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Section C
Directions: In this section, you will heara 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 secondtime, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have justheard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should checkwhat you have written.
Now listen to the passage.
When you look up at the night sky, what do you see? There are other heavenly bodies out there besides the moon and stars. One of the most fascinating of this is a comet. Comets were formed around the same the earth was formed. They are made up of ice and other frozen liquids and gasses. Now and then these dirty snow balls begin to orbit the sun just as the planets do. As a comet gets closer to the sun, some gasses in it begin to unfreeze. They combine with dust particles from the comet to form a huge cloud. As the comet gets even nearer to the sun and solar wind blows the cloud behind the comet thus forming its tail. The tail and generally fuzzy atmosphere around the comet are characteristics that can help identify this phenomenon in the night sky. In any given year, about dozen known comets come close to the sun in their orbits. The average person can't see them all of course. Usually there is only one or two a year bright enough to be seen with the naked eye. Comet Hale-Bopp discovered in 1995 was an unusually bright comet. Its orbit bought it relatively to the earth within 122 million miles of it. But Hale-Bopp came a long way on its earthly visit. It won't be back for another 4 thousand years or so.
