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In 1977, a dead author of detective stories saved the life of a 19-month-old baby in a most unusual way. The author was Agatha Christie, one of the most successful writers of detective stories in the world.
In June 1977, a baby girl became seriously ill in Qatar, near Saudi Arabia. Doctors were unable to find out the cause of her illness with confidence, so she was sent to Hammersmith Hospital in London. She was then only semi-conscious (半清醒状态) and on the "Dangerously Ill" list. A team of doctors hurried to examine the baby only to discover that they, too, were confused by the very unusual symptoms (症状). While they were discussing the baby's case, a nurse asked to speak to them.
"Excuse me," said Nurse Marsha Maitlan, "but I think the baby is suffering from thallium poisoning. (铊中毒)"
"What makes you think that?" Dr. Brown asked. "Thallium poisoning is extremely rare."
"A few days ago, I was reading a novel called A Pale Horse by Agatha Christie," Nurse Maitlan explained. "In the book, somebody uses thallium poison, and all the symptoms are described. They're exactly the same as the baby's."
"You're very thoughtful and you may be right," another doctor said. "We'll carry out some tests and find out whether it's thallium or not."
Tests showed that the baby had indeed been poisoned by thallium, a rare metallic substance used in making special glass. Once they knew the cause of the illness, the doctors were able to give the baby the correct treatment. She soon recovered and was sent back to Qatar. Later it was reported that the poison might have come from an insecticide (杀虫剂) used in Qatar.
56. The one who first suggested the correct cause of the baby's illness was _____.
A. a doctor in Qatar B. Nurse Maitlan C. Dr. Brown D. Agatha Christie
57. The baby was sent to London because _____.
A. she was born there
B. the hospitals in Qatar were full at that time
C. she was the daughter of a doctor in London
D. the Qatar doctors were not sure whether they could cure her
58. As far as we can tell from the passage, Agatha Christie _____.
A. had never met this baby
B. had spent a long time studying the baby's case
C. visited the baby in the hospital at Hammersmith
D. gave Nurse Maitlan some advice on the phone
59. It seems likely from the passage that the baby's illness had something to do with _____.
A. a dangerous pair of glasses
B. the water in Qatar
C. a harmful substance used to kill insects
D. a dead writer
60. When the baby was sent to the hospital in London, her case was considered to be _____.
A. an urgent one B. quite a simple one
C. a usual one D. the result of thallium poisoning

You are watching a film in which two men are having a fight. They hit one another hard. At the start they only fight with their fists. But soon they begin hitting one another over the heads with chairs. And so it goes on until one of the men crashes (撞击) through a window and falls thirty feet to the ground below. He is dead！Of course he isn't really dead. With any luck he isn't even hurt. Why? Because the men who fall out of high windows or jump from fast moving trains, who crash cars or even catch fire, are professionals (专业人士). They do this for a living. These men are called stuntmen. That is to say, they perform tricks. There are two sides to their work. They actually do most of the things you see on the screen. For example, they fall from a high building. However, they do not fall on to hard ground but on to empty cardboard boxes covered with a mattress (床垫). Again, when they hit one another with chairs, the chairs are made of soft wood and when they crash through windows, the glass is made of sugar! But although their work depends on trick of this sort, it also requires a high degree of skill and training. Often a stuntman' s success depends on careful timing. For example, when he is "blown up" in a battle scene, he has to jump out of the way of the explosion just at the right moment.
Naturally stuntmen are well paid for their work, but they lead dangerous lives. They often get seriously injured, and sometimes killed. A Norwegian stuntman, for example, skied over the edge of a cliff a thousand feet high. His parachute (降落伞) failed to open, and he was killed. In spite of all the risks, this is no longer a profession for men only. Men no longer dress up as women when actresses have to perform some dangerous action, for nowadays there are stunt girls too!
51. Stuntmen are those who ______.
A. often dress up as women
B. prefer to lead dangerous lives
C. often perform seemingly (表面上) dangerous actions
D. often fight each other for their lives
52. Stuntmen earn their living by ______.
A. playing their dirty tricks B. selling their special skills
C. jumping out of high windows D. jumping from fast moving trains
53. When a stuntman falls from a high building, ______.
A. he needs little protection
B. he will be covered with a mattress
C. his life is endangered
D. his safety is generally all right
54. Which of the following is the main factor (因素) of a successful performance?
A. Strength. B. Exactness. C. Speed. D. Power.
55. What can be inferred from the author' s example of the Norwegian stuntman?
A. Sometimes an accident can occur to a stuntman.
B. The percentage of serious accidents is high.
C. Parachutes must be of good quality.
D. The cliff is too high.

