Rail passengers are being forced to pay thousands of pounds more in fares as a result of poor advice from the national telephone helpline and individual stations, a consumer organisation reveals today 题目和参考答案——青夏教育精英家教网—

题目内容

　　Rail passengers are being forced to pay thousands of pounds more in fares as a result of poor advice from the national telephone helpline and individual stations, a consumer organisation reveals today．Research by Which?found that in some cases passengers are being charged almost double the cheapest price because of errors made by staff．

　　Which?asked 25 questions of both station staff and the National Rail Enquiries (NRES) helpline．Only half of the 50 questions were answered correctly．If customers had followed all the advice given, they would have been ￡1,263.60 worse off．

　　Bad advice was given for the cheapest fare for a single journey between London and Grantham．For a ticket bought on the day of travel, both NRES and a King’s Cross station clerk quoted GNER’s ￡44.50 fare, ignoring a Hull Trains service which leaves 10 minutes earlier and costs just ￡20．

　　Some of the most costly misinformation was given for journeys where season tickets should have been recommended．Passengers making a return journey between Swindon and Penzance twice in a week could buy a ticket from one company for ￡70 which would cover all the travel．But both NRES and station staff quoted ￡67 for each journey, making ￡134．However, the NRES website proved to be a much more reliable source of information．

　　Which?also checked “the earlier you book, the cheaper the ticket” claims by five companies and found this was not always the case．On some services, prices went up and down at random．

　　Ithiel Mogridge, 52, gave one example of poor advice：“Last Christmas I found my brother a ticket on the thetrainline.com to travel from Blackburn to Yate．While the direct route was ￡51, this one involved a change in Newport and cost just ￡21．I emailed the details to him and his partner．They went to Blackburn station, where the clerk insisted the fare was ￡51．”

　　Malcolm Coles, editor of which.co.uk, said：“Staff training needs to be improved．In the meantime, we’ve designed a checklist, available at which.co.uk/railadvice．”

(1)

According to the passage, “Which?” is a ________．
[　　]
A．	national telephone helpline
B．	department under the British Rail
C．	consumer organisation
D．	website under the National Rail Enquiries

(2)

When the author said that customers “would have been ￡1,263.60 worse off”, he was telling us that customers would have ________．
[　　]
A．	saved ￡1,263.60 if they had followed the advice
B．	spent ￡1,263.60 more than the lowest price
C．	used ￡1,263.60 for the survey of 25 questions
D．	been cheated of ￡1,263.60 from the poor advice

(3)

The phrase at random in paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to “________”．
[　　]
A．	casually
B．	purposefully
C．	exactly
D．	inevitably

(4)

The passage is mainly concerned with the phenomenon that ________．
[　　]
A．	train passengers get bad advice on fares
B．	rail passengers are ill-treated by station staff
C．	booking clerks and the telephone helpline offer reliable information
D．	rail passengers can get cheaper tickets if they book earlier

答案：1．C;2．B;3．A;4．A;

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相关题目

阅读理解

阅读下面短文，从每题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳选项。

　　Shopping for clothes is not the same experience for a man as it is for a woman. A man goes shopping because he needs something. His purpose is settled and decided in advance. He knows what he wants, and his objective is to find it and buy it; the price is a secondary consideration. All men simply walk into a shop and ask the assistant for what they want. If the shop has it in stock, the salesman promptly produces it, and the business of trying it on follows at once. All being well, the deal can be and often is completed in less than five minutes, with hardly any chat and to everyone's satisfaction.

　　For a man, slight problems may begin when the shop does not have what he wants, or does not have exactly what he wants. In that case the salesman, as the name implies, tries to sell the customer something else, he offers the nearest he can to the article required. No good salesman brings out such a substitute impolitely; he does so with skill: “I know this jacket is not the style you want, sir, but would you like to try it for size? It happens to be the colour you mentioned.” Few men have patience with this treatment, and the usual response is:“This is the right colour and may be the right size, but I should be wasting my time and yours by trying it on.”

　　Now how does a woman go about buying clothes In almost every respect she does so in the opposite way. Her shopping is not often based on need. She has never fully made up her mind what she wants, and she is only “having a look round”. She is always open to persuasion; indeed she sets great store by what the saleswoman tells her, even by what companions tell her. She will try on any number of things. Uppermost in her mind is the thought of finding something that everyone thinks suits her. Contrary(相反的) to a lot of jokes, most women have an excellent sense of value when they buy clothes. They are always on the lockout for the unexpected bargain. Faced with a roomful of dresses, a woman may easily spend an hour going from one rail to another, to and fro, often retracing her steps, before selecting the dresses she wants to try on. It is a laborious process, but apparently an enjoyable one. Most dress shops provide chairs for the waiting husbands.

1．What does the passage tell us about women shoppers for clothes?

[　　]

A．They welcome suggestions from anyone.

B．Women rarely consider buying cheap clothes.

C．Women often buy things without giving the matter proper thought.

