年9月高級口譯聽力真題Listening Comprehension 含解析

Listening comprehension 1

W: So, one of the things that I really have trouble understanding is how jazz music developed to be so different from many other kinds of music? My class notes are terrible.

M: Well, what can't you understand from your notes?

W: Uh, one thing is I copied down the musical training from the blackboard. What did it mean by that?

M: Well, most people who became professional musicians have some kind of formal training in music. But the first people who play jazz music had almost none.

W: OK, but so what? Doesn't it just mean that they weren't very good musicians?

M: Well, it's not that the early jazz musicians weren't good; it's that they played their instruments differently. Let's say you are receiving formal instruction in the trumpet. First you would learn the right way to place your mouth, and the right way to use your fingers, and the right way to blow air. And then you will practice single notes and different combination of notes until you could do those correctly. And only after that, would your teacher give you a piece of music to play.

W: And the early jazz musician didn't learn to play this way?

M: No, the first people who play jazz music learned to play their instrument by actually trying to play a song the way they like. They were humanity, and tried to play themselves on their instruments. Because they were mostly teaching themselves, they began to express themselves in ways that formally traditionally trained musicians didn't. In traditional instruction, there is one correct way to play something, and everyone who plays tries to make the correct sound. But in jazz...

W: In jazz music, there isn't one right way to play. In fact, individual musicians are supposed to interpret the music in their own style. So you are saying that this aspect of jazz developed because the first people who play jazz didn't have any formal musical training?

M: Yes, I believe so.

Q1: What is the woman most probably according to the conversation?
Q2: What is the problem the woman has trouble understanding?
Q3: How did early jazz musicians learn to play their instrument?
Q4: Which of the following is true according to the conversation?
Q5: Why did jazz music develop to be so different from many other kinds of music?

【解析】

本文難度並不大，圍繞着女生的疑問以及男生的解答，講述了爵士是如何發展成一種與其他種類相距甚大的音樂的。
對話中，女生無法理解音樂訓練這一點，於是男生回答說不同於其他正規音樂指導，比如想要吹喇叭，就要從嘴部、手指，以及吹氣一步步訓練起來。而最早玩爵士樂的人並沒有如此的訓練，而是單純用自己的風格將音樂演奏出來，這也就造就了爵士樂與其他音樂的大不同。Listening comprehension 2

London, the United Kingdom

The UK housing market is seeing a slight pick-up in activity with mortgage lending and prices both rising, figures have suggested. Gross mortgage lending was up 4% in April, compared with March, to £12.1bn, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders. This was 21% higher than April 2012, but this data is skewed by the end of the stamp duty concession a year ago. Official figures show UK house prices rose by 2.7% in the past twelve months. However, this was driven by rises in England and Wales, with property price falls in Scotland and Northern Ireland, according to the Office for National Statistics.

【文章大意】英國房地產市場略有回暖，抵押借貸活動增加，房價上漲。題目考查數字細節。
pick-up 上漲
mortgage lending 抵押借貸
skew 歪曲

Paris, France

Developed economies returned to growth in the first three months of the year, although the euro zone continued to lag behind the U.S. and Japan, according to figures released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Tuesday. The Paris-based research body said the combined gross domestic product of its 34 developed-country members grew by 0.4% from the final three months of 2012. There were “diverging patterns” across its members, but that largely involved a contrast between contractions in France, Italy and the euro zone as a whole, and a pickup in growth in Japan, the U.S. and the U.K. With growth so unbalanced and business and consumer confidence weak in the face of uncertainties surrounding the outcome of the euro zone’s fiscal crisis and fiscal difficulties in the U.S., economists don’t expect a strong pickup in global growth in the near term.

【文章大意】今年第一季度，發達國家經濟恢復增長，歐元區仍落後於美國日本。考查信息推斷。
euro-zone 歐元區（統一使用歐元的國家地區）
lag behind 落後
diverge 分開，偏離

Washington, the United States

Apple has been accused of being "among America's largest tax avoiders". A Senate committee said Apple had used "a complex web of offshore entities" to avoid paying billions of dollars in US income taxes. But it said there was no indication the firm acted illegally. Apple chief Tim Cook will go before the panel on Tuesday. In prepared testimony Apple said it did not use tax gimmicks. The US Senate had said that Apple paid little or nothing on billions of dollars in profits placed in Irish subsidiaries. The company says it is one of the largest taxpayers in the US, having paid $6bn in federal corporate income tax in the 2012 fiscal year. US corporation tax is one of the highest in the world at 35%. However, companies typically pay far less, thanks to numerous deductions and exemptions.

