Listening SCRIPT:

Section A

What Do Active Learners Do?

      Good morning! Today I’ll discuss what is active learning and what do active learners do. In order to define active learning, I’ll look at the differences between active learning and passive learning by examining six characteristics of active learners and contrasting them with those of passive learners.
      Ok. Let’s start with the first characteristic. Active learners tend to read with the purpose of understanding and remembering. I bet that no one deliberately sits down to read with the purpose of not understanding the text. However, I’m sure that some of you have been in a situation, probably more than once, where you read, quote and unquote, an assignment, closed the text and thought “what the world was that about?” When you interact with the text in this manner, you are reading passively. Active readers, on the other hand, set goals before they read and check their understanding as they read. When they finish, they can explain the main points and know that they have understood what they have read.
      Now, the second characteristic of active learners is to reflect on information and think critically. Being reflective is an important part of active learning, because it means that you are thinking about the information. In other words, you are processing the information. For instance, you may make connections between the new information and what you already know, identify concepts that you may not understand very well, or evaluate the importance of what you are reading. An active learner reflects constantly in this way. In contrast, passive learners may read the text and listen to lectures and even understand most of what is read and heard, but they do not take that crucial next step of actually thinking about it.
      Let’s move on to the third one. The third characteristic is to listen actively by taking comprehensive notes in an organized way, like what you should be doing now. We lecturers are always amazed at the number of students who engage in activities other than listening and note-taking in their lecture classes. We’ve seen students reading newspapers, doing an assignment for another class, or chatting with a classmate. Perhaps the all-time winner for passive learning, however, was a student who regularly came to my class with a pillow and fell asleep. Unlike these students, active learners are engaged learners. They listen actively to the professor for the entire class period, and they write down as much information as possible. To be an active note-taker, you must be more than simply present. You have to think about the information before you write.
      The fourth characteristic is to get assistance when they are experiencing problems. Because active learners are constantly monitoring their understanding, they know when their comprehension breaks down, and they ask for help before they become lost. In addition, active learners often predict the courses (or even particular concepts within courses) that may give them trouble. They have a plan in mind for getting assistance should they need it. Active learners may seek assistance from their professors or peers. Although passive learners may seek help at some point, it is often too little, too late. In addition, because passive learners do not reflect and think critically, they often don’t even realize that they need help.
      The next characteristic is to question information. This means that active learners raise questions on information that they read and hear, while passive learners accept both the printed page and the words of their professors as “truth”. Of course, active learners don’t question everything, but they do evaluate what they read and hear. When new information fails to “fit in” with what they already know, they may differ in the conclusions they draw or in the inferences they make.
      The last characteristic which I think is the most fundamental one is to accept much of the responsibility for learning. Active learners understand that the responsibility for learning must come from within, while passive learners often want to blame others for their lack of motivation, poor performance, time-management problems, and other difficulties that they might experience. When active learners don’t perform as well as they’d hoped, they evaluate why they didn’t do well and change those studying behaviors the next time. Passive learners, on the other hand, often approach every course in the same manner and then get angry with professors when their performance is poor. It is only when students accept the responsibility for their own learning that they can truly be called “active learners”.
      So, from what I’ve said so far, you can see that being an active learner involves both skill and will. By skill, I mean the tools to handle the studying and learning demands placed on you, like how to read with purpose, when and where to get assistance if you are having difficulty; by will, I mean the desire and motivation to follow through. Here I’d like to emphasize that skill is nothing without will. For example, you may have a friend who is knowledgeable, but not motivated in the classroom. Even though he reads widely and can intelligently discuss a variety of issues, he does little school work and rarely studies. In other words, students such as these may have the skills to do well, but for some reason, they simply do not have the will. And because skill and will go hand in hand, unmotivated students — those who do not have the will, may experience difficulty in college.
      Ok. Today we’ve discussed the differences between an active learner and a passive one, and some useful study strategies that may eventually help you become an active learner.

