1、Somebody didnt want to keep my book!” But if its not there, I feel its an insult too. I think, “Why arent people exchanging my book? Why isnt it in this store?” Does being a writer require a thick skin? Yes, for example, my wife can be very harsh. 2-1I began working on my latest book,The Buried Gian
2、t, in 2004, but I stopped after I showed my wife a little section. She thought it was rubbish. Even after you won a Booker Prize? 2-2Shes not intimidated at all and she criticizes me in exactly the same way she did when I was first unpublished and I was starting. But you would never compromise on yo
3、ur vision. No, I wouldnt ever compromise on the essential, the ideas or the themes. This isnt really what my wife is trying to criticize me about. Its always about execution. So why did you put your book,The Buried Giant, aside for so long? Apparently you started working on it over 10 years ago. 3Iv
4、e often stopped writing a book and left it for a few years.And by the time I come back to it, it may have changed. Usually my imagination has moved on and I can think of different contexts or a different way to do it. What does it feel like when you finally finish a book? Its funny you ask that beca
5、use I never have this moment when I feel, “Ah, Ive finished!” 4I watch footballers at the end of the match, you know, the whistle goes and theyve won or lost. Until then theyve been giving everything they have and at that moment they know its over. Its funny for an author. Theres never a finishing w
6、histle.Questions 1 to 4 are based on the conversation you have just heard.1.How would the man feel if he found his book in a secondhand bookstore?2.What does the mans wife think of his books?3.What does the man do when he engages in writing?4.What does the man want to say by mentioning the football
7、match?Conversation Two 5According to a study of race and equity in education, black athletes are dropping out of college across the country at alarming rates.With us to talk about the findings in the study isWashington PostcolumnistKevin Blackistone. Good morning. Good morning, how are you? Fine, th
8、ank you. What is new that you found in this study? Well, this is Shaun Harpers study, and he points out that on major college campuses across the country, black males make up less than 3 percent of undergraduate enrollments. Yet, when you look at their numbers or percentages on the revenue-generatin
9、g sports teams of football and basketball, they make up well into 50 to 60 percent of those teams. 6So the idea is that they are really there to be part of the revenue-generating working class of athletes on campus and not necessarily there to be part of the educating class as most students in other
10、 groups are. 7Compared with other groups, I think the numbers in this group, at those 65 schools, are something like just barely more than half of the black male athletes graduate at all. Exactly. And whats really bad about this is these athletes are supposedly promised at least one thing as reward
11、for all their blood and sweat. And that is a college degree, which can be a transformative tool in our society when you talk about upward mobility. And thats really the troubling part about this. Well, this has been talked about so much, really, in recent years. Why hasnt it changed? Well, I think o
12、ne of the reasons it hasnt changed is that theres really no economic pressure to change this. All of the incentive is really on winning and not losing on the field or on the court. 8Coaches do not necessarily have the incentive to graduate players.Questions 5 to 8 are based on the conversation you h
13、ave just heard.5.What are the speakers talking about?6.What is the new finding about black male athletes in this study?7.What is the graduation rate of black male athletes?8.What accounts for black athletes failure to obtain a college degree, according to the man?Section BPassage One9Americas holida
14、y shopping season starts on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. It is the busiest shopping day of the year.Retailers make the most money this time of year, about 20 to 30 percent of annual revenue. About 136 million people will shop during the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. More and more will s
15、hop online. In an era of instant information, shoppers can use their mobile phones to find deals. 10About 183.8 million people will shop on Cyber Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving.More than half of all holiday purchases will be made online.One-in-five Americans will use a tablet or smartph
16、one. Online spending on Black Friday will rise 15 percent to hit2.7 billion this year. Cyber Monday spending will increase 12 percent to3 billion. For many, shopping online was “a more comfortable alternative” than crowded malls. The shift to online shopping has had a big impact on traditional shopp
17、ing malls. Since 2021, more than 24 shopping malls have closed and an additional 60 are struggling. However, 11Fortunesays the weakest of the malls have closed. The sector is thriving again.The International Council of Shopping Centers said 94.2 percent of malls were full, or occupied, with shops by
18、 the end of 2021. That is the highest level in 27 years. 12Economist Gus Faucher said lower unemployment and rising wages could give Americans more money to spend.The average American consumer will spend about805 on gifts. Thats about630.5 billion between November and Decemberan increase of 3.7 perc
19、ent from last year.Questions 9 to 12 are based on the passage you have just heard.9.What is the speaker mainly talking about?10.How many people will shop on Cyber Monday?11.What doessay about traditional shopping malls?12.What is said to account for the increased number of shoppers?Passage TwoFor ye
20、ars, many of us have relied on antibiotic use to treat various infections. And the reality is that antibiotics have been responsible for saving millions of lives since penicillin, one of the earliest antibiotics, was first used on a clinical basis 70 years ago. However, today is a new era in which t
21、aking antibiotics can cause some very dangerous and potentially life-threatening situations. 13In fact, you may have heard about the new “superbugs”, which are antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have developed as a result of overprescribed antibiotics.In the past, health experts warned us that the d
22、ay would come in which it would become very difficult to provide medical care for even common problems such as lung infection or severe sour throat. And, 14apparently, that day has come because seemingly routine operations such as knee replacements are now much more hazardous due to the looming thre
23、at of these infections.The problem has grown into such epidemic proportions that this severe strain of resistant bacteria is being blamed for nearly 700,000 deaths each year throughout the world; and, unfortunately, health experts worry that the number will rise to 10 million or more on a yearly bas
24、is by 2050. 15With such a large life-threatening epidemic, it is sad to say that only 1.2 percent of budgetary money for the National Institutes of Health is currently being spent on research to tackle this problem. This is a far cry from the funds necessary for a problem of such magnitude.Questions
25、 13 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.13.What do we learn about the “superbugs”?14.What is the result of the overuse of antibiotics?15.What is most urgently needed for tackling the large life-threatening epidemic, according to the speaker?Section CRecording OneThis is the reason you
26、 are here in a university. You are here to be educated. 16-1You are here to understand thinking better and to think better yourself.Its not a chance youre going to have throughout your lifetime. 16-2For the next few years, you have a chance to focus on thinking.I think about some of the students who
27、 took advantage of their opportunities in a university. One of the stories I always like to tell is of a freshman seminar that I had a chance to teach at Harvard when I was president of the university. I taught a seminar on globalization and I assigned a reading that I had written about global capit
28、al flows. And as I did each week, I asked one of the students to introduce the readings. And this young man, in October of his freshman year, said something like the following. “The reading by President Summers on the flow of capital across countries, it was kind of interesting, but the data did not
29、 come close to supporting the conclusions.” And I thought to myself, “What a fantastic thing this was. How could somebody who had been there for five weeks tell the person who had the title President that he didnt really know what he was talking about?” And it was a special moment.Now, I dont want t
30、o be misunderstood. I explained to my student that I actually thought he was rather more confused than I was and I argued back, 17-1but what was really important about that was the universities stand out as places that really are about the authority of ideas.You see it in faculty members who are ple
31、ased when their students make a discovery that undermines a cherished theory that they had put forward.I think of another student I had who came to me one morning, one evening actually, walked into my office and said that I had written a pretty good paper, but that it had five important mistakes and that he wanted a job. 17-2/18You could debate whether they actually were mistakes, but you couldnt debate that young mans hunger to
