Passage 1 

Recording

Behind the cash register at a store in downtown San Francisco, Sam Azar swiped his credit card to pay for a pack of cigarettes. The store's card reader failed to scan the card's magnetic strip. Azar tried again and again. No luck. As customers began to queue, Mr. Azar reached beneath the counter for a black plastic bag. He wrapped one layer of the plastic around the card and tried again. Success. The sale was completed. "I don't know how it works. It just does." said Mr. Azar who learned the trick from another clerk. Verifone, the company that makes the store's card reader, would not confirm or deny that the plastic bag trick worked. But it's one of many low-tech fixes for high-tech failures that people without engineering degrees have discovered often out of desperation，and shared. Today's shaky economy is likely to produce many more such tricks. "In post-war Japan, the economy wasn't doing so great so you couldn't get everyday-use items like household cleaners," says Lisa Katayama, author of Urawaza, a book named after the Japanese term for clever lifestyle tips and tricks. "So people looked for ways to do with what they had." Today, Americans are finding their own tips and tricks for fixing malfunctioning devices with supplies as simple as paper and glue. Some, like Mr. Azar's plastic bag, are open to argument as to how they work or whether they really work at all. But many tech home remedies can be explained by a little science. 

Questions 16 to 18 are based on the passage you have just heard. 

Question 16. What happened when Sam Azar swiped his credit card to pay for his purchase? 

Question 17. How did Sam Azar manage to complete the sale? 

Question 18. What is today's shaky economy likely to do? 

Passage 2 

Recording

If you are a graduate student, you may depend on your adviser for many things, including help with improving grades, acquiring financial support, forming an examining committee and getting letters of recommendation. If you are a graduate teaching assistant, your adviser also may be your "boss". Academic departments vary in their procedures for assigning academic advisers to graduate students. In some departments, either the chairman or the director of graduate studies serves for at least the first semester as a new student adviser. Then students select an adviser, based on shared academic interests. In other departments, a new student is assigned a faculty adviser based on some system of distribution of the department's "advising load". Later, students may have the opportunity of selecting the adviser that they prefer. In any case, new graduate students can learn who their advisers or temporary advisers are by visiting or emailing the departmental office and asking for the information. Graduation requirements specify the number of credits you must earn, the minimum grade point average you must achieve and the distribution of credits you must have from among differing departments or fields of study. In addition, it is necessary to apply for graduation when you near that time that you will be completing your graduation requirements. Since graduation requirements vary among divisions of the university, you should consult the Bulletin of Information. You should also direct your questions to your departmental office or academic adviser. 

Questions 19 to 21 are based on the passage you have just heard. 

Question 19. What does the speaker say about the procedures for assigning academic advisers? 

Question 20. How can new graduate students learn who their advisers are? 

Question 21. What does the speaker say about graduation requirements? 

Passage 3 

Recording

Jody Hubbard is a diet and nutrition expert who travels around the state to speak in middle and high schools. She primarily speaks to students in health classes, but sometimes the school will arrange for her to speak to several different groups of girls. Her biggest concern is the emphasis American culture places on thinness and the negative way that affects girls today. Jody has a Ph.D. in nutrition, but, more important, she has personal experience. Her mother taught her to diet when she was only 8 years old. Jody has created several different presentations, which she gives to different types of audiences and she tries to establish an emotional connection with the students so that they will feel comfortable asking questions or talking to her privately. She shows them pictures and images from popular culture of beautiful women and explains how computers are used to make the women look even more thin and "beautiful" than they are in real life. She describes how the definition of beauty has changed over the years and even from culture to culture. She then talks about health issues and the physical damage that can occur as a result of dieting. Finally, she addresses self-respect and the notion that a person's sense of beauty must include more than how much a person weighs. Sometimes Jody feels that she succeeds in persuading some students to stop dieting; other times she feels that she fails. 

Questions 22 to 25 are based on the passage you have just heard. 

Question 22. Who does Jody Hubbard primarily speak to? 

Question 23. What is Jody Hubbard's biggest concern about American culture? 

Question 24. Why does Jody Hubbard show pictures of beautiful women to her audiences? 

Question 25. What is Jody Hubbard's main purpose in giving her speeches?