听力第二部分：两个数字，一条笔记，二十秒
A candidate is sitting Section B of the listening paper. Each item is played twice, with 30 seconds of reading time before it and a 20-second pause only after the second playing. Item 7 is a 45-second conversation between a student, Lin, and a library assistant. The candidate's notes read: 闭馆 9点 / 借书 三天 / 学生卡 5月14号过期. During the first playing the assistant says 平日晚上九点关门，周末下午五点，and the student replies 书到了要三天内取是吧？那我明天上午下了第二节课就去. Earlier in the same conversation the student had said 我们第二节课十点下课. On the second playing the student adds 十点一刻应该来得及，but drilling from a nearby building covers 一刻. Item 7 asks 林明天为什么要去图书馆; item 8 asks 林明天大约几点到图书馆. The candidate has written 九点 next to item 8 and is still writing when the recording moves on to item 9.
1. Item 8 asks for an arrival time. The candidate has written 九点. Explain what went wrong and what the candidate should write instead, showing how the answer is built from the recording.
Read the worked answer
The candidate has grabbed a number that was in the recording but answers a different question. 九点 is the weekday closing time - it belongs to the 闭馆 information, not to Lin's arrival. This is the classic listening trap: every number heard feels like an answer.
The arrival time has to be assembled from two separate places in the dialogue:
- 我们第二节课十点下课 → class ends at 10:00.
- 十点一刻应该来得及 → 一刻 = 15 minutes, so 10:15.
The drilling noise only damaged the second element. But 十点 was heard cleanly, and 一刻 is recoverable from context: Lin has just said she will go 下了第二节课, so any time she gives must be shortly after 10:00. 9:00 is before her class ends - logically impossible. A candidate who cannot hear 一刻 can still reason to 十点十五分 or write 十点多 and lose only part of the mark rather than all of it.
Correct answer: 十点一刻 / 10:15.
2. Item 7 asks why Lin is going to the library. What in the notes is the actual reason, and how should the candidate have marked the notes during the first playing to make that obvious?
Read the worked answer
The reason is the reserved book: it has arrived and must be collected within three days (书到了要三天内取). The card expiry on 5月14号 is background - it explains that her card is still valid, but it is not why she is going tomorrow.
In the first playing the candidate should have written the notes as a cause-effect chain rather than a list of facts:
- 书到了 → 三天内取 → 明天去
- 卡 5/14 过期 (background, tick it off)
A list of three equal facts gives no clue which one the question will target. A chain makes the causal link visible, so when item 7 is read the candidate can answer immediately and use the second playing to confirm item 8 rather than to re-derive item 7 from scratch. The card date should be marked with a small cross or bracket to signal 听过、不是答案.
3. The candidate is still writing item 8 when item 9 begins. What is the correct decision, and what does it cost?
Read the worked answer
Stop immediately and move to the reading time for item 9. The 20-second pause is the only writing window; once the next item starts, attention spent finishing item 8 is taken directly from item 9's first playing, and item 9 then has to be reconstructed from the second playing alone. Two damaged items instead of one.
The correct answer (十点一刻) is short - three characters plus 分 if wanted. If the candidate had written 10:15 or 十点十五 in the pause instead of 九点, no extra time would have been needed. The cost of the wrong guess is therefore not the writing time but the lost second playing: the candidate now has no clean pass available to check whether the arrival time was 十点一刻 or 十点半.
Rule to carry into the exam: in the pause, write the shortest acceptable form of the answer (digits are fine unless the paper says otherwise), then look up. Never carry an unfinished item into the next recording.