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God and My Father
1 I thought of God as a strangely emotional being. He was powerful; he was forgiving yet obdurate, full of warmth and affection. Both his wrath and affection were fitful, they came and they went, and I couldn't count on either to continue: although they both always did.In short God was much such a being as my father himself.
2 What was the relation between them, I wondered — these two puzzling deities?
3 My father's ideas of religion seemed straightforward and simple. He had noticed when he was a boy that there were buildings called churches; he had accepted them as a natural part of the surroundings in which he had been born. He would never have invented such things himself. Nevertheless they were here. As he grew up he regarded them as unquestioningly as he did banks. They were substantial old structures, they were respectable, decent, and venerable. They were frequented by the right sort of people. Well, that was enough.
4 On the other hand he never allowed churches — or banks — to dictate to him. He gave each the respect that was due to it from his point of view; but he also expected from each of them the respect he felt due to him.
5 As to creeds, he knew nothing about them, and cared nothing either; yet he seemed to know which sect he belonged with. It had to be a sect with the minimum of nonsense about it; no total immersion, no exhorters, no holy confession. He would have been a Unitarian,naturally, if he'd lived in Boston. Since he was a respectable New Yorker, he belonged in the Episcopal Church.
6 As to living a spiritual life, he never tackled that problem. Some men who accept spiritual beliefs try to live up to them daily; other men who reject such beliefs, try sometimes to smash them. My father would have disagreed with both kinds entirely. He took a more distant attitude. It disgusted him where atheists attacked religion: he thought they were vulgar. But he also objected to having religion make demands upon him — he felt that religion was too vulgar, when it tried to stir up men's feelings. It had its own proper field of activity, and it was all right there, of course; but there was one place religion should let alone, and that was a man's soul. He especially loathed any talk of walking hand in hand with his Savior. And if he had ever found the Holy Ghost trying to soften his heart, he would have regarded its behavior. as distinctly uncalled for; even ungentlemanly.
The writer says his father's idea of religion seemed straightforward and simple becausehis father

A. had been born in natural surroundings with banks and churches.
B. never really thought of God as having a real existence.
C. regarded religion as acceptable as long as it did not interfere.
D. regarded religion as a way that he could live a spiritual life.

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听力原文: Former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet is living in a gilded cage as he waits under house arrest in a luxury villa for Britain's highest court to rule on his fate for a second time.
The Conservative British paper The Daily Telegraph, granted an exclusive opportunity to photograph the 83-year-old former general, counted up to nine armed policemen in and around the property in Surrey, to the southwest of London.
Three inspectors from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist unit are permanently posted in one of the building's nine rooms, close to the main door which is guarded by two porters.
Other officers patrol with police dogs, searching visitors and their vehicles.
Members of the Surrey police force also maintain surveillance on the property in the exclusive suburb of Wentworth. Home Secretary Jack Straw allocated an additional 200,000 pounds in early March to cover policing costs.
That sum is trifling, however, compared to the millions of pounds already spent on legal costs.
Police keep bystanders, including journalists, at a distance, as well as the protesters who each Saturday beat drums and chant "murderer" in Pinochet's direction.
Authorities are also alert to the possibility of a commando operation aimed at freeing the former general, though this is considered improbable given the good relations between Britain and Chile.
In permitting Pinochet to stay in the villa, British officials relaxed his conditions of detention. Pinochet is also allowed to step out onto the patio once the yard has been combed by inspectors with sniffer dogs.
"The police follow him everywhere, even when he goes to the toilet. It's an intolerable situation, 'an unidentified person close to Pinochet complained to The Daily Telegraph.
Until now, the former leader has only left Wentworth once, to hear Spain's formal request for extradition, while a request to attend Christmas Mass was refused.
He receives visitors--Chilean political allies, diplomats, officials or supporters of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who are indignant at how a man they call a "friend of Great Britain" is being treated.
Thatcher has spoken out in Pinochet's defense and cited support he gave Britain during its 1982 war with Argentina over the Malvinas Islands.
Pinochet starts his day scouring the newspapers and surfing the Internet in search of items concerning himself.
How many armed policemen were stationed to protect Augusto Pinochet?

