Passage Three

　　Fire can help people in many ways. But it can be very dangerous. Fire can heat water, warm houses, give light and cook. But fire can bum things, too. It can bum trees, houses, animals or people. Sometimes big fires can bum forests.

　　Nobody knows for sure how people began to use fire. But there are many interesting stories about the first time a man or a woman started a fire. One story from Australia tells about a man very, very long time ago. He went up to the sun by a rope (繩子) and brought fire down.

　　Today people know how to make a fire with matches (火柴) . Children sometimes like to play with them. But matches can be very dangerous. One match can burn a piece of paper and then it might burn a house. A small fire can become a big fire very fast. Fire kills many people every year. So you must be careful with matches. You should also learn to put out fires. Fires need oxy-gen (氧氣). Without oxygen they will die. Cover a fire with water, sand, or sometimes with your coat. This keeps the air away from a fire and kills it. Be careful with fire, and it will help you. Be careless with fire, and it. will burn you.

　　21. How did people begin to use fire?

　　A. Not everybody knows how people begari to use fire.

　　B. Nobody knows how to make a fire.

　　C. It is an Australian who started a fire.

　　D. We are not sure how people began to use fire.

　　22. Children mustn’t play with matches because__________.

　　A. matches bum paper

　　B. it isn’t interesting

　　C. they can be dangerous

　　D. they can bum a house

　　23. When you are going to put out a fire, you__________.

　　A. must be careful

　　B. should keep air away from it

　　C. must know it is dangerous

　　D. should cover it with water

　　24. We must be careful with fire, or it__________.

　　A. will die

　　B. will warm our houses

　　C. might burn us

　　D. won’t help us

　　25. Which of the following is the main idea of this passage?

　　A. Fire can help people in many ways.

　　B. Fire can be both helpful and dangerous.

　　C. Fire can burn things and people.

　　D. We must be careful with matehes.

　　Passage Four

　　Extensive new studies suggest that the world has made extraordinary progress in reducing poverty in recent decades. The research suggests that the pace of economic progress has been rapid and continued for decades, built on the foundations of relative political stability, rising trade, and economic liberalization( 自由化) after two world wars. One new study, published recently by the Institute for International Economics in Washington, find that the proportion of the 6.1 billion people in the world who live on $1 a day or less shrank from 63 percent in 1950 to 35 percent in 1955 and 12 percent in 1999. By some other measures, the progress has been more modest. Still, economists agree that poverty has plunged in key nations such as India and especially China, thanks, to slowing population growth as well as economic freedom. "This is a huge success for the world as .a whole," says Harvard University economist Richard Cooper. "We are doing something right. "

　　The news comes as the World Bank is about to open its annual meeting in Washington--an e-vent that has been troubled in recent years by protests that the Bank and its sister Institution, the International Monetary Fund(IMF國際貨幣組織), have done too little for the world’s poor. The new economic research will not put an end to that: dispute. Vast populations remain poor, and many still question the wisdom of World Bank policies. Nonetheless, the research findings are helpful.

　　to understand what policies, should be followed by those institutions and hundreds of other development groups working very hard to hasten the pace of world economic progress, if dramatic gains are under way, the present policies-calling for open markets, free business activities, and tight monetary control are working and correct.

　　But critics of IMF and World Bank policies maintain that such economic success stories as Ja-pan, China, South Korea and Singapore are rooted in more than just "free" markets. These nations have managed to grow rapidly, and thereby reduce poverty, by limiting imports when their domes-tic industries were young, pushing exports to rich nations, and putting controls on purely intema-tional financial flows. The have been open to foreign-owned factories but have often insisted that those investors share the knowledge and skill on modern technologies.

　　26. The word "plunged" in the first paragraph means__________.

　　A. decreased

　　B. climbed

　　C. increased

　　D. dropped into water

　　27. From the passage, we learn that__________.

　　A. World Bank has done nothing to help the poor in the world

　　B. IMF only helps the rich in the world

　　C. World Bank controls all the banks in the world

　　D. There are some demonstrations against World Bank in recent years

　　28. According to this passage, in __________ , the world had the largest number of poor people.

　　A. 1999

　　B. 1955

　　C. 1950

　　D. 1990

　　29. According to the author, the economy of East Asian countries grew very fast because of the following measures EXCEPT__________.

　　A. encouraging export

　　B. opening up to foreign investments

　　C. limiting international financial flows

　　D. controlling import

　　30. The best title for this passage might be__________.

　　A. China’s Contribution to the Reduction of Poverty in the World

　　B. World Bank’s Extraordinary Progress in Recent Decades

　　C. India’s Leading Role in Reducing Global Poverty

　　D. Global Progress in Reducing Poverty