Listening audioscript

23. WHAT DOES THE LECTURER MAINLY DISCUSS? 
24. WHY DOES THE LECTURER MOST LIKELY MENTION KING 
KAMEHAMEHA AND CAPTAIN COOK? 
 
 
25. WHAT DOES THE PROFESSOR SAY ABOUT JAMES COOK?
 
26. WHAT DID LILIUOKALANI BELIEVE, ACCORDING TO
THE PROFESSOR? 
27. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING DID NOT HAPPEN TO LILIUOKALANI? 
28. IN THE TALK, THE PROFESSOR DISCUSSES A SERIES OF EVENTS
IN THE HISTORY OF HAWAII. SUMMARIZE THE SEQUENCE BY PUTTING 
THE EVENTS IN THE CORRECT ORDER. 
Page 498
[ track 240-241]
Questions 29 through 34. 
Listen to a lecture in a science class. 
(Professor) 
Today, I’ll be talking about an accident at a nuclear power plant in the 
eastern United States. The accident I’ll be discussing is the one that 
occurred at Three-Mile Island in 1979. This was an accident that, uh, 
while it was very serious, was not as catastrophic as it could’ve been. By 
the end of the lecture, you should understand what factors contributed to 
the accident there. 
Now you can see Three-Mile Island in this photograph. The nuclear 
reactor at Three-Mile Island is in the middle of a river in the state of 
Pennsylvania. This nuclear reactor has two PWRs, which means that it 
has two pressurized water reactors, the most common type of reactor in 
the U.S. The problem that occurred in 1979 was in the Number Two 
pressurized water reactor. 

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LPREP IBT 3 E AS 
FINAL 11/22/14
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What happened in the Number Three reactor… oh, excuse me, did I 
really say that? There are only two reactors, and the problem was with 
the Number Two reactor at Three-Mile Island. OK. The important thing to 
understand about this accident with the Number Two reactor was that 
there were a series of problems rather than a single problem. 
The problems all occurred in the pressurized water-cooling system. 
The initial problem was that a cooling system valve stuck in the open 
position and the cooling water ran out of the reactor. 
Now unfortunately, the problem didn’t end with the stuck cooling valve, 
because operators also misinterpreted the instrument readings. They 
knew there was a problem. Now, let me repeat this because it’s 
important. They did know there was a problem, but they were mistaken 
about what the problem was. They thought the cooling system had too 
much water rather than too little water. Because they thought there was 
too much water, they then shut off the emergency cooling water. As a 
result, there was no water at all to cool the nuclear reactor. 
Now, a complete nuclear meltdown didn’t result when the emergency 
cooling water was turned off, but there was a partial meltdown. A 
complete nuclear meltdown means the uranium in the fuel core melts 
completely. In this situation, enough heat built up in the fuel core that the 
uranium began to melt, but it didn’t melt completely. 
I hope you understood the series of events that led to the problem at 
Three-Mile Island, a problem that, while serious, could have been 
catastrophic. It all started with a stuck valve in the cooling system and 
was exacerbated—made much worse—by the misinterpreted readings 
and the improper shutdown of the emergency cooling system. 
Fortunately, the meltdown that did occur was only partial.