B

  Advertisement

    ★Share Flat. Happy Valley big flat, 1 room ready for use immediately, quiet

and convenient, fully furnished, park view. $6,800 including bills with maid.

Female nonsmoker. No pet. Sara 25720836 or 10077809.

    ★Moving Sale: 2 armchairs, red/ brown at $400 each; coffee table, black, wood,$800; oil painting, big, $900; Tianjin carpet, green, 3×7, $600; double bed, $500; mirror, big square, $500;  fridge, big, double-door, $1,000; old pictures, $140 up, each.  Tel: Weekend, 2521-6011; Weekday, 2524-5867.

    ★Part-time Laboratory Assistant Wanted. Required by busy electronics company to help with development of computer. Should have an electronics degree and some practical experience of working in an electronics laboratory. Hours 9:30am-1:00pm, Mon.-Fri. Fourteen days, paid leave. Salary 6,598-10,230 dependent on experience. Letter of application to: Mrs G Chan, NOVA ELECTRONICS, 45 Gordon RD, Hung Hom Knowloon.

 59. The one who puts on the first advertisement probably wants to ______.

   A. rent a beautiful flat of her own in Happy Valley

   B. find another lady to share the cost to rent a flat

   C. share her room in a flat with whoever has no pet

D. find a maid to look after herself

60. According to the advertisements, you may _______.

   A. buy an old picture for $150

   B. call 25720836 to see a beautiful park

   C. buy two armchairs for $400

   D. hire a maid by paying $6,800

61. If you want to buy some old furniture, you should  ______.

   A. get in touch with NOVA ELECTRONICS

   B. call 2524-5867 any day except Monday

   C. do it before you move to another place

D. call either 2524-5867 on Monday or 2521-6011 on  Saturday

 62. Once you get a part-time job in NOVA ELECTRONICS,  _______.

   A. you will be given 14 days off each year besides weekends

   B. you will get $6,598 each month no matter how experienced you are

 C. your have to work at least 4 hours a day

   D. you should write a letter of application to Mrs G Chan 

C

    English is fast becoming the language of science around the world, but what is its future among everyday speakers? One expert points out that the percentage(比率) of native English speakers is declining(降低) globally while the languages of other rapidly growing regions are being spoken by increasing numbers of people. But English will continue to remain widespread and important.

    However, British language scholar David Graddol says English will probably drop in dominance(主导) by the middle of this century to rank, after Chinese, about equally with Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu. “The number of people speaking English as a first language continues to rise, but it isn’t rising nearly as fast as the numbers of many other languages around the world, simply because the main population group has been largely in the less developed countries where languages other than English have been spoken,” he says.

    In a recent article in the journal Science, Mr. Graddol noted that three languages that are not near the top of the list of the most widely spoken now might be there soon. These are Bengali, Tamil, and Malay, spoken in south and southeast Asia.

   David Crystal, the author of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, says about 1.5 billion of the world’s six billion people speak it as a second tongue compared to the 400 million native speakers. But another expert on the English language says Mr. Graddol underestimates (低估) the future of its dominance. “Nobody quite knows what’s going to happen because no language has been in this position before. But all the evidence (证据) suggests that the English language snowball is rolling down a hill and is getting faster,” he said.

 63. In David Graddol’ s opinion, English will _______.

   A. remain widespread and important

   B. be more important than any other language

   C. lose its dominant position

   D. die away in the near future

64. The underlined sentence in the last paragraph implies that ______.

   A. snowballs will roll down faster than language balls

   B. the English language snowball is rolling down faster than any time in the past

   C. English language will soon drop in dominance

D. more and more language users will choose English

 65. How many experts does the passage mention who express their ideas about the future of English?

   A. 2.           B. 3.       C. 4.          D. 5.

 66. According to David Graddol, which of the following will possibly be one of the languages that will be most  widely spoken?

   A. Malay.    B. Arabic.    C. Urdu.       D. German.

67. What should be the best title for the passage?

   A. English Remaining the Dominant Position

   B. The Future of English?Who Knows?

   C. Opinions from Different Experts

   D. The English Language Snowball Rolling Down

D

   The following is a true story. It happened in the northern end of Queens

land, Australia, where all kinds of animals live in the forest.

