四、阅读理解(共16小题，计24分)

阅读下列短文，并做每篇后面的题目，从各题A、B、C、D中选出能回答所提问题或完成所给句子的最佳答案。

A

“Life is speeding up. Everyone is becoming unwell.” This may sound like something someone would say today. But in fact, an unwell person who lived in Rome in AD 53 wrote it.

We all love new inventions. They are exciting, amazing and can even change our lives.

But have all these developments really improved the quality of our lives?

Picture this: You’re rushing to finish your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings, a QQ message from your friend appears on the screen, the noise from the telephone is getting louder and louder. Suddenly the computer goes blank and you lose all your work. Now you have to stay up all night to get it done.

Inventions have speeded up our lives so much that they often leave us feeling stressed and tired. Why do you think people who live far away from noisy cities, who have no telephones, no cars, not even any electricity often seem to be happier? Perhaps that is because they live simpler lives.

One family in the UK went “back in time” to see what life was like without all the inventions we have today. The grandparents, with their daughter, and grandsons, Benjamin, 10, and Thomas, 7, spent nine weeks in a 1940s house. They had no washing machine, microwave, computer or mobile phone.

The grandmother, Lyn, said, “The more things you have, the more difficult life becomes.” The boys said they fought less. Probably, they said, because there was less to fight over, such as their computer. Benjamin also noticed that his grandmother had changed from being a trendy, been-drinking granny, to one who cooked things.

46. The writer uses the quote(引语) at the beginning of the story to____________.

A. tell us the truth about life

B. tell us what life was like a long time ago

C. point out what causes such a thing to happen

D. point out that you experience some big problems and they may be the same

47. In the passage the writer describes a picture to show that new inventions ____________.

A. have stopped our lives

B. have improved the quality of our lives

C. may make people feel very happy

D. may bring some people trouble

48. The family chose to spend some time in a 1940s house because______________.

A. they loved to live simple lives

B. they wanted to know how people lived without modern inventions

C. they were troubled by modern inventions

D. living in a different time would be a lot of fun for them

49. The passage is mainly about ____________.

A. problems with technology

B. improvements in our lives caused by technology

C. changes happening to technology

D. the importance of technology

B

About ten men in every hundred have the trouble of color blindness in some way. Women are luckier, only about one in two hundred is affected(感染) in this matter. Perhaps, after all, it is safer to be driven by a woman.

There are different kinds of color blindness. For example, a man cannot see deep red. He may think that red, orange and yellow are all shades(阴影) of green. Sometimes a person can’t tell the difference between blue and green. Only a few unlucky men may see everything in shades of green—a strange world indeed.

Color blindness in human beings is a difficult thing to explain. In only one eye there are millions of very small things called “cones(圆锥体)”. These help us to see in the bright light and to tell differences between colors. There are also millions of “rods(柱状体)”, but these are used for seeing when it is nearly dark. They show us shapes but not colors.

Some insects have favorite colors. Mosquitoes(蚊子) like blue but do not like yellow. A red light will not attract insects, but a blue light will. Human beings also have favorite colors. Yet we are lucky. With the help of the cones in our eyes, we can see many beautiful colors by day, and with the help of the rods we can see shapes at night.

50. “Color blindness” means “_________” in Chinese.

A. 盲目       B. 无色        C. 色盲      D.讨厌颜色

51. Some people say it’s safer to be driven by women because _______.

A. women drive more carefully          B. women are better at driving than men

C. women can see things more clearly     D. there are fewer color-blind women

52. With the help of the “cones”, we can __________.

A. tell different shapes       B. kill insects

C. see in the dark           D. tell orange from yellow

53. ________ show us shape at night.

A. rods     B. insects       C. cones      D. mosquitoes

C

Lijiang, Yunnan, Dec. 17(Xinhuanet)—A film directed by the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou, made its domestic debut(国内首映式) in Lijiang, where the film was shot, in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on Friday night.

The film, titled Riding Along for Thousands of Miles, was played by the Japanese actor TakakuraKen. It tells a story that Takada, a Japanese fisherman, fulfills(完成)the last wish of his dying son by traveling thousands of miles to China’s Yunnan Province to search for the secret behind a local opera play, called Riding Along for Thousands of Miles.

Zhang Yimou, who has been Takakura’s admirer for almost 30 years, made the film just for

fulfilling his own wish of working with Takakura Ken.

The film made its global(全球的)bedut at the opening session of the 18th Tokyo International Film Festival on Oct. 22.

Takakura, one of the best-known actors in Japan, has played roles in 204 films—including

Zhang’s—and won world recognition(认可) after starting in the 1975 Sydney Pollack hit The Yakuza(71) and in Ridley Scott’s 1989 work Black Rain.

Invested by the Beijing New Picture Edko Films, Riding Along for Thousands of Miles was

made at a cost of 60 million yuan(about 7.3 million US dollars), much less than Zhang’s two previous films, Hero and House of Flying Daggers, both had been nominates(提名)for best foreign film Oscars.

The film will be formally released in China on Dec. 22.

54. One of the famous actors in Riding Along for Thousands of Miles is____________.

A. Zhang Yimou     B. Takakura Ken      C. Takada            D. Jiang Wen

55. Riding Along For Thousands of Miles made its domestic debut in _____ and made its global debut in ____________.

A. Beijing, Tokyo     B. Lijiang, Tokyo     C. Beijing, Tokyo     D. Lijiang, London

56. ____________ is not directed by Zhang Yimou.

A. Riding Along For Thousands of Miles    B. Hero

C. Black rain                          D. House of Flying Daggers

57. 6 million yuan is about ____________ million US dollars.

A. 7       B. 7.3      C. 0.73      D. 3.7