[15:05.85]Section C NEWS BROADCAST

[15:08.36]In this section, you will hear everything ONCE ONLY.

[15:11.75]Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow.

[15:15.26]Questions 6 to 7 are based on the following news.

[15:21.05]At the end of the news item,

[15:23.79]you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions.

[15:28.05]Now listen to the news.

[15:30.45]This is Nicodemus, the first all-black pioneer town,

[15:36.03]established on the prairie 128 years ago.

[15:40.30]Every summer this tiny town holds a homecoming

[15:43.03]with a gathering and parade to celebrate its heritage.

[15:46.76]In 1877 freed slaves came to a barren spot in Kansas to make a place

[15:53.53]where they could determine their own lives.

[15:56.16]They had been encouraged to come to the barren prairie by unscrupulous land agents.

[16:01.19]Living in earth-covered huts the settlers used their determination and farming skills

[16:07.10]and a town began to take shape.

[16:09.61]Some of the original structures remain.

[16:12.35]First built were two churches, then a schoolhouse and later a small hotel and a town hall.

[16:19.12]Today, Nicodemus is like many struggling mid-western towns

[16:23.72]where the young people leave for the cities.

[16:26.02]It is now a National Historic Site and tourists and African-Americans

[16:31.05]from all over come to see where black pioneers built their own town from the ground up.

[16:58.30]Question 8 is based on the following news.

[17:01.47]At the end of the news item,

[17:04.97]you will be given 10 seconds to answer the question.

[17:09.02]Now listen to the news.

[17:11.97]Mechanized carnival attractions draw big crowds at the Maryland State Fair.

[17:17.99]But there is another side to this event.

[17:20.61]It is a scene that looks like it is right off the farm.

[17:23.56]The fair is a yearly event that helps America's largely urban-dwelling population

[17:28.93]reconnect with its agrarian roots.

[17:31.44]Fairs were originated hundreds of years ago

[17:35.05]in various forms and certainly the fair as we know it is about a hundred years old.

[17:40.19]It was a place for the agricultural community to get together and show off

[17:44.79]what they had done over the past year.

[17:46.86]Farmland scenes like this have become ever less common across the United States.

[17:51.78]But it seems they will always be preserved at America's state fairs.

[18:07.41]Questions 9 and 10 are based on the following news.

[18:10.15]At the end of the news item,

[18:12.99]you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the two questions.

[18:17.26]Now listen to the news.

[18:19.77]The World Health Organization warns

[18:24.04]between 25 and 35 percent of the world population

[18:28.08]could be affected by a human influenza pandemic,

[18:32.24]but the WHO says most people would survive.

[18:35.52]Health experts are meeting at the World Health Organization

[18:39.78]in Geneva to map out a plan of action to combat the possible spread of avian flu.

[18:46.08]The World Health Organization Global Influenza Program

[18:50.78]Director Klaus Stohr says between two and seven million people

[18:55.48]would die from a mild pandemic and up to 28 million would be hospitalized.

[19:00.73]He adds everything has to be put into perspective.

[19:04.56]The WHO calculation is based on the prospect of a mild influenza outbreak,

[19:10.36]such as those which occurred in 1957 and 1968.

[19:15.17]Those pandemics killed three million people.

[19:18.78]It acknowledges that deaths could skyrocket

[19:21.73]in the event of a severe influenza pandemic,

[19:24.68]such as the one that swept the world in 1918,

[19:28.29]killing more than 40 million people.