全国公共英语等级考试第五级考试样卷
R Questions 17 – 20 are based on the following talk. You now have 20 seconds to read Questions 17 – 20.
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(Tone)
Today it's my turn to give the presentation. As we agreed last week, I'm going to introduce George Orwell, a famous English writer.
George Orwell was born in India on 25 June, 1903 but his family returned to England four years later. He went to school in Sussex where he was very unhappy and then in 1917 he entered the famous English public school, Eton. Unlike most of his contemporaries he did not go to university after this but joined the Indian Imperial Police in 1922 and went to Burma. He disliked his job as a policeman and in 1927, after five years, he returned to England. He spent much of the following three years getting to know the poor and exploited in both London and Paris, and he also wrote articles for the newspapers, and poems. All his life he hated political and social injustice and much of his writing was concerned with this, trying to enlighten and change society through his books. In 1933 his first book, DOWN AND OUT IN PARIS AND LONDON was published, about his time amongst the poor in these two places. In 1936 he married Eileen O'Shaughnessy and later that year, in July, he travelled to Spain as a war correspondent. While there, he joined the republican side and fought for them against Franco in the Spanish Civil War. The following year he was seriously wounded in the throat and he returned to England in July 1937. In 1938 his sixth book, HOMAGE TO CATALONIA, about his time in Spain, was published. In 1940 he became a correspondent with the BBC. Immediately after the Second World War, in 1945, one of his most famous books, ANIMAL FARM, was published. He became very ill with tuberculosis in 1948 but he managed to write the book "1984", a pessimistic novel about the future. It was published a year later in 1949. He died on 23 January 1950.
Well, that's all about his life. Now shall we concentrate on his famous book "ANIMAL FARM".
R You now have 40 seconds to check your answers to Questions 17 – 20.
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R That is the end of Part B.
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R Part C
You will hear a talk given by a university lecturer. As you listen, you must answer Questions 21 –30 by writing no more than three words in the space provided on the right. You will hear the talk TWICE.
You now have 60 seconds to read Questions 21 - 30.
PAUSE 00'60"
(Tone)
For those of you who are either already studying in the United States or plan to one day, it might be interesting to know something about the foreign student population in the United States. For the academic year 1995/96 there was a total of approximately 344,000 foreign students studying in the United States. This figure of 344,000 may seem like a very large number until you compare it with the total population of 241,000,000. The foreign student population has been growing for a number of years and is still growing, but the rate of increase has dropped sharply during the 1990s. During the 1980s, the population grew quite rapidly. For example, between 1985 and 1990, the average yearly increase was 12.5%. However, the picture in the 1990s is quite different. The rate of increase has declined quite noticeably. In fact, the rate of increase between 1994/95 and 1995/96 was only .5%, or one-half of one percent. Although the overall rate of increase has dropped to only .5%, the number of students from some parts of the world is increasing while the number of students from other areas is decreasing. For example, during this same time period, that is between the academic years 94/95 and 95/96, there was a decrease in the number of students from the Middle East, while the number of students from South and East Asia increased. These changes in the number of students coming from different parts of the world no doubt reflected changing economic and political situations. I’m sure you are aware of many of these changes, and perhaps we can discuss them at our next meeting. For today let’s confine our talk to first, a discussion of the origin of these students, or, in other words, where they come from; second, the kinds of studies they pursue; and, finally, the academic levels they are found in. If we have a little time left, we might quickly discuss in which geographic areas most of them go to school.
Let’s discuss the origins of the foreign student population in the United States for the academic year 1995/96. Let’s discuss it in order from those areas sending the most students to those areas sending the fewest students. If we look at the figures provided by the annual census of foreign students in the United States for the year 1995/96, we see that most of the foreign students studying in the United States during this year were from South and East Asia. This is a rather large geographical area which includes such countries as China, Korea, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The total number of students from this area, South and East Asia was 156,830. In other words, roughly 2 out of every 5 foreign students come from South and East Asia. Almost 24,000 of this total were from China. Malaysia was close behind with just a little over 23,000 students. The next largest number of students came from the Middle East. The number of students from the Middle East came to about one-third the number from South and East Asia. The fourth largest number came from South America. Next came Europe, Africa, North America, and Oceania. Let’s recapitulate what we’ve said. The largest number of students studying in the United States during the academic year 1995/96 were from South and East Asia, followed by the Middle East, South America, Europe, Africa, North America, and Oceania.