四.阅读理解((共15小题;每题3分，共45分。)

　　阅读下列短文，然后根据短文的内容从每小题的四个选择项中选出最佳的一项。

　　A

　　Many people earn their living with their hands. Ed earns his living with his feet! And a very good living it is,too.

　　Ed’s story began in a very small town in Brazil. His father and mother were very poor. Seven people lived in their tiny house. Ed's father often played football. Little Ed wanted to play football too. So his father made a soft ball for him to kick. It was a sock filled with soft materials. The little kicked it every day. .

　　At last Ed learned to kick a real football. By the time he was 11, he played football very well.

　　One day Ed was playing with some men. A man passing by saw how fast the boy ran. He stopped

　　to watch. How well Ed kicked the ball!

　　After the game, the man called Ed to him. "My name is Mr. Dee," he said. "I used to playfootball for a living. Will you let me teach you what I know?"

　　"Oh. yes!" Ed answered.

　　In the next four years, Mr.Dee Ed to be a fine player. The boy worked hard. At last Mr.Dee talked to Ed's father. "This is boy is ready to play with the big teams."he said. "Let me take him to a city that has a good team."

　　Mr.Dee took Ed to Santos, Brazil. There, the boy joined the Santos Football Club.

　　In his first big game, Ed helped his team win by seven points. He made four of the seven points!

　　Many people thought he was the best football player in the world. He was "The King of Football".

　　36. What is said about Ed's family when he was a little child?

　　A. There were seven people in his family.

　　B. His father made soft balls for a living.

　　C. His parents liked playing football.

　　D. His parents bought him a football.

　　37. When he first saw Ed playing football, Mr. Dee was attracted by .

　　A. his young age

　　B. his running speed

　　C. his love for football

　　D.his playing with men

　　38. What can we know about Mr. Dee from the text?

　　A. He joined the Santos Football Club.

　　B. He and Ed used to live in the same town.

　　C. He had been the best football player in Brazil.

　　D. He happened to find a very good football player.

　　B

　　"The price of books for our students is just getting higher and higher and higher and, along with the rising cost of tuition (学费), it's killing these students," said Peter Jason, a college professor. "Remember, students are one of the poorest groups of people in America. Almost half of them have at least one part-time job. In fact, one of my students has three jobs. And she still manages to have high scores and go to school full-time."

　　Textbook prices are usually high. Adding to that problem, many college teachers change textbooks year after year, they either upgrade to a new edition (版本) or change to a different textbook. This further hurts students because if a teacher no longer uses a textbook, that book has no resale value.

　　Dr. Jason decided to make life a little easier and a lot cheaper for his students by writing his own book on public speaking. "Many books have an increased price because of CD-ROMs, lots of color photographs and pictures. I talked to my students, and many of them, like me, prefer to keep things simple. So, a few years ago, I wrote my own textbook. I made sure that it was simple. Compared to most of other public speaking books, mine is half the number of pages, and one-third the price. That is $30 instead of $90. When I wrote a second edition last year, students only had to buy the 35 new pages. For only $7.00, they had almost a new book."

　　39. What did Dr. Jason say about students at college?

　　A. They are short of money.

　　B. They need simple books.

　　C. They have no part-time jobs.

　　D. They are trying to get high scores.

　　40. What does "that problem" in Paragraph 2 refer to?

　　A. The high prices of textbooks.

　　B. The low resale value of books.

　　C. Too many different new books.

　　D. No color pictures in textbooks.

　　41. What did Dr. Jason decide to do to help the students?

　　A. To choose cheaper textbooks.

　　B. To write a textbook himself.

　　C. To speak to his students

　　D. To use old textbooks.

　　42. How much does a public speaking book usually cost?

　　A. About 7 dollars.

　　B. About 30 dollars.

　　C. About 37 dollars.

　　D. About 90 dollars.

　　C

　　We don't have beds in the space shuttle (航天飞机), but we do have sleeping bags. During the day, when we are working, we leave the bags tied to the wall, out of the way. At bedtime we untie them and take them wherever we've chosen to sleep.

