PART THREE READING COMPREHENSION (24分)

Directions: Read the following three passages. Each passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are 4 choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage.

       He was a real big spender. He stayed at the best hotel and ate in the most expensive restaurants.

   To the management of Disneyland Pairs, he was a very welcome guest, even though he was only 12 years old. In the end, the police discovered that the schoolboy was living the high life  on the ￡10,000 stolen from his father’s safe.

   The boy, named Lamine, had disappeared from the family hotel in Paris 10 days earlier. While police all over France searched for him, he was living it up at a 250-a-night Disneyland hotel. He went on all the rides and went on every other attraction in the place.

   And when he’d had enough of Disneyland for a while, he paid ￡650 to hire a large and very comfortable car which is usually used by very rich or important people to take him to a park for a day. Then he was driven back to Disneyland, where he treated new-found friends to expensive rides and dinner. By the time the truth about him was discovered, Lamine had spent ￡7,000 of his father’s money.

41. What does the underlined phrase “ high life”(paragraph 2) probably mean?

 A. A way of living that involves spending a lot of money.[来源:学|科|网]

 B. A way of living that is as good as that of other people.

 C. A way of living that draws attention from the police.

 D. A way of living that is envied by young and rich people.

42. What was the possible reason that the police all over France searched for Lamine?

A. The police found that Lamine stole his father’s money and ran away.

B. His family found that the boy was lost and called the police for help.

C. The police thought that it was dangerous to live an expensive life.

D. The family wanted Lamine to go back to school.

43. Why was Lamine a very welcome guest of Disneyland Paris?

A. Because he was only 12 years old.

B. Because he liked the riders in the Disneyland.

C. Because he made the Disneyland famous.

D. Because he spent a lot of money in Disneyland.

44. Which of the following statements is true?

A. Lamine moved from one expensive hotel to another with his father’s money.

B. The police began to search Lamine when they discovered that he stole his father’s money.

C. Lamine was found ten days after he left his parents.

D. Lamine had made some new friends and went to a park with them.

 

Although the US is so big and its people have so many different racial backgrounds, it is in some ways less varied than Europe．The English language is used almost everywhere in its American form．The American way of speaking has developed independently of English and is on the whole closer to what can be heard in Ireland.

Another example of uniformity(一致)is in habits and ways of living．From Boston to Los Angeles it is as far as from France to Central Asia, and from east to west there are five time zones; but everywhere people get up and go to bed at about the same time, eat the same kind of food, buy in the same kind of shops, work and rest at the same time of the day and have the same pattern of holidays．In most of the things that matter there is less difference between rich people and ordinary people or between town and country, than in any single European nation.

Although far more food is produced than the present population needs, America is actually an urban society．Less than a tenth of the people are engaged in (从事) agriculture and most of the rest live in or around towns large and small．Here the traditional picture is changing; most Americans do not live in small towns any more．Half the population now live in some thirty metropolitan (大城市的) areas.

The fact that the United States has always been a single economic unit has contributed to uniformity．Modern industry favors large organization, and it is no accident that the world’s biggest commercial firms are American．The people can choose between the products of competing manufacturers (制造商) but the products are all much alike.

1.In describing the uniformity in the U.S．the author does not mention that the American people       .

A．get up and go to work at the same time   

B．spend their holidays in the same pattern

C．buy and eat the same kind of food       

D．have more or less the same income

2.What can we learn from the passage about the U.S．agriculture?

A．The American farmers need more land.

B．Americans are interested in farming.

C．It is now going backward.

D．It is quite developed.

3.The last paragraph suggests that ___       .

A．the production size in the United States is very big

B．a single economic unit produces the same kind of products

C．there are more and more competing manufactures

D．people can choose from all kinds of products that are similar.

4.The underlined part “In most of the things that matter” probably refers to       .