A. 9.
B. 12.
C. 14
D. 11.

SECTION B INTERVIEW
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. Questions 1 to 5 are based on an interview. At the end of the interview you will be given 10 seconds to answer each of the following five questions.
Now listen to the interview.
听力原文:Friend: OK, so what happened when you got to the airport?
Pauline: Well, I waited in a queue for ages and finally it was my turn to come up to the desk. So I presented my passport and she said, "I think you need a visa." And I said, "No I don't, I was there six years ago and it was OK then." So … and I said … and she said, "Well, your travel agent should have told you." So anyway she went away to check and when she came back I just knew by the look on her face that I needed a visa. And my flight was going to go just then. And I said, "What will I do?” And so she called over the OSL rep, they're the people I booked through, and they were very nice to me and they said, "Well you've got to go to London and get your visa. " And I said, "Well, can't you have it at the airport?" And they said, "No." And so, so then they said, "Well, the best thing to do is to get on this coach and go down to London. " So I got on a coach but there was pea-soup fog everywhere and so I sat on the motorway for two hours. And the whole time thinking what I am doing? And so I got down to London. And it took literally three minutes, I filled in a form, they stamped my passport, £ 3 thanks.And then I had to ring the airline and try to get a flight out. And they kept saying, "Ring back in an hour. Ring hack in an hour. Ring back in an hour." And every time I had to ring back they'd say, "sorry. Well, the nearest flight we've got is from Newcastle tomorrow morning."
Friend: Oh, no. You didn't go to Newcastle.
Pauline: No, I didn't go to Newcastle. Luckily, they kept ringing and ringing and ringing and meantime I had to kill time in Green Park. It was a hot, hot day and I was carrying all my luggage and I then kept walking back to Victoria Station.
Friend: Oh, you weren't in Luton. You were waiting in London.
Pauline: That's right. I then went to London. And then, so I kept ringing and then eventually they got me a flight out to airport…er to Ibiza.
Friend: From Luton?
Pauline: No, from Gatwick actually. SO then because I was in London that was nearer Gatwick I had to then stay in London. SO I had to phone a friend and he was out for two hours, and then he wouldn't be home for another two hours. So I killed four hours before I got to him, stayed the night with him. He drove me to the airport the next morning. Then the plane was delayed. So I was getting really frightened by this time. And so then eventually I got on the plane and it was delayed by engine trouble and so on. And then I got out there, and I got out there five minutes after the airline office closed and there was no message for me.
Friend: Oh my God.
Pauline: So I thought, "I don't know what to do." And all the other people kept saying, "Well, get in a taxi" and you know what it's like in a foreign country. You think, "I can't get in a taxi. It'll cost me the earth." But in fact they said, "Well, it's never far in these places." And so then I decided. OK, so I got in a taxi.
Friend: But you had the address?
Pauline: Well, luckily…I didn't have the address before I left home but luckily at Luton airport I'd asked for the address, so I had the address. Right. So then the Taxi drove me out to the airport…er…to the villa, and we took ages to find it. We were searching round and eventually found it…
Pauline failed to catch the flight because______.

A. her ticket was not confirmed
B. she booked her ticket at the wrong place
C. she didn't have the right documents
D. her visa had run out

SECTION C NEWS BROADCAST
Directions: In this section you will hear everything ONCE ONLY. Listen carefully and then answer the questions that follow. At the end of each news item, you will be given 10 seconds to answer the questions.
听力原文: European Union (EU) leaders are to gather in Berlin today for one of their most important summits in years. Over two, possibly three days of intense negotiations, the leaders will attempt to thrash out a deal on how the bloc is to be financed for the next seven years.
They are also under strong pressure to draw a line under the crisis created by last week's mass resignation of the European Commission by moving swiftly to appoint a successor to Jacques Santer as president of the EU executive.
Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi has emerged as a clear favourite to claim the commission's top job.
Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, Portugal's Antonio Guterres and NATO chief Javier Solana have all been named as possible rivals to the Italian, but Prodi is so far the only officially declared candidate.
Having earned respect across the EU for the way he whipped the Italian economy into shape to clinch the country's place in the single currency, Prodi has a clear advantage over his potential rivals in being immediately available.
The heads of state and government arriving here will also have to decide the terms on which Prodi or any other incoming commission boss takes office.
A quick appointment will allow Prodi to be approved--or rejected--by the European Parliament before it breaks up in May for June elections.
The EU summit meeting will______.

A. discuss the EU's finance
B. appoint a new EU president
C. solve the problems left by the mass resignation of EU commission
D. all of the above

Etiquette
1 In sixteenth-century Italy and eighteenth-century France, waning prosperity and increasing social unrest led the ruling families to try to preserve their superiority by withdrawing from the lower and middle classes behind barriers of etiquette. In a prosperous community, on the other hand, polite society soon absorbs the newly rich and in England there has never been any shortage of books on etiquette for teaching them the manners appropriate to their new way of life.
2 Every code of etiquette has contained three elements; basic moral duties; practical rules which promote efficiency; and artificial, optional graces such as formal compliments to, say, women on their beauty or superiors on their generosity and importance.
3 In the first category are considerations for the weak and respect for age. Among the ancient Egyptians the young always stood in the presence of older people. Among the Mponguwe of Tanzania, the young men bow as they pass the huts of the elders. In England,until about a century ago, young children did not sit in their parents' presence without asking permission.
4 Practical rules are helpful in such ordinary occurrences of social life as making proper introductions at parties or other functions so that people can be brought to know each other. Before the invention of the fork, etiquette directed that the fingers should be kept as clean as
possible; before the handkerchief came into common use, etiquette suggested that after spitting, a person should rub the spit inconspicuously underfoot.
5 Extremely refined behavior, however, cultivated as an art of gracious living, has been characteristic only of societies with wealth and leisure, which admitted women as the social equals of men. After the fall of Rome, the first European society to regulate behavior. in private life in accordance with a complicated code of etiquette was twelfth-century Province, in France.
6 Province had become wealthy. The lords had returned to their castle from the crusades, and there the ideals of chivalry grew up, which emphasized the virtue and gentleness of women and demanded that a knight should profess a pure and dedicated love to a lady who would be his inspiration, and to whom he would dedicate his valiant deeds,though he would never come physically close to her. This was the introduction of the concept of romantic love, which was to influence literature for many hundreds of years and which still lives on in a debased form. in simple popular songs and cheap novels today.
7 In renaissance Italy too, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a wealthy and leisured society developed an extremely complex code of manners, but the rules of behavior. of fashionable society had little influence on the daily life of the lower classes. Indeed many of the rules, such as how to enter a banquet room, or how to use a sword or handkerchief for ceremonial purposes, were irrelevant to the way of life of the average working man, who spent most of his life outdoors or in his own poor hut and most probably did not have a handkerchief, certainly not a sword, to his name.
8 Yet the essential basis of all good manners does not vary. Consideration for the old and weak and the avoidance of harming or giving unnecessary offence to others is a feature of all societies everywhere and at all levels from the highest to the lowest.
One characteristic of the rich classes of a declining society is their tendency to

A. take in the recently wealthy.
B. retreat within themselves.
C. produce publications on manners.
D. change the laws of etiquette

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