SECTION A In this section you will hear a
mini-lecture. You will hear the lecture ONCE ONLY. While listening to the
lecture, take notes on the important points. Your notes will not be marked, but
you will need them to complete a gap-filling task on ANSWER SHEET ONE after the
mini-lecture. Use the blank paper for note. taking. Now listen
to the mini-lecture. The Texas teen Buchanan is (1)_____the Harry
Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He got the
(1)_____ first Harry Potter book as a Christmas present back in 1998. As
the world eagerly cracks open the newest volume, whose initial U. S. run of 10.
8 million copies is a (2)_____record, the true mystery isn’t the identity of
the royal figure in the tide. It’s (2)_____ what impact these books are
having on kids. If our society ever needed a reading (3)_____,
it’s now. Only one half of young people read (3)_____ a
book of any kind—including Harry Potter—in 2002. We set the bar almost on the
ground. If you read one short story in a teen magazine, that would have
counted, "laments Mark Bauerlein. He (4)_____ (4)_____ the loss
of readers to the booming world of technology. The new forms of
media undoubtedly have some (5)_____. TV shows promote mental gym-
(5)_____ nastics by forcing viewers
to follow intertwining story lines. But books offer (6)_____that can’t
(6)_____ be gained from these other sources, from building vocabulary
to stretching the imagination. That’s why many (7)_____are
hoping the Harry Potter series can work some magic.
(7)_____ "It’s broken the rules,
"says Cathy Denman, a middle school media specialist in Florida who chairs
the young adult booklist for the International Reading Association. "Kids who
hadn’t picked up a book in years unless they’d been forced to were reading
the series and then asking me for more books like it. For the first time for
them, a book was as (8)_____as a video game. "Although there
(8)_____ have been no (9)_____studies of the effect of the books in the
United States.
(9)_____ Part of the allure is the
(10)_____story. That’s what ensnared precocious readers like 12-
(10)_____ year-old Hannah Bredar of Washington, D. C. , who
tackled the first hook when she was just 5. "I love that Harry lives in two
worlds, one with Muggles and one with wizards and witches, and has to go
between the two, "she analyzes.