A．in most basic things such as food, clothing and houses

B．in the more expensive things such as cars, TV sets, etc

C．in their land, housing and bank savings

D．in their wealth and income

 

Last April, on a visit to the new Mall of America near Minneapolis, I carried with me a small book provided for the reporters by the public relations office. It

included a variety of “fun facts” about the mall, for example, 140,000 hot dogs are sold each week, there are 10,000 full-time jobs, 44 sets of moving stairs and 17 lifts, 12,750 parking places, 13,000 tons of steel and $ 1 million is drawn weekly from 8 ATMs. Opened in the summer of 2005, the mall was built where the former Minneapolis Stadium had been. It was only a five-minute drive from the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. With 4.2 million square feet of floor space ----- twenty-two times the size of the average American shopping center –the Mall of America was the largest shopping and family recreation center under one roof in the United States.

I know already that the Mall of America had been imagined by its designers, not only as a marketplace, but as a national tourist attaction. Eleven thousand articles, the small book informed me, had been written about the mall.  Four hundred trees had been planted in its gardens, $ 625 million had been spent to build it, and 350 stores were already in business. Three thousand bus tours were expected each year along with a half-million Canadian visitors and 200,000 Japanese tourists. Sales are expected to be at $ 650 million for 2008 and at $ I billion for 2009. Pop singers and film stars such as Janet Jackson and Amold Schwarzenegger visited the mall. It was five times larger than Red Square and it included 2.3 miles of hallways and used almost twice as Knott’s Camp Snoopy.

60. We know from the text that the Mall of America is _________.

A.near an old stadium                  B.close to an airport

C.higher than the Eiffel Tower          D.bigger than most American parks

61. Why are the pieces of information provided by the Mall of America referred to as “fun facts”?

A.They are largely imagined.          B.They are surprising figures（数字）

C.They give exact descriptions.        D.They make people feel uneasy.

62. Why does the author mention popular stars who have been to the mall?

A.To show its power of attraction.

B.To show that few rich people like to shop there.

C.To tell the public about a new movie being made about it.

D.To tell people that they have chances of meeting famous stars there.

63. We can infer from the text that _______.

A.Japanese visitors are most welcome to the mall

B.Canadian visitors would spend $ I billion at the mall

C.Knott’s Camp Snoopy was next to the Mall of America

D.the Mall of America was designed to serve more than one purpose（目的）

 

 

Have you ever dreamed of having a fashionable watch of great value?

A small watchmaker in Switzerland in 1922 designed the first automatic(自动的)watch to show the day, month, and date, Only seven of these splendid watches were ever made and these watches were almost lost to history. Today, it is so hard to get an original (首批的) watch that some watch historians are even willing to offer $ 200,000 for one.

These watches attracted a lot of people for their splendid color, fashionable style, and new uses in the 1920s. The owners of the watches were admired and set apart from the crowd. Because the number of the original watches is very limited, owning such a watch will make you feel very special.

Today, you are offered the same kind of watch with improvement. It has a 24-jewel mechanical(机械的) movement, the kind desired by  watch collectors, The watchmaker has made the movement of the watch much more modern with an automatic rotor(上弦装置) so that the watch never needs to be wound by hand. The watches come in a very beautiful case with a crocodile design on it. To get a watch in such a perfect design means to get a chance             to know a piece of watch-making history and to wear such a watch will show your personal taste and social position.           

 You can get the watch either in person or by mail all an affordable price. You will also receive good service from the watch seller. If you are not satisfied with the watch after you get it, you may simply return it within 30 days. Don’t miss the chance to realize your dream.

1.The original automatic watches are valuable because           .

    A. the watches were made many years ago

B. the watches were made by a Swiss watchmaker

C. only rich people can afford the watches

D. only a few watches of the kind were made

2.Watch collectors want to get the improved watch, especially for its      

       .

A. mechanical movement

B. splendid color

C. fashionable style

D. new uses

3.The purpose of the passage is to encourage the readers to            .

A. buy the watch

B. return the watch

C. wear the watch

D. receive the service

4.The passage is probably taken from a             .

A. report

B. magazine

C. text book

D. science book