【文章大意】蘋果公司被指避稅。考查主旨大意。
tax avoidance 避稅
offshore 海外的
gimmick 花招，伎倆
exemption 豁免，免稅

Oklahoma city, the United States

At least 91 people, including 20 children, are feared to have been killed by a huge tornado which tore through Oklahoma City suburbs, local officials say. Worst hit was Moore, south of the city, where neighborhoods were flattened and schools destroyed by winds of up to 200mph. About 120 people are being treated in hospitals. President Barack Obama has declared a major disaster in Oklahoma. He also ordered federal authorities to join in the search efforts which have continued throughout the night. The official death toll is 51, but local authorities say the figure is expected to rise as another 40 bodies have been found.

【文章大意】俄克拉荷馬城遭巨型龍捲風襲擊，至少91人恐已死亡。考查數字細節。
tornado 龍捲風
death toll 死亡人數

Dubai, Saudi Arabia

A Saudi woman has made history by reaching the summit of the world's highest mountain. Raha Moharrak, 25, not only became the first Saudi woman to attempt the climb but also the youngest Arab to make it to the top of Everest. She is part of a four-person expedition that also includes the first Qatari man and the first Palestinian man attempting to reach the summit. They are trying to raise $1m for education projects in Nepal. Originally from Jeddah, Ms Moharrak is a university graduate currently based in Dubai. Coming from Saudi Arabia - a conservative Muslim country where women's rights are very restricted -- she had to break a lot of barriers to achieve her goal, her climb team said.

【文章大意】一名沙特女性成功登上珠峯。考查主旨大意。
summit 頂峯
Everest 珠穆朗瑪峯
expedition 探險隊
Qatari 卡塔爾的

Q6. According to the official figures, by how much did UK house prices increase in the past year?
Q7. Which of the following statements best describes the economic state of the world’s developed countries?
Q8. What has the Apple company been accused of by a US senate committee?
Q9. At least how many people are feared to have been killed by a huge tornado in Oklahoma?
Q10. According to the report, what has a Saudi woman done recently to make history?Listening comprehension 3

W: Hi, Paul. Thanks very much for joining us today. You’ve spent the past 20 years as a physician working in some of the poorest places on earth. And over that time, you’ve written a lot about inequality and health care. How has the connection affected your work?

M: I think in a way, studying in difficult places at a squatter settlement in central Haiti has been very helpful to our work. Because there’s an extremity hid there in terms of the health status of the people. And what’s available to them that you just have to confront early on. There isn’t health infrastructure. There aren’t people there to deliver health services whether prevention or care. And yet, that’s precisely where the sickest people are. I think looking back to 20 something years ago, it was because we started in that setting that we had to develop models that would work in places with very scant health infrastructure and knowing that we would build it over time. But that there was a lot that you could do immediately -- train local people to be community health workers, erect modest facilities and try to provide high quality care. That’s how it started for us in Haiti. And really, that's the model we’ve taken to the other nine countries in which we work.

W: It sounds so you needed to deal with issues that many people might not consider medical like housing and water, and things like that.

M: That is true. There are two ways to look at this. I think as a physician or a provider of services. If I'm in the Harvard training hospital and I'm a surgeon, then no one's going to expect me to diagnose and treat the disease but also build the operating room and find electricity and supplies. But that's very much what we have to do. So, there's that side of the model and that leads as you’ve said to listening hard to what patients say about their other problems. If you have someone who has typhoid, they got that because they don't have clean drinking water. So, you can keep spending your whole life treating typhoid which can be a fatal disease as you probably know. Or you can treat typhoid and try to put in clean water.

