SECTION 2: LISTENING TEST (30 minutes)

Directions: In this section you will read several passage. Each one is followed by sever or questions about it. You are to choose ONE best answer, (A), (B), (C) or (D), to each question. Answer all the questions following each passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage and write the letter of the answer you have chosen in the corresponding space in your ANSWER BOOKLET.

Questions 1-5//tr.hjenglish.com/                     
    Supermarket group Tesco, now the biggest retailer in the UK, rang up its first 1bn profit last year and yesterday claimed to be the fastest growing major retailer in the world. The 700-strong chain, once regarded as a downmarket pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap business, is raking in sales of nearly 23bn a year and producing a profit of 3m a day. Only one UK retailer-Marks Spencer-has ever breached the 1bn barrier before and M S has since suffered an aboutt-turn in its fortunes. In made only 430m last year.

     Despite criticism from consumer groups and some farmers’ representatives, Tesco, which now accounts for 25 of every 100 spent on groceries in UK, insisted it was not making excessive profits. Chief executive Terry Leahy said the chain was making only just over 3 profit from every 100 purchase and deputy chairman David Reid said the growth had been driven by “better service, quality and value for money”.

     The supermarket has also benefited from the lackluster performance of some of its rivals, especially Sainsbury. Unitl 1995 Sainsbury was bigger than Tesco, but it last reported profits were barely half Tesoco’s 1bn. Safeway, which made 236m last year, is turning itself into a new breed of small-scale hypermarket while Asda, with 330m profit last year, appears to have lost some of its momentum since its takeover by the American Wal-Mart discount chain. Tesco’s 1.05bn profit, which was generated in the year to the end of February, is 12% up on last year. Sales were up 11.9%.

     Earlier this year-in the wake of a two-year competition commission inquiry which cleared the supermarkets of making excessive profits-Tony Blair accused the supermarkets of having shoppers in “an armlock”, but Tesco denied its profits and success were being driven by squeezing suppliers. It said it had cut prices by 1bn over the past five years and that its prices were now 11% lower than in 1996.

     A spokesman for the company said: “Our profits have been growing in the with sales for a number of years. In other words, it is not margin expansion, or any rip-off, that is driving the profit growth.” “And in as much as farmers are experiencing tough times, why blame it on the supermarkets? Other macro factors are more important. Farm profits are extremely cyclical and in recent years the strong pound and the travails associated with BSE have been the main issues.”

     But a spokeswoman for the National Consumer Protection Council said: “It is high time Tesco cut their prices more and gave the customers more benefit from their profits”, while Michael Hart, of the Small And Family Alliance, accused the supermarkets of being a “new food baronial class”. The Liberal Democrats’ agriculture spokesman, Colin Breed, called for the appointment of a retail regulator “who would not be in the pockets of the supermarkets.”

     But the National Farmers’ Union, while admitting that some of its members would find the earnings “hard to comprehend”, backed the company. Spokeswoman Helen Lo said farmers hit by crises like BSE and foot and mouth should work with the big grocers, rather than “wage a war” on them. She said: “I think the way forward is to get farmers to muscle together to make a better profit for themselves, and they should look at efficiencies of operations.” //tr.hjenglish.com/

     Tesco is driving its growth through international expansion, and now operates 65 hypermarkets abroad, mostly in central Europe and Asia. Sales at those stores climbed to nearly 3bn last year and they produced profits of 74m. At home, the group last year sold 45m of DVD players and TVs, extended its clothing range put 8,00 new nonfood products on its shelves.

     Mr. Leahy outlined plans to spend 1bn opening more Tesco outlets in the UK this year. He intends to double both the number of Tesco Express stores on Esso forecourts to 100 and the number of Tesco Extra hypermarkets to around 45. The expansion plans are expected to create 20,000 new jobs-half in the UK-meaning Tesco’s worldwide payroll will rise to 260,000. The Tesco. com grocery home delivery business also brings in profits. The online grocer is now the biggest e-tailer in the world. Its 1m registered users 70,000 weekly shoppers spend 6m a week.

