Unit 9

Part Two: Listening 1

(Bill, Howard, and Lisa are talking about the background music.)

Part I

Bill: What are you working on now?

H: I’ve just finished a piece of background music.

Lisa: Background music? Oh, like the music they’re playing here now.

H: Yes. You hear it everywhere, in restaurants, airports, supermarkets, department stores...

B: In banks, too. I noticed it while we were at the bank today.

L: Did you? I didn’t.

H: You are not supposed to notice it. It’s just there, in the background. It’s supposed to influence your attitudes, and put you in the right mood.

L: I’m not sure I like the idea.

H: Well, it seems to work. Companies pay millions of dollars every year for background music. It’s supposed to give a better feeling about yourself and the people around you. Factories use it a lot. It makes the workers happy, and they work better that way. In one factory, music increased

Unit 8

Part Two: Listening 1

Although twins have always been a source of curiosity, they are not so uncommon statistically, since they occur in every 86 births.

About one third of all twins are identical, or single-egg twins. Identical twins have the same genes and, hence, the same sex, hair, eye, blood type, and bone and tooth structure. Some identical twins are mirror images of each other. For example, one may be left-handed, the other right-handed. As young children, some identical twins may develop their own private language. Identical twins have an especially keen intuition, and they seem to think and dress alike even when away from each other. In fact, even when they are separated at birth and raised apart, identical twins develop surprisingly similarities. They may pursue the same careers, have the same interests, or die within days of each other.

In contrast to identical twins, fraternal twins inherit a separate set of genes and are not necessaril