四级新闻听力文本及答案.doc

Test 1
Questions 1 and 2 will be based on the following news item.
[1] In a statement, the US president says he is taking the action, because the conflict in Darfur threatens the national security and foreign policy of the United States. The asset freeze is being imposed on four Sudanese identified by the U.N. Security Council as being involved in organizing and carrying out cruel and violent actions in Darfur. The president’s order comes days before rallies are planned in Washington and throughout the United States to protest the three-year war in Darfur. [2]Celebrities such as Academy Award winning actor George Clooney are scheduled to speak at the rally. Clooney, who just returned from a trip to the Darfur region, told reporters in Washington the world’s attention need to be focused on what he called the “first massive murder of the 21st century.”
1. Why is the U.S. president taking actions in Darfur?
2. Who is scheduled to speak at the rally?

Questions 3 and 4 will be based on the following news item.
[3] In October the Ugandan opposition leader, Kizza Basigye, returned to Kampala to prepare for the presidential elections next year. Three weeks later he was arrested. The Ugandan government says he must answer the charges, but his supporters say it’s an attempt by Ugandan President Museveni to Prevent Dr. Basigye running against him. [4]The incident is threatening to darken the country’s first multi-party elections in two decades. Western nations which provide essential economic support to Uganda have held up Uganda as a role model in the region, opposition leaders are calling on them to take a stand. In this edition of Analysis, Lucy Williamson looks at whether Uganda’s relationship with its donors is feeling the strain.
3. Why did Kizza Basigye return to Kampala?
4. What is the consequence of Basigye’s incident?

Questions 5 and 7 will be based on the following news item.
[5]Up to 32 people were killed in two bomb attacks Monday in the Syrian city of Homs, near the border with Lebanon. The second attack killed people who gathered to see the damage of an earlier car bomb. A suicide bomber entered the crowd and exploded a bomb hidden in clothing.
The attacks took place in the al-Zahraa district, in the central part of the city. [6]State-controlled media say 19 people were killed in the two bombings. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 32 people were killed. Many others were hurt.
It was the second major attack in Homs since the government and rebel forces reached a cease-fire agreement this month. The government will take back areas of the city controlled by rebels.
[7]On December 12, two bombings killed at least 16 people. Those attacks also took place in the al-Zahraa district. The Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The Wall Street Journal newspaper reports that many people who live in the neighborhood are members of the Alawite sect. The newspaper reports the area is often “attacked by anti-government rebels armed with rockets and vehicle bombs.”
5. What do we learn about the bomb attacks from the news report?
6. What did the state-controlled media say?
7. What happened on December 12?
Test 2
Questions 1 and 2 will be based on the following news item.
The number of Americans over the age of 65 is expected to double between now and 2030. This next generation of retirees will be the healthiest, best educated, and most wealthy in American history. [1]But many of them won’t have a retirement benefit their parents’ generation fought hard to get. It is something known as a defined-benefit plan, or “pension”. Retired workers who have a pension continue to be paid a certain percentage of their highest annual salary-usually anywhere from one to three percent-multiplied by the number of years they worked for the company. Pensions first became popular during World War Ⅱ, when a federally-approved wage-freeze meant unions had to negotiate for retirement benefits, instead of pay increases. [2]Pensions reached the height of their popularity in the late 1970s, when more than 60 percent of Americans had one.
1. What problem does the next generation of retirees have?
2. When did pensions reach the height of their popularity?

Questions 3 and 4 will be based on the following news item.
U.S. government health and safety officials are investigating the cause of the recent explosion at a West Virginia coal mine, which killed 12 miners. [3]The accident was apparently an error in an industry which has prided itself on miner safety at a time of extraordinary expansion. Mine companies operate in 27 states, from West Virginia in the east to Montana in the west, producing a total of about one billion tons a year, or more than a third of the world’s coal supply. The U.S. economy is dependent on coal production. Coal-fired power plants generate about 50 percent of the nation’s electricity. More than half the nation’s coal is mined underground by thousands of men and women who daily risk injury and death. [4]But the occupation has become much safer since the late 1960s, when the U.S. Congress passed laws requiring federal mine inspetions.
3. What do we learn about the recent explosion at a coal mine?
4. What made the mining industry safer in the late 1960s?