1. This passage is mainly about_____________. //tr.hjenglish.com/
   (A) a comparison of supermarket groups in Britain
   (B) criticism of supermarkets from consumer groups
   (C) Tescon’s growth through international expansion
   (D) Tesco’s first    1bn profit growth and its consequent reponses
2. Which  of the following shows the right  order  of supermarkets according to the profits they made last year?
   (A) Marks Spencer, Sainsbury, Safeway, Asda, Tesco
   (B) Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks Spencer, Asda, Safeway
   (C) Asda, Tesco, Sainbury, Safeway, Marks Spencer
   (D) Safeway, Sainsbury, Tesco, Asda, Marks Spencer
3. Which of the following parties or organizations sympathizes with Tesco?
   (A) The Liberal Democrats
   (B) The National Consumer Protection Council
   (C) The National Farmers’Union
   (D) The Labour Party
4. The expression “in the pockets of” from the sentence “The Liberal Democrats' agriculture spokesman, Colin Breed, called for the appointment of a retail regulator 'who would not be in the pockets of the supermarkets'”. (Para. 6) can be replaced by_____________.
    (A) in line with    (B) in the control of  (C) in support of      (D) in opposition to
5.  According to the passage, all of the following contribute to Tesco’s profit growth EXCEPT_____________. //tr.hjenglish.com/
    (A) implementation of its margin-expansion policy
    (B) expansion of markets abroad
    (C) fast grow of e-tailing business
    (D) improvement of service and quality

Questions 6 //tr.hjenglish.com/
     It is a very peculiar planning inquiry. On one side are Michael Howard, Spike Milligan, Joanna Lumley Shepway district council. On the other is English Nature. At stake are the fate of rare butterflies and orchids, and the civic pride of Folkestone.

     The proposal to create a giant white horse on a grassy chalk hill overlooking the entrance to the channel tunnel has inflamed such passion that the Department of Environment deemed an inquiry was necessary. It is due to end tomorrow, although the wrangling seems certain to continue.

     What began as a millennium art project has become a highly charged symbol of the town’s future. Is supporters-who include Milligan and Lumley, both friends of the artist behind the scheme-say it will regenerate the resort. The council believes the 100m long galloping horse will brand Folkestone as an energetic town, attracting visitors and giving pleasure and pride to residents for generations to come.

     Its detractors call the scheme a folly which will despoil a precious resource while doing little to tackle the area’s underlying problems. English Nature argues that Cheriton Hill itself is a greater treasure than anything which could be created there. Rare Adonis blue butterflies and spider orchids have made the chalk escarpment their home; it is a site of special scientific interest and a candidate special area of conservation.

     “We don’t disagree with the need for economic regeneration, but there is no need to damage and destroy a site of national and international wildlife importance in the process,” said Teresa Bennett, acting team manager for the body’s Kent branch. She fears that creating and maintaining the horse would damage the area and attract tourists who could endanger the vulnerable wildlife.
 
     But supporters dismiss English Nature’s calls for them to choose a different location. The site is pretty much the last view you have of England as you leave through the Channel tunnel and the first view you have as your arrive,” Mr Howard, MP for Folkestone and Hythe and a former environment minister and home secretary, told the hearing yesterday.

     Arguing that the potential for ecological damage had been “vastly exaggerated”, he added: “The economy of Folkestone could be transformed if only a small proportion of the large numbers of people who leave or enter the country through the tunnel were to stop to enjoy the area’s attractions. Despite all the efforts people have made we have so far made disappointing progress in attracting people to stay.” His conviction may have been fostered by a recent visitor from America, who spotted designs for the horse on a website and came to Folkestone believing it already existed.

