Test Three

SECTION A MINI-LECTURE
In this section, you will hear a mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked,but you will need them to complete a gap-filling task after the mini-lecture. When the lecture is over, you'll be given two minutes to check your notes,and another 10 minutes to complete the gap-filling task. Now listen to the mini-lecture.
Good morning. Before you write something, you need to have a clear idea of the topic,the audience, and the purpose of your writing. In this lecture, we'll concentrate on one of these elements, the audience. This is a very important concept for writing. The term audience usually refers to viewers of movies and TV shows and listeners of radio programs. Here we expand it to include readers of written materials in discussions of writing activities. Why is this concept so important? As shown in the example in our book, the same topic, when written to different audiences, can have very different content, structure, style, etc. Thus, the importance of a keen awareness of your audience throughout the writing process can not be overemphasized. Audiences can be examined from three different perspectives: 1. your social relations to your audience 2. your audience's knowledge about your subject 3. your audience's attitudes or viewpoints to the subject and your position in the writing Let's discuss them one by one. Now, first point, analyze your audience in terms of your social relations. Whenever you write, you are interacting with other members of the society. Are you writing to a friend of yours? To a colleague? To the director of your business firm? To the admission office of an American college? In each situation, you have a different social relationship with your audience and this relationship has a definite impact on the shape of your writing. No one in his or her right mind would write a letter of application to the dean of the graduate school as if the dean was one of his or her buddies. The second point, analyze your audience in terms of their knowledge of the subject you are writing about. This analysis is valuable particularly in informative and explanatory writing. Suppose you are writing a paper comparing the Mid-autumn Festival to Thanksgiving, how much knowledge would you assume your American readers already have about the Chinese holiday and how much about their own? Obviously,very little about the former and a whole lot about the latter. In such a paper, you want to take care not to bore your readers to death by telling them what they already know while leaving them tantalizingly unsatisfied about what they are so eager to learn. The emphasis here should be to show the striking differences and subtle parallels rather than to give exhaustively detailed information on each holiday. Now, the third point, analyze your audience in terms of their attitudes or viewpoints to the subject and your position in the writing. This analysis is vitally important in writing persuasive or argumentative essays, which is much more complex and challenging. In a persuasive essay you present reasons and arguments to convince your readers that they should accept a belief or to take a position or a specific action. For persuasive or argumentative writings, you can classify audiences into three groups: those who agree, those who are neutral or undecided, and those who disagree. When writing to an audience who already sees eye to eye with you about a controversial issue,is there much you need to do? Not much. If you are addressing an audience who already shares your view about developing and maintaining a mature and constructive relationship between China and the United States in the 21st century, all you need to do reiterate why such a relationship is in the vital interests of both countries and of the whole world. When writing to audiences who are neutral or undecided, you have the most to do and can hope to achieve a lot. Say you want to propose that a new financial aid system be established to help those bright students in rural and less prosperous areas of the country. You are concerned that with today's new tuition policy and practice, those students will be priced out of a chance for the high education they deserve so much. Some people may be undecided because they have some doubts and concerns: where does the money needed for such an aid come from? What are the specific standards whereby to award scholarships? Are there more fair and efficient alternative solutions? Once you find out why your audiences are undecided,you need to address their doubts and concerns as directly and fully as possible. You have a fairly good chance of winning them over when their questions are answered satisfactorily. And audiences who disagree are the most difficult to write to. Different people disagree with you for different reasons. Some of them may have already given the issue a thought and have already made a choice; therefore,it is extremely difficult to change their minds. Others who disagree may not have had the time to think it over seriously. There are two main possible reasons why your audiences may disagree with you: 1) because they don't have the "facts" or because they look at the same "facts" differently. 2) because they are influenced by their personal opinion, prejudice, and political or religious beliefs. Once you have found why they disagree, you can decide what is the best approach to such audiences. If it is a lack of information, your job is to give them the relevant historical as well as up to date information as accurately as possible. If it is for personal, political and religious reasons,you need to recognize them, understand them, and address them accordingly. Now, we can see that audience awareness is so crucial to the success of your writing. In actual practice, you may need to analyze your audience in terms of three factors: social relations, knowledge, and viewpoints in order to decide the best approach for your writing. And in the next lecture, we'll discuss the writing purpose and your role in the writing. Thank you for your attention!

