視聽說教程（第三版）4 quiz 7
Reading Comprehension
Section A
Passage One
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage.
El Nino means “little boy” in Spanish; when capitalized, it refers to the Christ child. This innocent-sounding name originated in the 19th century, when Peruvian sailors noticed that every few years around Christmastime, waters near the coasts warmed up and the current shifted southward. But this “little boy” plays havoc around the globe.
El Nino’s vast impact on humans has often been catastrophic. The El Nino of 1982?1983 inflicted $13 billion in damage and claimed some 2,000 lives. In Australia day turned to night when a dust storm blanketed Melbourne; brush fires raged in its wake. In place of its normal monsoon, Southern India got dried-up crops and the threat of mass starvation. At the same time, violent rainstorms devastated the Western Hemisphere: Peru’s fishing industry once one of the richest in the world was wiped out, and seaside towns were washed into the Pacific.
Is there a good side to El Nino? There can be. Zebiak notes that the number of tropical hurricanes in the Atlantic is reduced during an El Nino year. One theory is that winds created by El Nino shear off the tops of Atlantic hurricanes, aborting them before they reach full force. And a team of scientists in Israel who study tree rings and satellite cloud pictures concluded that El Nino may bring precious moisture to the thirsty Middle East. "It is perhaps fitting that El Nino the Christ child should have a link to the Holy Land,” notes scientist Dan Yakir.
This year, scientists around the world are keeping a sharp eye on El Nino. They know that the greater the temperature rise in Pacific waters off South America, the more powerful the El Nino. And this year’s waters have heated up unusually fast.
El Nino’s effects won’t just be climatic, of course the global economy is sure to suffer as well. Drought in Brazil and flooding in Colombia may result in higher prices for coffee and other crops. And fishing industries from Ecuador to California are already being hurt.
Clearly, the more accurately scientists can forecast El Nino, the more people everywhere can prepare. Insurance companies, farmers, power and irrigation companies, public-safety agencies and even tourist boards could benefit from knowing in advance when El Nino will strike.
“Reliable forecasting is still in its infancy,” states Mark Cane. Someday, perhaps, scientists will be able to predict exactly how El Nino will behave. But for now, batten down the hatches and get ready for some wild weather!
- The phrase “play havoc” in paragraph 1 means “ _____________________”.
A) bring benefit or happiness
B) play an important role
C) cause trouble, damage or destruction
D) have greenhouse effect - According to one theory mentioned in paragraph 3, _______.
A) the winds created by El Nino will strengthen Atlantic hurricanes
B) the winds created by El Nino can stop Atlantic hurricanes from reaching full force
C) El Nino may bring floods to Middle East which is regarded as the Holy Land
D) El Nino will not bring disaster to the Holy Land, because it is the Christ child - All of the following statements are true EXCEPT ________.
A) El Nino may bring precious moisture to the thirsty Middle East
B) there are both good and bad sides to El Nino
C) El Nino causes global economy to suffer a lot
D) the El Nino of 1982?1983 caused little damage to Peru’s fishing industry - From the phrase “in its infancy” of the last paragraph, we can infer that _________.
A) the forecasting of El Nino is reliable
B) the forecasting of El Nino has only just started to develop
C) insurance companies and farmers benefit a lot from the forecasting of El Nino
D) scientists can already predict exactly how El Nino will behave now - From the passage we can see the author’s attitude toward El Nino is ___________________.
A) supportive
B) pessimistic
C) optimistic
D) objective
答案：CBDBD
Passage Two
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage.
Given a good shopping position and the right amount of money available, an educated person ought to be able to make a small, steady living out of a bookshop. It is not a difficult trade to learn and the large chain-stores can never force the small independent bookseller out of existence as they have done to the corner shop and the local milkman. But the hours of work are very long ― I was only a part-time employee, but my employer put in a seventy-hour week, apart from regular journeys out of shopping hours to buy books. It is an unhealthy life too. As a rule a bookshop is very cold in winter, because if it is too warm the windows get steamed up, and a bookseller depends on the display in his windows trying to bring customers into his shop. Books give off more dust and dirtier dust than anything else yet invented, and the top of a book is the place where every fly prefers to die.
