Part IV Reading comprehension (reading in depth) (25 minutes)
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following passage.
The song “Happy birthday to you” is sung all over the world just before the birthday boy or girl blows out the candles on the cake.
It is so simple that children as young as three can sing it without ___47___. The song, with its ___48___ title “Good Morning to You”, was written in 1893 by the two sisters, Mildred and Patty Smith Hill. They were the daughters of a ___49___ Kentucky couple, who believed in female education at a time---the mid-nineteenth century--- when it was still a ___50___ idea and who trained their two daughters to be schoolteachers. They were long involved in elementary education.
A birthday cake with ___51___ candles is also indispensable at one's birthday party. It may derive, ___52___, from the ancient Greek practice of offering to Artemis, goddess of the moon, a round honey cake into which a candle was stuck. After German bakers ___53___ the modern birthday cake in the Middle Ages, a similar ___54___ was adopted for happiness at birthdays.
The candle-blowing-out custom may be associated with double meaning at birthdays. Some people believe that each birthday is another step toward the end, and what we ___55___ at birthday gatherings is not only our growth, but our transience. Thus, candles at birthdays are ___56___ of life and death, hopes and fears, increase and loss, and so on.
注意：此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡2上作答。
A) invented I) original
B) accelerate J) novel
C) old K) apparently
D) symbols L) burning
E) hesitation M) prevented
F) progressive N) custom
G) celebrate O) substitute
H) distantly
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
Electric cars are dirty. In fact, not only are they dirty, they might even be more dirty than their gasoline-powered cousins.
People in California love to talk about “zero-emissions vehicles,” but people in California seem to be clueless about where electricity comes from. Power plants most all use fire to make it. Aside from the few folks who have their roofs covered with solar cells, we get our electricity from generators. Generators are fueled by something — usually coal, oil, but also by heat generated in nuclear power plants. There are a few wind farms and geothermal plants as well, but by far we get electricity mainly by burning something.
In other words, those “zero-emissions” cars are likely coal-burning cars. It's just the coal is burned somewhere else so it looks clean. It is not. It’s as if the California Greens are covering their eyes — “If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.” Gasoline is an incredibly efficient way to power a vehicle; a gallon of gas has a lot of energy in it. But when you take that gas (or another fuel) and first use it to make electricity, you waste a nice part of that energy, mostly in the form of wasted heat — at the generator, through the transmission lines, etc.
A gallon of gas may propel your car 25 miles. But the electricity you get from that gallon of gas won't get you nearly as far — so electric cars burn more fuel than gas-powered ones. If our electricity came mostly from nukes, or geothermal, or hydro, or solar, or wind, then an electric car truly would be clean. But for political, technical, and economic reasons, we don’t use much of those energy sources.
In addition, electric cars’ batteries which are poisonous for a long time will eventually end up in a landfill. And finally, when cars are the polluters, the pollution is spread across all the roads. When it’s a power plant, though, all the junk is in one place. Nature is very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated, but it takes a lot longer when all the garbage is in one spot.
注意：此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡2上作答。
57. What does “clueless” mean in paragraph 2?
A) The California Greens are covering their eyes.
B) People in California love to talk about zero-emissions vehicles
C) People in California love to have their roofs covered with solar cells
D) People there have no idea that so far electricity mainly comes from burning coal, oil, etc.
58. According to the passage, why the California Greens hold the idea “If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.”?
A) They do not know those clean cars are likely coal-burning cars.
B) They do believe that the coal is burned somewhere else so it looks clean.
C) They tend to hold that electricity is a nice part of energy.
D) They tend to maintain that gasoline is a good way to run a vehicle.
59. The electricity we get from a gallon of gas may make our car run __________.
A) not less than 25 miles.
B) more than 25 miles.
C) no less than 25 miles.
D) not more than 25 miles.
60. Compared with cars using gas, electric cars __________
A) do not burn fuel and more environmental.
B) are toxic and it is difficult for nature to clean it up when their batteries are buried in one spot.
C) are very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated
D) are poisonous for a long time and will eventually end up in a landfill.
61. It can be inferred from the passage that __________.
A) Being green is good and should be encouraged in communications
B) Electric cars are not clean in that we get electricity mainly by burning something.
C) Zero-emissions vehicles should be chosen to protect our environment.
D) Electric cars are now the dominant vehicle compared with gasoline-powered cousins.
Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.
