From the health point of view, we are living in a wonderful age, immunized from birth against many of the most dangerous diseases and freed from the once deadly illnesses thanks to modern drugs and surgery. But though the possibility of living a long and happy life is greater, every day we witness the unbelievable killings of men, women and children on the roads. It is a never-ending battle which man is losing against the car. Thousands of people the world over are killed each year and we are quietly sitting back and letting it happen.
It has been rightly said that when a man is sitting behind a steering wheel, his car becomes the extension of his personality. There is no doubt that the car often brings out a man’s very worst qualities. People who are normally quiet and pleasant may become unrecognizable when they are behind a wheel. All their hidden frustrations and disappointments seem to be brought to the surface by the act of driving.
The surprising thing is that society smiles gently on the driver and seems to forgive his behavior. Everything is done for his convenience. Cities are allowed to become almost uninhabitable（不宜居住的）because of heavy traffic; towns are made ugly by huge car parks; the countryside is ruined by road networks; and the mass annual deaths becomes nothing but a number, to be conveniently forgotten.
It is high time rules were created to reduce this senseless waste of human life. Here are a few examples of some of the things that might be done. The driving test should be standardized and made far more difficult than it is; all vehicles should be put through strict tests for safety; present drinking and driving laws should be made much stricter; maximum and minimum speed limits should be required on all roads. These measures may sound strict. But surely nothing should be considered as too severe if it results in reducing the annual loss of human life. After all, the world is for human beings, not cars.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2 . The phone rang. I waited for the answering machine to get it, but for some reason, it was not picking up. I sighed, annoyed because I knew the call was either going to be for my wife, Susan (she was the only one who received calls on the home line, and she left to take Alyce to school ten minutes ago), or it was the latest of 300 attempts to sell me something I had absolutely no interest in.
''Hello, '' I said, an edge in my voice. 12-year-old daughter, ''Mommy was just in a car accident. '' My heart stopped and then began pounding. ''Are you all right? '' ''Yes. '' ''Is Mommy? '' A deep sob. ''I don't know…I don't think so. Come quick. '' I rushed a few blocks to what looked like a shoot for a disaster movie. Fire engines, police cars, and ambulances were randomly parked in the street; helicopters circled. A city bus was on the wrong side of the road. In front of it were the smashed remains of Susan's car. Susan was pinned under the dashboard (仪表盘). There was no front windshield (挡风玻璃).
Alyce was standing on the corner crying, covered in tiny pieces of glass but uninjured. Inconceivable! Susan wasn’t so lucky. But she was alive. It turned out that she had broken nearly every bone in her body, and she would spend almost three months in the hospital.
More than two years later, Susan and I were at a musical event. Our director, Danny, rushed up to us. He said excitedly, ''There's a woman here tonight from one of the church choirs who you have to meet! '' He returned with an African American woman with a bright, glowing smile. She told us she lived in the apartment building by where the accident had happened. That morning, she had rushed to the street, still in her bathrobe, and seen Alyce standing by the side of the wrecked car, crying. She approached her, asking, ''Is that your mom in there? '' Alyce nodded, and the woman said, ''Let's pray together. ''
Sweet, innocent Alyce looked at this woman wearing a cross around her neck and told her that she needed to call me, but her backpack with her phone was trapped inside the crushed vehicle. So the woman lent Alyce her phone. After the accident, she said, she had continued to pray for our family. We had our picture taken together, and as we were saying goodbye, she hugged us all warmly. We realized we had never been formally introduced, so she said to me, ''I'm sorry, I never got your name. '' I told her it was Doug, and she paused, as if maybe she hadn't heard me. I repeated, ''Doug, like Douglas. '' She looked at us and said, ''Wait, your name is Susan? '' Susan nodded. ''And your name is Douglas? '' The woman put her hand over her heart. ''Oh my goodness, '' she said. ''My name is Susan Douglas. ''
1. Which of the following is true according to the passage?| A．Both the author's wife and the daughter were not severely injured. |
