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Q36-38: A discussion about the Ice Age.
* Hey, Jane. What's so interesting?
* What? Oh, hi, Tom. I'm reading this fascinating article on the societies of the Ice Age during the Pleistocene period.
* The ice age? There weren't any societies then. Just a bunch of cave people.
* That's what people used to think. But a new exhibit of the America museum of natural history showed ice age people were surprisingly advanced.
* Oh, really? In what ways?
* Well, ice age people were the inventors of language, art, and music as we know it. And they didn't live in caves, they built their own shelters.
* What did they use to build them? The cold weather would have killed off most of the trees so they couldn't have used wood.
* In some of the warmer climate, they did build the houses of wood. In other places, they used animal bones and skins or lived in natural stone shelters.
* How did they stay warm? Animal skin walls don't sound very sturdy.
* Well, it says here that in the early Ice Age, they often faced the house towards south to take the advantage of the sun, a primitive sort of solar heating.
* Hey, that's pretty smart.
* Then people in the late Ice Age even insulated their homes by putting heated cobble stones on the floor.
* I guess I spoke too soon. Can I read that magazine article after you're done? I think I'm going to try to impress my anthropology teacher with my amazing knowledge of the Ice Age civilization.
* What a show off.
36. What did the man think of the people in the Ice Age?
37. How did people in the early Ice Age keep warm?
38. What does the man want the woman to do? Part C
39-43: A guide describing the ancient art of thatching a roof.
Welcome to the Forewinds historical farm where traditions of the past are preserved for visitors like you. Today our master thatchers will begin giving this barn behind me a sturdy thatched roof able to withstand heavy wind and last to 100 years. How do they do it? Well, in a nutshell, thatching involves covering the beams or rafters, the wooden skeleton of the roof, with reeds or straw. Our thatchers here have harvested their own natural materials for the job the bundles of water reeds you see lying over there beside the barn. Thatching is certainly uncommon in the United States today. I guess that's why so many of you have come to see this demonstration. But it wasn't always that way. In the 17th century, the colonists here thatched their roofs with reeds and straw just as they'd done in England. After a while though they began to replace the thatch with wooden shingles because woods were so plentiful. And eventually other roofing materials like stone, slate and clay tiles came into use. It's a real shame that most people today don't realize how strong and long-lasting a thatched roof is. In Ireland where thatching is still practiced, the roof can survive winds up to 110 miles per hour. That's because straw and reeds are so flexible they bend but don't break in the wind like other materials can. Another advantage is that the roofs keep the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter. And then of course there's the roof's longevity. The average is 60 years but they can last up to 100. With all these reasons to start thatching roofs again, wouldn't it be wonderful to see this disappearing craft return to popularity?
39. What is about to be demonstrated?
40. What are thatched roofs made of?
41. According to the speaker, why did thatching die out in the United States?
42. According to the speaker, why does thatch survive strong winds?
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