Part II Reading Comprehension (35 minutes)
Directions: There are 4 reading passages in this part. 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 the Answer Sheet with a single line through the centre.

Passage One
Questions 21 to 25 are based on the following passage.
More than 30,000 drivers and front seat passengers are killed or seriously injured each year. At the speed of only 30 miles per hour it is the same as falling from a third-floor windows. Wearing a seat belt saves lives; it reduces your chance of death or serious injury by more than half.

Therefore drivers or front seat passengers over 14 in most vehicles must wear a seat belt. If you do not, you could be fined up to ￡50. it will not be up to the drivers to make sure you wear your belt. But it will be the driver’s responsibility to make sure that children under 14 do not ride in the front unless they are wearing a seat belt of some kind.

However, you do not have to wear a seat belt if you reversing your vehicle; or you are making a local delivery or collection using a special vehicle; or if you have a valid medical certificate which excuses you from wearing it. Make sure these circumstances apply to you before you decide not to wear you seat belt. Remember you may be taken to court for not doing so, and you may be fined if you cannot prove to the court that you have been excused from wearing it.

21. This text is taken from ________.
A) a medical magazine
B) a police report
C) a legal document
D) a government information booklet（D）

22. Wearing a seat belt in a vehicle ________.
A) reduces road accidents by more than half
B) saves lives while driving at a speed up to 30 miles per hour
C) reduces the death rate in traffic accidents
D) saves more than 15,000 lives each year（C）

23. It is the driver’s responsibility to ________.
A) make the front seat passenger wear a seat belt
B) make the front seat children under 14 wear a seat belt
C) stop children riding in the front seat
D) wear a seat belt each time he drives（B）

24. According to the text, which of the following people riding in the front dos not have to wear a seat belt?
A) Someone who is backing into a parking space.
B) Someone who is picking up the children from the local school.
C) Someone who is delivering invitation letters.
D) Someone who is under 14.（A）

25. For some people, it may be better ________.
A) to wear a seat belt for health reasons
B) not to wear a seat belt for health reasons
C) to get valid medical certificate before wearing a seat belt
D) to pay a fine rather than wear a seat belt（B）



Passage Two
Questions 26 to 30 are based on the following passage.

If you want to stay young, sit down and have a good think. This is the research finding of a team of Japanese doctors, who say that most of our brains are not getting enough exercise—and as a result, we are ageing unnecessarily soon.
Professor Taiju Matsuzawa wanted to find out why otherwise healthy farmers in northern Japan appeared to be losing their ability to think and reason at a relatively early age, and how the process of ageing could be slowed down.
With a team of colleagues at Tokyo National University, he set about measuring brain volumes of a thousand people of different ages and varying occupations.

Computer technology enabled the researchers to obtain precise measurements of the volume of the front and side sections of the brain, which relate to intellect (智能) and emotion, and determine the human character. (The rear section of the brain, which controls functions like eating and breathing, does not contract with age, and one can continue living without intellectual or emotional faculties.)

Contraction of front and side parts—as cells die off—was observed I some subjects in their thirties, but it was still not evident in some sixty- and seventy-year-olds.
Matsuzawa concluded from his tests that there is a simple remedy to the contraction normally associated with age—using the head.

The findings show in general terms that contraction of the brain begins sooner in people in the country than in the towns. Those least at risk, says Matsuzawa, are lawyers, followed by university professors and doctors. White collar workers doing routine work in government offices are, however, as likely to have shrinking brains as the farm worker, bus driver and shop assistant.

Matsuzawa’s findings show that thinking can prevent the brain from shrinking. Blood must circulate properly in the head to supply the fresh oxygen the brain cells need. “The best way to maintain good blood circulation is through using the brain,” he says, “Think hard and engage in conversation. Don’t rely on pocket calculators.”