D．They listen to advice but never take it.

2．What does a man do when he can not get exactly what he wants?

[　　]

A．He buys a similar thing of the colour he wants.

B．He usually does not buy anything.

C．At least two of his requirements must be met before he buys.

D．So long as the style is right, he buys the thing.

3．Many jokes make fun of women shoppers by saying that ________.

[　　]

A．they waste money on inferior(劣质的) goods

B．they should buy only the best clothes

C．they are much more sensible than men

D．they think of the price of clothes and nothing else

4．What is the most obvious difference between men and women shoppers?

[　　]

A．The fact that men do not try clothes on in a shop.

B．Women bargain for their clothes, but men do not.

C．Women stand up to shop. but men sit down.

D．The time they take over buying clothes

阅读理解

　　The dark, narrow streets of London were dangerous places for a lad to wander during the ruling of Charles Ⅱ (1660-1685). Bands of hoodlums(强盗), in the pay of some ships' captains, were found everywhere. Their job was to seize as many boys as they could find and carry them off to waiting ships in the harbor. Many a pale city lad would wake up from a drugged sleep, or a blow on the head, to find himself on the high seas, bound for the New World. There he might become a farmhand, an apprentice, or perhaps a household servant.

　　Thousands of unsuspecting youths were kidnapped who were never to return to the land of their birth. The traffic in young boys became, in time, a great public scandal, and this is the way it had come about.

　　America desperately needed colonists. At first, many people had come willingly, lured by tales of quick wealth and unlimited opportunity. But once they arrived, they found it to be a far rougher place than they had imagined. It was true that, there was opportunity, but hard work was needed to make it pay off. Many of the new colonists, hoping for easy fortuned, were not used to the difficulties of hard manual labour.

　　Nor could they manage the large farms by themselves. They needed help of every sort: for planting, for harvesting, for building their houses, etc. Some few skilled workers had come and set up shops--blacksmiths, carpenters, wheelwrights(修造轮子的工匠) and such--but they, too, were in need of help. Without apprentices and laborers, they could not possibly do all the work that the colonists required.

　　British shipowners offered free transportation to all those who would come, in return for an agreement to work for seven years without wages. Thousands of immigrants accepted the offer. After seven years of service they were farmers in their own right--and needed help. So there was an increasing need for workers. When the captains could not get colonists any other way, they hired hoodlums to seize any young boys they could lay hands on.

　　Over 100000 youngsters were taken to America in this way. Kidnapping became such an open scandal that in 1682 the London Council passed a law forbidding any person under fourteen to be bound into service without the knowledge and consent of his parents.

1．What shocked the London citizens in the late 17th century?

[　　]

A．The British shipowners needed hands in their business.

B．Bands of hoodlums wandered in the dark streets of London.

C．Many young boys turned to drugs and violence.

D．Many young boys were captured and shipped to America.

2．According to the passage, many British people were willing to settle in America because _____.

[　　]

A．they were poor and desperate

B．they thought they could find jobs easily and soon make a fortune

C．they were desperately tired of the bad conditions in London

D．they learned that skilled workers were badly needed there

3．According to the passage, the colonists were in need of hands for the following reasons except that _____.

[　　]

A．many rail tracks had to be built

B．there was a lot of work on the farms

C．many houses had to be built

D．there was a lot of work in various kinds of shops

4．Why did thousands of immigrants sign the agreement to work for seven years without pay?

[　　]

A．Because they had no money to pay for their voyage to the New World.

B．Because they could become farmers in their own right after their seven-year work.

C．Because they had no land of their own when they just arrived in America.

D．Because they were kidnapped and forced to sign it.

5．We can infer from the passage that the British government passed a law in 1682 because _____.

[　　]

A．the shipowners had seized a great fortune of the country apart from the young boys

B．it intended to stop the employment of the young workers under the age of fourteen

C．the public strongly condemned the kidnapping of young boys

D．it did not want to lose a lot of its young residents

阅读表达

阅读下面的短文，并根据短文后的要求答题(请注意问题后的字数要求)。

Food＆drink

　　Longer distance public transports sometimes sell food and drink on board, and/or have a dedicated buffet car and/or dining car．However, some urban transport systems forbid the consumption of food, drink, or even chewing gum when riding on public transport．Sometimes only types of food are forbidden with more risk of making the vehicles dirty, e．g．ice creams and French fries．

　　________

　　In addition to talking to each other, many passengers use their cell phone in public transport．Although usually not allowed, sometimes music is played aloud．Some rail operators provide "quiet cars" where also talking is not allowed．On trains and buses in Hong Kong, buses and trains provide free TV．Buses provide gossip and hi-tech news, while trains provide news．

Safety

　　Despite the occasional highly publicized incident, the vast majority of modern public transport systems are well designed and patrolled and generally have low crime rates．Good lighting, CCTV, mirrors to see round blind corners and ensuring that there are always a good number of other people around can be used to increase safety and create a feeling of safety．Most transit operators have developed methods to discourage people from using their facilities for overnight shelter．

　　When compared to the private car however, public transport is a very safe form of transport in terms of deaths per passenger．By way of contrast, car accidents as estimated to cause some 1 million fatalities per year world wide．In the United States alone there were 42,643 automobile accident fatalities in 2003, almost three times the total number of murders(14,408)．

1．What's the best title of the passage?(Within 10 words)

____________________________

2．Which of the sentence in the passage can be replaced by the following one?

