Part Ⅳ Reading Comprehension （Reading in Depth） (25 minutes)

Section A

Directions:  In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete the statements in the fewest possible words on Answer Sheet 2.

Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.

They are people who struggle to make their voice heard, but the world is likely to hear more and more about them. If they all belonged to one nation, it would be a fair size, as big as Chile or Kazakhstan. Yet by definition, they belong to no country at all:they are the world's growing band of stateless people who have no citizenship rights, and are often unable to claim the things that states can provide, like travel documents and education. According to international officials whose job is to cope with human flotsam and jetsam, the problem of statelessness is growing fast, despite a modest decline in the number of refugees in the strict sense.

Some people become stateless because they are forced out of one country, and no other nation will accept them, or even grant them the rights which "refugees"-people who seek shelter because of a proven risk of persecution-can claim. Some people never leave home but find they are stranded by the shift in borders. Also  being  ranked among the stateless are marginal groups who cannot claim civic rights because their births went unrecorded.

As a classic case of statelessness, take the Biharis of Bangladesh. They mostly took the West Pakistani side in the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh, ensuring that they were unwelcome in the new state. Some were moved in organised exchanges-until Pakistan stopped taking them. Perhaps 300 000 remain stateless.

In fact, legal limbo(前途未卜) is not an either-or condition; there are degrees of statelessness. Among the Palestinians who fled during the war that followed Israel's creation, some-those in Jordan-were given passports, but in other Arab states, they simply got "refugee travel documents". No Arab state wanted to naturalise the newcomers, but the level of rights has varied from place to place.

António Guterres, the current high commissioner for refugees, says more and more countries agree, at least, that statelessness is a problem; and several have taken steps to alleviate it.  

47.   If the stateless people belonged to one nation, their number would equal the population of ______________.

48. Why do refugees leave their home country and seek protection somewhere else?

49. The situation that people who never leave home become stateless results from______________.  

50. Why were the Biharis unwelcome in the newly established Bangladesh?

51.  Arab states' treatments of the fleeing Palestinians are different from place to place in terms of______________.  

Section B

Directions:  There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A), B), C) and D). You should decide on the best choice and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.

Passage one

Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.

Getting ready to go back to school in the good old days of, say, 1998 meant a few trips to the mall and a quick check of the bus route. This year, for many parents, there are some new things to remember: The teacher's e-mail address, the school's website and which night online homework helps chat will be offered. "The 1999-2000 school year will be the one when the majority of parents really feel the Internet's influence on their children's education at the everyday level, "says Jonathan Carson, chairman of the Family Education Co. , which offers a parenting website at www. family education. com and a framework for local schools to create and maintain their own sites.

This year promises to show a quantum leap in the spread of school technology: Parents in many districts can expect to be able to check the school lunch menu, read class notes, see activity calendar and view nightly homework assignments-all online. "The schools are wired, "says Carson. "A majority of parents now have access and the educators are ready to go. "

Over the summer, parents of high school German students in Ithaca, N. Y. got to be part of a class to Europe, through their home computers. The class brought a digital camera and laptop with them to Germany and documented their visit on their web page. Hazy Ash, father of 16-year-old traveler Brian, found it reassuring to see his son's smiling face from half a world away. Before their kids left, parents had checked the site for scheduling information, a list of activities and advice on cultural differences.

When it's designed well, a district, school or classroom website can change the relationship between the parents and the school, says Cynthia Lapier, Ithaca's director of information and instructional technology. "The more you can involve parents in school, the better, "Lapier says. "The technology gives us another way to reach them, especially parents of secondary school students, who tend to be less involved. "

Ithaca high school physics teacher,  Stever Wirt,  gets e-mail from parents regular1y, some from the parents he believes might otherwise not pick up the phone with a concern. Using software called Blackboard Course Info, Wirt conducts online chats with his students often reviewing for a quiz or discussing homework problems.

The way things are going, by the end of this year, many parents may be fully converted-and in fact dependent upon their schools' technological capabilities. At a recently wired school in Novi, Michigan, the school webmaster was just a few hours late posting the lunch-menu calendar on the website. In that time, more than a dozen parents called him by telephone to request the information. "A year ago, it never would have been there, "says Carson. And now parents are finding it's tough to get by without it.