Questions 47 to 56 are based on the following passage.
The song “Happy birthday to you” is sung all over the world just before the birthday boy or girl blows out the candles on the cake.
It is so simple that children as young as three can sing it without ___47___. The song, with its ___48___ title “Good Morning to You”, was written in 1893 by the two sisters, Mildred and Patty Smith Hill. They were the daughters of a ___49___ Kentucky couple, who believed in female education at a time---the mid-nineteenth century--- when it was still a ___50___ idea and who trained their two daughters to be schoolteachers. They were long involved in elementary education.
A birthday cake with ___51___ candles is also indispensable at one's birthday party. It may derive, ___52___, from the ancient Greek practice of offering to Artemis, goddess of the moon, a round honey cake into which a candle was stuck. After German bakers ___53___ the modern birthday cake in the Middle Ages, a similar ___54___ was adopted for happiness at birthdays.
The candle-blowing-out custom may be associated with double meaning at birthdays. Some people believe that each birthday is another step toward the end, and what we ___55___ at birthday gatherings is not only our growth, but our transience. Thus, candles at birthdays are ___56___ of life and death, hopes and fears, increase and loss, and so on.
注意：此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡2上作答。
A) invented I) original
B) accelerate J) novel
C) old K) apparently
D) symbols L) burning
E) hesitation M) prevented
F) progressive N) custom
G) celebrate O) substitute
H) distantly
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
Electric cars are dirty. In fact, not only are they dirty, they might even be more dirty than their gasoline-powered cousins.
People in California love to talk about “zero-emissions vehicles,” but people in California seem to be clueless about where electricity comes from. Power plants most all use fire to make it. Aside from the few folks who have their roofs covered with solar cells, we get our electricity from generators. Generators are fueled by something — usually coal, oil, but also by heat generated in nuclear power plants. There are a few wind farms and geothermal plants as well, but by far we get electricity mainly by burning something.
In other words, those “zero-emissions” cars are likely coal-burning cars. It's just the coal is burned somewhere else so it looks clean. It is not. It’s as if the California Greens are covering their eyes — “If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.” Gasoline is an incredibly efficient way to power a vehicle; a gallon of gas has a lot of energy in it. But when you take that gas (or another fuel) and first use it to make electricity, you waste a nice part of that energy, mostly in the form of wasted heat — at the generator, through the transmission lines, etc.
A gallon of gas may propel your car 25 miles. But the electricity you get from that gallon of gas won't get you nearly as far — so electric cars burn more fuel than gas-powered ones. If our electricity came mostly from nukes, or geothermal, or hydro, or solar, or wind, then an electric car truly would be clean. But for political, technical, and economic reasons, we don’t use much of those energy sources.
In addition, electric cars’ batteries which are poisonous for a long time will eventually end up in a landfill. And finally, when cars are the polluters, the pollution is spread across all the roads. When it’s a power plant, though, all the junk is in one place. Nature is very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated, but it takes a lot longer when all the garbage is in one spot.
注意：此部分試題請(qǐng)?jiān)诖痤}卡2上作答。
57. What does “clueless” mean in paragraph 2?
A) The California Greens are covering their eyes.
B) People in California love to talk about zero-emissions vehicles
C) People in California love to have their roofs covered with solar cells
D) People there have no idea that so far electricity mainly comes from burning coal, oil, etc.
58. According to the passage, why the California Greens hold the idea “If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.”?
A) They do not know those clean cars are likely coal-burning cars.
B) They do believe that the coal is burned somewhere else so it looks clean.
C) They tend to hold that electricity is a nice part of energy.
D) They tend to maintain that gasoline is a good way to run a vehicle.
59. The electricity we get from a gallon of gas may make our car run __________.
A) not less than 25 miles.
B) more than 25 miles.
C) no less than 25 miles.
D) not more than 25 miles.
60. Compared with cars using gas, electric cars __________
A) do not burn fuel and more environmental.
B) are toxic and it is difficult for nature to clean it up when their batteries are buried in one spot.
C) are very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated
D) are poisonous for a long time and will eventually end up in a landfill.
61. It can be inferred from the passage that __________.
A) Being green is good and should be encouraged in communications
B) Electric cars are not clean in that we get electricity mainly by burning something.
C) Zero-emissions vehicles should be chosen to protect our environment.
D) Electric cars are now the dominant vehicle compared with gasoline-powered cousins.