1、Test4(section1-1) Good morning. Stretton Festival box office. How can I help you? Oh, hello. My family and I are on holiday in the area, and weve seen some posters about the festival this week. Could you tell me about some of the events, please? Of course. First of all, are there still tickets avail
2、able for the jazz band on Saturday? There are, but only 15. The 12 seats have all been sold. OK. And the venue is the school, isnt it? Yes, thats right, the secondary school. Make sure you dont go to the primary school by mistake! And theres an additional performer who isnt mentioned on the posters
3、Carolyn Hart is going to play with the band. Oh, I think Ive heard her on the radio. Doesnt she play the oboe, or flute or something? Yes the flute. She usually plays with symphony orchestras, and apparently this is her first time with a jazz band. Well, Id certainly like to hear her. Then the next
4、thing I want to ask about is the duck races I saw a poster beside a river. What are they, exactly? Well, you buy a yellow plastic duck or as many as you like theyre a pound each. And you write your name on each one. Therell be several races, depending on the number of ducks taking part. And John Ste
5、vens, a champion swimmer who lives locally, is going to start the races. AII the ducks will be launched into the river at the back of the cinema, then theyll float along the river for 500 metres, as far as the railway bridge. And are there any prizes? Yes, the first duck in each race to arrive at th
6、e finishing line wins its owner free tickets for the concert on the last night of the festival. You said you can buy a duck? Im sure my children will both want one. Theyre on sale at a stall in the market. You cant miss it its got an enormous sign showing a couple of ducks. OK. Ill go there this aft
7、ernoon. I remember walking past there yesterday. Now could you tell me something about the flower show, please? Well, admission is free, and the show is being held in Bythwaite Hall. Sorry, how do you spell that? B-Y-T-H-W-A-I-T-E.Bythwaite. Is it easy to find? Im not very familiar with the town yet
8、. Oh, you wont have any problem. Its right in the centre of Stretton. Its the only old building in the town, so its easy to recognise. I know it. I presume its open all day. Yes, but if youd like to see the prizes being awarded for the best flowers, youll need to be there at 5 o clock. The prizes ar
9、e being given by a famous actor Kevin Shapless. He lives nearby and gets involved in a lot of community events. Gosh, Ive seen him on TV. Ill definitely go to the prize-giving. Right. Test4(section1-2) Ive seen a list of plays that are being performed this week, and Id like to know which are suitabl
10、e for my children, and which ones my husband and I might go to. How old are your children? Five and seven. What about The Mystery of Muldoon ? Thats aimed at five to ten-year-olds. So if I take my children, I can expect them to enjoy it more than I do? I think so. If youd like something for yourself
11、 and your husband and leave your children with a babysitter you might like to see Fire and Flood its about events that really happened in Stretton two hundred years ago, and children might find it rather frightening. Oh, thanks for the warning. And finally, what about Silly Sailor ? Thats a comedy,
12、and its for young and old. In fact, it won an award in the Stretton Drama Festival a couple of months ago. OK. Well, goodbye, and thanks for all the information. Im looking forward to the festival! Goodbye. Test4(section2-1) Good morning, and welcome to the museum one with a remarkable range of exhi
13、bits, which Im sure youll enjoy. My names Greg, and Ill tell you about the various collections as we go round. But before we go, let me just give you a taste of what we have here. Well, for one thing, we have a fine collection of twentieth and twenty-first century paintings, many by very well-known
14、artists. Im sure youll recognise several of the paintings. This is the gallery that attracts the largest number of visitors, so its best to go in early in the day, before the crowds arrive. Then there are the nineteenth-century paintings. The museum was opened in the middle of that century, and seve
15、ral of the artists each donated one work to get the museum started, as it were. So theyre of special interest to us we feel closer to them than to other works. The sculpture gallery has a number of fine exhibits, but Im afraid its currently closed for refurbishment. Youll need to come back next year
