament was controlled by traditionalists.
D. Parliament members were all conservatives.
18. What is the role of the 4th and 5th paragraphs in the development of the topic?
A. To show how Kuwaiti women enjoy themselves.
B. To describe how women work and study in Kuwait.
C. To offer supporting evidence to the preceding paragraphs.
D. To provide a contrast to the preceding paragraphs.
19. Which of the following is NOT true about young Kuwaiti women?
A. They seem to be quite contented,
B. They go in for Western fashions.
C. They desire more than modern necessities.
D. They favour the use of hi-tech products.
