Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
The handling and delivery of mail has always been a serious business, underpinned by the trust of the public in requiring timeliness, safety, and confidentiality. After early beginnings using horseback and stagecoach, and although cars and trucks later replaced stagecoaches and wagons, the Railway Mail Service still stands as one of America’s most resourceful and exciting postal innovations. This service began in 1832, but grew slowly until the Civil War. Then from 1862, by sorting the mail on board moving trains, the Post Office Department was able to decentralize its operations as railroads began to crisscross the nation on a regular basis, and speed up mail delivery. This service lasted until 1974. During peak decades of service, railway mail clerks handled 93% of all non-local mail and by 1905 the service had over 12,000 employees.Railway Post Office trains used a system of mail cranes to exchange mail at stations without stopping. As a train approached the crane, a clerk prepared the catcher arm which would then snatch the incoming mailbag in the blink of an eye. The clerk then booted out the outgoing mailbag. Experienced clerks were considered the elite of the Postal Service’s employees, and spoke with pride of making the switch at night with nothing but the curves and feel of the track to warn them of an upcoming catch. They also worked under the greatest pressure and their jobs were considered to be exhausting and dangerous. In addition to regular demands of their jobs they could find themselves the victims of train wrecks and robberies.As successful as it was, “mail-on-the-fly” still had its share of glitches. If they hoisted the train’s catcher arm too soon, they risked hitting switch targets, telegraph poles or semaphores, which would rip the catcher arm off the train. Too late, and they would miss an exchange.

Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?




A.A. The clerk booted out the outgoing mailbag before snatching the incoming bag.
B.B. Clerks couldn’t often see what they were doing.
C.C. The Railway Mail clerk's job was considered elite because it was safe and exciting.
D.D. Despite their success, railway mail clerks only handled a small proportion of all non-local mail.

Mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the word that differs from the other three in the position of primary stress in each of the following questions.




A.A. reply
B.B. appear
C.C. protect
D.D. order

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Herman Melville, an American author best known today for his novel Moby Dick, was actually more popular during his lifetime for some of his other works. He traveled extensively and used the knowledge gained during his travels as the basis for his early novels. In 1837, at the age of eighteen, Melville signed as a cabin boy on a merchant ship that was to sail from his Massachusetts home to Liverpool, England. His experiences on this trip served as a basis for the novel Redburn (1849). In 1841 Melville set out on a whaling ship headed for the South Seas. After jumping ship in Tahiti, he wandered around the islands of Tahiti and Moorea. This South Sea island sojourn was a backdrop to the novel Omoo (1847). After three years away from home, Melville joined up with a U.S. naval frigate that was returning to the eastern United States around Cape Horn. The novel White-Jacket (1850) describes this lengthy voyage as a navy seaman. With the publication of these early adventure novels, Melville developed a strong and loyal following among readers eager for his tales of exotic places and situations. However, in 1851, with the publication of Moby Dick, Melville's popularity started to diminish. Moby Dick, on one level the saga of the hunt for the great white whale, was also a heavily symbolic allegory of the heroic struggle of man against the universe. The public was not ready for Melville's literary metamorphosis from romantic adventure to philosophical symbolism. It is ironic that the novel that served to diminish Melville's popularity during his lifetime is the one for which he is best known today.

The main subject of the passage is_________.




A.A. Melville’s travels
B.B. Moby Dick
C.C. Melville’s personal background
D.D. the popularity of Melville’s novels

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
Computer programmer David Jones earns £35,000 a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank prepared to let him have a cheque card. Instead, he has been told to wait another two years, until he is 18.
The 16-year-old works for a small firm in Liverpool, where the problem of most young people of his age is finding a job. David's firm releases two new games for the expanding home computer market each month.
But David's biggest headache is what to do with his money.
Despite his salary, earned by inventing new programs within tight schedules, with bonus payments and profit-sharing, he cannot drive a car, take out a mortgage, or obtain credit cards.
He lives with his parents in their council house in Liverpool, where his father is a bus driver. His company has to pay £150 a month in taxi fares to get him the five miles to work and back every day because David cannot drive.
David got his job with the Liverpool-based company four months ago, a year after leaving school with six O-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. "I got the job because the people who run the firm knew 1 had already written some programs," he said.
"I suppose £35,000 sounds a lot but actually that's being pessimistic. I hope it will come to more than that this year." He spends some of his money on records and clothes, and gives his mother £20 a week. But most his spare time is spent working.
"Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school," he said. "But 1 had been studying it in books and 'magazines for four years in my spare time. 1 knew what 1 wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway."
David added: "I would like to earn a million and 1 suppose early retirement is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear."
He left school after taking O-levels because _______




A.he was afraid of getting too old to start computing.
B.he did not enjoy school.
C.he wanted to work with computers and staying at school did not help him.
D.he wanted to earn a lot of money.

A.group
B.couple
C.double
D.trouble

Not until a few years ago_______ playing football .




A.did he start
B.he has started
C.he started
D.had he started

It’s undeniable that the internet plays a vital role in our life nowadays.




A.Our life without the internet is deniable.
B.The internet’s vital role is denied in our modern life.
C.That the internet is important to modern life is obvious.
D.The internet is hardly undeniable in our life.

By the time we arrived at the airport, the shuttle bus had left.




A.We got to the airport just in time.
B.The shuttle bus left at the time we got to the airport.
C.The shuttle bus had left before we got to the airport.
D.We got to the airport before the shuttle bus ran.

Mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the following questions.
He is going to marry a _______ girl next month .




A.tall pretty English
B.pretty tall English
C.pretty English tall
D.tall English pretty

The purpose of the passage is to ______




A.explain how Lake Vostok was discovered
B.provide satellite data concerning Antarctica
C.present an expected aspect of Antarctica's geography.
D.discuss future plans for Lake Vostok