單項選擇題Lucky is the man who has no "skeleton in his closet". When a man has done something in his life that he is ashamed of, that he wants to hide, he is said to have a "skeleton in his closet". Some people may have more than one skeleton.
As we have noted many times, it is hard to find out how these expressions begin. Sometimes, we get some hard facts. But more often we have to depend on guesswork. And that is true of this phrase, which came from England.
Before 1932, English law did not permit a doctor to cut open a dead human body for scientific examination, unless it was the corpse (尸體) of an executed (處決) criminal.
But when it became legal, more and more doctors demanded skeletons for a more scientific study of medicine. It was helping in the advance of modern medicine. The demand had become so strong that men began to rob tombs and sell skeletons to doctors at high prices.
We are told that a doctor would usually buy just one skeleton for scientific study. It became very important in his work. But he had to keep it hidden because most people objected to keeping such a thing. As a rule, the doctor would keep his skeleton in some dark corner where it could not be seen, or hide it in a closet.
After a time, people began to suspect (懷疑) every doctor of hiding a skeleton in the closet. From this suspicion, the phrase "a skeleton in the closet" took on a broader, more general meaning to describe anything that a man wanted to keep others from discovering. It could be proof of a criminal act, or something much less serious. Well, that is one theory.
One writer, however, believes that the phrase might have come from something that really happened. It is his guess that a hidden closet in some old English country home may have turned up a real skeleton, clear proof of some old family shame or crime. Well, one man’s guess is as good as another. But this sounds like a story by the great French novelist, Balzac.
Baizac tells us of a man who suspected his wife of having a lover. The husband comes home by surprise. But she hears him and quickly hides her lover in the closet of her bedroom. He enters her room and asks her if she is hiding her lover. He says he will not open the door to the closet if she promises him there is no one there; He will believe her. She answers firmly that she is not hiding anyone in the closet.
The husband then begins to build a solid brick wall against the closet. His wife watches, knowing that her lover will never come out alive. But she will not change her story and admit her guilt.Which of the following situations is suitable for using the phrase "skeleton in the closet"

A. You have stolen something precious and don’t want it discovered.
B. You are a doctor and have to keep a skeleton for research.
C. If you have cut open a dead human body for scientific examination you should keep the skeleton secret.
D. You have done a crime or done something foolish, but you want to keep other from discovering it.


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1.單項選擇題There are several ways you can find out about the countries and places you wish to visit. You can talk to friends who have travelled to the places. Or you can go and see a colour film. Or you can read travel books.
It would seem that there are three kinds of travel books. The first are those that give a personal, subjective (主觀的) account of travels which the author has actually made himself, if they are informative and have a good index (索引), then they can be useful to you when you are planning your travels. The second kind are those books whose purpose is to give a purely objective (客觀的)description of things to be done and seen. If a well-read, cultured person has written such a book, then it is even more useful. It can be sorted as a selected guide book. The third kind are those books which are called "a guide" to some place or other. If they are good, they will, in addition to their factual information, give an analysis or an explanation. Like the first kind they can be inspiring and interesting. But their basic purpose is to help the reader who wishes to plan in the most practical way.
Whatever kind of travel book you choose you must make sure that it does not describe everything as "wonderful", "excellent" or "magical". You must also note its date of publication because travel is a very practical affair and many things change quickly in the twenty-first century. Finally, you should make sure that the contents are well presented and easy to find.The following travel books may be of use when you plan your travels except （）.