But the real reason why I should not like to be back in the book trade for life is that while I was in it, I lost my love of books. A bookseller cannot always tell the truth about his books, and that gives him a dislike for them; still worse is the fact that he is always dusting them and moving them to-and-fro. There was a time when I really did love books ― loved the sight and smell and feel of them ― if they were fifty or more years old, that is. Nothing pleased me quite so much as to buy a bargain lot of them for 50 pence at a country auction sale. There is a peculiar flavor about the knocked-about unexpected books you pick up in that kind of collection; little-known eighteenth-century poets, out-of-date geography books, one or two volumes of forgotten novels. For occasional reading ― in your bath, for instance, or late at night when you are too tired to go to sleep ― there is nothing as good as a very old picture storybook.
But as soon as I went to work in the bookshop I stopped buying books. Seen in a mass, five or ten thousand at a time, books were dull and even a little sickening. Nowadays I do buy one occasionally, but only if it is a book that I want to read and can’ t borrow, and I never buy rubbish.
- What does the author mean in the first sentence of the passage?
A) It is easy for an educated person to earn money by running a bookshop.
B) If an educated person wants to make a living, he should run a bookshop.
C) When an educated person is given a good shopping position and a certain amount of money he should open a bookshop.
D) If an educated person has proper money and finds a suitable shopping location, he could open a bookshop for steady income. - Running a bookshop is a good way to make a living because ________.
A) even the local milkmen come to buy books
B) there are many corner shops to help
C) the owner will never be forced out of business by bigger shops
D) the bookseller is independent - Bookshops are kept cold in winter because _______.
A) booksellers want customers to see the display clearly through the windows
B) more customers come to buy books in winter
C) it is a rule which must be followed
D) customers like them kept cold - All of the following statements are true EXCEPT ________.
A) his telling lies about the books made him lose his love of them
B) the author was tired of cleaning books and moving them about in the bookshop
C) running a bookshop is not a difficult trade to learn
D) the author did not like any books - The author once took great pleasure in _________.
A) taking bath occasionally late at night
B) buying old books and reading them occasionally
C) buying all kinds of books
D) buying books quite often which he was unable to borrow
答案：DCADB
Section B
A) desperation
B) obscures
C) stagger
D) sufficient
E) contented
F) moan
G) attained
H) beneficial
I) unaccustomed
J) motivated
- The unexpected blow didn’t ______his resolution.
- Happiness is __________to the body, while grief anneals the will power.
- The arrival of the policemen drove the criminal to ______and burning his boats.
- Our army ______a decisive victory in the hand-to-hand battle.
- I do not know how I can keep _______in finding a job, but I understand that panic is the last thing that helps.
- The wounded soldier continued to ________loudly as the pain intensified.
- Due to the economic crisis, the retirement pension is not _______for living expenses.
- The report____________the fact that taxes have actually risen.
- The ______________dry weather made everyone feel uncomfortable.
- She looks happy and peaceful, wearing a _________ smile.
答案：C、H、A、G、J、F、D、B、I、E
Vocabulary and Structure
Section A
- In fact, there is no ______________ liberty in any country.
A) adequate
B) absolute
C) private
D) practical - Please ______________ me for my rudeness. I really do not know the custom here.
A) engage
B) comfort
C) execute
D) forgive - In this complicated society, learning to be ____________ can be the best way to calm yourself down.
A) tolerant
B) tolerable
C) tolerate
D) tolerance - ______________ can teaching in school be separated from practice
A) By any means
B) By no means
C) By all means
D) By means of - It is the delightful element of ______________ that makes his ghost stories not only chilling but also convincing.
A) legend
B) image
C) fantasy
D) myth - It looks like that a lot of institutions are struggling with ______________ training.
A) gift
B) capacity
C) ability
D) faculty - Financial reform is the most ______________ part of China’s overall economic reforms
A) crucial
B) critical
C) crude
D) practical - We need to come out of the carefree world to ______________ study before the new academic term begins.
A) get down
B) get down to
C) get on
D) get to - I have been asked to give a short ______________ on the bridge project.
A) presence
B) present
C) presentation
D) pretension - The old often ______________ his day while the young looks ahead to the future
A) looks on
B) looks back
C) looks back on
D) looks upon
答案：BDABC DABCC