　　On most space shuttle flights everyone sleeps at the same time. No one has to stay awake to watch over the space plane; the shuttle's computers and the engineers at the Control Office do that. If anything goes wrong, the computers ring a warning bell and the engineers call us on the radio.

　　On the space shuttle, sleep-time doesn't mean nighttime. During each ninety-minute flight around the earth, the sun "rises" and shines through our windows for about fifty minutes: then it "sets" as our flight takes us around the dark side of the Earth. To keep the sun out of sleep masks (眼罩).

　　It is surprisingly easy to get comfortable and fall asleep in space, and we sleep differently. Some sleep upside down, some sideways, some right side up. When it's time to sleep, I take my bag, my sleep mask, and my tape player with earphones and float up to the flight platform. Then I get into the bag, and float in a sitting position just above a seat, right next to a window. Before I pull the mask down over my eyes, I relax(放松)for a while, listening to music and watching the Earth，by under me.

　　When I'm in space I don't need as much sleep as I do on Earth. Maybe that's because when I am weightless, I don't feel as tired. Or maybe it's because I'm excited to be in space and don't want to waste time sleeping.

　　43. What do the shuttle people do with their sleeping bags while working?

　　A. Keep them where thy work.

　　B. Leave them where they sleep.

　　C. Place them on the beds.

　　D. Fix them to the wall.

　　44. During sleeping time, the job of watching over the shuttle is done by .

　　A. the shuttle's radio

　　B. the shuttle's warning bell

　　C. people working in the shuttle

　　45. How often does the sun rise to people in the space shuttle?

　　A. Every 140 minutes.

　　B. Every 90 minutes.

　　C. Every 50 minutes.

　　D. Every 40 minutes.

　　46. What do we know about people sleeping in the space shuttle?

　　A.They sleep while listening to music.

　　B. They have difliculty falling asleep.

　　C.They Sleep in different positions.

　　D. They go to sleep when it is dark.

　　D

　　You have probably seen ads (广告)in newspapers or on TV for mail-order shopping. Perhaps you have been sent a catalogue(商品目录)and have bought something by mail. Why do people buy things they have not seen with their own eyes? One of the reasons might be that some people believe that things can be bought more cheaply by mail. Another advantage of mail-order shopping is that it is more comfortable to sit at home and look through a catalogue than to rush around the stores. With the catalogue from a large company, you have your own shop window for almost everything you might want to buy.

　　The mail-order business is very wide-spread. Some companies hire people to show products listed in the catalogue to possible customers. Perhaps you have had one of these people call you or come by your home.

　　pay later on. Some companies allow a customer to pay for a product over a long period of time. People can also pay a certain percent of the total price. This is called a down payment. Then the customer pays a certain amount of money every month until the product is completely paid for. People can buy almost everything by mail-order shopping-furniture, tools and even heavy machines.

　　47. People prefer to buy things by mail-order because .

　　A. they think the price is lower

　　B. they enjoy the shopping service

　　C. they can get catalogue they want

　　D. they can buy things from big companies

　　48. What do we know about mail-order business from the text?

　　A. Mail-order shops is very common nowadays.

　　B. Mail-order companies respect their customers.

　　C. Shopping by mail causes trouble to old people.

　　D. Companies spend a lot of money sending catalogues.

　　49. What might be a big problem for mail-order customers?

　　A. It's possible to get what they don't like.

　　B. It's easy to buy more than they can pay for.

　　C. They may fail to get what they have paid for.

　　D. They will wait for a long time to get the product.

　　50. What does "down payment" in the last paragraph mean?

　　A. The money a customer saves each month.

　　B. The money a customer pays for a product.

　　C. Part of the total cost a customer pays first.

　　D. Part of the total cost a customer saves.