SECTION A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
PASSAGE ONE
People have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hunted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there. Perhaps the painters thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals. Or perhaps human beings have always wanted to tell stories in pictures.
About 5,000 years ago the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as a kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet.
The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picture-writing and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buffed. Some of these pictures are like modem comic strip stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the comic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it.
By the year 1,000 B.C., people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letters of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and the Roman alphabet is now used all over the world.
These days we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawing, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the streets, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting.
PASSAGE TWO
With its common interest in lawbreaking but its immense range of subject-matter and widely-varying methods of treatment, the crime novel could make a legitimate claim to be regarded as a separate branch of the traditional novel.
The detective story is probably the most respectful (at any rate in the narrow sense of the word) of the crime species. Its creation is often the relaxation of university dons, literary economists, scientists or even poets. Fatalities may occur more frequently and mysteriously than might be expected in polite society, which is familiar to us, if not from our own experience, at least in the newspaper or the lives of friends. The characters, though normally realized superficially, are as recognizably human and consistent as our less intimate associates. Such story set in a more remote environment, African jungle or Australian bush, ancient China or gas-lit London, appeals to our interest in geography or history, and most detective story writers are conscientious in providing a reasonably authentic background. The elaborate, carefully-assembled plot, despised by the modem intellectual critics and creators of significant novels, has found refuge in the murder mystery, with its sprinkling of clues, its spicing with apparent impossibilities, all with appropriate solutions and explanations at the end. With the guilt of escapism from real life nagging gently, we secretly revel in the unmasking of evil by a vaguely super-human sleuth, who sees through and dispels the cloud of suspicion which has hovered so unjustly over the innocent.
Though its villain also receives his rightful deserts, the thriller presents a less comfortable and credible world. The sequence of fist fights, revolver duels, car crashes and escapes from gas-filled cellars exhausts the reader far more than the hero, who, suffering from at least two broken ribs, one black eye, uncountable bruises and a hangover, can still chase and overpower an armed villain with the physique of a wrestler. He moves dangerously through a world of ruthless gangs, brutality, a vicious lust for power and money and, in contrast to the detective tale, with a near-omniscient arch-criminal whose defeat seems almost accidental. Perhaps we miss in the thriller the security of being safely led by our imperturbable investigator past a score of red herrings and blind avenues to a final gathering of suspects when an unchallengeable elucidation of all that has bewildered us is given and justice and goodness prevail. All that we vainly hope for from life is granted vicariously.
PASSAGE THREE
It is now June 1567. Two months previously the explosion to Kirk O"Field, which awakened Edinburgh, startled courts as far away as Rome. In the flash of gunpowder, England, France, and the Holy See received a pin-sharp picture of Scotland which shook even the hardened nerves of the sixteenth century. The Queen"s consort was murdered. The Queen was implicated. The Earl of Bothwell was more than implicated. Talk of love between them. No one minded murder in the sixteenth century; it was a good old Scottish custom, and elsewhere it was recognized as a political expedient. No one regretted the end of the miserable Darnley, a poor drunken coward; but what stirred the conscience of the age was the news that the Queen of Scotland was ready to bring her husband"s murderer not to the gallows but to her bed. Even Elizabeth, who was not Mary"s best friend, became human and wrote to her "dear cousin" imploring her to see justice done. But no: Mary Queen of Scots was fated to drink the cup of sorrow to the very end.
Has any woman lived more violently, yet more mysteriously—for we shall never know her heart—than Mary in the last six months before Carberry Hill? There is the amazing evening in Edinburgh, when, surrounded by armed men, the lords of Scotland sign Bothwell"s document naming himself the Queen"s suitor (求婚者). There is the astonishing holdup outside Edinburgh with the Queen. What can we make of it? Was she his victim or did he fly to his brutality as to a stronghold? There is the silent ten-day honeymoon at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh with the angry murmur of the common people. Then, as if the drama had not been exhausted, we see Mary in flight, riding through the night disguised as a boy. She and her strong man ride out to meet her nobles at Carberry Hill. There is no battle; Bothwell offers to fight any man of equal rank in the opposing army.
Mary will not hear of Bothwell"s fighting. Why? Surely because she loves him. She learns that the nobles are resolved on his death. Her heart is set on securing his escape. They say farewell, in great pain and anguish and with many long kisses.
The lords escort her to Edinburgh, where a man cries out for her death. There is a terrible glimpse of her at a window, her hair about her shoulders, crying and appealing to the crowds to save her. The next day she is taken to Loch Leven, to a castle on an island. Mary"s long captivity had begun.
PASSAGE FOUR
All R&D (research and development) executives have two major responsibilities: (1) they must ensure that the company is supplied with technically successful projects, and (2) they must select the most promising schemes and ideas for the expenditure of R&D resources. This work is complicated by numerous uncertainties, inasmuch as commercial research and development must be based on market forecasts.
If R&D management can provide a regular flow of new and updated products, the company will benefit in a number of ways. First of all, it will be able to make full use of expensive departmental resources, development engineering and available marketing capacity. In addition to that, a flow of new market winners will provide the business with steady growth income and profits. This can also be important psychologically, for it is often on this basis that those outside the company assess the quality of its management.
The R&D department"s job is made more difficult because of the length of time required to complete its research. In the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, for example, it may take five to ten years before a product is a technical success and a further six to eight years before it reaches full commercial potential. To achieve results, R&D must define both the areas that should be investigated and the objectives that should be achieved in each area. For this reason, the R&D department must take an interest in all aspects of design, application, efficiency, and use of appropriate materials.
There is a difference, however, between the development of new consumer products and the development of new industrial ones. For specific need, the development of consumer products is tailored to meet it. In many industrial markets, product development is the result of work down in the research laboratory, This work is often aimed at a general need, such as a new kind of medicine or higher operating speeds for machines. When the new industrial project has been developed, its performance can be analyzed in terms of customer needs.

单选题 Which of the following descriptions about the Greek alphabet is NOT CORRECT? (PASSAGE ONE)

单选题 Which of the following statements is TRUE? (PASSAGE ONE)

单选题 In the last paragraph, the author thinks that pictures ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE ONE)

单选题 The crime novel may be regarded as ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE TWO)

单选题 According to the passage, many detective story writers would ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE TWO)

单选题 Many people would like to read detective stories probably because ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE TWO)

单选题 Mary"s husband, Lord Darnley, had been ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE THREE)

单选题 The author says that we shall never understand ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE THREE)

单选题 From the passage, we are told that consumer products are developed to ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE FOUR)

单选题 The need of higher operating speeds for machines can be met by ---|||________|||--- (PASSAGE FOUR)

填空题 SECTION B SHORT ANSWER QUESTIONS
According to the text, what are the pictures on the walls of caves in France and Spain about? (PASSAGE ONE)

填空题 In what way is the detective story different from the thriller? (PASSAGE TWO)

填空题 Why didn"t Bothwell fight with a man of equal rank in the opposing army? (PASSAGE THREE)

填空题 According to the passage, why is the commercial research and development quite complicated? (PASSAGE FOUR)

填空题 How long does it take in some industries before a product achieves full commercial potential? (PASSAGE FOUR)