Reading Comprehension
Passage 1
The United States is full of automobiles. There are still many families without cars, but some families have two or even more. However, cars are used for more than pleasure. They are necessary part of life.
Cars are used for business. They are driven to offices and factories by workers who have no other way to get to their jobs. When salesmen are sent to different parts of the city, they have to drive in order to carry their products. Farmers have to drive into the city in order to get supplies.
Sometimes small children must be driven to school. In some cities school buses are used only when children live more than a mile from the school. When the children are too young to walk that far, their mothers take turns driving them to school. One mother drives on Mondays, taking her own children and neighbors' children as well. Another drives on Tuesdays, another on Wednesdays, and so on. This is called forming a car pool. Men also form car pools, with three or four men taking turns driving to the place where they all work.
More car pools should be formed in order to put fewer automobiles on the road and to use less gasoline. Parking is a great problem, and so is the traffic in and around cities. Too many cars are being driven. Something will have to be done about the use of cars.
1. Many families in the U.S. own cars because ________.
A) cars are a source of pleasure for them B) they need a car to form a car pool
C) they live more than a mile away from the school D) cars form necessary part in their life
2. Which of the following groups is NOT mentioned though they certainly drive cars?
A) Office workers. B) Police and mail carriers. C) Salesmen and farmers. D) Factory workers.
3. Paragraph 3 suggests that in the United States ________.
A) children have to walk to school B) school buses take all the children to school
C) mothers drive children to school D) families usually live within a mile from the school
4. "A car pool" most probably means ________.
A) a number of people sharing the use of a car B) a place for parking cars
C) a group of tourists driving alternatively D) a place for learning to drive
5. What is the author's advice about the use of cars?
A) To provide larger parking spaces. B) To build better roads.
C) To produce fewer automobiles. D) To form more car pools.
Passage 2
Recent fires have destroyed much of Indonesian forests and pose the latest threat to the survival of the endangered orangutans（红毛猿）. Thirty orangutans fleeing their burning forest home have been killed by villagers, who see the animals as crop raiders. Orangutan mothers have been killed so that their young can be captured and sold into the illegal wildlife pet trade. Orangutan experts continue to receive orangutan infants whose mothers have been killed while searching for food in plantations and fields.
The fires, caused by drought and coupled with fire-setting methods to clear forests, have destroyed more than two million acres. When fire gets into the rainforests' layer of dry peat (partly decayed plant material which covers the soil), it can burn slowly off and on for months or years after the original fire. These fires continue until heavy rainfall soaks the peat through and