Q11. What’s the man’s job most probably?
Q12. For how many years has the man worked in Haiti?
Q13. Why does the man think starting work in Haiti has been very helpful to his work?
Q14. They did several things to build a model in Haiti. Which of the following is not one of these things?
Q15. Apart from diagnosing and treating the disease, what should a doctor do when he works in Haiti?

【解析】

根據女性的問題可以聽出，該訪談的對象是一名在海地（Haiti）工作的醫生。該醫生除了治病救人之外，還十分關注海地社會中的不平等以及該國的醫療衛生狀況。在貧困地區進行的研究給他的工作帶來了巨大的幫助，那裏醫療基礎設施條件差、醫療服務從業者稀少，但是他們克服了重重阻礙，建立起了醫療設施，訓練當地人成爲社區醫療服務者，爲當地以及其他貧困國家和地區醫療衛生事業的發展樹立了模範。
本篇聽力難度適中，對於一些專有名詞如Haiti、typhoid，如果聽不出，不用過分糾結，重點是把握大意，抓住一些重點細節，如數字、時間、工作具體內容等等。
關鍵詞
physician 內科醫師
inequality 不平等
extremity 極端；險境
infrastructure 基礎設施
facility 設施
diagnose 診斷Listening comprehension 4

Thank you all for coming to my talk this evening. It’s nice to see so many people in the audience. For those of you who don’t know very much about PS Camping. Let me start by giving you some background information about the company.

The company started 25 years ago. It actually opened as a retail chain selling camping equipment. And then twenty years ago, it bought a small number of campsites in the UK, and began offering camping holidays. The company grew rapidly and has been providing holidays in continental Europe for the last fifteen years.

If you book a camping holiday with us, you’ll have a choice of over three hundred sites. In Italy we now have some 64 sites that we either own, or have exclusive use of. France is where we have the majority of sites, and we currently have a project to expand into Switzerland. We also have a number of sites in Northern Spain, particularly in the mountainous region of Picos de Europa. We’ve upgraded all these Spanish sites, and improved them considerably from their original three-star rating.

We believe our holidays offer superb facilities for the whole family. Parents who want their children to be fully occupied for all or part of the day can take advantage of our children’s activities. These are organized by our well-qualified and enthusiastic staff. Each day kicks off with a sports match, perhaps football, or volleyball, followed by an hour of drama for everyone. This may include singing or dancing, mime or other activities. In the afternoon, there’s a different art activity for each day of the week including a poster competition or model making. What’s more, our sites are truly child-friendly, and, with this in mind, we operate a no-noise rule in the evenings. Children’s evening activities usually finish at 9:30, or occasionally 10, and from 10:30 holiday-makers are expected to be quiet in the areas where there are tents.

We want nothing to go wrong on a PS Camping holiday, but if it does, we also want all customers to be insured. If you haven’t organized an annual insurance policy of your own you’ll need to take out the low-cost cover we offer and we require that you arrange this when you make your holiday reservation.
There are many advantages to choosing PS Camping, and to recommending it to others. As a regular customer, you’ll be kept informed of special offers. And you can benefit from ten per cent off their holiday, or book a luxury tent for the price of a standard one. In return, we’ll send you a thank-you present, which you can choose from a list of high-quality items.

Q16. How many years ago was the company PS Camping established in the UK?
Q17. What was the company’s business when it opened in the UK?
Q18. In which of the following countries does the company have the majority of camping sites?
Q19. There are several kinds of activities which can fully occupy children for all or part of the day. Which of the following is not one of these?
Q20. Which of the following is an advantage that a regular customer can enjoy from the company?

【解析】

本篇聽力取材於雅思考試真題，內容是一家名叫PS Camping公司的介紹，包括公司歷史，業務範圍，各項活動，優惠政策等等。該公司成立於25年前，原本是一家露營裝備銷售商，後來轉向爲露營假日活動組織者，在歐洲大陸業務發展迅速。 該公司能夠爲客戶組織各種活動供全家娛樂，但要求客戶投保，最後還提供了給老客戶的多項優惠政策。

除了專有名詞Picos de Europa（歐羅巴山）之外，全文沒有生僻詞彙。五個題目均是常見的細節題，而文中細節要素比較多，要求考生注意力集中，抓住細節做好筆記，選出正確答案。