In order to keep the transportation tools clean, in many cases for passengers many kinds of things are not allowed to take with．

_____________________________

3．Why does the author think public transport systems are relatively safe according to this passage?(Within 30 words)

_____________________________

4．Fill in the blank to complete the passage．

_____________________________

5．Translate the underlined sentence．

_____________________________

　　A train sped up through the countryside at 60 mph as a“traveller”relaxes with his newspaper. But this is no businessman taking it easy—the driver of the passenger express（快车）is doing the reading.
　　A Sunday Express reader caught this Virgin employee on film as the train sped through Derbyshire on its way to Plymouth from Newcastle.
　　Virgin，which has come under repeated criticism over their rail service, yesterday fired the driver after being shown the photograph. A spokesman said an inquiry（调查）was under way to make sure exactly what he was doing and why he appeared to have taken his eyes off the track ahead.
　　The picture comes in the week that the public inquiry into the Southall rail disaster, which claimed seven lives, heard that the driver at the centre of that case had earlier been spotted with his feet on the control button of his cab.
　　Larry Harrison，who worked for Great Western Trains，drove through two warning signals before crashing at 60 mph into a waiting train.
　　The reader who took this picture was standing on a bridge outside Chesterfield early one summer’s evening. He said，“I only realized what I’d got when I had the pictures developed. I couldn’t believe it.”
　　“As far as I could see，there was no one else in the cab with the drive，unless they were hiding, The person with the paper open was certainly sitting in the driver’s normal seat.”
　　The photographer works on the railways and does not want to be named，but he added，“I’ve seen many drivers with their feet on the control panel but I’ve never seen them reading papers like this. There is an automatic warning system and driver’s safety device which reminds him when he passes yellow and red signals. But you should never take your eyes off the track and rely only on sounds because you could have unexpected objects on the line or suddenly have speed limits given.”
63．Who is the“traveller”mentioned in the first paragraph？
A．A train driver. 　　　　　　B．A businessman.
C．A passenger. 　　　　　　　 D．A newspaper reader.
64．The train ______________when the picture was taken.
A．was driving to Plymouth
B．was ready for a picture
C．had seven people on it
D．crashed into another train
65．Who took the picture of the driver of the passenger express？
A．A professional photographer.
B．A newspaper reporter.
C．Another train driver.
D．A member of the railway staff.
66．According to what we have read，we may find this passage most probably______________.
A．at a train station
B．from a news report
C．from a driver’s safety guide
D．from the police inquiry

　　A Sunday Express reader caught this Virgin employee on film as the train sped through Derbyshire on its way to Plymouth from Newcastle.

　　Virgin，which has come under repeated criticism over their rail service, yesterday fired the driver after being shown the photograph. A spokesman said an inquiry（调查）was under way to make sure exactly what he was doing and why he appeared to have taken his eyes off the track ahead.

　　The picture comes in the week that the public inquiry into the Southall rail disaster, which claimed seven lives, heard that the driver at the centre of that case had earlier been spotted with his feet on the control button of his cab.

　　Larry Harrison，who worked for Great Western Trains，drove through two warning signals before crashing at 60 mph into a waiting train.

　　The reader who took this picture was standing on a bridge outside Chesterfield early one summer’s evening. He said，“I only realized what I’d got when I had the pictures developed. I couldn’t believe it.”

　　“As far as I could see，there was no one else in the cab with the drive，unless they were hiding, The person with the paper open was certainly sitting in the driver’s normal seat.”

　　The photographer works on the railways and does not want to be named，but he added，“I’ve seen many drivers with their feet on the control panel but I’ve never seen them reading papers like this. There is an automatic warning system and driver’s safety device which reminds him when he passes yellow and red signals. But you should never take your eyes off the track and rely only on sounds because you could have unexpected objects on the line or suddenly have speed limits given.”

63．Who is the“traveller”mentioned in the first paragraph？

A．A train driver. 　　　　　　B．A businessman.

C．A passenger. 　　　　　　　 D．A newspaper reader.

64．The train ______________when the picture was taken.

A．was driving to Plymouth

B．was ready for a picture

C．had seven people on it

D．crashed into another train

65．Who took the picture of the driver of the passenger express？

A．A professional photographer.

B．A newspaper reporter.

C．Another train driver.

D．A member of the railway staff.

66．According to what we have read，we may find this passage most probably______________.

A．at a train station

B．from a news report

C．from a driver’s safety guide

D．from the police inquiry

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