Part A: Spot Dictation
Was it envisioned for the euro to eventually become such a strong currency that it could compete with the dollar on a global level? Or was that a dream then and is it still a dream now?
I think it was an attainable dream, and it is becoming actually, in some ways, less attainable right now.
You may ask why?
Well, the dream to give credit where credit is due was not only advocated by some European officials but by some American economists, including our Institute’s director, Fred Bergsten, who was way out in the front with that. Richard Portes, who teaches at London Business School, also was way out in front with that. And they were very much against the tide of people like Martin Feldstein and others in London and the United States who were very skeptical towards the euro.
At face value, the euro area is the same size in GDP as the United States, roughly speaking. The euro area does have very large and deep financial markets, although the more you look in detail, there are still some things there that differentiate it from the United States. And the euro area has delivered price stability. They have a very low rate of inflation pretty consistently. So you put those three things together, on paper it looks like the euro should be at least a very clear second to the dollar in investor’s portfolios, in government reserve holdings, in how much you invoice trade like oil or planes or things like that.
But what our research finds in this book -- in particular in good chapters by Kristin Forbes and Linda Goldberg -- is the fact that if you look under the hood a bit, there is a huge shortfall between what you would expect just based on size and how much the euro is used. So there’s an awful lot of trade that’s still invoiced in dollars, not in euros, even between countries that are not dollar countries. There are huge amounts of financial flows that come to the United States, and the depth of European assets and financial flows is not commensurate with the size.
【解析】
本文节选自Growing Pains for the Euro。在段落一开始，作者就抛出了一个问题：欧元最终成为一种能与美元相抗衡的国际货币是不是一场梦？并指出这个期望相比曾经，正变的越来越难以实现。
文中指出，虽然欧元的确有广大的经济市场，而且通货膨胀的概率也较小，但是通过研究发现，如果一旦深探，就会看到期望值与欧元的实际使用率之间存在着巨大差额，以致在一些非美元使用区中，流通的货币仍然为美元。
本文的题材虽然为考生比较惧怕的经济类，但是如果能够听懂首段作者的提问，以及之后作者的态度I think it was an attainable dream, and it is becoming actually, in some ways, less attainable right now，就不难马上领悟全文的主旨。
考生平时要多多关注常考的经济类文章，有了平时的积累，才能在考场上发挥自如。
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】
本文难度并不大，围绕着女生的疑问以及男生的解答，讲述了爵士是如何发展成一种与其他种类相距甚大的音乐的。
对话中，女生无法理解音乐训练这一点，于是男生回答说不同于其他正规音乐指导，比如想要吹喇叭，就要从嘴部、手指，以及吹气一步步训练起来。而最早玩爵士乐的人并没有如此的训练，而是单纯用自己的风格将音乐演奏出来，这也就造就了爵士乐与其他音乐的大不同。
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】英国房地产市场略有回暖，抵押借贷活动增加，房价上涨。题目考查数字细节。
pick-up 上涨
mortgage lending 抵押借贷
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，发达国家经济恢复增长，欧元区仍落后于美国日本。考查信息推断。
euro-zone 欧元区（统一使用欧元的国家地区）
lag behind 落后
diverge 分开，偏离
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】苹果公司被指避税。考查主旨大意。
tax avoidance 避税
offshore 海外的
gimmick 花招，伎俩
exemption 豁免，免税
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】俄克拉荷马城遭巨型龙卷风袭击，至少91人恐已死亡。考查数字细节。
tornado 龙卷风
death toll 死亡人数
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峰。考查主旨大意。
summit 顶峰
Everest 珠穆朗玛峰
expedition 探险队
Qatari 卡塔尔的
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】
根据女性的问题可以听出，该访谈的对象是一名在海地（Haiti）工作的医生。该医生除了治病救人之外，还十分关注海地社会中的不平等以及该国的医疗卫生 状况。在贫困地区进行的研究给他的工作带来了巨大的帮助，那里医疗基础设施条件差、医疗服务从业者稀少，但是他们克服了重重阻碍，建立起了医疗设施，训练 当地人成为社区医疗服务者，为当地以及其他贫困国家和地区医疗卫生事业的发展树立了模范。
本篇听力难度适中，对于一些专有名词如Haiti、typhoid，如果听不出，不用过分纠结，重点是把握大意，抓住一些重点细节，如数字、时间、工作具体内容等等。
关键词
physician 内科医师
inequality 不平等
extremity 极端；险境
infrastructure 基础设施
facility 设施
diagnose 诊断
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】
本篇听力取材于雅思考试真题，内容是一家名叫PS Camping公司的介绍，包括公司历史，业务范围，各项活动，优惠政策等等。该公司成立于25年前，原本是一家露营装备销售商，后来转向为露营假日活动 组织者，在欧洲大陆业务发展迅速。 该公司能够为客户组织各种活动供全家娱乐，但要求客户投保，最后还提供了给老客户的多项优惠政策。
除了专有名词Picos de Europa（欧罗巴山）之外，全文没有生僻词汇。五个题目均是常见的细节题，而文中细节要素比较多，要求考生注意力集中，抓住细节做好笔记，选出正确答案。
Note Taking and Gap Filling
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Last week, we talked about some important terms in environmental science. Shall you still remember them, right? So in today’s environmental science class, I want to discuss a few of the terms here, actually some ideas about how we manage our resources. Let’s talk about what that means.
If we take resources like water, now maybe we should get a little bit more specific here, back from a more general case and talk about underground water in particular. So hydro geologists have tried to figure out how much water can we take out from underground sources. That has been an important question. Let me ask you guys, how much water, based on what you know so far, could you take out of , say, an aquifer… under the city. As much as what gets recharged?
Ok. So we wouldn’t like to take out more than naturally comes into it. The implication is that, well, if you only take as much out as comes in. You’re not going to deplete the amount of water that stores in there. Right? Wrong. But that’s the principle. That’s the idea behind how we manage our water supplies. It’s called Safe Yield. Basically what this message says is that you can pump as much water out of the system as naturally recharges, as naturally flows back in. So this principle of safe yield is based on balancing what we take out with what gets recharged. But what it does is it ignores how much water naturally comes out of the system, and natural system of certain matter of recharge comes in and certain matter of water naturally flowing out through springs, streams and lakes, and over long terms the amount that’s stored in the aquifer doesn’t really change much. It’s balanced. Now humans come in and
