14. From the second paragraph we know that ______ .

　 A. Zantrex-3 is one of the successful weight-loss pills on the US market

　 B. Zantrex-3 is the most successful weight-loss pills on the US market

C. Zantrex-3 is the only weight-loss pill on the US market

D. there are five kinds of weight-loss pills on the US market

13. The underlined part of the sentence in the first paragraph is most likely similar in meaning to ______.

　 A. it is difficult to say how successful Zantrex-3 is

　 B. you can’t overstate the success of Zantrex-3

　 C. you can’t think too highly of the success of Zantrex-3

　 D. Zantrex-3 is not very successful

12. Which of the following is also a kind of weight-loss pill?

　 A. CVS　　　　　 B. Rite Aid　　　　　 C. Wal-Mart　　　 D. Anorex

11. Britney Spears is a / an______.

　 A. dancer　　　　　 B. singer　　　　　 C. athlete　　　　 D. chemist

10. The passage mainly tells us ______.

　 A. how women in Kesum Purbahari gets their water

　 B. how much water a day a person deeds

　 C. that India lacks water badly

　 D. how India government manages to solve the problem of water

C　　　　　

One day last September, as Britney Spears was about to board a flight to Los Angeles from London, a blue bottle fell out of her purse. She quickly put it back in, but not before the camera recorded the event. Neither Spears nor her spokesman was willing to comment on the contents of the bottle, but the next morning London’s Daily Express published a page of pictures under the headline “EXCLUSIVE: POP PRINCESS SPOTTED AT AIRPORT WITH POT OF SLIMMING TABLETS.” Spears was apparently carrying Zantrex-3, one of the most popular weight-loss pills now sold in the United States. The pill, which is sold at about fifty dollars for a month’s supply, contains a huge amount of caffeine, some green tea, and three common South American herbs that also act as stimulants (兴奋剂). It hit the U.S. market last March and has had a success that would be hard to overstate. Millions of bottles have been sold, and during the Christmas season it was displayed in the windows of the nation’s largest chain of vitamin shops, G.N.C. (It is so highly sought after that many of the stores keep it in locked counters.) Zantrex-3 is also sold at CVS, Rite Aid, Wal-Mart, and other chains, and over the telephone and on the Internet. If you type “Zantrex” into Google, more than a hundred thousand pieces of information about it will appear. At any moment, there are scores of people sell it on eBay.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the success story of Zantrex-3, however, is that it is far from unique. There are hundreds of similar products on the market today, and they are bought by millions of Americans. And though Zantrex’s producer makes some exciting statements (“the most advanced weight control compound (化合物)period”), so do the people who sell Stacker 2 and Anorex along with those who sell Carb Eliminator and Fat Eliminator. Almost all of these compounds suggest that they can help people lose weight and regain lost energy, and often without diet, exercise, or any other effort.

9. Which of the following statements is wrong?

　 A. a hundred litres of water a day is enough for Shoba’s family

　 B. Americans uses the largest amount of water each day

　 C. in Kesum Purbahari milk is cheaper than bottled water

　 D. Shoba has a family of seven people

8. A person needs at least ________ litres of water a day.

　 A. a hundred　　　　　 B. four hundred　　　　 C. forty　　　　　 D. fifty

7. Sometimes the water tanker doesn’t come because ______.

　 A. the weather is bad

　 B. there is no electricity

　 C. there is no water

　 D. people don’t want the dirty water

6. The underlined word “slum” most likely means ______.

　 A. a village　　　

B. a small town

C. an area of a town with badly-built, over-crowded buildings

　 D. the part of a town that lacks water badly

5. Which of the following words can best describe Politkovskaya’s character?

　 A. Curious　　　　 B. easy-going　　 C. careless　　　　　 D. responsible

B　　 　

Most mornings, the line begins to form at dawn: scores of silent women with babies on their backs, buckets balanced on their heads, and in each hand a bright-blue plastic jug. On good days, they will wait less than an hour before a water tanker goes across the dirt path that serves as a road in Kesum Purbahari, a slum on the southern edge of New Delhi. On bad days, when there is no electricity for the pumps, the tankers don’t come at all. “That water kills people,” a young mother named Shoba said one recent Saturday morning, pointing to a row of pails filled with thick, caramel (焦糖)-colored liquid. “Whoever drinks it will die.” The water was from a pipe shared by thousands of people in the poor neibourhood. Women often use it to wash clothes and bathe their children, but no­body is desperate enough to drink it.

There is no standard for how much water a person needs each day, but ex­perts usually put the minimum at fifty li­tres. The government of India promises (but rarely provides) forty. Most people drink two or three litres-less than it takes to wash a toilet. The rest is typically used for cooking and bathing. Americans consume between four hundred and six hundred litres of water each day, more than any other people on earth. Most Europeans use less than half that. The women of Kesum Purbahari each hoped to drag away a hundred litres that day-two or three buckets’ worth. Shoba has a husband and five children, and that much water doesn’t go far in a family of seven, particularly when the temperature reaches a hundred and ten degrees before noon. She often makes up the difference with bottled water, which costs more than water delivered any other way. Sometimes she just buys milk; it’s cheaper. Like the poorest people every­where, the people of New Delhi’s slums spend a far greater percentage of their incomes on water than anyone lucky enough to live in a house connected to a system of pipes.