16、 to see it properly, but a number of the sculptures have been moved to other parts of the museum. Around the world is a temporary exhibition youve probably seen something about it on TV or in the newspapers. Its created a great deal of interest, because it presents objects from every continent and m
17、any countries, and provides information about their social context- why they were made, who for, and so on. Then theres the collection of coins. This is what you might call a focused, specialist collection, because all the coins come from this country, and were produced between two thousand and a th
18、ousand years ago. And many of them were discovered by ordinary people digging heir gardens and donated to the museum! All our porcelain and glass was left to the museum by its founder when he died in 1878. And in the terms of his will, were not allowed to add anything to that collection: he believed
19、 it was perfect in itself, and we dont see any reason to disagree! Test4(section2-2) OK, that was something about the collections, and now heres some more practical information, in case you need it. Most of the museum facilities are downstairs, in the basement, so you go down the stairs here. When y
20、ou reach the bottom of the stairs, youll find yourself in a sitting area, with comfortable chairs and sofas where you can have a rest before continuing your exploration of the museum. We have a very good restaurant, which serves excellent food all day, in a relaxing atmosphere. To reach it when you
21、get to the bottom of the stairs, go straight ahead to the far side of the sitting area, then turn right into the corridor. Youll see the door of the restaurant facing you. If you just want a snack, or if youd like to eat somewhere with facilities for children, we also have a cafe. When you reach the
22、 bottom of the stairs youll need to go straight ahead turn right into the corridor and the cafe is immediately on the right. And talking about children, there are baby-changing facilities downstairs: cross the sitting area continue straight ahead along the corridor on the left and you and your baby
23、will find the facilities on the left-hand side. The cloakroom, where you should leave coats, umbrellas and any larger bags, is on the left hand side of the sitting area. Its through the last door before you come to the corridor. There are toilets on every floor, but in the basement theyre the first
24、rooms on the left when you get down there. OK, now if youve got anything to leave in the cloakroom, please do that now, and then well start our tour. Test4(section3-1) Hi, Joanna, good to meet you. Now, before we discuss your new research project, Id like to hear something about the psychology study
25、 you did last year for your Masters degree. So how did you choose your subjects for that? Well, I had six subjects, all professional musicians, and all female. Three were violinists and there was also a cello player and a pianist and a flute player. They were all very highly regarded in the music wo
26、rld and theyd done quite extensive tours in different continents, and quite a few had won prizes and competitions as well. And they were quite young, werent they? Yes, between 25 and 29 the mean was 27.8. I wasnt specifically looking for artists whod produced recordings but this is something thats j
27、ust taken for granted these days and they all had. Right. Now you collected your data through telephone interviews, didnt you? Yes. I realised if I was going to interview leading musicians itd only be possible over the phone because theyre so busy. I recorded them using a telephone recording adaptor
28、. Id been worried about the quality, but it worked out all right. I managed at least a 30-minute interview with each subject, sometimes longer. Did doing it on the phone make it more stressful? Id thought it might.it was all quite informal though and in fact they seemed very keen to talk. And I dont
29、 think using the phone meant I got less rich data rather the opposite in fact. Interesting. And you were looking at how performers dress for concert performances? Thats right. My research investigated the way players see their role as a musician and how this is linked to the type of clothing they de
30、cide to wear. But that focus didnt emerge immediately. When I started I was more interested in trying to investigate the impact of what was worn on those listening, and also whether someone like a violinist might adopt a different style of clothing from say someone playing the flute or the trumpet.
