最新版英语听力教程 Model Test5-part c

　　[00:03.50]You'll hear three pieces of recorded material.

[00:08.18]Before listening to each one,you'll have

[00:11.94]time to read the questions related to it.

[00:16.38]While listening,answer each question by choosing A,B,C or D.

[00:21.97]After listening,you will have time to check your answers,

[00:27.72]You will hear each piece once only.

[00:31.48]M:Questions 11-13 are based on the following talk

[00:38.74]discussing Drinking Problems.

[00:42.58]You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 11-13.

[00:49.24]W:According to recent estimates,there are nine million

[00:55.38]people with drinking problems in the United States.

[01:00.06]If your idea of someone with an alcohol problem is

[01:05.02]a person with a bottle in a paper bag,

[01:09.09]you are probably wondering where those nine million people are.

[01:14.55]The fact is,more than 95 percent of the victims of alcoholism

[01:20.90]do not look like that.

[01:24.45]In the early and middle stages of the disease,they hold down jobs

[01:30.23]or are housewives,and appear to lead normal lives

[01:35.37]The early symptoms of alcoholism are very subtle

[01:40.65]and difficult to recognize

[01:44.31]but sooner or later they show up on the job.

[01:48.98]That woman in the office who loses temper in the morning

[01:54.02]and happy as a clam 1 in the afternoon may

[01:59.80]just not be a "Morning person" .

[02:04.24]She may have a problem with alcohol.

[02:08.50]Then there's the man in the machine shop who is often actually asleep on the job

[02:15.34]Sometimes it's a group problem,like the payday lunch group

[02:20.98]who never make it back to the office.

[02:25.53]Or it may be the group that goes out to celebrate on the way home and

[02:31.28]stretches it out until early Saturday morning.

[02:36.03]American attitudes about alcohol are complicated and confusing.

[02:41.78]Social drinking is not only acceptable but very sophisticated.

[02:47.63]Full-color magazine ads show

[02:51.47]rich,beautiful and happy people socializing over martinis,champagne,or

[02:57.71]whatever the ads are promoting.

[03:01.79]It's supposed to be manly,as well.

[03:05.91]Witness the classic cowboy scene where our hero tosses down straight whiskey,

[03:12.86]while the man who orders orange juice is laughed at.

[03:17.62]Conflicting social and moral attitudes about drinking make it

[03:22.66]difficult to see alcoholism clearly as a disease.

[03:28.22]The person who has lost control over drinking,

[03:33.26]however funny sophisticated or infuriating he may be,is ill.

[03:40.92]M:Questions 14-17 are based on the following lecture on Memory.

[03:47.68]You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 14-17.

[03:54.24]W:It is difficult to imagine what life would be like without memory.

[04:01.95]The meanings of thousands of everyday perceptions,

[04:06.67]the bases for the decisions we make,and the roots of our

[04:11.53]habits and skills are to be found in our past experiences,which are

[04:17.10]brought into the present by memory.

[04:21.36]Memory can be defined as the capacity to keep information available for later use

[04:29.11]It includes not only "remembering" things like arithmetic or historical facts

[04:36.27]but also involves any change in the way an animal typically behaves.

[04:42.72]Memory is involved

[04:46.09]when a rat gives up eating grain because he has sniffed 2

[04:50.53]something suspicious in the grain pile.

[04:54.69]Memory's also involved when a six-year-old child learns to swing a baseball bat

[05:02.26]Memory exists not only in humans and

[05:06.42]animals but also in some physical objects and machines.

[05:11.56]Computers,for example,

[05:15.32]contain devices for storing data for later use.

[05:20.18]lt is interesting to compare the memory storage capacity of a computer

[05:26.24]with that of a human being.

[05:29.69]The instant-access memory of a large compute 3 may hold up to

[05:35.33]100,000 words ready for instant use.

[05:40.58]An average U.S. teenager probably recognizes

[05:45.65]the meaning of about 100,000 words of English.

[05:50.98]However,this is but a fraction of the total amount of information

[05:57.15]which the teenager has stored.

[06:00.91]Consider,for example,the number of faces and places

[06:06.18]that the teenager can smartly recognize on sight.

[06:12.24]W:Questions 18--20 are based on the following conversation on

[06:17.50]Family Members in Britain.

[06:20.94]You now have 15 seconds to read Questions 18-20.

[06:26.72]M:Over the past 50 years in Britain,we have seen a major shift

[06:33.56]in the numbers of elderly parents being cared for by their own children

[06:39.33]compared to those being looked after by either state or private old people's homes.

[06:45.68]I asked Polly Trainor,a welfare officer of

[06:50.64]some 40 years experience and herself a senior citizen,

[06:56.50]how this change has come about.

[07:00.65]W:I believe there are

[07:03.81]two major factors.The first's a decline in the extended family

[07:09.69]Fifty years ago,offspring would often be born into a family composed

[07:15.25]not just of mother,father,sisters and brothers

[07:20.29]but also grandmother,grandfather and sometimes the odd uncle or aunt.

[07:26.22]Parents would look after children and in turn

[07:31.06]one of the children would look after the parents.

[07:35.71]M:...and the extended family has given way to

[07:41.06]what is known as the nuclear family. W:That's right.

[07:44.72]The smaller family means it is no longer practicable in

[07:49.68]most cases for younger families to look after their elderly parents,

[07:55.35]frequently due to the pressures of work.

[07:59.50]Often,the elderly need someone to be constantly with them..

[08:04.65]and in the modern family,with both partners out away at work,

[08:10.00]the elderly would be left at home alone for most of the day.

[08:15.65]M:Is that the only reason

[08:19.02]why families today are unwilling 4 to look after their elderly parents?

[08:24.48]W:Well,no,and that brings me on to the second major factor.

[08:29.75]50 years ago,it was expected that one of the children

[08:34.61]would look after the elderly parents...it was the tradition.

[08:39.86]M:But now the young are no longer expected to look after their parents

[08:45.43]W:Right.As we dropped the tradition and it

[08:49.87]became less and less of a responsibility on the young to look after their parents

[08:56.11]so...the elderly have begun to feel guilty..

[09:00.84]that it really would be an imposition on their children if

[09:05.70]they were to move in with them.

[09:08.96]A number of elderly people I have talked to

[09:13.51]told me they were invited by their children to move in with them,

[09:18.97]but selected instead to go into an old people's home.

[09:24.24]M:And now with old people's homes being so much more

[09:29.21]comfortable than they used to be,

[09:32.87]there isn't the necessity...W:Right...

[09:37.02]so long,of course,that they have the money to go into a home.