1. W: Excuse me.Did you say that these jackets were fifteen dollars?
M: No,I said fifty dollars. Here's the price on the tag.
Q: How much are these jackets?
2. M: The plane's leaving at 5:30.
I just called the airline.
W: 5:30? Are you sure? I thought they said 4:30.
Q: When will the plane take off?
3. W: I am leaving at 1:30 p.m..
But I've got to check in at 12:30 p.m..
M: What airline and what flight?
Q: When will the plane probably take off?
4. M: My grandpa died in 1978.
I was 18 years old then.
W: Now it's 1998.That means he would be 76 if he were alive.
Q: How old was his grandpa when he died?
5. W: How big is the apartment?
M: Five rooms
Three bedrooms,a sitting room and a kitchen.
Q: How many rooms are there in the apartment?
6. M: A hundred and fifty
if you are interested in this flat.
A hundred and fifty! No,I'm not really interested in this flat.
If your price is one third of it,maybe I live for only a month.
Q: What price is reasonable according to the woman?
7. M: Can I walk there?
W: No, it is too far for you to talk.
It might take you three quarters of an hour.
Q: How far is the place?
8. W: Take us to the Peak Tram Station.
Can we get there in about fifteen minutes?
M: No,it'll take about twenty minutes.
because the streets are heavy with traffic at five p.m..
I'll do my best.
Q: When does this conversation probably take place?
9. M: How much does it cost?
W: It's three thirty.
But the minimum price is two hundred.
Q: What is the price difference?
10. M: I want to check these pieces and I'll carry this overnight bag by myself.
W: Sir,your bags are 30 pounds overweight.
You are allowed only 44 pounds of baggage.
Q: How weight is the man's baggage?
Section B
Passage One
A great French writer has said.
that we should help everyone as we can because we often need help ourselves.
The small even can help the great.
About this, he told the following story.
An ant was drinking at a small river and fell it.
She tried her best to reach the side.
but she couldn't move at all.
The poor ant got too tired but was still doing her best when a bird saw her.
With pity the bird threw a piece of wood.
With it she reached the bank again.
While she was resting and drying herself in the grass she heard a man coming up.
He was walking without shoes on his feet and carrying a gun in his hand.
As soon as he saw the bird.
he wished to kill her, and he would certainly do so.
but the ant bit him in one of his feet just as he raised his gun to fire.
He stopped to see what had bit him and at that time the bird flew away at once.
It was an animal much weaker and smaller than the bird herself that had saved her life.
11. Why couldn't the ant reach the side when she fell in the river?
12. What did the ant do when she was too tired?
13. What does "We often need help ourselves." mean?
14. Why does the writer tell the story?
Passage Two
There is a place on our earth were hot water and steam come from under the ground.
It is a large island in the Pacific Ocean.
The island is North Island, in New Zealand.
The planet on which we live is a ball of very hot rock.
It is a good thing for us that the outside shell is cold.
The earth's shell has cracks in it in some place.
In New Zealand this shell seems to have more cracks than in other places on the earth.
In some places, hot water goes up into the air from time to time.
At other points, you can see steam coming from pools of hot water.
The people who live in these places make use of the heat that comes from inside the earth.
Some of them cook in the hot pool.
They put food into a basket and place it in the water.
Many people bring the hot water from below the earth into their home.
They do this by putting a pipe a hundred feet or more into the ground.
in this way they get hot water and steam for cooking and washing.
and heating their homes.
For most of us.
the heat under our feet is too far away to us.
We must make our heat by burning coal, oil or gas.
15. Where do we live?
16. In how many places does the island have heat coming from under the ground?
17. Which of the following gives the heat to the pools in New Zealand ?
Passage Three
About three hundred words in the English language come from the names of people
Many of these words are technical words.
When there is a new invention or discover
a new word may be created after the inventor or scientist.
It is interesting to observe how many common words have found their way.
into the language from the names of people.
Lord Sandwich who lived from 1718--1792
used to sit at the gambling table eating slices of bread with meat in between.
As the Lord was the only one among his friends who ate bread in that way
his friends began to call the bread "sandwich" for fun.
Later on the word became part of the English language.
The word "boycott" means to refuse to have anything with somebody or something.
It comes from a man called capitonboycott. he was a land agent in 1880 and he collected rents and taxes for an English landowner in Ireland.
But the Captain was a very hard man.
He treated his poor tenants very badly.
His tenants decided not to speak to him at all.
Eventually word got back to the landowner and the Captain was removed.
The word "boycott" became popular and was used by everyone to meal
the kind of treatment that was received by Captain Boycott.
18. What was Lord Sandwich fond of?
19. What is the word "Sandwich" created by?
20. When the landowner found out that the tenants were boycotting his land agent,what did he do.
