Section B

　　Passage one

A new study reports the common drug aspirin greatly reduces life threatening problems after an operation to replace blocked blood vessels to the heart. More than 800,000 people around the world have this heart surgery each year. The doctors who carried out the study say giving aspirin to patients soon after the operation could save thousands of lives. People usually take aspirin to control pain and reduce high body temperature. Doctors also advise some people to take aspirin to help prevent heart attacks. About 10-15 percent of these heart operations end in death or damage to the heart or other organs. The new study shows that even a small amount of aspirin reduced such threats. The doctors said the chance of death for patients who took aspirin would fall by 67%. They claimed this was true if the aspirin was given within 48 hours of the operation. The doctors believe aspirin helps heart surgery patients because it can prevent blood from thickening and blood vessels from being blocked. However, the doctors warned that people who have stomach bleeding or other bad reactions from aspirin should not take it after heart surgery.

Q11. What is the finding of the new study of aspirin?

Q12. In what way can aspirin help heart surgery patients according to the doctors?

Q13. What warning did the doctors give about the use of aspirin?

Passage Two

Were you the first or the last child in you family? Or were you a middle or an only child? Some people think it matters where you were born in you family. But there are different ideas about what birth order means. Some people say that oldest children are smart and strong-willed. They are very likely to be successful. The reason for this is simple. Parents have a lot of time for their first child, they give him or her a lot of attention. So this child is very likely to do well. An only child will succeed for the same reason. What happens to the other children in the family? Middle children don’t get so much attention, so they don’t feel that important. If a family has many children, the middle one sometimes gets lost in the crowd. The youngest child, though, often gets special treatment. He or she is the baby. Often this child grows up to be funny and charming. Do you believe these ideas of birth order too? A recent study saw things quite differently. The study found that first children believed in family rules. They didn’t take many chances in their lives. They usually followed orders. Rules didn’t mean as much to later children in the family. They went out and followed their own ideas. They took chances and they often did better in life.

Q14. According to common belief, in what way are the first child and the only child alike?

Q15. What do people usually say about middle children?

Q16. what do we learn about later children in a family from a recent study of birth order?

Passage Three

When my interest shifted from space to the sea, I never expected it would cause such confusion among my friends, yet I can understand their feelings. As I have been writing and talking about space flight for the best part of 20 years, a sudden switch of interest to the depth of the sea doer seem peculiar. To explain, I’d like to share my reasons behind this unusual change of mind. The first excuse I give is an economic one. Underwater exploration is so much cheaper than space flight. The first round-trip ticket to the moon is going to cost at least 10 billion dollars if you include research and development. By the end of this century, the cost will be down to a few million. On the other hand, the diving suit and a set of basic tools needed for skin-diving can be bought for 20 dollars. My second argument is more philosophical. The ocean, surprisingly enough, has many things in common with space. In their different ways, both sea and space are equally hostile. If we wish to survive in either for any length of time, we need to have mechanical aids. The diving suit helped the design of the space suit. The feelings and the emotions of a man beneath the sea will be much like those of a man beyond the atmosphere.

Q17. How did the speaker’s friends respond to his change of interest?

Q18. What is one of the reasons for the speaker to switch his interest to underwater exploration?

Q19. In what way does the speaker think diving is similar to space travel?

Q20. What is the speaker’s purpose in giving this talk?