Section B

Host: Good morning, Mr. West! Nice to have you in our program.
Mr. West: Good morning!
Host: Ok. We all work, or very few people can get away with not working. Work is a fact of life when we are adults. But before, there wasn’t a lot of choice in the selection of work. Now things are different. With greater mobility, the mobility that is offered when people have greater opportunities for higher education or training, more and more people are able to choose the fields that interest them. They can and do have opinions about what makes one job for them better than another job. So, Mr. West, what do people actually want from their jobs? What are workers’ opinions, you know, about what makes one job better than another?
Mr. West: Well, to answer your questions, I’d like to look at two polls, two surveys. They were both done in the 1990s. The purposes were to find out what issues or job characteristics were especially important to workers.
Host: Hmm ... What were they?
Mr. West: Some of you might guess the answer is obvious.
Host: I think so.
Mr. West: You might say “Oh, people just want higher salaries, more money.” But let’s see if that’s true.
Host: Ok.
Mr. West: Now, the first poll. The first poll was taken in 1990 and this poll asked respondents to choose what was the most important to them among five items. And they were only allowed to choose one out of the five items.
Host: So what were the five items?
Mr. West: Alright. The first item was “important and meaningful work”. The second was “high income”. The third was “chances for advancement, promotion and so on”. The fourth item was “job security” and the fifth was “shorter work hours”. Ok?
Host: It would be interesting to know the survey results.
Mr. West: Yes. Now let me tell you the results. 50% considered “important and meaningful work” the most important characteristic of a job. They didn’t choose “high income”. Interesting. Anyway, 24% did say “high income” was the most important characteristic of a job. Of the remaining, 16% said “chances for advancement” was most important. Maybe these were younger workers starting out on a career. 6% said “job security” and finally 4% said “shorter work hours” was most important.
Host: I think what’s striking about the results is that by far workers valued “important and meaningful work” as more important than any of the other characteristics that included salary.
Mr. West: Yeah. Now I’m going to tell you about another poll, and this poll was taken in a year later in 1991. And it asked respondents to reflect on how important certain job characteristics were in their work. And this is a different type of poll because whereas in the first poll respondents had to choose only one out of five, in this poll they wanted the respondents to react to each item separately. You know, this is to rank each item as “not important”, “somewhat important”, “important” or “very important”. So they had four choices for each item.
Host: Sorry to interrupt you. How many items altogether?
Mr. West: Oh, the poll had 16 items. Let me give you a few examples.
Host: Ok.
Mr. West: The second item they asked about is “interesting work”. They asked “How important is interesting work to you?” And again I’m just going to tell you about how many people said it was very important. In this case, 78% of the respondents ranked this as very important to them.
Host: 78%?
Mr. West: Yes, 78%. This is a key point, I think. One often sees people working for a lot less if they enjoy their work.
Host: That’s true.
Mr. West: The fourth item they asked about was “opportunity to learn new skills”. “How important is that to you?” 68% ranked this as very important, and I think that goes again to the idea of interest level — personal satisfaction, and the idea that people want their work to be meaningful.
Host: Definitely.
Mr. West: Another item, Item No.7, “recognition from co-workers”. 62% of the respondents said that this was very important. It was important for them to be recognized, to be respected and acknowledged for the work they’ve done. And I see recognition as a psychological benefit. There is no monetary reward necessarily attached to it, although sometimes there could be. But more people are looking for the psychological reward in terms of appreciation.
Host: It seems to me that people value psychological reward a lot more than money.
Mr. West: That’s right. At least the poll results seem to say so. Now let’s take a look at another item. No.14.
Host: Ok.
Mr. West: No. 14 was “chances for promotion”. 53% said that this was very important to them. It was important to them to have opportunities for advancement, chances for promotion. And I think this goes along with high income and recognition. There is both a psychological reward to promotion as well as a monetary reward.
Host: Hmm.
Mr. West: 15 is “contact with a lot of people”. Some people are very people-orientated and 52% said that this was very important to them.
Host: So we can see workers do have a lot of things that are very important to them.
Mr. West: Yes. But you can also see the variation in numbers. But a note of caution here. These are averages and polls talk about averages. But still, I think it’s important for employers to become more aware of polls like these. Because it might allow them to keep their workers satisfied in ways that maybe they haven’t thought of before.
Host: Yeah. Ok, thank you very much, Mr. West, for talking to us on the program.
Mr. West: Pleasure.

Section C

Question 6-7

      A Moscow company is now marketing “Sleepboxes” — freestanding, mobile boxes with beds inside, for travelers stranded overnight or those in need of a quick snooze. The Sleepboxes are meant to be installed in airports and rented for 30 minutes to several hours at a time. A Sleepbox is currently installed at the Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. “We travel a lot, and many times we face the problem of rest and privacy in airports,” says co-designer Mikhail Krymov of design firm Arch Group, who together with Alexei Goryainov came up with the idea of Sleepbox. “And as we are architects, we like to think of solutions.” Measuring 1.4 meters wide, 2 meters in length, and 2.3 metres in height, Sleepbox’s star feature is a 2-meter-long bed made of polymer foam and pulp tissue that changes bed linen automatically. It also comes with luggage space, a ventilation system, Wi-Fi, electric sockets and an LCD TV.

Question 8

Police in London are lining up a huge police operation for the Notting Hill Carnival in the wake of the rioting and looting that hit the city earlier this month. More than a million people are expected to head to west London over the course of the colorful two-day event, which features music, parades, dancing and stalls serving up Caribbean favorites like jerk chicken and rice and peas. Some 5,500 officers will be on duty at the carnival on Sunday and 6,500 on Monday — a public holiday in Britain — with 4,000 additional officers deployed elsewhere across the city on top of usual police numbers, London’s Metropolitan Police said. Commander Steve Rodhouse said creating a safe environment at the carnival is “a top priority” for the police force.