Questions 5 and 7 will be based on the following news item.
When it comes to dieting, losing weight fast holds some appeal. Maybe that’s why U.S. News & World Report has added a Fast Weight-Loss Diet category to its annual rankings of best diet plans. And one of the diets that comes out on top is the Health Management Resources (HMR) program.
[5] HMR is a meal replacement diet that can be done on your own at home or under medical supervision. Instead of made-at-home meals, dieters can order low-calorie milk, soups, nutrition bars and multigrain cereal.
The U.S. News reviewers say [6]the plus side to the HMR diet is its quick-start option and the convenience of having meals delivered to you. The down side is “the milk lacks variety,” and it’s tough to eat out while on this diet.
[7] “A common misunderstanding is that losing weight quickly is not healthy not sustainable, and will just lead to future weight re-gain,” wrote Carol Addy, the chief medical officer at HMR, in a release. But she says, to the contrary, “numerous studies demonstrate that following a lifestyle change program which promotes fast initial weight loss can result in better long-term success.”
5. What is the HMR program?
6. What is the advantage of HMR program?
7. What’s the common misunderstanding about losing weight fast?

Test 3
Questions 1 and 2 will be based on the following news item.
The number of girls married in Africa is expected to double in the next 35 years, experts say. [1]That means almost half, or 310 million girls, by 2050 will be married before they reach adulthood, says a United Nation’s report. The African Union says it wants to end child marriage in Africa.
Delegates at a summit in Zambia are expected to set 18 years old as the lowest legal age for marriage across the contient. Marriage before age 18 is already against the law in most African countries.
Yet the UN says more then 125 million African women and girls alive today were married before their 18th birthday. Experts say most were given to men in traditional or religious unions in violation of the law.
[2]African Union charwoman Nkosozana Dlamini Zuma says local culture that undervalues girls and women is to blame. Poverty and lack of education are also responsible, experts say.
1. What do we learn from the United Nation’s report?
2. What is the reason for child marriage in Africa?

Questions 3 and 4 will be based on the following news item.
[3] Waste products from a popular alcoholic drink could be used in the future to make biofuel. Researchers say the new fuel, based on whisky, could reduce demand for oil. They say using less oil could cut pollution that studies have linked to climate change.
Scotland is the largest producer of whisky in the world. And a Scottish professor has found how to take the waste products from distilling whisky and turn them into a form of alcohol called biobutanol. Biobutanol can be used as a fuel. Whisky comes from grain, such as corn and wheat.
Martin Tangney is director of the Biofuel Research Centre at Napier University in Edinburgh. He says less than 10 percent of what comes out can be considered whisky. [4]The rest is mainly one of two unwanted products: strong beer and wheat. Tangney says the two byproducts can be produced to create a new material: biobutanol.
3. What is the news report mainly about?
4. What are the unwanted products in making whisky?

Questions 5 and 7 will be based on the following news item.
For several years, human resources director Pete Tapaskar says it’s been a challenge to fill all the jobs at his suburban Chicago-based technology company. [5] Getting high skilled people is still a challenge.
Elizabeth Sue is principal policy analyst for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, who studies Chicago’s recent immigration trends. She said “They are slowly moving into the south, especially Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia. [6] What we are seeing right now is a substantially decreased total of international in-migrations. Prior to the recession we were between 50 and 60 thousand most years. Now, since 2010, we’ve been at about 23- to 24-thousand international in-migrations on a net basis.” [6] She says that dramatic drop-as much as two-thirds some years-contributes to Chicago’s overall still population growth.
Tapaskar says there are many reasons why immigrants choose to live in Southern states instead of Chicago. [7] “The environment there is ideal for starting a business, could be the taxes there are low, and employers are getting a lot of benefits from the state government.”
But Tapaskar says one thing that could bring new immigrants to Chicago is increasing the number of work visas that would attract the highly skilled tech workers his business needs.
5. What is the problem for the technology companies in Chicago?
6. What do we learn about international in-migrations in Chicago?
7. Why do immigrants choose southern states instead of Chicago?

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