题目内容
A few people were waiting for the last bus __________ (焦虑地).
There was great interest when a big hole mysteriously appeared in the middle of a field. Engineers were called in to explain how it had got there. They offered various explanations but were not at all sure how the hole had been caused, it was thought that a large bomb which came suddenly exploded, but it was not possible to prove this. A simple, but highly improbable explanation was offered by a man who declares to know well about “flying saucers”; the strange objects which are round in shape and are said to visit the earth from outer space. The man’s explanation may have been nonsense (胡说八道), but at least it was imaginative. At any rate, it was far more interesting than the one given by the army.
After examining the ground carefully the man declared to have seen special marks on the soil quite near the hole, these, he said, could only have been caused by a flying saucer. Moreover the leaves on some bushes nearby had turned yellow because of a strange hot gas which had come from the saucer just before it landed. Even a small tree some way off appeared to have been burnt slightly. A small piece of metal found in the hole itself gave further proof that a strange object had been there. According to the man, it was quite clear that people from another world had been going around the earth trying to pick up information, when something had gone wrong. Because of this they had been forced to land in a field so that the damage could be repaired. The hole had been caused when the saucer struck the earth, while the strange marks nearby were made when it took off again. This, said the man, was the simplest explanation of how the hole had appeared. Judging from the interest the public took in the matter, there must be quite a few people who secretly believe or hope that this simple explanation is the true one.
【小题1】What aroused public interest?
| A．A mysterious hole in a field. | B．Various explanations offered by experts. |
| C．A simple explanation given by a man. | D．The shape of the flying saucers. |
| A．boring but imaginative | B．reasonable and interesting |
| C．meaningless but interesting | D．mysterious and unbelievable |
| A．special marks on soil near the hole | B．yellow leaves on some bushes nearby |
| C．a small piece of meal in the hole | D．the remains of the flying saucer |
| A．to repair their saucer | B．to strike the earth |
| C．to. collect information | D．to make strange marks |
Britain’s symbolic red phone boxes have become out of date in the age of the mobile, but villages across the country are stepping in to save them, with creative intelligence. Whether as a place to exhibit art, poetry, or even as a tiny library, hundreds of phone boxes have been given a new life by local communities determined to preserve a typical part of British life. In Waterperry, a small village near Oxford, the 120 residents have filled the phone box next to the old house with a pot of flowers, piles of gardening and cooking magazines, and stuck poems on the walls.
They took control of the phone box when telecoms operator BT said it was going to pull it down, an announcement that caused such dissatisfaction that one local woman threatened to chain herself to the box to save it. “I’d have done it,”insisted Kendall Turner. “It would have been heartbreaking for the village.”Local councilor Tricia Hallam, who came up with the idea for the phone box’s change, said quite a few people would have joined her, adding, “We couldn’t let it go because it’s a British symbol.”
Only three feet by three feet wide, and standing 2.51-meter tall, the phone boxes were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936 for the 25th anniversary of the reign of King George V.Painted in “Post Office red” to match the post boxes, they were once a typical image of England and the backdrop（背景）to millions of tourist photographs.
Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Britain, but today, in a country where almost everybody has a mobile phone, 58 percent are no longer profitable and ten percent are only used once a month. “On average, maintaining them costs $800 a year per phone box — about ￡44 million annually,” said John Lunb, general manager for BT Payphones.
【小题1】.Some red phone boxes in Britain have been used for ______ .
a.selling flowers b.cooking c.reading d.exhibiting art or poetry
| A．a,b | B．c,d | C．a,b,c | D．b,c,d |
| A．Because millions of people visit Britain to see the red phone boxes. |
| B．Because the local people could earn a lot of money from the red phone boxes. |
| C．Because the red phone boxes have already become a symbol of Britain. |
| D．Because the red phone boxes may be useful for some people in emergency. |
| A．Green. | B．Red. | C．Black. | D．Yellow. |
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. | C．Neutral. | D．Indifferent. |