| B．The author was calm when he heard about the accident. |
| C．The author was the only one who received calls on home line. |
| D．The author rushed to the accident like a shoot. |
| A．Innocent. | B．Unconscious. |
| C．Incredible. | D．Unfortunate. |
| A．They were from the same church choir. |
| B．She witnessed the whole accident and offered to help two years ago. |
| C．She shared the same first name with the author's wife. |
| D．She would like to talk about her experience and had a picture taken. |
| A．The Bus Crash Angel | B．The Unwanted Call |
| C．An Expected Crash | D．A Fun Encounter |
3 . A mother and daughter were rescued from the wreckage (残骸) of a car crash thanks to an app. It can
Valerie Hawkett, 33, lost
Her four-year-old
Officers were able to find their way to Ms Hawkett in the field--- after
Ms Hawkett, from Trowbridge, Wiltshire, said: “It was absolutely brilliant. It's really, really
Ms Hawkett said her car landed on its side, with the only means of
Ms Hawkett and Tegan were taken to a
| A．trust | B．accept | C．train | D．find |
| A．words | B．videos | C．pictures | D．signals |
| A．sight | B．control | C．hope | D．track |
| A．driving | B．walking | C．running | D．cycling |
| A．phone | B．glasses | C．vehicle | D．freezer |
| A．side | B．front | C．back | D．middle |
| A．son | B．niece | C．daughter | D．nephew |
| A．excited | B．panicked | C．grateful | D．curious |
| A．how | B．who | C．where | D．what |
| A．handing | B．texting | C．attaching | D．applying |
| A．effect | B．function | C．advantage | D．position |
| A．compared | B．added | C．connected | D．directed |
| A．cheap | B．good | C．safe | D．light |
| A．thanks to | B．in favor of | C．but for | D．in relation to |
| A．success | B．attempt | C．support | D．escape |
| A．following | B．holding | C．pushing | D．attracting |
| A．managed | B．promised | C．pretended | D．forgot |
| A．helped | B．inspired | C．called | D．stopped |
| A．hospital | B．shelter | C．subway | D．motorway |
| A．steadily | B．rapidly | C．obviously | D．slightly |
| A．A traffic accident. | B．Traffic rules. | C．A student’s fault. |
| A．She threw something at a truck. | B．She threw herself out of window and broke her leg. |
| C．She moved a truck to save a little boy. | D．She rushed to a moving truck to save a kid. |
6 . Time flies, but the tracks of time remain in books and museums. This is what made a recent tragedy in Brazil even more terrible.
On Sept.2, a big fire ripped through the National Museum of Brazil. “ Two hundred years of work, research and knowledge were lost, ” Brazilian President Michel Temer wrote on Twitter after the fire. “It's a sad day for all Brazilians.”
Most of the 20 million pieces of history are believed to have been destroyed. Only as little as 10 percent of the collection may have survived, Time reported. Among all the items, there were Egyptian mummies, the bones of uniquely Brazilian creatures such as the long－necked dinosaur Maxakalisaurus, and an 11,500－year－old skull called Luzia, which was considered one of South America's oldest human fossils.
Besides these, Brazil's indigenous(本土的，土著的) knowledge also suffered. The museum housed world－famous collections of indigenous objects, as well as many audio recordings of local languages from all over Brazil. Some of these recordings, now lost, were of languages that are no longer spoken.
“The tragedy this Sunday is a sort of national suicide, a crime against our past and future generations,” Bernard Mello Franco, one of Brazil's best－known columnists, wrote on the O Globo newspaper site.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, as BBC News reported on Sept. 3. After the fire burned out, crowds protested outside the museum to show their anger at the loss of the irreplaceable items of historical value.
According to Emilio Bruna, an ecologist at the University of Florida, museums are living, breathing stores of who we are and where we've come from, and the world around us.
Just as underwater grass floats on the surface if it loses its roots, a nation is lost without its memories. The fire at the National Museum of Brazil teaches the world an important lesson: We should never neglect history.
1. What can be summarized as the main idea of the 3rd and 4th paragraphs?| A．Long history of South America. | B．Remains from the fire. |
| C．Mysteries to be solved. | D．History and knowledge burned up. |
| A．The government is to blame for the tragedy. |
| B．The museum should be rebuilt |
| C．The loss can't be made up for. |
| D．The criminal should be sentenced to death. |
| A．Living stores of our past. | B．Underwater grass. |
| C．The oldest fossils. | D．National suicide. |
| A．Death of a civilization | B．Functions of museums |
| C．Gone with the fire | D．Brazilians' memories |
