第三部分：閱讀理解（共20小題；每小題2分，滿分40分）

    閱讀下列短文，從每題所給的A、B、C、D四個(gè)選項(xiàng)中，選出最佳選項(xiàng)，并在答題卡上將該項(xiàng)涂黑。

A

The elephant was lying heavily on its side, fast asleep. A few dogs started barking at it. The elephant woke up in a terrible anger: it chased the dogs into the village where they ran for safety. That didn't stop the elephant. It destroyed a dozen houses and injured several people. The villagers were scared and angry. Then someone suggested calling Parbati, the elephant princess.

Parbati Barua’s father was a hunter of tigers and an elephant tamer（馴獸者）. He taught Parbati to ride an elephant before she could even walk. He also taught her the dangerous art of the elephant round-up -- how to catch wild elephants.

Parbati hasn’t always lived in the jungle. After a happy childhood hunting with her father, she was sent to boarding school in the city. But Parbati never got used to being there and many years later she went back to her old life. “Life in the city is too dull. Catching elephants is an adventure and the excitement lasts for days after the chase,” she says.

But Parbati doesn’t catch elephants just for fun. “My work,” she says, “is to rescue man from the elephants, and to keep the elephants safe from man.” And this is exactly what Parbati has been doing for many years. Increasingly, the Indian elephant is angry: for many years, illegal hunters have attacked it and its home in the jungle has been reduced to small pieces of land. It is now fighting back. Whenever wild elephants enter a tea garden or a village, Parbati is called to guide the animals back to the jungle before they can kill.

The work of an elephant tamer also involves love and devotion. A good elephant tamer will spend hours a day singing love songs to a newly captured elephant. “Eventually they grow to love their tamers and never forget them. They are also more loyal than humans,” she said, as she climbed up one of her elephants and sat on the giant, happy animal. An elephant princess indeed!

51. For Parbati, catching elephants is mainly to ______.

   A. get long lasting excitement             B. make the angry elephants tame

   C. send them back to the jungle            D. keep both man and elephants safe

52. Before Parbati studied in a boarding school, ______.

   A. she spent her time hunting with her father

   B. she learned how to sing love songs

   C. she had already been called an elephant princess

   D. she was taught how to hunt tigers

53. Indian elephants are getting increasingly angry and they revenge（報(bào)復(fù)）because ______.

   A. they are caught and sent for heavy work                 

   B. illegal hunters capture them and kill them

   C. they are attacked and their land gets limited

   D. dogs often bark at them and chase them

54. The passage starts with an elephant story in order to explain that in India ______.     

   A. people easily fall victim（受害者）to elephants attacks 

   B. dogs are as powerful as elephants

   C. elephant tamers are in short supply

   D. the man-elephant relationship is getting worse 

B

    How many men do housework? Recently a European Commission tried to find out people’s ideas and reactions to the women’s movement. As part of their survey (調(diào)查), they asked many men and women the question, “Who does the housework?” The men answered very differently from the women!

    The housework they asked people about were: preparing meals, washing dishes, cleaning the house and babysitting. 48% of British husbands said they did these things. 37% of Danish men helped in the house. But only 15% of Italian men said they did the housework, many of them said they never helped at all!

    But there was an interesting point of view from the wives. According to British wives, only 38% of their husbands helped in the house. And Italian wives said that their husbands hardly ever helped. The Italian and British men did not tell the truth! The Commission found that Danish men were the most trustful husbands; their answers were the same as their wives’ answers.

    Do the men you know help in the house? Do you think the survey gives a true picture in your experience? Write and tell us what you think.

55. The survey was carried out in ______.

   A. Britain B. Europe C. Denmark       D. Italy 

56. The subject for the survey is ______.

   A. how many boys do the housework

B. who are more diligent（勤勞）, wives or husbands

   C. how many women do the housework      

D. who does the housework at home

57. From the passage we can see that ______.

A. there were more husbands who did the housework than wives

B. husbands did half of the housework all the time

C. there were more wives who did the housework than husbands.

D. wives did all the housework at home

58. More ______ husbands help in the house than ______ husbands.

A. British; Danish    B. Italian; Danish   C. Danish; British D. Italian; British
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