单选题 [A]It is a little difficult at first to get your bearings in this strange place because the falling water disappears abruptly into a slit in the earth"s surface, and thereafter the river, the Zambezi, rushes away along a narrow gorge that keeps twisting and turning back on itself in the most confusing way. Consequently from ground level it is impossible to obtain a general view. The thing that really takes your eye, however, is a white cloud that constantly hangs over the scene. From the distance this cloud looks like a forest fire(the native name for the falls is Musi-o-tunya, the Smoke that Thunders), but in actual fact it is composed of tiny particles of water which have been carried into the sky by the displaced air rushing up from the bottom of the gorge. If you stand on the edge of the Victoria Falls themselves you feel this cool wet updraught very keenly, and it is rather like being in the midst of a fine scotch mist, except that the sun shines through and creates astonishing circular rainbows in the air. In the midday heat condensation sets in and the cloud diminishes, but in the evening and in the early morning it climbs up to a thousand feet again. The Zambezi does not hasten to the falls. It slides, flat, blue-grey and placid among islands across the plain, and then unexpectedly plunges headlong into the vast abyss. Sometimes hippopotami, grown feeble with sickness or badly wounded in one of their communal fights, are washed helplessly over the lip, and then for weeks on end their bodies float round and round in the whirlpools in the chasm below. No one has yet succeeded in plumbing these depths; even a cable weighted with a steel rail is swept out at a tangent by the torrent. Crocodiles take good care to remain in the calmwater above the falls, and though it is not often you see them they are always there. A notice on the bank states with simple emphasis; "Swimming is suicidal". [B]Apart from this and a few other unobtrusive signs of the white man"s civilization, the falls remain pretty much as they were when Dr. Livingstone discovered them on 16 November, 1855. The same bulging baobab trees that Livingstone described grow along the bank, the same orchids thrust up through the dank and rotten undergrowth, and precisely in July each year the elephants still return from the dry wastes of Bechuanaland looking for water. The river then is low, and they wade out to King George Island washing themselves as they go along with an inexpressible satisfaction. Livingstone"s spirit broods very much over this country; they have an excellent collection of his maps and letters in the town, and here at the falls a lifelike statue has been erected. The doctor gazes steadfastly at the rushing water, his Bible and his field-glasses in his left hand, his walking stick in his right, his cap with flaps on his head, his trousers caught up by string around his shins, and in the evening light one can easily imagine that it is the great man himself who is standing there, and that nothing much divides you from his century-old loneliness and his utter determination. [C]A curious sort of mesmerism is created by so much roaring, Tumbling water. If you stare at it long enough you have the feeling that you are being gently lifted from the earth. You float in a solitary detachment, and it is not unpleasant. Nothing seems to be of much importance, except that this pattern should go on constantly repeating itself, that these millions of tons of water should keep on arriving, poising for a moment as they inevitably spill over the brink, and then vanish into the depths below. One can understand the morbid attraction waterfalls have for people about to commit suicide and such tragedies do occur here from time to time. These people avoid the prospect of a horrible death among the crocodiles upstream; they want to fall with the water. Often it has a soothing effect, making them behave right up to the end in the most matter of fact way. Quite recently, I was told, a woman came up to a man who was standing on the brink and said to him casually, "Would you mind holding my handbag for a minute?" He took the bag and then she jumped. Then too there are the accidents. No railings have been erected above the gorge, and at many places foolhardy people like to clamber down among the wet rocks to get a closer view. If they slip, their only chance of survival lies in being caught by the clumps of trees that grow out from the face of the precipice. This happened to a man not long ago, and although the fire brigade played its searchlights about all night they could not find him. It was only by chance that in the morning a tourist happened to see a tiny figure far below clinging to a ledge. The man was beating dementedly on the rock in a futile attempt to be heard above the roaring water. They went down with ropes and ladders and got him to the top. Normally of course the atmosphere of Livingstone is a great deal more cheerful than this. As at Niagara, honeymoon couples arrive. Launches ply about among the hippopotami on the upper reaches of the river, and native boys push the tourists in toy railway cars between the hotel and the falls. Monkeys come down from the trees to snatch cake from the picnic parties on the islands, and baboons, with great acumen, have learned how to open car doors and windows when the owners are away. There is an orchestra playing on the hotel terrace in the evening when for a few short minutes the white cloud reflects the colours of the sunset; and in the morning, at dawn, one can take a joy ride in a plane as far as the Wankie reserve and back to the falls again. In short, it is the immemorial pattern of any beauty spot in any country, but set into an African background; and this is not a background that quite accepts the western world as yet. After reading each of the following questions, choose the ONE correct answer, and indicate it by writing down the letter that stands for it. In all questions only ONE answer is correct. This is stressed in some questions, but remember that the rule applies to all of them.From Section A

单选题 Which ONE of the following is not one of the main points of the first paragraph?

单选题 Which ONE of the following words or phrases does not help to make the same point as the others?

单选题 Above the Victoria Falls the river Zambezi flows______.

单选题 Which ONE of the following words or phrases does not refer to the same thing as the others?

单选题 The main reason why swimming is suicidal is the______.

单选题 "Plumbing"(1.27)means______.

单选题 The phrase "like a forest fire"(1.9)is______.