     Charles Newingon, the proposed artist, says he was taken aback by the support for his design. “It’s become important as an issue because the people of Folkestone want it,” he said. “You can call it a lucky charm, a talisman, an icon… I didn’t see it as a way of regenerating the area when I started, but that’s what it’s become.”

     There are around 17 chalk horses in the UK and the practice of cutting them even has its own name, leucippotomy. The best know, at Uffington in Berkshire, probably dates from between 1,400 and 600 BC, although most were created in the last three centuries. Rather than carve a horse, Folkestone volunteers will fix panels into the soil to reduce damage from erosion and make maintenance easy. Mr Newington estimates that it will cost around ￡4,000 which he believes will be easily through donations.

     John Prescott, the environment secretary, will read the inquiry’s recommendations and approve or reject the scheme within the next six months. Should he turn it down, Richard Bougie, who farms Cheriton Hill and is the scheme’s foremost advocate, has warned that they may go all the way to the European courts, albeit with misgiving. “You know what they do to horses in Brussles, don’t you?” he asked the planning inspector. “They eat them.”
 
6. It can be concluded from the passage that the focus of the argument is_____________.
   (A) how to preserve the wildlife in Folkestone
   (B) how to attract overseas tourists to Folkestone
   (C) whether the giant galloping horse should be built near the Channel tunnel
   (D) whether ecological damage can be avoided if the horse is created on Cheriton Hill
7. The proposal to build a  100m galloping horse near the entrance to the channel tunnel is warmly welcomed by the local people. The reason is that_____________.
   (A) it will be the largest of all the chalk horses in the UK.
   (B) it will be a grand symbol of Folkestone’s culture
   (C) it will improve the habitat for wildlife on Cheriton Hill
   (D) it will enhance the publicity of Folkestone an stimulate is tourism
8. According to Charles Newingon, the designer of the giant white horse,_____________.
   (A) the building of the white horse has only artistic value
   (B) the public response to the white horse project is beyond his expectation
   (C) the cost for building the white horse will be a big issue
   (D) the planning inquiry will not stop the building of the white horse
9. The author introduces Richard Bougie at the end of the passage_____________.
   (A) for he comes from Cheriton Hill, Folkestone
   (B) as he will go to the Europen courts to win the case
   (C) to reveal his hatred for the practice of eating horses
   (D) to show local people’s support to the scheme
10. Which of the following is NOT true according to the passage?
   (A) The horse will be cut on the rocks covering Cheriton Hill.
   (B) Most chalk horse in the UK were built in the last few centuries.
   (C) English Nature is firmly against the building of chalk horse on Cheriton Hill.
   (D) The example of the American vistor gives support to the building of the horse.

Questions 11-15 //tr.hjenglish.com/
     “Everything worth photographing is in California,” Edward Weston once said. His observation, however exaggerated, points up one of the distinguishing features of California photography: It began out of the need to depict a unique place. From its beginnings to the dotcom boom of our day, California has seemed to offer people a chance to make more money and enjoy more freedom than they could back home, together with a chance to live in a natural paradise. The California Gold Rush of 1849 was the first major historical event to be fully documented by photographers; p daguerreotypists as well as gold miners could hope to make rich new lives.
 
     Sustaining the state’s rapid economic development called for investors and ever-more new settlers. Both could be attracted by photographs. Individual Californians wanted pictures of themselves and their communities, not least for faraway relatives. For good and for ill-promoting both investment and conservation-photography has played a major part in making the place seem real, whether as America’s Garden of Eden or, more recently, as a once-paradisaic landscape ruined by greed.

     This remarkable story is the subject of “Capturing Light: Masterpieces of California Photography, 1850 to the Present,” an exhibition organized by the Oakland Museum of California. Selected from the museum’s own preeminent collection, it presents 200 works, most of which were originally intended as art. Others were done as unpretentious documentation, or even as snapshots.