Section B INTERVIEW
In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY.Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following 5 questions. Now listen to the interview.
Good morning, listeners.Today I'd like to introduce our guest speaker George Allen from the British Council, who is going to talk to us about living in the UK. George, over to you. Thank you. As you are no doubt aware the UK is becoming a popular destination for people who wish to study at university, so what I'd like to do is, well,just give you listeners an insight into what living in the UK is really like. You know, what to expect when you get there and the cost of living,as well as what to do before you arrive in the UK. What do students have to consider first before they go? Finance, of course. Britain is quite an expensive place to live in. Therefore, you need to consider costs very carefully. And one of the major expenses is tuition fees. University courses range from about 5,000 pounds to 8,000 pounds, depending on the type of course. Then, other expenses such as books, which can cost about 500 pounds per year. That's a considerable amount. Then where do you suggest students to stay? As for accommodation, many people prefer to stay in the university's hall of residence because living on campus is a lot cheaper than living off campus. A room in halls would cost you about 80 pounds per week outside of London. The north of England, however, is much cheaper. Then what about living off campus? Well, you can rent a private house with a group of other students. You may think this would be an expensive option, but if you share the cost with three or four other students it can actually work out cheaper than a room on campus. But do bear in mind that you have additional transport costs to and from university. However, if anyone is interested in renting off campus, the university accommodation can offer advice, and even help you to find a suitable place. That's good news. What is the climate like in the UK? Britain is famous for its bad weather and for good reasons. It rains often in the UK, and even in the summer it can still be quite cold. So take plenty of warm clothes with You can, of course, buy warm clothes when you are there, and indeed,they don't have to be too expensive if you go to a local market. But taking your own is, of course,a cheaper option. You bet. George, some listeners are anxious about food there. Is it really unpleasant? Many people who visit the UK often find the food rather boring and uninteresting. This is because, generally, people don't use spices in their cooking. Nevertheless, some of the food, I must say, is actually rather good. And the cheapest places to eat out are often local pubs, where they serve excellent home-cooked food, as well as serving as the centre of social life in most towns and cities in the UK. Besides local pubs, are there coffee shops as well? You know the UK is a great tea drinking nation.Therefore, don't expect to find too many American style coffee shops. There are, of course,many to be found in big cities such as London, but tea shops, as they are called, are much more common. What do people do for recreation after study or work? There is excellent nightlife in Britain.All the major cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool are a center of cultural activities. However, you may think London has the best nightlife. But Manchester, I must say, tops the bill. Being a multicultural city you will find all kinds of entertainment there from theaters to nightclubs,as well as museums and art galleries. And it's considerably cheaper than London,whilst undoubtedly offering the best the country has to offer. However, if you prefer a quieter life then I would certainly recommend the southwest of England. There you will find wonderful countryside with the most spectacular views and many traditional towns and villages. So students need to get well prepared for everything you introduced just now. But where can they find detailed information on them? Well, a good guide book is compulsory. It should contain maps and information about where to go and what to do. Internet is also a valuable source of information. My main advice, of course,, is to contact the university accommodation office. Tell them when and where you will arrive and ask them how to get to the university from the airport. George, you have given us valuable advice on living in the UK. It's very beneficial to our listeners.Thanks a lot. It's my pleasure.

Section C NEWS BROADCAST
In this section, you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 6 to 7 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions.Now listen to the news.
At one time, scientists thought the space between Earth and Sun was a vacuum. But we now know that the sun fills it with gusts of hot,electrically charged atomic particles called the solar wind. Sometimes this wind blows hard. When the Sun's outer layer is very active,it hurls nearly one-third of its gaseous matter outward at supersonic speeds. The U.S. government's oceans and atmosphere agency NOAA,has a Space Environment Center to monitor these discharges. The center's director, Ernest Hildner, says intense solar emissions are not dangerous to people on the ground, but can be a hazard to airplane occupants and astronauts. They can also shut down satellites, power networks, communications, and other technical systems. Question 8 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question.Now listen to the news. Today Yasmine El-Safy is getting ready to send the latest issue of MG Magazine out to its subscribers. Yasmine El-Safy is MG magazine's founder, publisher and editor-in-chief. She is thirteen and a half years old. She says she started this magazine for Muslim girls because she couldn't relate to anything in the mainstream media. Living in a neighborhood in the Los Angeles area of California, with few other Muslim families, the magazine has also been a way for Yasmine to meet Muslim girls like herself. Through websites and Internet discussion groups, Yasmine recruited other girls, one from as far away as Kuwait,to contribute to the magazine. They write about things such as peers pressure and dressing modestly, and being a Muslim in a non-Muslim world. While MG Magazine is produced by Muslim girls,there is adult supervision provided by Yasmine's mother Lyla El-Safy, who says that the articles in the magazine reflect Muslim values. Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item,you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions.Now listen to the news. Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomes Chinese President Hu Jintao to Moscow Thursday for a four-day official visit. The two leaders are expected to talk on strengthening bilateral relations,especially in the areas of energy and trade. One day before President Putin was to host his Chinese counterpart, the Kremlin announced that 2006 would officially be named the Year of Russia in China,with the Year of China to follow in Russia in 2007. The growing sense of accord between the two neighbors, is not lost on analysts. Many say that while this week's talks will not likely lead to any real breakthroughs, they will go a long way toward forging what officials on both sides are calling, a new relationship.