Ⅳ. Reading Comprehension (60 points)

　　Directions:

　　There are four reading passages in this part. Each passage is followed by five questions. For each question there are four suggested answers marked A, B, C and D. Choose one best answer and blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.

　　Passage One

　　In the old days, divers used to go down into the sea looking for ships that had sunk, because they hoped to find gold and jewels. Now divers still search for valuable things in sunken ships, but they also try to bring to the surface the ships themselves, or parts of them. The value of different kinds of metals has increased greatly over the last twenty or thirty years and even though a ship has been under the sea for many years, it may be worth a great deal.

　　One famous sunken ship is the “Lusitania”, which sank off the southern coast of Ireland in 1915 with a loss of nearly, 1,500 lives. It has four huge propellers made of an expensive metal. Today each of those propellers is worth $ 300,000 or more. The ship lying on the sea-bed has been brought by a man called John Light. He paid about $ 1,200,000 for the whole ship. He hopes to bring up those propellers and sell them. He also hopes to sell other parts of the ship, when he has brought them to the surface, for about $ 600,000.

　　61. Divers today try to bring to the surface _______.

　　A. gold and jewels B. parts of ships

　　C. whole ships D. all of the above

　　62. Diver try to bring up metals because ________.

　　they have been in the sea for a long time

　　gold and jewels are not valuable things

　　some kinds of metals are worth a lot of money

　　it is easy to bring up metals

　　63. The word “surface” in the passage means the ______.

　　A. market B. air C. top of a liquid D. sea

　　64. John Light hopes that he may be able to sell all the parts of the “Lusitania” for about _____.

　　A. $12,000 B. $300,000 C. $1,200,000 D. $1,800,000

　　65. John Light bought the “Lusitania” _______.

　　A. before 1915 B. before it sank

　　C. after it sank D. after they had brought up the propellers

　　Passage Two

　　Man’s first real invention, and one of the most important inventions in history, was the wheel. All transportation and every machine in the world depend on it. The wheel is the simplest yet perhaps the most remarkable of all inventions, because there are no wheels in nature—no living thing was ever created with wheels. How, then, did man come to invent the wheel? Perhaps some early hunters found that they could roll the carcass of a heavy animal through the forest on logs more easily than they could carry it. However, the logs themselves weighed a lot.

　　It must have taken a great prehistoric thinker to imagine two thin slices of log connected, at their centers by a string stick. This would roll along just as the logs did, yet be much lighter and easier to handle. Thus the wheel and axle came into being and with them the first carts.

　　66. The wheel is important because _______.

　　A. it was man’s first real invention B. all transportation depends on it

　　C. every machine depends on it D. both B and C

　　67. The wheel is called _______.

　　A. simple B. complicated C. strange D. unusual

　　68. It was remarkable of man to invent the wheel because _______.

　　A. it led to many other inventions B. man had no use for it then

　　C. there were no wheels in nature D. all of the above

　　69. The wheel was probably invented by ______.

　　A. a group of early hunters B. the first men on earth

　　C. a great prehistoric thinker D. the man who made the first cart

　　70. This selection says that the first wheel may have been a ______.

　　A. round piece of stone B. heavy log C. piece of metal D. slice of log