     The earliest panoramic views of the Yosemite Valley lent themselves to both high mindedness and economic exploitation. In historical fact, such photographs were used to argue in favor of establishing our national park system, but dreams of pristine natural beauty have also led many an outlander to invest or settle in California. America’s onetime Eden is now its most populous state, beset by electric-power shortages and environmental degradation, but still offering visions breath-taking natural beauty.

     As the years passed, photography changed to reflect new perceptions of the world. By the late-19th century, science and technology-which had given us the locomotive and the steel mill, as well as the camera-could not longer be seen as unqualified blessings. So-called pictorial photography, characterized by blurry focus and wistful moods, was a genteel protest against the realities of unchecked industrialism. In California, where checks on that trend were almost nonexistent, photography perhaps played a larger role than elsewhere. Such pictorialists as Arnold Genthe and John Hagemeyer contrived to photograph even crowded San Francisco as if little had changed since the Middle Ages.

     The more optimistic 1920s brought a reaction against soft-focus genteelism. As with modern architecture’s refusal to blur the underlying geometric shape of a building with ornament, such California photographers as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Imogen Cunninghan celebrated nature by photographing it in sharp focus, as if its forms were eternal. But the need to document history reasserted itself during the 1930s; Dorothea Lange’s poor migrant workers became as classic an expression of life in California as Ansel Adams’s mountain.

     All of these photographers worked with the camera as a tool, a surrogate eye; photography was not a force in itself, to be investigated by photographers. Today’s California, long established as a center of the film and television industries, can no longer ignore the effect of its own images. Much of the state’s recent artistic photography explores the implications of picturemaking itself. Against that background, Lynn Hershman’s woman in high heels, with a TV set for a head, is an almost quintessential expression of the idea that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, are forming ourselves out of other people’s pictures.

     “Capturing Light” is at The Oakland Museum of Californial through May 27. A national tour is planned, with venues to be announced.

11. The passage is mainly about_____________. //tr.hjenglish.com/
   (A) the California Gold Rush of 1849
   (B) the environmental pollution in California
   (C) the artistic features of California photography
   (D) the role of photography in development of California
12. Which of the following cannot be concluded about the exhibition “capturing Light”?
   (A) It includes works taken over the past one and half centuries.
   (B) It shows the outstanding collection of the Oakland Museum of California.
   (C) It is selected from contributions from well-known photographers.
   (D) It gives the documentation of historical changes in California.
13. The so-called    pictorial photography” discussed in paragraph 5 was regarded as_____________
   (A) a record of the unique beauty of California
   (B) a protest against the negative side of industrialism
   (C) a depiction of changes brought by science and technology
   (D) a portrayal of the coming of locomotive and steel mill
14. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT directly intended by photographers in California?
   (A) To attract tourists and new settlers to California.
   (B) To document the natural beauty of California.
   (C) To record the consequences of environmental pollution.
   (D) To demonstrate the life and work of Californians.
15. According to the passage, California’s recent artistic photography_____________.
   (A) tells the importance of film and television industries
   (B) explores the art of film and television making
   (C) expresses the significance of other people’s pictures
   (D) studies the interactive nature of picturemaking

Questions 16-20 //tr.hjenglish.com/
     The abortion wars are on again. No, abortion is not about to be outlawed. In America, this battle is fought, peculiarly, not at the center but at the periphery. The new President repeals the former President’s directive allowing funding for a abortion counseling overseas. Now, there may be good reason to pause before opening wide the doors to this kind of research-but not for the reasons being advanced by opponents of abortion. The real problem is not where the cells come from, but where they are going.   

     At immediate issue are “stem cells,” cells often taken from the very earliest embryo. Because they are potentially capable of developing into any kind of cell, they may help cure an array of intractable diseases. Pro-life forces find the procedure ethically impermissible, because removing the cells kills the embryo. Moreover, they argue, harvesting this biological treasure will encourage the manufacture of human embryos for precisely this utilitarian purpose.