52. Many parents now remember the teacher's e-mail address and the school's website because __________.

A) by doing so they needn't go to the store to buy stationery for their children

B) they can reach their children's school and the teachers without traveling there

C) the e-mail and the website can help them find out what their children do

D) they can observe how the Internet affect their children's education every day

53.  "The schools are wired. A majority of parents now have access and the educators are ready to go. "(Lines 3-4, Para. 2) means that __________.

A) the schools and parents are connected by the Internet so that teachers will leave school

B) parents can find out what happens to  their children in school by visiting Internet

C) parents and educators may discover that schools are strange by using computers

D) the schools are online  and   parents now can teach their children and the teachers are to go

54. The example of Ithaca high school is used to show __________.

A) how important the school website is for parents to be involved in education

B) that the school online can reassure the parents about what their children do

C) how the parents of the students got to be part of a class trip to Europe

D) it is more likely for parents to send teachers e-mails than to phone them

55. According to the last paragraph, the attitude of parents towards the lunch-menu calendar on the website is.

A) reliant             B) optimistic             C) baised         D) opposite

56.   According to this passage，which of the following will be changed most?

A) The relationship between teachers and schools.  

B) The connection between students and schools.  

C) The relationship between parents and schools.  

D) The association between websites and schools.  

Passage Two

Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.

Traffic statistics paint a gloomy picture. To help solve their traffic woes, some rapidly growing U. S. cities have simply built more roads. But traffic experts say building more roads is a quick fix solution that will not alleviate the traffic problem in the long run. Soaring land costs, increasing concern over social and environmental disruptions caused by road-building, and the likelihood that more roads can only lead to more cars and traffic are powerful factors bearing down on a 1950s' style constructions program.

The goal of smart-highway technology is to make traffic systems work at optimum efficiency by treating the road and the vehicles traveling on them as an integral transportation system. Proponents of this advanced technology say electronic detection systems, closed-circuit television radio communication, ramp metering (斜坡坡度计量), variable message signing, and other smart highway technology can now be used at a reasonable cost to improve communication between drivers and the people who monitor traffic.

Pathfinder, a Santa Monica, California based smart highway project in which a 14 mile stretch of the Santa Monica Freeway, making up what is called a "smart corridor", is being instrumented with buried loops in the pavement. Closed circuit television cameras survey the flow of traffic, while communications linked to properly equipped automobiles advise motorists of the least congested routes or  detours (便道).

Not all traffic experts, however, look to smart-highway technology as the ultimate solution to traffic jam. Some say the high-tech approach is limited and can only offer temporary solutions to a serious problem.  

"Electronics on the highway addresses just one aspect of the problem: how to regulate traffic more efficiently, "explains Michael Renner, senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute. "It doesn't deal with the central problems of too many cars for roads that can't be built fast enough. It sends people the wrong message. ""They start thinking,  ‘Yes, there used to be a traffic congestion problem, but that's been solved now because we have an advanced high-tech system in place. '"Larson agrees and adds, "smart highway is just one of the tools that we will use to deal with our traffic problems. It's not the solution itself, just part of the package. There are different strategies. "

Other traffic problem-solving options being studied and experimented which include car pooling, rapid mass-transit systems, staggered or flexible work hours, and road pricing, a system whereby motorists pay a certain amount for the time they use a highway. It seems that we need a new, major thrust to deal with the traffic problems of the next 20 years. There has to be a big change.

57. In Para. 1, "a quick fix solution"is closest in meaning to __________. 

A) a best solution                               B) a fast solution

C) a ready solution                              D) an efficient solution

58. According to the passage, the smart highway technology is aimed to __________.

A) deploy sophisticated facilities on the interstate highways

B) provide passenger vehicles with a variety of services

C) optimize the highway capabilities

D) improve communication between driver and the traffic monitors

59．According to this passage the method of Highways Get Smart is __________.

A) the ultimate solution to traffic congestion

B) a wrong solution for the traffic problems

C) a venture to remedy traffic woes

D) part of the package to relieve traffic gridlock

60. According to Larson, to redress the traffic problem, __________.

A) car pooling must be studied

B) rapid mass-transit systems must be introduced

C) flexible work hours must be experimented

D) overall strategies must be coordinated

61. Which of the following is true according to the whole passage?

A) Two contrasting views of a problem are presented.

B) Traffic problem is examined and complementary solutions are proposed or offered.

C) Latest developments are outlined in order of importance.

D) An innovation is explained with its importance emphasized.

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