A. the book written by some people who have had the same travel experience themselves
B. the book which tells you what is worth doing and seeing based on the facts
C. the book in which a lot of big adjectives are used to draw your attention
D. the book which offers you a lot of useful information like a tour guide

2.單項選擇題There are several ways you can find out about the countries and places you wish to visit. You can talk to friends who have travelled to the places. Or you can go and see a colour film. Or you can read travel books.
It would seem that there are three kinds of travel books. The first are those that give a personal, subjective (主觀的) account of travels which the author has actually made himself, if they are informative and have a good index (索引), then they can be useful to you when you are planning your travels. The second kind are those books whose purpose is to give a purely objective (客觀的)description of things to be done and seen. If a well-read, cultured person has written such a book, then it is even more useful. It can be sorted as a selected guide book. The third kind are those books which are called "a guide" to some place or other. If they are good, they will, in addition to their factual information, give an analysis or an explanation. Like the first kind they can be inspiring and interesting. But their basic purpose is to help the reader who wishes to plan in the most practical way.
Whatever kind of travel book you choose you must make sure that it does not describe everything as "wonderful", "excellent" or "magical". You must also note its date of publication because travel is a very practical affair and many things change quickly in the twenty-first century. Finally, you should make sure that the contents are well presented and easy to find.This passage is about （）.

A. how to travel
B. how to buy travel books
C. how to read a travel book
D. travel books

3.單項選擇題A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises (出現(xiàn)) from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar (奇怪的) that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl-friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that （）.

A. they are full of imagination
B. they just make up the stories which are far from the truth
C. they are not interesting
D. they make teachers of history difficult to teach

4.單項選擇題The number of speakers of English in Shakespeare’s time is estimated (估計) to have been about five million. Today it is estimated that some 260 million people speak it as a native language, mainly in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In addition to the standard varieties of English found in these areas, there are a great many regional and social varieties of the language as well as various levels of usage that are employed both in its spoken and written forms.
In fact, it is impossible to estimate the number of people in the world who have acquired an adequate (足夠的) working knowledge of English in addition to their own languages. The purpose for English learning and the situations in which such learning takes place are so varied that it is difficult to explain and still more difficult to judge what forms an adequate working knowledge for each situation.
The main reason for the widespread demand for English is its present-day importance as a world language. Besides serving the indefinite needs of its native speakers, English is a language in which some of important works in science, technology, and other fields are being produced, and not always by native speakers. It is widely used for such purposes as meteorological and airport communications, international conferences, and the spread of information over the radio and television networks of many nations. It is a language of wider communication for a number of developing countries, especially former British colonies. Many of these countries have multilingual populations and need a language for internal communication in such matters as government, commerce, industry, law and education as well as for international communication and for entrance to the scientific and technological developments in the West.What type of developing countries would be most likely to use English

A. Those geographically close to the United States.
B. Those interested in the culture of the United States.
C. Former colonies of Great Britain.
D. Countries where international conferences are held.

5.單項選擇題"If there is one thing I’m sure about, it is that in a hundred years from now we will still be reading newspapers. It is not that newspapers are a necessity. Even now some people get most of their news from television or radio. Many buy a paper only on Saturday or Sunday. But for most people reading a newspaper has become a habit passed down from generation to generation.
The nature of what is news may change. What basically makes news is what affects our lives-the big political stories, the coverage of the wars, earthquakes and other disasters, will continue much the same. I think there will be more coverage of scientific research, though. It’s already happening in areas that may directly affect our lives, like genetic (基因) engineering. In the future, I think there will be more coverage of scientific explanations of why we feel as we do-as we develop a better understanding of how the brain operates and what our feelings really are.
It’s quite possible that in the next century newspapers will be transmitted (傳送) electronically from Fleet Street and printed out in our own home. In fact, I’m pretty sure that how it will happen in the future. You will probably be able to choose from a menu, making up your own newspaper by picking out the things you want to read-sports and international news, etc.
I think people have got it wrong when they talk about competition between the different media (媒體). They actually feed off each other. Some people once foresaw that television would kill off newspapers, but that hasn’t happened. What is read on the printed page lasts longer than pictures on a screen or sound lost in the air. And as for the Internet, it’s never really pleasant to read something just on a screen.The phrase "feed off" in the last paragraph means （）.

A. depend on
B. compete with
C. fight with
D. kill off