Part 1. Intensive Listening.
Listen to the first part and fill in the blanks. You will hear this section twice. Now, before we start, read carefully over Part 1 in the exam booklet for 2 minutes. Use answer sheet 1.
The science fiction writer Ray Bradbury hardly needs any introduction. His best-known novels are all still widely read today. A lifelong fan of movies, Bradbury even wrote an adaptation for a ( 1a )( 1b ) of Moby Dick as well as It Came from Outer Space and The Beast from Twenty Thousand Fathoms.
Even at the age of 82, there’s something childlike about Ray Bradbury. He bounces ( 2a )( 2b ), he nearly always wears shorts and his homes are filled with toys. In fact, a nine-foot Godzilla shares the bedroom of his second home in the California Desert.
Bradbury is attracted to bigger toys, too. Like spaceships [real ones] and aliens from outer space [( 3 ) ones]. With his white hair and grinning face, he challenges you to take him seriously. But then he starts talking and you realize you’re in the presence of a ( 4a )( 4b ) vast mind whose interests span the galaxy. His writing has puzzled people much the same way. His early work was ignored – after all, it was science fiction and was thus ( 5a )( 5b ) the scorn often saved for comic books and romance novels.
Some of Bradbury’s most famous novels – such as, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man and other works – came out at a time when science fiction was considered a ( 6 ) for would-be writers who went on and on about gadgets of their imaginations. Bradbury, however, was no bore. His prose read like literature, and he ( 7 ) his tales with appealing characters and exciting new technology. Beyond that, he introduced challenging themes and asked the complex questions that, until then, had been ( 8a )( 8b ) serious novelists.
Today it’s hard to imagine ( 9a )( 9b ) Bradbury’s influence. In addition to his books, he has published more than 500 short stories and hundreds of television dramas, plus stage plays, operas, essays, and nonfiction. He gives 50 lectures a year and is ( 10a )( 10b ) a variety of professions, from space science to city government. Having trouble getting the residents of your city to use public transportation? Bradbury can offer a quick solution. Are you the owner of a dying shopping center? Bradbury will tell you how to bring back the customers. Disney hired him to help design Epcot, and NASA flew him to Cape Canaveral to lecture astronauts.
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