   Lisa, a 33-year-old woman, went to prepare lunch in the kitchen, leaving Barney, her three-year-old son, playing by himself in the back garden.

    Suddenly, a sharp cry of Barney came into the mother’s ears, and Lisa rushed into the backyard in a hurry and found a big snake entwining(缠绕) the little child with its terrible body and trying to eat the boy as its delicious dish! It was a boa(蟒)! Lisa was terrified and quite angry. She made up her mind to save her son from the snake’s mouth.

    It was fearless mother love that made Lisa forget what she faced. She took up an old hoe from the ground and beat the boa with all her might.

    One...two... With the hoe, Lisa beat the snake repeatedly, but useless. The little boy’s voice and breath were getting weaker and weaker. Lisa’s heart was broken and she got nearly mad.

    Suddenly Lisa put away the hoe and threw herself to the boa, opening her mouth and bit into the boa’s back as if trying to eat a rare steak(牛排). Lisa was really mad!

    Blood was spurting(喷射) out of the boa’s body and covered most of Lisa’s body. The boa was so badly wounded that it let go of Barney and moved back into the forest hurriedly. It had never known how a man had such terrible sharp teeth! On halfway home, the boa died.

    It was fearless mother love that saved the little boy.

 68. When she rushed into the back garden, Lisa found  ______

      A. a boa eating her son             

      B. her son was playing with a big snake

      C. her son in danger of losing his life 

      D. her son was fighting with a boa

 69. Lisa failed in fighting against the boa at first just because ______.

      A. she was bit by the boa  

      B. the boa was too strong

      C. the hoe was not sharp enough

      D. she was afraid that she would hurt her son

 70. Lisa bit the snake because ______.

      A. she was mad     

      B. she thought her teeth were much sharper than the  boa 

     C. her son was entwined by the boa

      D. she hadn’t got any other way to fight with the snake

 71. The best title for this passage is ______.

      A. Mother and Boa       B. Fearless Mother Love

      C. A Boa and a Boy      D. Saving a Boy from a Boa

 E

   British author Andrea Levy won the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction(小说) June 8 with her story about Jamaican migration(移民) to London after World War II.   

   The 30,000-pound international prize is awarded for the best novel of the year written in English by a woman. Judges welcome her book “Small Island” as a “compassionate account of the problems of postwar immigration.” “She illuminates(阐明) a little known aspect(方面) of recent British history with wit and wisdom,” broadcaster Sandi Toksvig said.

    Levy told the prize’s website she wanted to write about that period because it was part of her family’s history. “All my novels have started from a place that is in some way personal to me. Although my novels are not autobiographical (自传体的), they have all been about exploring what it is and means to be black and British,” she said.

    Levy was born in England to Jamaican parents. Her father was on the Empire Windrush ship which sailed from the Caribbean to England in 1948 with around 500 West Indian men wanting to start a new life in Britain. The voyage came to symbolize(标志) the start of the great postwar wave of Caribbean immigration to Britain.

    Last year’s winner was American author Valerie Martin for “Property,” a story of slavery in the United States.

72. The passage mainly wants to offer readers the information that _______.

      A. British author Levy was very famous

     B. British author Levy is connected with American author Martin

      C. British author Levy won the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction

      D. British author Levy is a black writer

 73. Which of the following about Orange Prize for Fiction is TRUE?

      A. It is awarded to any woman writer.

      B. It is awarded to women for their English novels.

      C. Only English women will be likely to get the prize.

      D. It is specially for migration.

 74. Levy wrote the book Small Island mainly to _______.

      A. introduce her family’s past experiences

      B. show the problems with migration in British history

      C. struggle for the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction

      D. struggle against American author Valerie Martin

 75. According to the passage, we can infer that _______.

      A. Small Island is Levy’s autobiography

      B. after World War II there was a great wave of British immigration to Caribbean

      C. Levy is the first English woman who gets the prize

      D. Property is written by a woman in English