     But their arguments fail. First, stem cells are usually taken from embryos produced for external fertilization or from aborted fetuses. Both procedures are legal. They produce cells of incalculable value that would otherwise be discarded. Why not derive human benefit from them? Second, the National Institute of Health guidelines issued last August take away any incentive to abort or otherwise produce embryos just for their useful parts: no payment for embryos and no dedication of embryonic cells for specific recipients (say, for injection into a sick family member). Finally, there is the potential benefit. Because embryonic stem cells can theoretically develop into any cell type in the body, they could cure all kinds of diseases, such as Parkinson’s, diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Will it work? We can’t know without the research.

     One can admire pro-lifers for trying to prevent science from turning human embryos into tissue factories. But theirs is a rearguard action. The benefits of such research will soon become apparent. Those resisting this research will find themselves outflanked politically, as the stampede of the incurably sick and their loved ones rolls through congress demanding research and treatment. The resister will also find themselves outflanked morally when the amount of human suffering that stem cells might alleviate is weighed against the small risk of increasing the number of embryos that do not see life.

     In their desire to keep the embryo inviolable opponents are missing the moral issue. The real problem with research that manipulates early embryonic cells is not the cells’origin but their destiny. What really ought to give us pause about research that harnesses the fantastic powers of primitive cells to develop into entire organs and even organisms is what monsters we will soon be capable of creating.

     In 1998, Massachusetts scientists injected a human nucleus into a cow egg. The resulting embryo, destroyed early, appeared to be producing human protein, but we have no
idea what kind of grotesque hybrid entity would come out of such a marriage. Last October, the first primate containing genes from another species-a monkey with a jellyfish gene-was born. Monkeys today. Tomorrow humans.

     Just last month Britain legalized embryonic stem-cell research. But it did not stop there. Parliament also permitted “therapeutic” human cloning. That means that you cannot grow your clone in a uterus to produce a copy of yourself, but you can grow it in a test tube to produce organs as spare parts. Anyone who believes that such lines will not be crossed is living on the moon.

     The heart of problem is this: It took Nature 3 billion years of evolution to produce cells that have the awesome power to develop autonomously, through staggeringly complex chemical reactions, into anything from a kidney cell to a full thinking human being. We are about to harness that power for crude human purposes.

     What will our purposes be? Of course there will be great medical benefits. They will seduce us into forging bravely, recklessly ahead. But just around the corner lies the logical by-product of such research: the hybrid human-animal species, the partly developed human bodies for use as parts, and other grotesqueries as yet unimagined. That is what ought to be giving us pause: not where we took these magnificent cells from but where they are taking us.

16. According to the author, the opponents of abortion, or pro-lifers,_____________.
   (A) are groundless towards fetal-tissue
   (B) do not recognize the potential of stem cells
   (C) are to be highly admired and sympathized
   (D) do not understand the moral consequence of embryonic research
17. It can be concluded from the passage that the author_____________
   (A) thinks that the abortion should never be approved
   (B) is vehemently counterattacking the views of pro-lifers
   (C) takes a more comprehensive view towards fetal-tissue research
   (D) is suggesting that the embryonic research should continue
18. The expressions “Monkeys today. Tomorrow humans.”(Para.5) can best be paraphrased as which of the following?
   (A) Monkeys will be evolved into humans.
   (B) The embryonic research may produce human-animal species.
   (C) Humans and monkeys are from the same ancestor.
   (D) The evolution from monkey to human is a cyclic process.
19. Which of the following is implied in the sentence “Anyone who believes that such lines will not be crossed is living on the moon. (Para. 7)”
   (A) The cloning of human organs will lead to cloning of humans.
   (B) Many people doubt the
   (C) Most people welcome the “therapeutic” human cloning.
   (D) The cloning technology will help us live on the moon.
20. It can be found that in writing the essay, the author_____________.
   (A) takes a liberal position on the issue of cloning technology
   (B) treats the topic only as a medical issue
   (C) show grave concerns over the outcome of embryonic research
   (D) expresses a quite optimistic view about curing all kinds of diseases