单选题
How should one invest a sum of money in these days of inflation (通货膨胀) ? Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques. I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens round its young people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves. " Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring the time of day according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout the time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings. However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour-glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antique should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past. Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in an antique clock and perhaps make a future profit?
单选题
According to the passage, collecting antique clocks ______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[考点] 细节理解题 [解析] 根据第一段中的“Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques.”可判断出收藏古钟表可以致富。
单选题
By quoting (引用) the remark of a being from another planet, the author intends to ______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】[考点] 细节推断题 [解析] 根据第二段中的“Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens round its young people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control.”可判断出作者暗示人类受钟表的控制。it指的是钟表。
单选题
Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to measure the time?
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】[考点] 正误判断题 [解析] 第三段中的“Certain men were very clever at measuring the time of day according to the beating of their own hearts.”和第四段中的“They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour-glasses, and invented water-clocks.”可判断出人们曾经通过数自己的心跳、观察太阳投下的阴影、使用蜡烛、沙漏以及发明水钟来计算时间，但没有讲使奴隶整日整夜地忙碌，所以选项D是错误的。
单选题
The underlined phrase "stately homes" in Paragraph 4 means ______?
【答案解析】[考点] 主旨大意题 [解析] 这篇短文的第一段说明收藏古钟表可以致富。在最后一段，作者又对收藏古钟表的问题进行了讨论，最后以“After all，if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in an antique clock and perhaps make a future profit?”结束，说明这篇短文的目的是对收藏古钟表提出一些建议。