第二部分：阅读理解(共20小题;每小题2分，满分40分)

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项(ABC和D)中，选出最佳选项。

A

There are stock markets in large cities in many countries. Stock markets in Paris, London, Tokyo, Shanghai and New York are among the largest and most well-known. The stock market, also called stock exchange, is a place where people can buy or sell shares of a factory or a company. And each share means certain ownership of a factory or a company.

Different people go to stock markets. Some are rich, who want to get more money than they have. Others are not very rich, who buy stocks and try to become rich. Still others buy stocks as part of their plan to save money.

Of course, investing money in the stock markets is not the safest way to make money. No one can tell exactly whether the shares will be doing well. The factory or company may do badly. Then the stocks will go down and investors will lose money. The stock may go up or down for a number of untold reasons. Everyone wants the stock to go up, but sometimes even if a factory or company does a good job, the stock may still go down.

No wonder going to the stock market is often compared to gambling. All are eager to make money by “gambling” in the stock market. Factories and companies that need money are pleased that so many people are willing to gamble”. Indeed, the stock market is an attractive part of the business world.

56. If you are an investor, ____ in the stock market.

A. you can always make money B. you can tell exactly when the stock goes up or down

C. you might always lose money in a period D. your gambling is always safe

57. When a factory or company does a good job, ____.

A. investors are sure to get money B. the stock will sometimes go down

C. going to the market is the safest way D. you should never put your money in it

58. Factories and companies are pleased that so many people “gamble” because ____.

A. they can make more money B. they need more people to work for them

C. the need their money to do business D. some people win and some lose

59. The article mainly wants to tell us ____.

A. how to buy or sell shares B. the stock market is like a gambling house

C. the ABC of stock market D. investing money in the stock market is not the safest way

B

After nearly a decade of planning, the Egyptian Government has announced an ambitious plan to build the world’s biggest museum devoted entirely to exhibiting the ancient relics(文物).

Called the New Egyptian Museum, it will eventually house the largest collection of Pharaonic(法老的)monuments, including the solid gold death mask of Tutankhamun.

King Nebkheperura Tutankhamun remains the most famous of all the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. He lived over 3,300 years ago during the period known as the New Kingdom.

The museum also will house more than120,000 antiquities(ancient arts)from the 4th millennium(1,000 years)BC to the fall of the Roman Empire.

For the first time, the entire 3,500 items from Tutankhamun’s tomb will be displayed. Permanent exhibitions will include the royal mummies of Ramses II and III and other pharaohs and a large quantity of collection of Pharaonic jewellery.

Antiquities will be organized by theme rather than chronologically(编年地). The four main themes will be: the land of Egypt; royalty and the state; arts of life and death; and scribes(文牍)and wisdom.

With building costs estimated near US$311 million, funding for the new museum will come from corporate sponsorship and charitable(慈善的)donations. The Egyptian Government is expected to pay one third of the final bill.

60. ____ will build the world’s biggest museum devoted entirely to exhibiting the ancient relics.

A. The Egypt government B. A corporate body

C. The charitable body D. The Egypt government and a corporate body

61. When you go into one exhibiting hall of the would-be museum, you’ll see ____.

A. all the exhibits are arranged by the year

B. all the exhibits are arranged by theme

C. more than 120,000 Egyptian antiquities are on show

D. Pharaonic monuments of Tutankhamun and the royal relics

62. According to the passage, ____.

A. the most valuable relics that are to be displayed are 120,000 antiquities from the 4th millennium

B. 3,500 items of relics have been discovered from Tutankhamun’s tomb

C. the Pharaonic monuments of Tutankhamun are the oldest relics

D. the royal mummies of Ramses II and III and other pharaohs will be displayed for the second time

63. The best title of the passage should be ____.

A. Egypt’s Ambitious Plan B. The World’s Biggest Museum for the Ancient relics

C. Egypt to Construct New Museum D. Ancient Egyptian relics are to be Displayed

C

Geologists(地质学家)have been studying volcanoes for a long time. Though they have learned a great deal, they still have not discovered the causes of volcanic action. They know that the inside of the earth is very hot, but they are not sure exactly what causes the great heat. Some geologists have thought that the heat is caused by the great pressure of the earth’s outer layers. Or the heat may be left from the time when the earth was formed. During the last sixty years scientists have learned about radium, uranium, thorium, and other radioactive elements. These give out heat all the time as they change into other elements. Many scientists now believe that much of the heat inside the earth is produced by radioactive elements.

Whatever the cause of the heat may be, we do know that the earth gets hotter the farther down we dig. In deep mines and oil wells the temperature rises about 1℉ for each 50 feet. At this rate the temperature 40 miles below the earth’s surface would be over 4000℉ . this is much hotter than necessary to melt rook. However, the pressure of the rock above keeps most materials from melting at their usual melting points. Geologists believe that the rock deep in the earth may be plastic, or puttylike(似粘性材料). In other words, the rock yields slowly to pressure nut is not liquid. But if some change in the earth’s crust releases the pressure, the rock melts. Then the hot, liquid rock can move up toward the surface.

Where the melted rock works its way closed to the earth’s crust, a volcano may be formed. The melted rock often contains steam and other gases under great pressure. If the rock above gives way, the pressure is released. Then the sudden expansion of the gases causes explosions. These blow the melted rock into pieces of different sizes and shoot them high in the air. Here they cool and harden into volcanic ash and cinders(灰烬). Some of this material falls around the hole made in the earth’s surface. The melted rock may keep on rising and pour out as lava(岩浆). In this way, volcanic ash, cinders, and lava build up the cone-shaped(锥形的)mountains that we call volcanoes.

