Question

C

In 1932 the warning of the British politician, Stanley Baldwin, that “the bomber will always get through” made a deep impression in Britain, the only state to make serious plans to evacuate civilians from large towns before the war started.

The British Government developed plans for evacuating 1 million children to the United States and Canada and other Commonwealth nations. It established the Children's Overseas Reception Board (CORB) in May 1940. After the fall of France, many people thought the war was lost and some saw this as one way of ensuring that Britain could survive even if invaded.

The Germans eventually began bombing British cities in September. Some children were evacuated by ship to British Dominions, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The CORB selections were not done on a first-come, first-served basis. CORB classified and prioritized the children. Charges soon appeared in the press that the well-to-do were being given priority. CORB arranged for the transportation. The Government paid the passages. Quite a number of children had already been evacuated. This tended to be children from rich families with money and overseas contacts. The British public eventually demanded the government pay so that less privileged children were also eligible.

World War II occurred before the beginning of trans-Atlantic air travel. Liners were used to transport the children and this proved to be dangerous because the U-boats quickly emerged as the greatest threat. And this put the evacuee children trying to cross the Atlantic to safety in danger. Two ships carrying child evacuees were torpedoed (破坏)in 1940. One was the Dutch liner Volendam with 320 children on August 30. The crew managed to get the life boats off and saved the children. They were returned to Glasgow. The other was the City of Benares, an ocean liner with 200 British and foreign civilian passengers and 93 British children with a guard of nurses, teachers, and a clergyman. It was torpedoed on September 13. The crew attempted to launch the life boats as Benares began to sink. The rough weather made this difficult, so many of the passengers in the life boats died in the extreme conditions. Only 15 children survived. Churchill, when he learned of the disaster, decided to end the overseas evacuation scheme.

1.The whole passage is mainly about _____.

A. bombing Britain

B. children evacuation

C. German U-boats

D. loss of children

2.What can we learn about the British people according to the passage?

A. They were concerned about their children.

B. They were threatened by Stanley Baldwin.

C. They were frightened by German invasion.

D. They longed to go to commonwealth nations.

3.The underlined word “eligible” in the last sentence of Paragraph 3 probably means _____.

A. qualified B. accessible

C. hopeful D. popular

4.Churchill decided to end the evacuation scheme mainly because _____.

A. so many people needed evacuating

B. the weather in the Atlantic was rough

C. the crew were inexperienced in saving people

D. liners easily became the targets of the German U-boats

Answer 1