Conversation 2

M: Hey, Karen, you are not really reading it, are you?

W: Pardon?

M: The book! You haven’t turned the page in the last ten minutes.

W: No, Jim, I suppose I haven’t. I need to get through it, though, but I keep drifting away.

M: So it doesn’t really hold your interest?

W: No, not really. I wouldn’t bother with it, to be honest, but I have to read it for a seminar. I’m at a university.

M: It’s a labor of labor then rather than a labor of love.

W: I should say, I don’t like Dickens at all really, the author, indeed, I am starting to like the whole course less and less.

M: It’s not just the book,, it’s the curse as well?

W: Yeah, in a way, although the curse itself isn’t really that bad, a lot of it is pretty good, in fact, and the lecturer is fine, as to me, I suppose, you see, I want to do philosophy rather than English, but my parents took me out of it.

M: So the courses are OK as such, it’s just that had if been left to you, you would choose a different one.

W: Oh, they had my best interest and heart of course, my parents, they always do, don’t they? They believe that my job prospect would be pretty limited with the degree of philosophy. Plus, they give me a really generous allowance, but I am beginning to feel that I’m wasting my time and their money. They would be so disappointed though if I told them I was quitting.

22.   Why can’t Karen concentrate on the book?

23.   Why is Karen starting to like the course less and less?

24.   Who thinks Philosophy graduates have limited job opportunities?

25.   What is Karen thinking of doing?

Section B

Passage One

In Greece, only rich people will rest in peace for ever when they die. Most of the population, however, will be undisturbed for only three years, then they will be dug up, washed, compressed into a small tin box, and placed in a bone room. If the body has only partially decayed, it is reburied in a smaller cheaper grave, but not for long, the body will be dug up again some time later when it has fully decayed. Buying a piece of land for a grave is the only way to avoid this process. The cost of the grave is so great that most p0eople choose to rent the grave for three years and even after it has been dug up, lasting peace is still not guaranteed. If no one pays for renting space in the bone room, the skeleton is removed and stored in a building in a poor part of the town. Lack of space in Athens is the main reason why the dead are dug up after the three years. The city is so overcrowded that sometimes dead bodies are kept in the hospitals for over a week until a grave is found. Athens’ city council wants to introduce cremation, that is burning dead bodies as a means of dealing with the problems. But the Greek church resists this practice, they believe the only place where people burn is hell, so burning dead bodies is against the Greek concept of life after death. To save space, the church suggested burying the bodies standing up instead of lying down. Some people proposed building multi-storey underground grave yards.

26.   What must Greeks do to keep the dead resting in ever-lasting peace?

27.   Why are most dead bodies in Athens dug up after three years?

28.   What suggestions does the church give about the burying of dead bodies?

29.   What practice does the Greek church object to?

Passage Two

If you visit a big city anywhere in the world, you will probably find a restaurant would serve the food of your own native country. Most large cities in the United States offer international sample of foods. Many people enjoy eating the food of other nations. This is probably one reason why there are so many different kinds of restaurants in the United States. A second reason is that many Americans come from other part of the world. They enjoy tasting the foods of their native lands. In the city of Detroit, for example, there are many people from western Europe, Greece, Latin America, and the Far East. There are many restaurants in Detroit which serve the foods of these areas. There are many other international restaurants too. Americans enjoy the foods in these restaurants as well as the opportunity to better understand the people and their way of life. One of the most common international restaurants to be found in the United States is the Italian restaurant. The restaurant may be a small business run by a single family. The mother of the family cooks all of the dishes, and the father and children serve the people who come to eat there. Or it may be a large restaurant owned by several different people who worked together in the business. Many Italian dishes that Americans enjoy are made with meats, tomatoes and cheese, they are very delicious and tasty.

30.   Why are there so many international restaurants in the United States?

31.   Why do Americans like to go to international restaurants apart from enjoying the foods there?

32.   How is a typical Italian family restaurant run in the United States?

Passage Three

One winter day in 1891, a class at a training school in Massachusetts, U.S.A, went into the gym for their daily exercises. Since the football season had ended, most of the young man felt they were in for a boring time.

But their teacher, James Nasmith had other ideas. He had been working for a long time on a new game that would have the excitement of the American football. Nasmith showed the men a basket he had hung at the each end of the gym, and explained that they were going to sue a round European football, at first everybody tried to throw the ball into the basket no matter where he was standing. “Pass! Pass!” Nasmith kept shouting, blowing his whistle to stop the excited players. Slowly, they began to understand what was wanted of them. The problem with the new game, which was soon called “basketball”, was getting the ball out of the basket. They used ordinary food baskets with bottoms and the ball, of course, stayed inside. At first, someone had to climb up every time a basket was scored. It was several years before someone came up with the idea of removing the bottom of the basket and letting the ball fall through. There have been many changes in the rules since then, and basketball has become one of the world’s most popular sports.

33.   What did Nasmith do to entertain his students one winter day?

34.   According the speaker, what was the problem with the new game?

35.   How was the problem with the new game solved?