|
Section C Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks with the exact words you have just heard. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written. It is important that we be mindful of the earth, the planet out of which we are born and by which we are nourished, guided, healed the planet, however, which we have _______to a considerable degree in these past two centuries of _______ exploitation. This exploitation has reached such _______ that presently it appears that some hundreds of thousands of species will be _______ before the end of the century. In our times, human shrewdness has mastered the deep _______ of the earth at a level far beyond the capacities of earlier peoples. We can break the mountains apart; we can drain the rivers and flood the valleys. We can turn the most luxuriant forests into throwaway paper products. We can _______ the great grass cover of the western plains and pour _______ chemicals into the soil until the soil is dead and blows away in the wind. We can pollute the air with acids, the rivers with sewage, the seas with oil. We can invent computers _______ processing ten million calculations per second. And why?To increase the volume and the speed with which we move natural resources through the consumer economy to the junk pile or the waste heap. Our managerial skills are measured by the competence _______ in accelerating this process. If in these activities the physical features of the planet are damaged, if the environment is made inhospitable for _______ living species, then so be it. We are, supposedly, creating a technological wonderworld. | 