26. The team of doctors wanted to find out ________.
A) why certain people age sooner than others
B) how to make people live longer
C) the size of certain people’s brains
D) which people are most intelligent（A）

27. On what are their research findings based?
A) A survey of farmers in northern Japan.
B) Tests performed on a thousand old people.
C) The study of brain volumes of different people
D) The latest development of computer technology.（C）

28. The doctor’s test show that ________.
A) our brains shrink as we grow older
B) the front section of the brain does not shrink
C) sixty-year-olds have the better brains than thirty-year-olds
D) some people’s brains have contracted more than other people’s（D）

29. The word “subjects” in Paragraph 5means ________.
A) something to be considered
B) branches of knowledge studied
C) persons chosen to be studied in an experiment
D) any member of a state except the supreme ruler（C）

30. According to the passage, which people seem to age slower than the others?
A) Lawyers.
B) Farmers.
C) Clerks.
D) Shop assistants.（A）


Passage Three
Questions 31 to 35 are based on the following passage.

On June 17, 1744, the officials from Maryland and Virginia held a talk with the Indians of the Six Nations. The Indians were invited to send boys to William and Mary College. In a letter the next day the refused the offer as follows:

We know that you have a high opinion of the kind of learning taught in your colleges, and that the costs of living of our young men, while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced that you mean to do us good by your proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you must know that different nations have different ways of looking at things, and you will therefore not be offended if your ideas of this kind of education happen not t be the same as yours. We have had some experience of it. Several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces: they were taught all your sciences; but, when they came back to us, they were bad runners, ignorant of every means of living in the woods… they were totally good for nothing.

We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we refuse to accept it; and, to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send up a dozen of their sons, we will take care of their education, teach them in all we know, and make men of them.

31. The passage is about ________.
A) the talk between the Indians and the officials
B) the colleges of northern provinces
C) the educational values of the Indians
D) the problems of the Americans in the mid-eighteenth century（C）

32. The Indians’ chief purpose in writing the letter seems to be to ________.
A) politely refuse a friendly offer
B) express their opinion on equal treatment
C) show their pride
D) describe Indian customs（A）

33. According to the letter, the Indians believed that ________.
A) it would be better for their boys to receive some schooling
B) they were being insulted by the offer
C) they knew more about science than the officials
D) they had a better way of educating young men（D）

34. Different from the officials’ view of education, the Indians though ________.
A) young women should also be educated
B) they had different goals of education
C) they taught different branches of science
D) they should teach the sons of the officials first（B）

35. The tone of the letter as a whole is best described as ________.
A) angry
B) pleasant
C) polite
D) inquiring（C）


Passage Four
Questions 36 to 40 are based on the following passage.
In what now seems like the prehistoric times of computer history, the earth’s postwar era, there was quite a wide-spread concern that computers would take over the world from man one day. Already today, less than forty years later, as computers are relieving us of more and more of the routine tasks in business and in our personal lives, we are faced with a less dramatic but also less foreseen problem. People tend to be over-trusting of computers and are reluctant to challenge their authority. Indeed, they behave as if they were hardly aware that wrong buttons may be pushed, or that a computer may simply malfunction (失误).

Obviously, there would be no point in investing in a computer if you had to check all its answers, but people should also rely on their own internal computers and check the machine when they have the feeling that something has gone wrong.
Questioning and routine double-checks must continue to be as much a part of good business as they were in pre-computer days. Maybe each computer should come with the warning: for all the help this computer may provide, it should not be seen as a substitute for fundamental thinking and reasoning skills.

36. What is the main purpose of this passage?
A) To look back to the early days of computers.
B) To explain what technical problems may occur with computers.
C) To discourage unnecessary investment in computers.
D) To warn against a mentally lazy attitude towards computers.（D）

37. According to the passage, the initial concern about computers was that they might ________.
A) change our personal lives
B) take control of the world
C) create unforeseen problems
D) affect our businesses（B）

38. The passage recommends those dealing with computers to ________.
A) be reasonably doubtful about them
B) check all their answers
C) substitute them for basic thinking
D) use them for business purposes only（A）

39. The passage suggests that the present-day problem with regard to computers is ________.
A) challenging
B) psychological
C) dramatic
D) fundamental（B）

40. It can be inferred from the passage that the author would disapprove of ________.
A) investment in computers
B) the use of one’s internal computer
C) double-check on computers
D) complete dependence on computers for decision-making（D）