31、Its interesting that the choice of dress is up to the individual, isnt it? Yes, youd expect there to be rules about it in orchestras, but thats quite rare. Test4(section3-2) You only had women performers in your study. Was that because male musicians are less worried about fashion? I think a lot of
32、the men are very much influenced by fashion, but in social terms the choices they have are more limited theyd really upset audiences if they strayed away from quite narrow boundaries. Hmm. Now, popular music has quite different expectations. Did you read Mike Frosts article about the dress of women
33、performers in popular music? No. He points out that a lot of female singers and musicians in popular music tend to dress down in performances, and wear less feminine clothes, like jeans instead of skirts, and he suggests this is because otherwise theyd just be discounted as trivial. But you could ar
34、gue theyre just wearing whats practical. I mean, a pop-music concert is usually a pretty energetic affair. Yes, he doesnt make that point, but I think youre probably right. I was interested by the effect of the audience at a musical performance when it came to the choice of dress. The subjects I int
35、erviewed felt this was really important. Its all to do with what we understand by performance as a public event. They believed the audience had certain expectations and it was up to them as performers to fulfil these expectations to show a kind of esteem. They werent afraid of looking as if theyd ma
36、de an effort to look good. Mmm. I think in the past the audience would have had those expectations of one another too, but thats not really the case now, not in the UK anyway. No. And I also got interested in what sports scientists are doing too, with regard to clothing. Musicians are quite vulnerab
37、le physically, arent they, because the movements they carry out are very intensive and repetitive, so Id imaging some features of sports clothing could safeguard the players from the potentially dangerous effects of this sort of thing. Yes, but musicians dont really consider it. They avoid clothing
38、that obviously restricts their movements, but thats as far as they go. Anyway, coming back to your own research, do you have any idea where youre going from here? I was thinking of doing a study using an audience, including. Test4(section4-1) As we saw in the last lecture, a major cause of climate c
39、hange is the rapid rise in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last century. If we could reduce the amount of CO2, perhaps the rate of climate change could also be slowed down. One potential method involves enhancing the role of the soil that plants grow in, with regard to absorbi
40、ng CO2. Rattan Lal, a soil scientist from Ohio State University, in the USA, claims that the worlds agricultural soils could potentially absorb 13 per cent of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere the equivalent of the amount released in the last 30 years. And research is going on into how this might
41、 be achieved. Lal first came to the idea that soil might be valuable in this way not through an interest in climate change, but rather out of concern for the land itself and the people dependent on it. Carbon-rich soil is dark, crumbly and fertile, and retains some water. But erosion can occur if so
42、il is dry, which is a likely effect if it contains inadequate amounts of carbon. Erosion is of course bad for people trying to grow crops or breed animals on that terrain. In the 1970s and 80s, LaI was studying soils in Africa so devoid of organic matter that the ground had become extremely hard, li
43、ke cement. There he met a pioneer in the study of global warming, who suggested that carbon from the soil had moved into the atmosphere. This is now looking increasingly likely. Let me explain. For millions of years, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have been regulated, in part, by a natural
44、partnership between plants and microbes tiny organisms in the soil. Plans absorb CO2 from the air and transform it into sugars and other carbon-based substances. While a proportion of these carbon products remain in the plant, some transfer from the roots to fungi and soil microbes, which store the
45、carbon in the soil. The invention of agriculture some 10,000 years ago disrupted these ancient soil-building processes and led to the loss of carbon from the soil. When humans started draining the natural topsoil, and ploughing it up for planting, they exposed the buried carbon to oxygen. This creat
46、ed carbon dioxide and released it into the air. And in some places, grazing by domesticated animals has removed all vegetation, releasing carbon into the air. Tons of carbon have been stripped from the worlds soils where its needed and pumped into the atmosphere. So what can be done? Researchers are
47、 now coming up with evidence that even modest changes to farming can significantly help to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Some growers have already started using an approach known as regenerative agriculture. This aims to boost the fertility of soil and keep it moist through establis
48、hed practices. These include keeping fields planted all year round, and increasing the variety of plants being grown. Strategies like these can significantly increase the amount of carbon stored in the soil, so agricultural researchers are now building a case for their use in combating climate chang
49、e. Test4(section4-2) One American investigation into the potential for storing CO2 on agricultural lands is taking place in California. Soil scientist Whendee Silver of the University of California, Berkeley, is conducting a first-of-its-kind study on large cattle farm in the state. She and her students are testing the effects on carbon storage of the compost that is created from waste both agricultural, including manure and cornstalks, and waste produced
