【正文】 ent lower than his petitors, proving once again that there is strength in numbers. SIMON THOMAS: This village that we?re at now, there?s at least 80, if not 90 percent of the villagers in the buying grid. ALPHONOSO VAN MARSH: Paul Lunt and Ted Broyton cofounded the Chedworth Village Oil Club. 151 members strong, the club offers suppliers a choice: give members a cut rate or lose an entire village worth of business. PAUL LUNT: Some of the larger panies just didn?t think it was worthwhile. Since they have actually e back and begged to quote. ALPHONOSO VAN MARSH: Club member David Musgrave says he now saves upwards of 400 dollars a year on fuel costs. DAVID MUSGRAVE: Well, there was an element of loyalty that I had with my former supplier. I thought he may be giving me a good service but at the end of the day, I realized that the service wasn?t so good and neither was the price. ALPHONOSO VAN MARSH: And with the credit crunch, inflation, and the winter cold forcing many Britons to clamp down on expenses, oil clubs are increasingly popular. And Simon Thomas?s employer, Sweet Fuels, benefits, too. Because Thomas services the entire club on one prescheduled day, he doesn?t have to make many trips per week with smaller orders. Alphonso Van Marsh, CNN, Ched worth, England. Key to Unit 3 16 DBCDBC 712 ABDBBC 1318 CABCBB 19. discoveries 20. Survey 21. prehensive 22. animals 23. concluded 24. more than 1200 25. claim 26. notion 27. around the poles 28. tropical 29. include 30. are new to science 31. spent 7 weeks aboard 32. they observed 33. living Script Item 1 A blog is short for a Web log. People write blogs to express their opinions and ideas over the Inter. Some people write blogs about political issues. Others use them to share their lives with faraway friends or family. Still other people write blogs to help them deal with sickness, money problems or to choose movies to see or books to read. Bob Doughty has more about the increasing influence of the bloger?s fear. The Center for Media Research recently released a report about blogs. It says all studies agree that blogs are popular around the world. 8 One study found that more than one hundred eighty million people around the world have started a blog. And more than three hundred forty million people around the world read blogs. Another study found bloggers in sixtysix countries on six continents. It found blogs in eightyone languages. People in many professions, including the entertainment industry and news anizations, are writing blogs. VOA writers are among them. Alex Belida is the chief writer of the VOA news blog. He discusses issues of freedom of the press and VOA programming. He also answers questions, ments and criticism from the public. Item 2 This is the VOA Special English Development Report. In two thousand seven, five young people in the American state of Massachusetts developed an idea. The team knew that the world is filled with mobile phones. About eighty percent of all people are said to live within reach of a wireless telephone signal. The idea was to use mobile phones and the Inter to connect job seekers with employers. The young people wrote a business plan and formed a pany called Assured Labor. Assured Labor is an electronic marketplace. It has two parts. One is for the United States. That operation was launched in January in Boston. It links people with employers offering temporary jobs. The other arm of the business is for developing markets. That operation is meant to help people get more permanent jobs. A representative is currently building partnerships with universities and international panies in Central America. Assured Labor39。s president, David Reich, says the panies now place job advertisements on radio or in newspapers. Some even drive around in cars with loudspeakers announcing that jobs are available. He says the panies are interested in having more modern hiring practices. Through Assured Labor, panies will list open positions on the Inter. People who think they could do the job could reply by text message or on their cell phones. Item 3 OPEC Secretary General Abdallah Badri said the new quota will cut a total of million barrels per day from September produc