Section B

Passage One

Human beings enjoy challenges. Many of them like physical challenges. They ask themselves questions like these: How fast can I run? How high can I climb? How deep can I dive? How far can I swim? How long can I hold my breath? How much can I lift? How high can I jump? Because people enjoy challenges, they like to play sports and watch other people play sports. They like climbing, running, diving, lifting, jumping, and so on. Every four years millions of people all over the world enjoy the international sports competition called the Olympics. There are challenges that are not physical challenges. There are social and intellectual challenges, too. Leonardo da Vinci, who lived in Italy during the fifteenth century, enjoyed every possible challenge. He was an artist and painted the well known picture, the Mona Lisa. He was an engineer who made plans for a city with roads under the street for traffic. He was an inventor who invented a device to let people breathe under water. He was a scientist, and he learned a great deal about human structure.
Another kind of challenge faced the Egyptians between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago when they decided to build the first pymp3id. They used six million tons of rock. That is enough to build a ten foot wall around all of France. Four hundred thousand men worked for twenty years to build it.
So, for thousands of years, people accepted challenges. Today we still have many challenges before us. Medical science faces the challenges of conquering the many diseases which still attack human beings. Engineers and planners must build new cities and new kinds of transportation. Scientists must develop new fomp3s of energy. And many of us are interested in the challenge of space. We live in an age of challenge.

Questions 26 to 28 are based on the passage you have just heard.

When people participate in sporting activities, what kind of challenge do they face?

Which belongs to social challenge?

How do people react to the category of social challenges?

Passage Two

Today we’ll examine the role that private transportation — namely, the automobile — plays in city planning.

A number of sociologists blame the automobile for the decline of the downtown areas of major cities. In the 1950’s and 1960’s the automobile made it possible to work in the city and yet live in the suburbs many miles away. Shopping patterns changed; instead of going to downtown stores, people in the suburbs went to large shopping malls outside the city and closer to the home. Merchants in the city failed, and their stores closed.

Downtown shopping areas became deserted. In recent years there’s been a rebirth of the downtown area, as many suburbanites have moved back to the city. They’ve done this, of course, to avoid highways blocked with commuters from the suburbs. I’ve chosen this particular city planning problem—our dependence on private transportation — to discuss in groups. I’m hoping you will all come up with some novel solutions. Oh, and don’t approach the problem from a purely sociological perspective; try to take into account environmental and economic issues as well.
Questions 29 to 31 are based on the passage you have just heard.

How did the automobile affect the work force in the 1950’s and 1960’s?

What problem did downtown city merchants face in the 1960’s?

According to the speaker, why are some people moving back to the city?

Passage Three

The United States operates under a federal system of government. Under the federal system, power is divided between the central government and the states. The central government is given specific powers. These powers are named in the Constitution. Powers that are not assigned to the central government in the Constitution belong to the states.

The central government can pass laws that affect trade between states. The central government can also make treaties with foreign countries. It has the power to print money. The Constitution gives the central government these powers. These powers belong to the central government only. However, the states have many powers that the central government cannot control. For example, a state is allowed to tax people who live and work in the state. The central government cannot put a limit on the amount of money that a state taxes its people.

Many people feel that the federal system has many good points. One good point is that it restrains the power of the central government. The central government cannot become too powerful. Another good point is that the central government makes sure that the bigger states don’t become too powerful. Under the Constitution, all states are treated equally. The laws of the central government do not favor one state over another.

Questions 32 to 35 are based on the passage you have just heard.

What does the passage mainly tell us?

Which is the power of the states governments?

What is stated in the passage?

According to the passage, what is a good point about the federal system?