Mr. Brown’s horse was stolen at night. All of his friends were very sorry about it and came to see him together. After they had been told about it, one of them said, “Why did not you lock the door of your stable (马房)that night? I think it is your fault.”

“You aren’t deaf, are you?” the second man said, “Didn’t you hear anything at that moment? The thief must have driven the beast out of the gate, and couldn’t have carried it on his back.”

“I agree with them!” Blamed the third, “How careless you are! Every evening before I go to bed, I lock my stable first and hide the key in my box. Why didn’t you do so?”

The more they said, the more excited they became. At last Mr. Brown couldn’t bear it any more and said, “I am glad that you have come to see me. But none of you would help me either look for my horse or catch the thief. Do you think that it’s all my fault? Why don’t you blame the thief?

1. The first man thought it’s Mr. Brown’s fault because _______.

A. let the door open                B. locked the door

C. had the door unlocked             D. had the horse locked up

2. The second man thought Mr. Brown _________________.

1. was a deaf                          

B. was very careful

C. must hear something when the thief stole the horse     

D. couldn’t hear anything at that time

3. The third man thought ________________.

A. the horse must be driven out   B. Mr. Brown did hide his key in his box

C. Mr. Brown wasn’t blamed by the third     D. Mr. Brown wasn’t careful.

4. The more his friends said the more Mr. Brown ______________.

A. became excited    B got angry    C could bear       D blamed them

5.____________ should be blamed.

A. Mr. Brown      B his friends       C The thief      D All of them

According to Andrew, it never would have happened if he had not had a flat tire on Highway 10 last night at about 7:30. He was on his way to attend a three-day sales meeting when he had the flat. tyre. Unfortunately, he did not have a spare, so he pushed the car off the road, locked it up, and managed to thumb a ride back to Pine Grove. It was after eleven o'clock when he finally got home, and it was then that his real problems started.

When Andrew left home at about 5:30, he had told his wife not to expect him back until Thursday or Friday. Knowing that his wife was nervous about staying in the house alone at night, Andrew took the precaution of checking all the windows in the house to be sure they were locked, so that he could report to his wife that the house was secure. He convinced his wife that the house was burglar-proof, and that she would be perfectly safe, providing she bolted （闩上）the front door as soon as he drove away.

Andrew's only thought as he made his way in the dark to his front door was how surprised his wife was going to be to see him, since he was not supposed to be back until Thursday or Friday. He had forgotten about the bolt on the front door. When he turned his key in the lock and the door wouldn't budge, he remembered the bolt. And he remembered that he had carefully locked all of the windows.

Although Andrew didn't know it at the time, a next-door neighbor had seen him approaching the house and had watched him go up the steps to the front door. In the dark, it was impossible for the neighbor to recognize Andrew, and, besides, the neighbor knew that Andrew had gone out-of-town for a three-day meeting. As a matter of fact, Andrew had asked the neighbor to keep an eye on the house while he was gone.

Finding that he couldn't get in, Andrew began pounding（砰砰地敲） on the front door to get his wife to open the door. According to Andrew, however, his wife is a very sound sleeper, and he knew it was going to be hard to wake her up. In the meantime, because of all the noise he had been making, the neighbor was convinced that somebody was trying to break into the house; so she called the police.

When we talked to Andrew at the country jail this morning, he said that he still didn't understand how the police managed to circle the house without his seeing them. He stated that he had decided the only way to get in was to break one of the dining room windows, and that he was about, to hurl his briefcase into the window to break it when two of the officers grabbed him from behind.

Andrew could not make the officers believe that he lived there; so they took him off to jail. Apparently, he did succeed in convincing them that they ought to wake up the woman in the house to check his story. But there was no answer when they knocked at the door. He tried to explain to them that his wife was a very sound sleeper, but they concluded there was nobody in the house.

1.As Andrew had a flat tyre on the way, he           .

    A．had to take another car to attend the meeting

    B．rode on a bike to attend the meating

    C．asked for a lift to go back home

    D．borrowed a car to go back home

2.When Andrew was approaching the house         .

    A．he was sure he would pleasently surprise his wife

    B．he was deep in thought

    C．he was sure that his neighbor would help him

    D．he was worried about how to wake his wife up

3.The  underlined word “budge” in Paragraph 3 probably means            .

    A．move slightly B．lock tightly   C．knock lightly  D．close tightly

4.Why did the police officers take Andrew off to jail?

    A．It was too late for them to contact Andrew’s wife.

    B．Andrew did not explain clearly why he broke into the house.

    C．They thought it unnecessary to check Andrew’s story.

    D．they concluded that Andrew’s story was a complete invention.

  Professor Reason recently persuaded 35 people to keep a diary of all their absent-minded actions for two weeks. When he came to analyze their embarrassing errors, he was surprised to find that nearly all of them fell into a few groups.

    One of the women, for instance, on leaving her house for work one morning threw her pet dog her earrings and tried to fix a dog biscuit on her ear. “The explanation for this is that the brain is like a computer,” explains the professor. “People programme themselves to do certain activities regularly.” It was the woman’s custom every morning to throw her dog two biscuits and then put on her earrings. “But somehow the action got reversed（颠倒）in the programme.” About one in twenty of the incidents the volunteers reported were these “programme assembly failures.”

   Twenty percent of all errors were “test failures” — mainly due to not verifying the progress of what the body was doing. A man about to get his car out of the garage passed through the back yard where his garden jacket and boots were kept, put them on — much to his surprise. A woman reported, “I got into the bath with my socks on.”

   The commonest problem was information “storage failures”. People forgot the names of people whose faces they knew, went into a room and forgot why they were there, mislaid something, or smoked a cigarette without realizing it.

   The research so far suggests that while the central processor of the brain is liberated from second-to-second control of a well-practiced routine, it must repeatedly switch back its attention at important decision points to check that the action goes on as intended. Otherwise the activity may be gotten by another frequently and recently used programme, resulting in embarrassing errors.

1.The purpose of the professor’s research is to __________.

    A. show the difference between men and women

    B. sort and explain some errors in human actions

    C. find the causes which lead to computer failures

    D. compare computer functions with brain working

2.Which of the following might be grouped under “programme assembly failures”?

    A. A woman went to a shop and forgot what to buy.

    B. A man returning home after work left his key in the lock.

    C. A lady fell as she was paying attention to each step her feet were taking.

    D. An old man, with his shoes on, was trying to put on his socks.

3.The underlined word “verifying” (in paragraph 3) can be replaced by “_______”.

    A. improving          B. changing     C. checking       D. stopping

4.According to the passage, the information “storage failure” refers to “_______”.

   A. information collecting system being destroyed

   B. one’s total memory being removed

   C. the loss of part of one’s memory for a time

   D. the separation of one’s action from words

The boy lost his key, so he has no choice but         till his mother came home．

Bob called to tell his mother that he couldn’t enter the house, for he ________ his key at school.

A．had left           B．would leave        C．was leaving        D．has left