新题型部分

选择搭配（Multiple Choices）

 

阅读理解

Part B（七选五）

In the following article, some sentences have been removed. For Questions 41~45, choose the most suitable one from the list A~G to fit into each of the numbered blank. There are two extra choices, which do not fit in any of the gaps. Mark your answers on ANSWERSHEET 1. （10 points）

 

Long before Man lived on the Earth, there were fishes, reptiles, birds, insects, and some mammals. Although some of these animals were ancestors of kinds living today, others are now extinct, that is, they have no descendants alive now. 41） ____________________. Very occasionally the rocks show impression of skin, so that, apart from color, we can build up a reasonably accurate picture of an animal that died millions of years ago. The kind of rock in which the remains are found tells us much about the nature of the original land, often of the plants that grew on it, and even of its climate.

42） ____________________. Nearly all of the fossils that we know were preserved in rocks formed by water action, and most of these are of animals that lived in or near water. Thus it follows that there must be many kinds of mammals, birds, and insects of which we know nothing.

43） ____________________. There were also crab-like creatures, whose bodies were covered with a horny substance. The body segments each had two pairs of legs, one pair for walking on the sandy bottom, the other for swimming. The head was a kind of shield with a pair of compound eyes, often with thousands of lenses. They were usually an inch or two long but some were 2 feet.

44）_____________________. Of these, the ammonites are very interesting and important. They have a shell composed of many chambers, each representing a temporary home of the animal. As the young grew larger it grew a new chamber and sealed off the previous one. Thousands of these can be seen in the rocks on the Dorset Coast.

45）____________________. About 75 million years ago the Age of Reptiles was over and most of the groups died out. The mammals quickly developed, and we can trace the evolution of many familiar animals such as the elephant and horse. Many of the later mammals, though now extinct, were known to primitive man and were featured by him in cave paintings and on bone carvings.

 

[A] The shellfish have a long history in the rock and many different kinds are known.

[B] Nevertheless, we know a great deal about many of them because their bones and shells have been preserved in the rocks as fossils. From them we can tell their size and shape, how they walked, the kind of food they ate.

[C] The first animals with true backbones were the fishes, first known in the rocks of 375 million years ago. About 300 million years ago the amphibians, the animals able to live both on land and in water, appeared. They were giant, sometimes 8 feet long, and many of them lived in the swampy pools in which our coal seam, or layer, or formed. The amphibians gave rise to the reptiles and for nearly 150 million years these were the principal forms of life on land, in the sea, and in the air.

[D] The best index fossils tend to be marine creatures. These animals evolved rapidly and spread over large areas of the world.

[E] The earliest animals whose remains have been found were all very simple kinds and lived in the sea. Later forms are more complex, and among these are the sea-lilies, relations of the starfishes, which had long arms and were attached by a long stalk to the sea bed, or to rocks.

[F] When an animal dies, the body, its bones, or shell, may often be carried away by streams, into lakes or the sea and there get covered up by mud. If the animal lived in the sea its body would probably sink and be covered with mud. More and more mud would fall upon it until the bones or shell become embedded and preserved.

[G] Many factors can influence how fossils are preserved in rocks. Remains of an organism may be replaced by minerals, dissolved by an acidic solution to leave only their impression, or simply reduced to a more stable form.

 

From her vantage point she watched the main doors swing open and the first arrivals pour in. Those who had been at the head of the line paused momentarily on entry, looked around curiously, then quickly moved forward as others behind pressed in. within moments the central public area of the big branch bank was filled with a chattering, noisy crowd. The building, relatively quiet less than a minute earlier, had become a Babel. Edwina saw a tall heavyset black man wave some dollar bills and declare loudly, “I want to put my money in the bank.”

41） ____________________.

It seemed as if the report about everyone having come to open an account had been accurate after all.

Edwina could see the big man leaning back expansively, still holding his dollar bills. His voice cut across the noise of other conversations and she heard him proclaim, “I’m in no hurry. There’s something I’d like you to explain.”

Two other desks were quickly manned by other clerks. With equal speed, long wide lines of people formed in front of them.

Normally, three members of staff were ample to handle new account business, but obviously were inadequate now. Edwina could see Tottenhoe on the far side of the bank and called him on the intercom. She instructed, “Use more desks for new accounts and take all the staff you can spare to man them.”

42） ____________________.

Tottenhoe grumbled in reply, “You realize we can’t possibly process all these people today, and however many we do will tie us up completely.”

“I’ve an idea,” Edwina said, “that’s what someone has in mind. Just hurry the processing all you can.”

43） ____________________.

First, an application form called for details of residence, employment, social security, and family matters. A specimen signature was obtained. Then proof of identity was needed. After that, the new accounts clerk would take all documents to an officer of the bank for approval and initialing. Finally, a savings passbook was made out or a temporary checkbook issued.

Therefore the most new accounts that any bank employee could open in an hour were five, so the three clerks presently working might handle a total of ninety in one business day, if they kept going at top speed, which was unlikely.

44） ____________________.

Still the noise within the bank increased. It had become an uproar.

A further problem was that the growing mass of arrivals in the central public area of the bank was preventing access to tellers’ counters by other customers. Edwina could see a few of them outside, regarding the milling scene with consternation. While she watched, several gave up and walked away.

Inside the bank some of the newcomers were engaging tellers in conversation and the tellers, having nothing else to do because of the melee, chatted back. Two assistant managers had gone to the central floor area and were trying to regulate the flood of people so as to clear some space at counters. They were having small success.

45） ____________________.

She decided it was time for her own intervention.

Edwina left the platform and a railed-off staff area and, with difficulty, made her way through the milling crowd to the main front door.

 

[A] Yet she knew however much they hurried it wo