Passage Two

　　Questions 29 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　29. [A] A housewife. [B] A singer. [C] A teacher. [D] A musician.

　　30. [A] The violin was too heavy for her.

　　[B] She was too young to play the violin.

　　[C] The violin was too expensive.

　　[D] Her mother wanted her to play the piano.

　　31. [A] To play the violin on a concert.

　　[B] To go to New York City.

　　[C] To apply for a scholarship.

　　[D] To have her performance taped

　　32. [A] In 1928. [B] In 1982. [C] In 1980. [D] In 1920.

　　Passage Three

　　Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.

　　33. [A] Winter in Alaska.

　　[B] The brave Alaskan people.

　　[C] Alaskan transportation today.

　　[D] A dog sled race.

　　34. [A] Every year in March. [B] Every other year.

　　[C] From two to three weeks. [D] The winter of 1925.

　　35. [A] Winning. [B] Finding gold. [C] Just to finish. [D] Being able to participate.

　　Section C

　　Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks numbered from 36 to 43 with the exact words you have just heard. For blanks numbered from 44 to 46 you are required to fill in the missing information. For these blanks, you can either use the exact words you have just heard or write down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.

　　Many workers depend on plans (36) ________ by their employers to help pay for their retirement. There are two major kinds of retirement plans. One is defined by what is paid out, the other by what is paid in.

　　The first is called a defined (37) ________ plan, or pension. It provides set (38) ________ based on the number of years an (39) ________ has worked. These plans often pay for health care and other costs. They might also provide money to family members when the (40) ________ dies.

　　Pensions, however, can be a big cost to employers. In the United States, the change from a (41) ________ economy to a service economy has resulted in fewer and fewer (42) ________ plans.

　　The other major kind of retirement plan is called a defined (43) ________ plan. Two things define how much a worker will get at retirement. (44) ________________________.

　　One popular version is a four-oh-one-k plan, named after a part of the tax law. (45) ________________________.

　　But some plans are very complex. An easier way for small employers to offer retirement savings is through a Savings Incentive Match Plan. (46) ________________________.

　　Part IV Reading Comprehension (Reading in Depth) (25 minutes)

　　Section A

　　Directions: In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete statements in the fewest possible words. Please write your answers on Answer Sheet 2.

　　By the mind-nineteenth century, the term "icebox" had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns(酒館), and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern fridge, had been invented.

　　Making an efficient icebox as not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary(未發(fā)展的). The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.

　　But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.