64. The subject of this passage is the ____.

A. formation of volcanoes B. results of volcanic action

C. interior of the earth D. causes of the earth’s internal heat

65. The cause for the heat in the interior of the earth is probably ____.

A. radioactive elements B. the great pressure of the earth

C. not determined D. the heat remaining from the formation of the earth

66. From the information given in the passage, most minerals would melt fastest ____.

A. at 4000 ℉ at sea level B. at 4000 ℉, 5000 feet below sea level

C. in the absence of oxygen D. at the exact center of the earth at 4000℉

67. If the temperature at the earth’s surface is 20℉ the temperature in a coal mine 500 feet below the surface would, in degrees, be ____.

A. 40 B. 30 C. 50 D. 120

D

Thirty-two people watched Kitty Genovese being killed right beneath their windows. She was their neighbor. Yet none of the 32 helped her. No one even called the police. Was this in gunman cruelty? Was it lack of feeling about one’s fellow man?

“Not so,” say scientists John Barley and Bib Fatane. These men went beyond the headlines to probe the reasons why people didn’t act. They found that a person has to go through two steps before he can help. First he has to notice that is an emergency.

Suppose you see a middle-aged man fall to the sidewalk. Is he having a heart attack? Is he in a coma(昏迷)from diabetes(糖尿病)? Or is he about to sleep off a drunk?

Is the smoking coming into the room from a leak in the air conditioning? Is it “steam pipes”? or is it really smoke from a fire? It’s not always easy to tell if you are facing a real emergency.

Second, and more important, the person faced with an emergency must feel personally responsible. He must feel that he must help, or the person won’t get the help he needs.

The researchers found that a lot depends on how many people are around. They had college students in to be “tested”. Some came alone. Some came with one or two others. And some came in large groups. The receptionist started them off on the “test”. Then she went into the next room. A curtain divided the “testing room” and the room into which she went. Soon the student heard a scream, the noise of file cabinets falling and a cry for help. All of this had been pre-recorded on a tape recorder.

Eight out of ten of the students taking the test alone acted to help. Of the students in pairs, only two out of ten helped. Of the students in groups, none helped.

In other words, in a group, Americans often fail to act. They feel that others will act. They, themselves, needn’t. They do not feel any direct responsibility.

Are people bothered by situations where people are in trouble? Yes. Scientists found that they people were emotional, they sweated, they had trembling hands. They felt the other person’s trouble. But they didn’t act. They were in a group. Their actions were shaped by the actions of those they were with.

68. The purpose of this passage is ____.

A. to explain why people fail to act in emergencies

B. to explain when people will act in emergencies

C. to explain what people will do in emergencies

D. to explain how people feel in emergencies

69. Which of the following is NOT true?

A. When a person tries to help others, he must be clear that there is a real emergency.

B. When a person tries to help others, he should know whether they are worth his help.

C. A person must take full responsibility for the safety of those in emergencies if he wants to help.

D. A person with a heart attack needs help the most.

70. The main reason why people fail to act when they stay together is that ____.

A. they are afraid of emergencies

B. they are reluctant to get themselves involved

C. others will act if they themselves hesitate

D. they do not have any direct responsibility for those who need help

71. The author suggests that _____.

A. we shouldn’t blame a person if he fails to help

B. a person must feel guilty if he fails to help

C. people should be responsible for themselves in emergencies

D. when you are in trouble, people will help you anyway

E

The man traveling in the back of the ambulance which thrust its way through the streets of Baltimore that morning in 1967 had no business to be alive. By everything that was reasonable, and there were plenty of precedents, he should have been very dead indeed. But he wasn’t. As the people in the hospital pointed out after they had examined him, he was only slightly bruised. Yet he has just fallen 150 feet down a hotel lift shaft!

Unknown to the man, two things had occurred which were to affect his life that day. On the thirteenth floor of the hotel, somebody had carelessly left the lift gate open. Down in the basement, a pipe had burst and, before anyone could check the rush of water, it had flooded the bottom of the lift shaft to a depth of two feet.

Modern lifts have all sorts of fail-safe mechanisms to prevent accidents, but this was an ancient contraption(奇妙的装置)— unreliable, creaking, slow, hazardous(dangerous), and suitable material for any scrap dealer who cared to take it away.

The man had plenty of things to occupy his mind that morning. He had overslept. The hotel had forgotten to call him and now he was late for an important business appointment. He dressed quickly, shaved hurriedly, grabbed his briefcase and hurried off down the hotel corridor.

Good! The lift gate was open. The lift must be there. He need not press the button and wait while the large, clumsy(badly-made)lift hauled its way upwards. Without looking or thinking he stepped out into space The lift cage was, in fact, one floor above him on the fourteenth. The world into which he had walked was a narrow space of not very fresh air, ending 150 feet below in two feet of dirty water.

The man descended(dropped), making his journey to the ground at a speed he had never dreamed of. Confused patterns, whirling shapes, a rush of air, time enough to be afraid, split-second thoughts of death, then — crash.

Perhaps this gave him the record for some sort of high-diving act. No doubt in future he always looked before he leap. Certainly he learnt that this was no way to save time. The experts said that those two feet of water had saved his life.

72. How do we know that the story is true?

A. We are told the place and time. B. We are given plenty of details.

C. Lifts often go wrong. D. The man won a high-diving record.

73. By ‘had no business to be alive’ the writer means that the man ____.

A. had missed his business appointment. B. was only just alive.

C. had done very little business. D. was alive and this was very surprising.

74. The word “precedents” in paragraph 1 refers to ____.

A. other people who had had similar accidents. B. rulers of countries.

C. the height which the man fell. D. the man’s injuries.

75. Which of the following did NOT help to cause the accident?

A. Someone left the lift door open. B. A pipe burst.

C. The man overslept. D. He was late for an appointment.