A bag is useful and the word “bag” is useful, too. Here is an interesting phrase（短语）, “to let the cat out of the bag”. In meaning it is the same as “to tell the secret（秘密）”. And there is an old interesting story about it.

　　Long ago, when farmers wanted to sell chickens at the market, they would usually just throw the chickens in cloth (布) bags. But cats were cheaper than chickens at that time, so many farmers would put cats into the cloth bags but not chickens. One day, a woman asked a man for a chicken. The man gave her a cloth bag in which there was a cat.      When the man opened the cloth bag, a big black cat ran out. Not a chicken! The man’s secret was out and everyone knew it.

　　Now when we say someone gives away a secret, we say “he lets the cat out of the bag”. And that is the story where the interesting phrase came from.

1.The underlined word “it” in the passage refers to (指的是)     .

A. the useful bag                 B. the phrase              C. the cat                     D. the chicken

2.The farmers put cats but not chickens in the bags to      when they sold chickens.

A. tell the secret                                                      B. sell the cats

C. get more money                                                  D. keep the cats quiet

3.Which is the best for the blank (空白处) in the passage?

A. The woman was angry to see a cat.                 B. The man put a cat in the bag.

C. The man asked her to see the chicken.         D. The woman wanted to see the chicken.

4.The writer wrote the story to tell us     .

A. the woman was smart                                         B. how farmers sold their cats

C. the phrase is useful                                             D. where the phrase came from

Betty is not a traditional American beauty. She is unfashionable, has thick red glasses, untidy hair and large metal braces (牙套) on her teeth. But this hasn’t stopped her from becoming one of American’s favorite TV characters. So how did she manage to do it?
The answer is that charm can be more attractive than beauty. Betty is the main character in a TV show Ugly Betty. The show is about her life as an office worker at a fashion magazine in New York.
　　The TV show has just started. Betty has many exciting experiences and romantic stories. Betty is often looked down on and laughed at by the people around. But she manages to do better than others with her hard work, charm and wisdom. The show tells us about how a girl goes from an ugly young duck into a beautiful swan.
　　Though you may know the ending of the show from the beginning and the story is familiar to many of us, it has still been a big success in the USA. It has attracted a large number of viewers and won two Golden Globes awards, one of the highest honors for a television program in the USA.“ I think you can see a bit of Betty in all of us, and I mean men as well, because it’s about the underdog (弱者)”，says Ashley Jensen, who plays one of the characters on the show.
　　The program is so successful because of the good performance of the 23-year-old actress America Ferrera who plays the role of Betty. She brings the character alive on the screen.
【小题1】Betty is popular because of ____.

Several years ago, a television reporter was interviewing three of the most important people from local businesses. One was a very rich banker, another owned one of the largest companies in the world, and the third owned many buildings in the center of New York.
　　The reporter was talking to them about being important.
　　“How do we know if someone is really important?” the reporter asked the banker.
　　The banker thought for a few moments and then said, “I think anybody who is invited to the White House to meet the President is really important.”
　　The reporter then turned to the owner of the very large company. “Do you agree with that?” she asked.
　　The man shook his head, “No. I think the President invites a lot of people to the White House. You’d only be important if while you were visiting the President, there was a telephone call from the president of another country, and the President said he was too busy to answer it.”
　　The reporter turned to the third man. “Do you think so?”
　　“No, I don’t.” he said. “I don’t think that makes the visitor important. That makes the President important.”
　　“Then what would make the visitor important?” the reporter and the other two men asked.
　　“Oh, I think if the visitor to the White House was talking to the President and the phone rang, and the President picked up the receiver, listened and then said, ‘it’s for you.’”
【小题1】This story happened in ________.
A. U.N.             B. U.S.A.               C. U.K.      D. P.R.C.
【小题2】There are________in this passage.