北京地区成人本科学士学位英语统一考试
2018年5月
Part I Reading Comprehension（30%）
Direction: There are three passages in this part. 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 blacken the corresponding letter on the Answer Sheet.
Passage 1
Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage:
In 1866,sailors on a German ship called Paula threw a bottle with a message into waters hundreds of miles off the western coast of Australia. One hundred and thirty-one years later, (76) the bottle was found on an Australian island.
It's believed to be the oldest-known message in a bottle, in terms of the amount of time that has passed between when it was written and when it was found. Before this discovery, Guinness（吉尼斯） World Records said that the oldest was 108 years old, found in Germany in 2015. Australian and German researchers worked together to check whether the note is real or not.
Tonya Illman was walking on the beach in January when she spotted the old bottle. “I picked it up thinking it might look nice on display in my home, ” Illman says, according to an account on her husband's website. (77) The bottle was partially filled with wet sand. Shortly after, Illman's son's girlfriend poured out the contents and found a tightly rolled note covered in a piece of string.
Too damp to open initially, according to the account, the group waited for it to dry and were amazed to see that it was carefully handwritten in German. “The first thing that caught my eye was the year 1866, ” said Illman's husband Kym. “It seemed totally unlikely to us that the note and bottle could have lasted that long.”
The pair reached out to the Western Australia Museum, which set out to study the document.“Extraordinary finds need extraordinary evidence to support them, so we contacted colleagues in Germany for help to find more information, ” Ross Anderson, who is in charge of works of art in the museum, said in a statement.
But this message is no SOS or love letter.
1.According to Guinness World Records, the second oldest message was found ______.
A. In 2014
B. in 2015 C. in 2017
D. in 2016
2.Which of the following is TRUE?
A. A sailor named Paula threw the old bottle into waters in 1866.
B. Kym found the old bottle first.
C. This oldest message was found in Germany.
D. This oldest message was 131 years old.
3.From the passage, we learn that ______.
A. Tonya found the bottle first
B. Tonya and Kym contacted researchers in Germany for help
C. Illman's son broke the bottle to take out what was inside
D. the note was written in English
4.The word damp in Paragraph 4 is closet in meaning to ______.
A. wet
B. dry
C. cool
D. hot
5.Which of the following is probably the best title for this passage?
A. The Oldest-Known Message Found in Australia
B. The Oldest-Known Message Found in Germany
C. An Extraordinary Evidence of History
D. A Guinness Beer Bottle
Passage 2
Questions 6 to 10 are based on the following passage:
In 1950, Helena Rubinstein was one of the richest women in the world. She started with nothing. She had no money, no education, and no one to help her. All she had were 12 jars of face cream and a lot of energy and ambition. She turned these into a multimillion-dollar cosmetics（化妆品）empire.
Helena Rubinstein was born in 1870 in Krakow, Poland. She was the oldest of eight girls. Helena's mother thought that beauty was very important. She used a special skin cream that a foreign chemist made for her. Helena's mother made all of her daughters use it too.
Helena's father wanted her to be a doctor. But she hated medicine and left school. Her father was very angry. Then he wanted her to get married, but she refused. In 1902, she went to Melbourne, Australia, to live with a cousin and an uncle. She took only her clothes and 12 jars of the face cream.
Helena didn't speak English. She had no money and no plans. After she arrived, everyone noticed her beautiful skin. In Australia, the hot and dry weather is very bad for the skin. When she told some of the women about the face cream, they all wanted some. Helena sold them her cream and then ordered more.
Helena borrowed $ 1,500 and opened a shop to sell the cream. (78) She worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week. She lived simply and saved all of her profits. She also learned how to make different kinds of creams and showed women how to take care of their skin. It was the first shop of this kind in the world.
In less than two years, Rubinstein had paid back her loan and saved $ 50,000. She made more and more money every year. All this time, she thought only of work and success. A newspaper reporter named Edward Titus was in love with her. But she was not interested in him. She left Australia and went to Europe to learn more about the science of beauty.
6.Which of the following is TRUE?
A. Helena Rubinstein became the richest person in the world in 1950.
B. Helena's father helped her to start her business.
C. Helena was an energetic and ambitious person.
D. Helena's mother supported her with valuable business ideas.
7.From the passage, we learn that ______.
A. Helena had 8 sisters.
B. Helena was born in Poland.
C. Helena's mother made skin cream for her daughters.
D. Helena's father was a doctor.
8.Which of the following is TRUE?
A. Helena went to Australia to study medicine.
B. Helena went to Australia to do business.
C. Helena's uncle and cousin worked for her.
D. The weather in Australia is very bad for the skin.
9.Which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A. Helena was a hardworking businesswoman.
B. Helena saved all the money she made.
C. Helena could make a variety of creams.
D. Helena was in love with Edward Titus.
10.Which of the following is probably the best title for this passage?
A. The Science of Beauty
B. The Story of Helena
B. A Story of Love
D. A Business Empire
Passage 3
Questions 11 to 15 are based on the following passage:
A handwritten note from Albert Einstein sold for more than $ 1.5 million at an auction（拍卖会）. He gave the note to a hotel porter in Japan in 1922. Einstein was not carrying money when the porter came to his room. (79) He was unable to give a cash tip, as a guest normally would. Instead, he gave a tip on how to live life.
“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness, ” Einstein wrote. The note was written in German. It was written on notepaper from the Imperial Hotel in Ginza, Tokyo, where Einstein was delivering a series of lectures.
He was travelling to Asia when news that he had won the Nobel Prize for Physics reached him via telegraph. Einstein was unable to attend the prize-giving ceremony in Stockholm.
Gal Wiener is head of the auction house in Jerusalem, Israel, where the note was sold. He said Einstein told the hotel porter to keep the note since it “will probably be worth more than a regular tip”.
Bidding （拍卖中的出价）on the note began at $ 2,000. It was expected to sell for no more than$ 8,000. But 25 minutes later, the auction house made the major sale.
(80) A second Einstein note was also sold at the auction. It went for more than $ 200,000. “Where there's a will, there's a way, ” the note says.
The identity of the person or group that sold the notes has not been made public. Nor has that of the buyer or buyers.
11.The word tip in Line 4, Paragraph 1 probably means ______.
A. advice
B. trick
C. news
D. trend
12.The note was written in ______.
A. English
B. Japanese
C. German
D. French
13.Albert Einstein went to Japan to ______.
A. visit some friends
B. do some sightseeing
B. receive the Nobel Prize
D. give a series of lectures
14.The estimated sale value of the first note is about ______.
A. $ 2,000
B. $ 8,000
C. $ 200,000
D. $ 1.5million
15.According to the passage, which of the following statements is NOT TRUE?
A. Einstein gave the porter the note instead of a tip.
B. The buyer of the second note was a Japanese businessman.
C. Einstein learned that he had won the Noble Prize during his trip to Japan.
D. Einstein told the porter to keep the note since it might become valuable.