Pepys and his wife had asked some friends to dinner on Sunday, September 2nd, 1666. They were up very late on the Saturday evening, getting everything ready for the next day, and while they were busy they saw the glow of a fire start in the sky. By 3 o' clock on the Sunday morning, its glow had become so bright that Jane woke her husband to watch it. Pepys slipped on his dressing-gown and went to the window to watch it. It seemed fairly far away, so after a time he went back to bed.
When he got up in the morning, it looked, as though the fire was dying down, though he could still see some flames. So he set to work to tidy his room and put his things back where he wanted them. While he was doing this, Jane came in to say that she had heard the fire was a bad one:three hundred houses had been burned down in the night and the fire was still burning. Pepys went out to see for himself. He went to the Tower of London and climbed up on a high part of the buildings so that he could see what was happening. From there, Pepys could see that it was, indeed, a bad fire and that even the houses on London Bridge were burning. The man of the Tower told him that the fire had started in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane; the baker's house had caught fire from the overheated oven and then the flames had quickly spread to the other houses in the narrow lane. So began the Great Fire of London, a fire that lasted nearly five days, destroyed most of the old city and ended, so it is said, at Pie Corner.
What is the passage about?
A. The Great Fire of London.
B. Who was the first to discover the fire.
C. What Pepys was doing during the fire.
D. The losses caused by the fire.
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Dear professor,
Banks normally receive money from their customers in two distinct forms; on current account, and on deposit account. With a current account, a customer can issue personal cheques. No interest is paid by the bank on this type of account. With a deposit account, however, the customer undertakes (答应) to leave his money in the bank for a minimum specified period of time. Interest is paid on this money.
The bank in turn lends the deposited money to customers who need capital. This activity earns interest for the bank, and this interest is almost always at a higher rate than any interest which the bank pays to its depositors. In this way the bank makes its main profits.
We can say that the primary function of a bank today is to act as an intermediary (中间人) between depositors who wish to make interest on their savings, and borrowers who wish to obtain capital. The bank is a reservoir (水库) of loanable money, with streams of money flowing in and out. For this reason, economists and financiers often talk of money being" liquid" , or of the ' liquidity ' of money. Many small sums which might not otherwise be used as capital are made useful simply because the bank acts as a reservoir.
The system of banking rests upon a basis of trust. Innumerable acts of trust build up the system of which bankers, depositors and borrowers are part. They all agree to behave in certain predictable ways in relation to each other, and in relation to the rapid fluctuations of credit and debit. Consequently, business can be done and cheques can be written without visibly changing hands.
On______, the bank will pay interest.
A. the current account
B. personal cheques
C. the deposit account
D. both the current and deposit account
The culture and customs of America are more like______of English than those of any other country.
A. that
B. those
C. what
D. which
No sooner______gone home than it began to rain heavily.
A. had I
B. I had
C. have I
D. I have
No, the village is not dead. There is more life in it now than there ever was. But it seems that "village life" is dead. Gone forever. It began to decline (衰落) about a hundred years ago, when many girls left home to go into service in town many miles away, and men also left home in increasing number in search of a work, and home was where work was. There are still a number of people alive today who can remember. What" village life" meant the early years of the present century? It meant knowing and being known by everybody else in the village. It meant finding your entertainment in the village of within walking distance of it. It meant housewives tied to the home all day and every day. It meant going to bed early to save lamp-oil and coal.
Then came the First World War and the Second World War. After each war, new ideas, new attitudes, new trades and occupations were revealed to villagers. The long-established order of society was no longer taken for granted. Electricity and the motorcar were steadily operating to make" village life" and" town life" almost alike. Now with the highly developed science and technology and high-level social welfare lor all, there is no point whatever in talking any longer about "village life". It is just life, and that a better life.
Finally, if we have any doubts about the future, or about the many changes, which we have seen in our lives, we have only to look in at the school playground any mid-morning; or see the children as they walk homeward in little groups. Obviously these children are better fed, better clothed, better educated, healthier, prettier and happier than any generation of children that ever before walked the village street.
By saying that village is not dead, but " village life" is dead, the writer suggests that
A. those young people who talk of the village as being" dead" are wrong
B. the two statements are against each other
C. village lifetoday is rather uninteresting
D. village life today is no longer like what it used to be