Question 9-10

      Growing up starved of calories may give you a higher risk of heart disease 50 years on, research suggests. Researchers in the Netherlands tracked the heart health of Dutch women who lived through the famine at the end of World War II. Those living on rations of 400-800 calories a day had a 27% higher risk of heart disease in later life. It’s the first direct evidence that early nutrition shapes future health, they report in the European Heart Journal. The Dutch famine of 1944-45 gave researchers in Holland a unique opportunity to study the long-term effects of severe malnutrition in childhood and adolescence. A combination of factors — including failed crops, a harsh winter and the war — caused thousands of deaths among people living in the west of the Netherlands. The women, who were aged between 10 and 17 at the time, were followed up in 2007. The team found those who were severely affected by the famine had a 27% greater risk of developing heart disease than those who had enough to eat.

Section A

参考答案：
(1) checking (their) understanding/comprehension
(2) reflective/reflecting (on information)
(3) unfamiliar/unknown
(4) reading material(s)/reading information/what you read/what one reads
(5) comprehensive and organized/structured
(6) monitoring (understanding)
(7) adapt/change/alter (the conclusion/inferences)
(8) blame (others)
(9) (poor/unsatisfactory/bad) performance
(10) becoming active learners/college/(college) study/studies/(active/college) learning

TIPS：
(1) 主动学习者的第1个特点就是阅读前设定目标，阅读时则检查自己的理解是否正确。
(2) 主动学习者的第2个特点是对读到的信息进行反省和思辨。
(3) 主动学习过程中对信息的处理包括识别不熟悉或不理解的信息。
(4) 主动学习过程中对信息的处理还包括对所读信息的价值/重要性进行评价。
(5) 主动学习者的第3个特点就是在听的时候要全面、有条理地记笔记。
(6) 第4个特点，主动学习者由于不断地监控自己的理解，因而能发现理解时遇到的问题。
(7) 第5个特点，主动学习者对听到或读到的信息进行质疑、评判，并调整结论或推论。
(8) 第6个特点，主动学习者勇于承担责任，接受自身出现的问题；而被动学习者推卸责任，出现问题时怪罪于他人。
(9) 学习效果不佳时，主动学习者的态度是评估并改变学习行为，被动学习者在学习方法上一成不变。
(10) 在讲座的结尾谈到，成为主动学习者，决心比技能更重要。

Section B

1．参考答案： B

TIP：原文提到With greater mobility, the mobility that is offered when people have greater opportunities for higher education or training, more and more people are able to choose the fields that interest them. 即当人们有了更多的高等教育和培训机会后，工作的流动性增强，也就有了更多的选择机会。因而B选项为正确答案。

2.参考答案： A

TIP：原文提到50% considered “meaningful and important work” the most important characteristic of a job. They didn’t choose “high income”. Interesting. Anyway, 24% did say “high income” was the most important characteristic of a job. Of the remaining, 16% said “chances for advancement” was most important. Maybe these were younger workers starting out on a career. 6% said “job security” and finally 4% said “shorter work hours” was the most important. 由此可见，选择chances for advancement可能是年轻人居多，B选项正确；最多人选择的是meaningful and important work而非high income，C选项正确；选择shorter work hours的人最少，仅为4%，D选项正确；选择job security的人数居第四位，而非第二位，A选项错误。

3.参考答案： B

TIP：第1次调查的问题形式是五个因素中仅选一项最重要的因素，第2次调查的问题是对16个因素的重要性分别进行罗列，因而两次调查最大的不同是问题形式的不同，选B。

4.参考答案： D

TIP：针对Item 7 “recognition from co-workers”, 62% respondents said that this was very important. 因而来自同事的认可还是很重要的，选项A错误；针对Item 4 “opportunity to learn new skills”, 68% ranked this as very important，但并非所有人都这样认为，B选项表达太绝对，错误；针对Item 2 “interesting work”，原文没有提到interesting work和efficiency之间的关系，因而C选项错误；同样针对Item 7，原文提到people value psychological reward a lot more than money，因而D选项正确。

5.参考答案： C

TIP：在谈到chances for advancement时，原文提到There is both a psychological reward to promotion as well as a monetary reward. 因而升职是精神和物质两方面的奖励，选C。

Section C

6.参考答案： B

TIP：原文提到Sleepbox是服务于travelers stranded overnight or those in need of a quick snooze，因而是为那些在机场的乘客解决休息的问题，选B。

7.参考答案： A

TIP：原文提到Sleepbox为2.3米高，因而普通高度的人是可以在里面直立的，选项B正确；Sleepbox可以自动更换床单，选项C正确；Sleepbox的租用时间从30分钟到几个小时不等，选项D正确；Sleepbox里装配有行李架、通风系统、无线网络、电源插座和液晶电视，却未提到有可供洗澡的设施，因而A选项错误。

8.参考答案： C

TIP：新闻首句提到Police in London are lining up a huge police operation for the Notting Hill Carnival，表明整条新闻的主要内容是有关该活动的安保预防措施，选C。

9.参考答案： A

TIP：原文提到It’s the first direct evidence that early nutrition shapes future health，因而这一研究结果是关于早期营养不良与日后心脏健康之间的关系，选A。

10.参考答案： D

TIP：原文提到The women, who were aged between 10 and 17 at the time, were followed up in 2007. 说明这一研究是对那些经历过1944－1945年大饥荒的妇女进行跟踪调查，研究的开展时间是2007年，选D。