Passage Two
Americans now spend more money on fast food than they do on higher education, personal computers, software or new cars. The rapid growth of the fast-food industry has been driven by fundamental changes in the U.S. economy. The hourly wage of the average American worker peaked in 1973 and then steadily declined until last year. Women entered the work force in record numbers, often motivated less by feminism than by a need to help pay the bills. In 1975, about a third of American mothers with young children worked outside the home; today about two-thirds of such mothers are employed. As the sociologists Cameron Lynne MacDonald has noted, the entry of women into the nation’s work force has greatly increased demand for the types of services that housewives traditionally performed: cooking, cleaning and child-care. The fast-food industry has benefited from these demographic changes, supplying at low cost the meals no longer prepared in the home and hiring at low wages millions of young women in need of extra income.
The McDonald’s Corporation. has become a powerful symbol of America’s service economy, the sector now responsible for ninety percent of the country’s new jobs. In 1968, McDonald’s operated about 1,000 restaurants. Today it has about 23,000 restaurants worldwide and opens roughly 2,000 new ones each year. An estimated one of every eight Americans has worked at McDonald’s. The company annually trains more new workers than the U.S. Army. McDonald’s is the nation’s largest purchaser of beef and potatoes. It is the second-largest purchaser of poultry.
Questions 30 to 32 are based on the passage you have just heard.
30. Why do American women go out to work?
31. How does the fast-food industry benefit from the changes of the American economy?
32. How many new restaurants does McDonalds open every day?
Passage Three
There are many computer users who are wondering if they should be putting their computers to sleep at the end of the day or if they should actually shut them down. Sleep mode was originally implemented simply as a screen saver. On laptop computers it became very useful for conserving battery power if the computer was to remain idle for a period of time. (In the beginning, sleep mode was for laptops only.) Later, the monitor companies got on the “green” computing kick, and began to build in “energy saver” features that would put just the monitor to sleep, but not the computer. So now the purpose of the desktop’s sleep became a) to conserve power, and b) to let the computer “rest”.
Putting your computer to sleep at the end of the day has these two very advantageous benefits. First and foremost, the sleep mode allows your computer to go to sleep when not in use, and to re-launch very quickly. A cold startup will take as much as 10 times as long. That’s the most important function. It also allows you to leave projects in progress like they are, and reappear instantly when you return.
There is a downside however. So some warnings are in order. As Mr. Murphy put it, “if something can go wrong, it will.” If anything happens during the period of sleep, you can come back to a crashed computer, and any unsaved work gone forever. For instance, around here I can’t leave the computers at sleep during a thunder storm season—in a black-out, without battery back-up, you’ve got a crash.
Questions 33 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.
33. What is the benefit sleep mode brings to the laptop?
34. What’s the most important function of sleep mode?
35. What’s the disadvantage of sleep mode?
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.
The term “balanced diet” is constantly heard but rarely(36)explained. What it means is a diet that includes a (37) combination of several different food types, including grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy products, fats and oils.
(38) Crucial to the idea of a balanced diet is including foods in the right (39) proportions; the aim is to get all the nutrients your body needs while (40) maintaining a healthy weight. The US government (41) provides a basic idea of what nutrients we need on their website.
It isn’t a case of having (42) roughly equal measures of everything. There should be a lot of some kinds and just a little of others. Some fats and oils, for example, are important in the diet for various reasons. But you only need a small amount (43) compared with foods such as vegetables.
In the UK, the Food Standards Agency has developed a program called The Balance of Good Health (44) to show people what proportions and types of foods make up a healthy balanced diet. This divides foods into five different groups. (45)The largest groups are bread and vegetables, followed by milk and meat. The smallest by far is the salt and sugar group.
(46) Fresh fruit and vegetables are low in fat, calories and salt, and an excellent source of vitamins, minerals and fiber. Most of us don’t eat enough to meet the current recommendations of three to five servings of vegetables and two to four servings of fruit a day. Protein-rich foods and dairy foods are needed in more moderate amounts. Your diet should include two or three servings of milk or dairy products a day, for example.
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