2012年英语专八真题听力原文

　　SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST

　　News 1:

　　NASA astronauts successfully installed a new ammonia pump on the International SpaceStation Monday during their third spacewalk to make the emergency repairs. The astronauts donot yet know whether their efforts were enough to restore the space station's cooling systemto full capacity. It took three spacewalks totaling more than 22 hours, but astronauts DougWheelock and Tracy Caldwell Dyson managed to move the 350-kilogram replacement pumpinto position. They tightened bolts and made connections so ammonia could flow into themodule. NASA called the success “a big step in the right direction.”[6] The space station'scooling system has been running at half capacity for more than two weeks. On July 31, anammonia pump failed. Another module continued to pump coolant through a separate loop,but astronauts had to power down non-essential equipment to prevent overheating. Thespace station's deputy program manager, Kirk Shireman, said [6] the team did anoutstanding job coping with what he called “a major malfunction.”

　　News 2:

　　[8] Pediatricians from the U.S. University have taken a look at one measure of children's wellbeing in Egypt, the Philippines and India --- the extent to which children are subject to corporalpunishment and abuse. The data reveal interesting cultural differences about what seems tobe acceptable when it comes to physically disciplining children.” Among the things we learnedfor instance was that in India, slapping a child in the face or head is more common thanspanking them,” the researchers say. “And in Egypt, 25 percent of the mothers said that theyhad beaten their child up, which was defined as hitting them over and over again with a closedfist.”[7] “And then the other interesting things were, like the Philippines, the rate of tellingpeople that evil spirits was going to get them, the kind of emotional, kind of threatening tolock them out of the home, was very high.”[8] However, despite the differences in punishmentmethods, some notable similarities have been found. For example, the education level ofmothers impacted how often they resorted to physical discipline. The more years of education,the lower the rate of harsh physical punishment in kids.

　　News 3:

　　Officials say Japan lost its place as the world's No. 2 Economy to China in the second quarter,as the island nation's economic growth slowed to a crawl. [9] Japan's Cabinet Office saidMonday that gross domestic product rose an annualized 0.4 percent in the three monthsended June 3, compared with a revised 4.4 percent expansion in the first quarter. [10]Monday's report said export growth slowed and consumer spending stalled. The expansionwas weaker than economists estimated, with their predictions ranging from 0.6 percent to 3.4percent. Analysts say China's economy will almost certainly be bigger than Japan's at the end ofthe year, because of the big difference in each country's growth rates. China is growing atabout 10 percent per year, while Japan's economy is forecast to grow three percent this year.

专四专八精选好课 暖心助学

新东方好老师 手把手带学