第二部分：阅读理解(每题2分，满分40分)

阅读下面短文，从各题A、B、C、D 四个选项中选出最佳答案。

A

I had an experience once which taught me something about the ways people made a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I officiated(主持) at two funerals for two elderly women. Both died a natural death. At the first home, the son of the deceased(已故) woman said, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son said, “If only I had not insisted her going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride was more than she could take. It is my fault.”

When things don’t turn out as we would like them to, we tend to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believe that the opposite course, for example, keeping mother at home, would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

There seem to be elements involved in our readiness to feel guilty. The first lies in our belief that the world makes sense——there is a reason for everything that happens.

The second is the thought that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and calls the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely abandon that childish thought that our wishes cause things to happen.

36. What is true about the two deceased elderly women?

A. They died from accidents.

B. They both died of old age.

C. They died due to lack of care by family members.

D. They weren’t accustomed to the change in life.

37. People feel guilty for the death of their loved ones because______.

A. they cannot find a better way to express their sorrow

B. they don’t know that natural course of events

C. they believe that it is their fault

D. they don’t know things often turn out in the opposite direction

B

The cash machine is 47 years old, but where was the birthplace of this world-beating invention? New York? Tokyo? No. The first ever cash machine was born in Enfield Town, north London. It was a Scottish inventor, John shepherd Barron, who realized the concept of a self-service machine that could be used 24 hours a day, seven days a w eek, to withdraw cash from one’s own bank account. It struck the inventor while he was in the bath. He hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, replacing chocolate with cash.

On September 2 in 1969, America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) appeared in public, giving out cash to customers at Chemical Bank, New York. It was only able to give out cash, but in 1971, an ATM that could handle many functions, including depositing(存款) money, was introduced. Today there are over one million ATMs around the world, with a new one added every five minutes. It is reported that Americans over the age of 18 use their ATM card six to eight times a mouth. Not surprisingly, ATMs get their busiest workouts on Fridays. In the 1990s, banks began charging fees to use ATMs, a profitable move for them and an annoying one for consumers.

Consumers were also faced with an increase in ATM crimes. Robbers preyed(抢夺) on people using money machines in poorly lit or otherwise unsafe locations, and criminals also thought up ways to steal customers’ PINs (personal identification numbers), even setting up fake money machines to capture the information. In response, city and state governments passed laws such as New York’s ATM Safety Act in 1996, which required banks to install such things as surveillance cameras (监控摄像头), reflective mirrors and locked entryways for their ATMs.

40. What does the underlined word, “It”, in the first paragraph, probably refer to?

A. The opening time of the bank.

B. The concept of an ATM.

C. Ordinary banking service.

D. The act of withdrawing cash.

41. Which of the following is true about ATM?

A. It appeared earlier than the chocolate bar dispenser.

B. It was invented by a Scottish man in 1971.

C.  It was at first free of charge for its consumers.

D. It was originally designed to deposit money.

C

We offer a full range of services to make your IKEA experience more complete:

Old Kitchen Removing Service

Are you going to buy a brand-new kitchen in IKE A? So how to do with your old kitchen at home? Don’t worry! IKEA is now providing professional dismantling and removing service for old kitchen to you. By this service you can have your new kitchen at home easily. (For service detail and charge please go to the staff of kitchen department.)

Transport Service

Need a way to get your new home-furnishings home? You can rent a transport or hire us to deliver it for you. Just talk to our Customer Service department for details.

Return Policy

As long as the items are undamaged, unassembled and unused, you could return them in their original package within 60days (IKEA FAMILY member within 180days) together with your original receipt/invoice (bank card POS receipt is needed if you have paid this way), we will refund you the same way as you have paid.

Sorry, we cannot accept exchange or return of food, plants, liquid bathing products, AS-IS products, customized products, kitchen electrical appliance and all products that have already been cut, sewed or painted. “The exchange and return policy above applies only to the products purchased from IKEA stores in mainland China.”

IKEA Restaurant/Café

The restaurant/cafe serves both classic Swedish dishes and local favorites, and is one of the most popular areas of the whole IKEA store. Shopping at IKEA is fun and offers great value, but can also be hard work, so stop by and treat yourself to a refreshing drink and a bite to eat.

44. The underlined word “dismantling” refers to ______.

A. taking apart B. making up

C. picking up  D. leaving off

45. What can we learn from Return policy?

A. Any product bought can be returned if they are undamaged.

B. The store pay back your money in cash whatever way you use.

C. The valid time for return service is within 180 days.

D. The return service only goes for IKEA stores in mainland China.

46. Which of the following is not mentioned in the passage?

A. Your new kitchen is available in an easy way.

B. The furniture can be transported to your house.

C. They have flexible payment choices.

D. You can enjoy delicious food in IKEA.

47. The passage is probably taken from ______.

A. a guide B. a travel book

C. a newspaper  D. a magazine

D

Scientists have long puzzled over how iguanas, a group of lizards(蜥蜴) mostly found in the Americas, came to live in the isolated Pacific islands of Fiji and Tonga. Some scientists used to suppose that they must have traveled there on a raft, a journey of around 5,000 miles from South America to the islands. There are documented cases of iguanas reaching remote Caribbean islands and the Galapagos Islands on floating logs. But new research in January by Brice Noonan and Jack Sites suggested that iguanas may have simply walked to Fiji and Tonga when the islands were still a part of an ancient southern supercontinent.

The ancient supercontinent was made up of present-day Africa, Australia, Antarctica and parts of Asia. If that’s the case, the island species would need to be very old. Using “molecular (分子) clock” analysis of living iguanas’ DNA, Noonan and Sites found that, sure enough, the lineage of iguanas has been around for more than 60 million years—easily old enough to have been in the area when the islands were still connected by land bridges to Asia or Australia.

Fossils (化石) uncovered in Mongolia suggest that iguanid ancestors did once live in Asia. Though there’s currently no fossil evidence of iguanas in Australia, that doesn’t necessarily mean they were never there. “The fossil record of this continent is surprisingly poor and cannot be taken as evidence of true absence,” the authors write.

So if the iguanas simply walked to Fiji and Tonga from Asia or possibly Australia, why are they not also found on the rest of the Pacific islands? Noonan and Sites say fossil evidence suggests that iguana spe cies did once inhabit other islands, but went extinct right around the time when humans settled in those islands. But Fiji and Tonga have a much shorter history of human presence, which may have helped the iguanas living there to escape extinction.

The researchers say that their study can’t completely rule out the rafting theory, but it does make the land bridge theory “far more reasonable tha n previously thought.”

48. What did some scientists previously believe about the iguanas?

A. They were once discovered in America.

B. They traveled by raft to Fiji and Tonga.

C.  They could survive in poor living conditions.

D. They moved to Fiji and Tonga from Australia.

49. According to Noonan and Sites, 60 million years ago ____.

A. the land of the world was a supercontinent

B. Fiji and Tonga were connected to Asia or Australia

C. Africa, Australia and America were a continent

D. iguanas walked to Fiji and Tonga from Africa

50. The underl ine word “lineage” in Paragraph 2 probably refers to ____.

A. conditions in which creatures can survive

B. the change in ancient plants and animals.

C. the line of generations of an ancestor

D. the habitat of a type of an ancient animal

51. What is the main topic of this passage?

A. The life span of animals living on the ancient supercontinent.

B. The two islands being home to several iguana species in the Pacific region.

C. The fossil evidence suggesting iguanas’ ancestors’ swimming to Fiji and Tonga

D. By raft or by land — how did iguanas reach the tiny Pacific islands?