Ⅳ. 阅读理解（共20小题，每题1分，满分20分）
When my first wartime Christmas came, I was in basic training in New Jersey and not sure if I could make it home for the holidays. Only on the afternoon of December 23 was the list of men who would have three-day holidays posted. I was one of the lucky soldiers. It was Christmas eve when I arrived home, and a light snow had fallen. Mother opened the front door. I could see beyond her, into the corner of the living room where the tree had always stood. There were lights, all colors, and ornaments (装饰物) shining against the green of a pine. “Where did it come from?” I asked.
“I asked the Gates boy to cut it,” my mother said. “I wouldn’t have had one just for myself, such a rush！He just brought it in this afternoon…” The pine reached to the proper height, almost to the ceiling, and the tree top crystal star was in its place. A few green branches reached about a little awkwardly at the side, I thought, and there was a bit of bare trunk showing in the middle. But the tree filled the room with warm light and the whole house with the pleasant smell of Christmas. “It’s not like the one you used to find,” my mother went on. “Yours were always in good shape. I suppose the Gates boy didn’t know where to look for a good one. But I couldn’t be fussy (挑剔的)．”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “It’s perfect.” It wasn’t, of course, but at the moment I realized something for the first time: all Christmas trees are perfect．
46. From the passage, we can infer that ______．
A. the writer spent his first Christmas during the war
B. soldiers did not all go home for Christmas during the war
C. all the soldiers had three-day holidays
D. the writer could not go home for Christmas
47. When the writer got home, ______．
A. it was December 23th
B. it was snowing heavily
C. he found a Christmas tree in the living room
D. the Gates boy was cutting a Christmas tree for his mother
48. From this passage，we can conclude that ______．
A. the writer used to cut very beautiful Christmas trees
B. his mother didn’t like perfect trees
C. his mother didn’t want to have a tree
D. the writer wouldn’t have a tree cut by someone else
49. “All Christmas trees are perfect”，because they can remind you of ______．
A. the wartime B. the green of a pine
C. the pleasant smell D. the sweet home
50. The best title for this passage would be “______”．
A. How to Choose a Christmas Tree
B. How Soldiers Spent Christmas
C. The Perfect Christmas Tree
D. The Christmas Without a Tree

You’re in a department store and you see a couple of attractive young women looking at a sweater. You listen to their conversation:
“I can’t believe it —a Lorenzo Bertolla! They are almost impossible to find. Isn’t it beautiful? And it’s a lot cheaper than the one Sara bought in Rome.”
They leave and you go over to see this incredible sweater．It's nice and the price is right．You've never heard of Lorenzo Bertolla, but those girls looked really stylish．They must know．So, you buy it．You never realize that those young women are employees of an advertising agency．They are actually paid to go from store to store, talking loudly about Lorenzo BertoHa clothes.
Every day we notice what people are wearing, driving and eating．If the person looks cool, the product seems cool, too．This is the secret of undercover（暗中影响的） marketing．Companies from Ford to Nike are starting to use it.
Undercover marketing is important because it reaches people that don't pay attention to traditional advertising．This is particularly true of the MTV generation----consumers between the age of 18 and 34．It is a golden group．They have a lot of money to spend, but they don't trust ads.
So advertising agencies hire young actors to "perform" in bars and other places where young adults go．Some people might call this practice deceptive, but marketing executive Jonathan Ressler calls it creative．"Look at traditional advertising．Its effectiveness is decreasing."
However, one might ask what exactly is "real" about of young women pretending to be enthusiastic about a sweater? Adverting executives would say it's no less real than an ad．The difference is that you know an ad is trying to persuade you to buy something．You don' t know when a conversation you overhear is just a performance.
The two attractive young women were talking so that they could ________.

A．get the sweater at a lower price	B．be heard by people around
C．be admired by other shoppers	D．decide on buying the sweater

Lorenzo Bertolla is __________．

A．a very popular male singer	B．an advertising agency
C．a clothing company in Rome	D．the brand name of a sweater

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

A．The two girls are in fact employed by the Lorenzo Bertolla Company.

B．The MTV generation tend to be more easily influenced by ads.

C．Traditional advertising is becoming less effective because it's too direct.

D．Undercover marketing will surely be banned soon by the government.

Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A．Two Attractive Shoppers	B．Lorenzo Bertolla Sweaters
C．Ways of Advertising	D．Undercover Marketing

It was once thought that air pollution affected only the area immediately around large cities with factories and/or heavy automobile traffic. Today, we know that although these are the areas with the worst air pollution, the problem is literally worldwide. On several occasions over the past decade, a heavy cloud of air pollution has covered the entire eastern half of the United States and led to health warnings even in rural areas away from any major concentration of manufacturing and automobile traffic. In fact, the very climate of the entire earth may be affected by air pollution. Some scientists feel that the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the air resulting from the burning of fossil fuels(coal and oil) creating a greenhouse effect-holding in heat reflected from the earth and raising the world’s average temperature. If this view is correct and the world’s temperature is raised only a few degrees, much of the polar ice cap will melt and cities such as New York, Boston, Miami, and New Orleans will be under water.
Another view, less widely held, is that increasing particulate matter in the atmosphere is blocking sunlight and lowering the earth’s temperature-a result that would be equally disastrous（灾难的）. A drop of just a few degrees could create something close to a new ice age, and would make agriculture difficult or impossible in many of our top farming areas. At present we do riot know for sure that either of these conditions will happen(though one recent government report prepared by experts in the field concluded that the greenhouse effect is very likely). Perhaps, if we very lucky, the two tendencies will offset each other and the world’s temperature will stay about the same as it is now.
As pointed out at the beginning of the passage, people used to think that air pollution ______.