SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

Question 11 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15seconds to answer the question.

Now listen to the news.

11. What is the main idea of the news item?

A. US concern over th6 forthcoming peace talks.

B. Peace efforts by the Palestinian Authority.

C. Recommendations by the Mitchell Commission.

D. Bomb attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.

Question 12 is based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given 15 seconds to answer the question.

Now listen to the news.

12. Some voters will waste their ballots because

A. they like neither candidate.

B. they are all ill-informed.

C. the candidates do not differ much.

D. they do not want to vote twice.

Questions 13 to 15 are based on the following news. At the end of the news item, you will be given15 seconds to answer each of the questions.

Now listen to the news.

13. According to the UN Human Development Report, which is the best place for women in the world?

A. Canada.

B. The US.

C. Australia.

D. Scandinavia.

14. _______ is in the 12th place in overall ranking.

A. Britain

B. France

C. Finland

D. Switzerland

15. According to the UN report, the least developed country is

A. Ethiopia.

B. Mali.

C. Sierra Leon.

D. Central African Republic.

SECTION D NOTE-TAKING AND GAP-FILLING

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 15-minute gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the mini-lecture. Use the blank sheet for note-taking.

PART II PROOFREADING & ERROR CORRECTION (15 MIN)

Proofread the given passage on ANSWER SHEET TWO as instructed.

PART III READING COMPREHENSIOS (40MIN)

SECTION A READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN)

In this section there are four reading passages followed by a total of fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your coloured answer sheet~

TEXT A

Hostility to Gypsies has existed almost from the time they first appeared in Europ

e in the 14th century. The origins of the Gypsies, with little written history, were shrouded in mystery. What is known now from clues in the various dialects of their language, Romany, is that they came from northern India to the Middle East a thousand years ago, working as minstrels and mercenaries, metal-smiths and servants. Europeans misnamed them Egyptians, soon shortened to Gypsies. A clan system, based mostly on their traditional crafts and geography, has made them a deeply fragmented and fractious people, only really unifying in the face of enmity from non-Gypsies, whom they call gadje. Today many Gypsy activists prefer to be called Roma, which comes from the Romany word for “man”. But on my travels among them most still referred to themselves as Gypsies.

In Europe their persecution by the gadje began quickly, with the church seeing heresy in their fortune-telling and the state seeing anti-social behaviour in their nomadism. At various times they have been forbidden to wear their distinctive bright clothes, to speak their own language, to travel, to marry one another, or to ply their traditional crafts. In some countries they were reduced to slavery it wasn’t until the mid-1800s that Gypsy slaves were freed in Romania. In more recent times the Gypsies were caught up in Nazi ethnic hysteria, and perhaps half a million perished in the Holocaust. Their horses have been shot and the wheels removed from their wagons, their names have been changed, their women have been sterilized, and their children have been forcibly given for adoption to non-Gypsy families.

But the Gypsies have confounded predictions of their disappearance as a distinct ethnic group and their numbers have burgeoned. Today there are an estimated 8 to 12 million Gypsies scattered across Europe, making them the continent’s largest minority. The exact number is hard to pin down. Gypsies have regularly been undercounted, both by regimes anxious to downplay their profile and by Gypsies themselves, seeking to avoid bureaucracies. Attempting to remedy past inequities, activist groups may overcount. Hundreds of thousands more have emigrated to the Americas and elsewhere. With very few exceptions Gypsies have expressed no great desire for a country to call their own -unlike the Jews, to whom the Gypsy experience is often compared. “Romanestan” said Ronald Lee, the Canadian Gypsy writer, "is where my two feet stand."

16. Gypsies are united only when they

A are engaged in traditional crafts.

B. call themselves Roma.

C. live under a clan system.

D. face external threats.

17. In history hostility to Gypsies in Europe resulted in their persecution by all the following EXCEPT

A. the Egyptians.

B. the state.

C. the church.

D. the Nazis.

18. According to the passage, the main difference between the Gypsies and the Jews lies in their concepts of

A. language.

B. culture.

C. identity.

D. custom.