Science is a dominant theme in our culture

em>Questions 17 to 20 are based on the following conversation. At the end of the conversation, you will be given 20 seconds to answer the questions. Now listen to the conversation./em>

When you are small

Information technology is taught in most schools

The nuclear age in which the human race is living, and may soon be dying, began for the general public with the dropping of an atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. But for nuclear scientists and for certain American authorities, it had been known for some time that such a weapon was possible. Work towards making it had been begun by the United States, Canada and Britain very soon after the beginning of the Second World War. The existence of possibly explosive forces in the nuclei of atoms had been known ever since the structure of atoms was discovered by Rutherford. An atom consists of a tiny core called the "nucleus" with attendant electrons circling round it. The hydrogen atom, which is the simplest and lightest, has only one electron. Heavier atoms have more and more as they go up the scale. The first discovery that had to do with what goes on in nuclei was radioactivity, which is caused by particles being shot out of the nucleus. It was known that a great deal of energy is locked up in the nucleus, but, until just before the outbreak of the Second World War, there was no way of releasing this energy in any large quantity. A revolutionary discovery was that, in certain circumstances, mass can be transformed into energy in accordance with Einstein's formula which states that the energy generated is equal to the mass lost multiplied by the square of the velocity of light. The A-bomb, however, used a different process, depending upon radioactivity. In this process, called "fission", a heavier atom splits into two lighter atoms. In general, in radioactive substances this fission proceeds at a constant rate which is slow where substances occurring in nature are concerned. But there is one form of uranium called "U235" which, when it is pure, sets up a chain reaction which spreads like fire, though with enormously greater rapidity. It is this substance which was used in making the atom bomb. The political background of the atomic scientists' work was the determination to defeat the Nazis. It was held—I think rightly—that a Nazi victory would be an appalling disaster. It was also held, in Western countries, that German scientists must be well advanced towards making an A-bomb, and that if they succeeded before the West did they would probably win the war. When the war was over, it was discovered, to the complete astonishment of both American and British scientists, that the Germans were nowhere near success, and as everybody knows, the Germans were defeated before any nuclear weapons had been made. But I do not think that nuclear scientists of the West can be blamed for thinking the work urgent and necessary. Even Einstein favored it. When, however, the German war was finished, the great majority of those scientists who had collaborated towards making the A-bomb considered that it should not be used against the Japanese, who were already on the verge of defeat and, in any case, did not constitute such a menace to the world as Hitler. Many of them made urgent representations to the American Government advocating that, instead of using the bomb as a weapon of war, they should after a public announcement, explode it in a desert, and that future control of nuclear energy should be placed in the hands of an international authority. Seven of the most eminent of nuclear scientists drew up what is known as "The Franck Report" which they presented to the Secretary of War in June 1945. This is a very admirable and far-seeing document, and if it had won the assent of the politicians, none of our subsequent terrors would have arisen. We may infer that the writer's attitude towards the A-bomb is that ______.

Because of the massive oil spillage in the gulf, both the plant and animal lives in the area are in______.

Please______it that the door is locked before you leave.

A quality education is the ultimate liberator

The government's policies in the past five years have shown a(n) ______ in emphasizing the necessity of improving the peasants' livelihood.

______ troublesome the problem is

The company made more profit in that one month than it made in the whole of the ______ year.

Her friends helped her ______ after her sister was killed in a ear crash.

Not only ______ people to send words, music

The American professor came to realize that he had underestimated the ______ of most of the Chinese students.

Nuclear power's danger to health, safety

Reading ______ the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

It was unfortunate that many houses ______ in the big fire.

Americans are highly ______

I recently conducted a survey to see what people thought and knew about Martin Luther King, Jr. I did this by bringing up the subject of MLK Day in casual conversations with people and gauging their reaction. (The sampling was 23 friends, colleagues, and strangers; 10 Black, 9 White, 3 Hispanic, 1 Asian; 4 were between the ages 42-35 and 19 were 34-20.) All knew King as the famous black civil rights leader who was killed, but few knew much more. The majority of people under 30—regardless of race—knew little more, in fact. How is it that Jill (black, 27, college educated) did not know that MLK was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient? Or that Tim (white, 31, college educated) was clueless about King's nonviolent approach to civil rights activism? Darlene (black, 23) thought she should have the day off to sleep in. She had no idea the MLK day is really about doing something to inspire others. What is the point of having a day to mark the man if we do not understand the significance of his life? How is it that not only one of the greatest Americans, but one of the most influential humans in the history of our planet is not better known in this country? Had King been a football player or a musician, he may have registered better with the present generation. Martin Luther King, Jr. was more than just an inspirational black leader. His desire and ability to rise above his own failings and those of fellow humans uplifted us all—both those who were living at the time and those who have come after. Even if we do not know it, our world is a better place because of his light. Dr. King's life was extinguished more than 30 years ago, but not his light. It is still here for each of us to carry, and to illuminate even brighter with our own unique creativity and contributions. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. After graduating from Morehouse College and becoming a minister, he made his way to Montgomery, Alabama in 1954. This was an important decision for it was in the same city that, on December 1 of the following year, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. King was elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and led a boycott of Montgomery buses throughout 1956, which brought him national recognition. King's legacy of non-violent activism was influenced by the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi. King reinforced and expanded his Biblical convictions during a visit to India in 1959, where he studied Gandhi's methods of non-violent protests during the early 1960's. A gifted orator, King ignited the world and a generation in the cause for American civil rights with his "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug 28 1963 to a crowd of 250000 in Washington, D.C. "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protests to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force" ... "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." ..."When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'" Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize and was named em>Time magazine's/em> "Person of the Year" in 1964. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, he said, "Non-violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflicts a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love." King was one of the most extraordinary humans to ever grace our planet. He was a man who met hate and hopeless with love and inspiration. He used non-violence to point out the obscenity of violence. Martin Luther King was gunned down at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Some call it irony. I choose to think of it as his final lesson to us. The Purpose of the author in writing the passage is to ______.

Directions: em>In this part