[00:05.49]Lesson 69 1 Reading comprehension
[00:12.43]Read the text fast and choose the right title for each section:
[00:19.88]The photocopier The answering machine
[00:25.16]The fax machine The word processor
[00:30.62]THE OFFLCE
[00:33.96]Offices cannot work properly without certain important pieces of equipment.
[00:41.61]One of the first jobs when you start work in an office
[00:46.79]is to learn how to use every piece of equipment.
[00:51.75]Once you have done this,you will quickly become a useful member of the team.
[00:58.59]It is better to ask for help at the beginning
[01:04.16]rather than to wait until a busy period when everyone is rushed off their feet.
[01:11.73]The fax has greatly changed office work,especially in China.
[01:19.39]When you place a sheet of paper in a fax machine,
[01:25.13]the machine"reads"the writing on the page
[01:30.10]and changes the shapes of letters into electronic signals.
[01:36.05]It then sends these signals down an ordinary telephone line to another fax macine,
[01:42.90]which changes the signals back into the shapes of letters.
[01:48.15]Yor can imagine how useful this is,particularly in countries like China and Japan,
[01:55.30]which use written characters not letters.
[01:59.98]It is also useful for sending pictures,designs,maps and so on.
[02:06.75]Sending a fax is more expensive than posting a letter,but much quicker.
[02:13.90]For example,you can send information abroad immediately,
[02:20.15]but mailing a letter might take a week or so.
[02:25.19]If you want to send a letter to an office abroad that is in a different time zone,
[02:32.35]you can send a fax,and it will be received even though the office is not open.
[02:39.32]There are two other points to consider.
[02:44.18]First,remember that a fax can be read by anyone,so be careful what you send!
[02:51.73]Second,do not start faxing everything!
[02:56.80]It is much cheaper to post or email a long report than to fax it.
[03:03.56]This makes copies,using a mirror,a roller and special black powder.
[03:11.61]Modern machines can make the copy bigger or smaller,
[03:17.77]lighter or darker and copy onto both sides of the paper.
[03:24.15]It can copy a long report and sort the copies and pin them together.
[03:30.99]There is a new type of machine which can produce colour copies.
[03:37.05]All machines are slightly different,
[03:41.31]so you need a short lesson when you start work in a new office.
[03:47.68]This combines a typewriter keyboard,a printer and a computer.
[03:55.23]When you type a letter,the writing appears on a screen in front of you
[04:02.70]and is recorded onto a computer disk.
[04:07.14]When you have finished the letter,
[04:11.59]you make any changes you wish,check it and print it.
[04:17.54]If it is a long report,it is easy to make changes to the text.
[04:24.02]Then,instead of spending maybe five hours typing the report again,
[04:31.46]you can print the new copy in one minute!
[04:35.72]This is a telephone with a tape recorder.
[04:41.08]When there is no one in the office,
[04:46.04]you can leave the answering machine on
[04:49.88]so that people who call you up can leave a message.
[04:54.84]When you return to the office the following moring or after the holiday,
[05:01.51]you can listen to the messages and take any necessary action.
[05:06.83]Many offices use answering machines to give information.
[05:12.89]Imagine a railway station,a bus company or a cinema,
[05:19.35]which many people need to ring to find out the times of trains,buses or films.
[05:23.71]You can print the telephone number of your information service in the newspaper.
[05:29.64]Then,instead of having someone answering the phone all day,
[05:35.80]people can ring up the railway station
[05:39.85]and listen to a tape recording of the information.
[05:44.53]What is more,this"information line"operates 24 hours a day
[05:51.90]Lesson 70 1 Reading comprehension
[06:03.96]Read the text fast to find answers to these questions.
[06:10.31]1 Where did the fire happen?
[06:15.64]2 What started the fire?
[06:20.40]WHAT CAUSED THE FIRE?
[06:24.97]A navy ship was in a port in Scotland tor repairs.
[06:31.81]It was important to carry out the work quickly,
[06:36.67]so an extra team of men were asked to work on the repairs one evening.
[06:43.23]They had to work inside the ship,cutting away old metal,fixing new metal plates,
[06:52.47]drilling holes,laying electrical and phone wires
[06:57.93]and fixing new pipes for water and steam.
[07:03.21]The team started work on a new section inside the ship near the front.
[07:10.05]One man was told to fix up an"air-line"
[07:15.02]to provide compressed air for the machines they were using.
[07:20.45]It took him some time to connect the long rubber pipe
[07:25.49]to the air supply pipe that ran round the port,
[07:30.46]but at last it was done and as a result work was able to progress much faster.
[07:38.71]After three hours,the men stopped for a meal break.
[07:44.56]When work continued,one man lit a cigarette as he was working,
[07:51.43]but,finding it had a strange taste,he put it out.
[07:57.60]Another man lit a cigarette but it burnt strangely and so he too put it out.
[08:06.06]Half an hour later,another man struck a match for a cigarette
[08:12.90]and this time the whole of the inside of the ship caught fire.
[08:19.38]As quickly as they could,the men ran to the steps and up into the open,
[08:26.46]many of them with their clothes on fire.
[08:30.51]Most of them were able to climb out in time.
[08:35.79]However four men were not quick enough to escape the flames.
[08:42.27]Their burnt bodies were found later.
[08:46.81]It did not take the firefighters long to put out the fire,
[08:53.19]and they at once started to look for causes of the fire.
[08:58.23]They were puzzled by several things.
[09:02.67]It appeared that a fierce fire had taken place inside the ship,
[09:09.75]but without damaging the walls.There had been fuel on the ship,
[09:17.01]but this did not appear to have cauded the fire,and little smoke was produced.
[09:23.77]The men who had been working on the repairs
[09:29.23]mentioned the curious way their cigarettes burned and tasted.
[09:33.91]The fire service began to wonder wheter a gas might have caused the fire.
[09:40.26]The question was,which one?
[09:44.99]It must have been a gas that could burn but that would not explode,
[09:50.76]a gas that did not smell strong,and a gas that did not kill people.
[09:57.00]The man who had fixed up the air-line was also questioned.
[10:03.06]He explained that he had tried to fix the air-line
[10:06.90]to the supply line that ran round the port
[10:13.43]but because the fittings did not match.
[10:18.19]So he had gone to the stores and had obtained a fixture
[10:23.75]that fitted both the tap on the suppy line and the end of the air-line.
[10:29.71]Once he had done this,he had been able to turn on the supply.
[10:34.88]They then knew that they had disovered the cause of the fire.
[10:40.44]The man had connected the air-line to a supply line of oxygen,not compressed air.
[10:48.49]Oxygen is widely used in ship repairs
[10:53.77]for cutting and joining metal plates or pipes.
[10:58.21]While the men had been working inside the ship,
[11:02.88]the air-line had been giving off oxygen.
[11:07.56]Once the oxygen content of the air had risen to 25%,it was ready to burn.
[11:15.42]The third person who lit a match started the fire.
[11:20.99]It was noticed that there were no signs or warnings on the supply lines that ran round the port.
[11:28.43]After the accident,all the lines and taps were clearly marked
[11:35.20]and new people joining the workforce were
[11:39.87]given a talk on safety before they started work |