TIME LIMIT: 195 MIN

PART I   LISTENING COMPREHENSION (35 MIN)
 
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 a mini-lecture. When the lecture is over, you will be given two minutes to check your note, and another ten minutes to check your notes, and another ten minutes to complete the gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.
 
SECTION B   INTERVIEW
       In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on you colored answer sheet.
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 five questions. Now listen to the interview.
 
1. At what age will most children enter a grammar school or a secondary school?
A. Ten                    B. Eleven.                    C. Twelve.                  D. Sixteen.

2. How does the English school system work now?
A. Children will have to take an examination at the age of eleven.
B. Most children can leave school before the age of sixteen.
C. Children don’t have to take an examination at the age of sixteen.
D. Most children start school at the age of five.

3. Why does Alice think the school system has been improved?
A. Because most children would do better in grammar school.
B. Because most children would do better in comprehensive school.
C. Because children don’t have to take an exam which determines their fate at an early age.
D. Because most young children are not good at taking exams.

4. Which of the following statements expresses the view of Alice?
A. The children should be encouraged to enjoy the subjects.
B. The current schools should improve their efficiency.
C. The children should learn more subjects that are useful when they leave school.
D. The children are too young to understand the problems we are facing now.

5. Which of the following subjects are NOT mentioned as one that children study for experience?
A. Drama.               B. Social studies.               C. Economy.                D. Sociology.
 
SECTION C   NEWS BROADCAST
       In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Mark the correct answer to each question on your colored answer sheet.
Question 6, 7 and 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.

6. Which profession is NOT among the ones with a potential mentioned in the news?
A. airline co-pilots                           
B. gynecologist
C. Epidemiologist                          
D. geoscientists

7. Medical and health services manager will be on the rise in the next five years mainly because ________.
A. people are more and more concerned about their health
B. there are more and more epidemics around the world
C. people who were born after World War II are aging
D. people begin to focus more on alternative medicines

8. Lawyer will be a good job to the next five years because ________.
A. people have more awareness in laws
B. there are more crimes in the next five years
C. more and more crimes begin to rely on high technology
D. more small businesses are established
 
Question 9 and 10 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.
9. The gap filler is used to do the following tasks EXCEPT________.
A. sealing the protective heat tiles
B. reducing friction against the atmosphere
C. protecting the space shuttle against high temperature
D. projecting the protective heat tiles

10. Which of the following statements is true?
A. There are two groups of engineers who are working on the alternative solutions of the program.
B. Discovery’s protective heat tiles are out of order.
C. NASA has made the decision on whether anything needs to be done about the gap fillers.
D. According to NASA there is only a problem with Discovery and it can return to the earth safely.
 
PART II   READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)
In this section there are several reading passage followed by a total of twenty multiple-choice questions. Read the passage and then mark your answers on your answer sheet.
 
TEXT A
       In the eighteenth century, Japans feudal overlords, from the shogun to the humblest samurai, found themselves under financial stress. In part, this stress can be attributed to the overlords’ failure to adjust to a rapidly expanding economy, but the stress was also due to factors beyond the overlords’ control. Concentration of the samurai in castle-towns had acted as a stimulus to trade. Commercial efficiency, in turn, had put temptations in the way of buyers. Since most samurai had been reduced to idleness by years of peace, encouraged to engage in scholarship and martial exercises or to perform administrative tasks that took little time, it is not surprising that their tastes and habits grew expensive. Overlords’ income, despite the increase in rice production among their tenant farmers, failed to keep pace with their expenses.               
       Although shortfalls in overloads’ income resulted almost as much from laxity among their tax collectors (the nearly inevitable outcome of hereditary office-holding) as from their higher standards of living, a misfortune like a fire or flood, bringing an in crease in expenses or a drop in revenue, could put a domain in debt to the city rice-brokers who handled its finances. Once in debt, neither the individual samurai nor the shogun himself found it easy to recover.
       It was difficult for individual samurai overlords to increase their income because the amount of rice that farmers could be made to pay in taxes was not unlimited, and since the income of Japan’s central government consisted in part of taxes collected by the shogun from his huge domain, the government too was constrained. Therefore, the Tokugawa shoguns began to look to other sources for revenue. Cash profits from government-owned mines were already on the decline because the most easily worked deposits of silver and gold had been exhausted, although debasement of the coinage had compensated for the loss. Opening up new farmland was a possibility, but most of what was suitable had already been exploited and further reclamation was technically unfeasible. Direct taxation of the samurai themselves would be politically dangerous. This left the shoguns only commerce as a potential source of government income.
       Most of the country’s wealth, or so it seemed, was finding its way into the hands of city merchants. It appeared reasonable that they should contribute part of that revenue to ease the shogun’s burden of financing the state. A means of obtaining such revenue was soon found by levying forced loans, known as goyo-kin; although these were not taxes in the strict sense, since they were irregular in timing and arbitrary in amount, they were high in yield.  Unfortunately, they pushed up prices.  Thus, regrettably, the Tokugawa shoguns’ search for solvency for the government made it increasingly difficult for individual Japanese who lived on fixed stipends to make ends meet.
 
11. Which is the author’s attitude toward the samurai discussed in the first paragraph?
A. Warmly approving
B. Mildly sympathetic
C. Bitterly disappointed
D. Harshly disdainful

12. Which is the major reason for the financial problems experienced by Japan’s feudal overlords
A. Profits from mining had declined
B. Spending had outdistanced income
C. The samurai had concentrated in castle-towns
D. The coinage had been sharply debased

13. The reason that individual samurai did not find it easy to recover from debt is _____
A. taxes were irregular in timing and arbitrary in amount.
B. the Japanese government had failed to adjust to the needs of a changing economy.
C. there was a limit to the amount in taxes that farmers could be made to pay.
D. the domains of samurai overlords were becoming smaller and poorer as government revenues increased.

14. Which could best be substituted for the word “THIS” in the last sentence of the second paragraph?
A. The search of Japan’s Tokugawa shoguns for solvency
B. The unfairness of the tax structure in eighteenth-century Japan
C. The difficulty experienced by both individual samurai and the shogun himself in extricating themselves from debt
D. The difficulty of increasing government income by other means

15. According to the passage, the actions of the Tokugawa shoguns in their search for solvency for the government were regrettable because those actions
A. resulted in the exhaustion of the most easily worked deposits of silver and gold
B. raised the cost of living by pushing up prices
C. were far lower in yield than had originally been anticipated
D. acted as deterrent to trade