2015年大学英语六级阅读理解模拟试题

01

There was on shop in the town of Mufulira ，which was notorious for its color bar. It was a drugstore. While Europeans were served at the counter ，a long line of Africans queued at the window and often not only were kept waiting but ，when their turn came to be served ，were rudely treated by the shop assistants. One day I was determined to make a public protest against this kind of thing ，and many of the schoolboys in my class followed me to the store and waited outside to see what would happen when I went in.

I simply went into the shop and asked the manager politely for some medicine. As soon as he saw me standing in the place where only European customers were allowed to stand he shouted at me in a bastard language that is only used by an employed when speaking to his servants. I stood at the counter and politely requested in English that I should be served. The manager became exasperated and said to me in English ，“Ifyou stand there till Christmas I will never serve you.”

I went to the District commissioner's office. Fortunately the District Commissioner was out ，for he was one of the old school ；however ，I saw a young District Officer who was a friend of mine. He was very concerned to hear my story and told me that if ever I wanted anything more from the drugstore all I had to do was come to him personally and he would buy my medicine for me. I protested that that was not good enough. I asked him to accompany me back to the store and to make a protest to the manager. This he did ，and I well remember him saying to the manager ，“Hereis Mr. Kaunda who is a responsible member of the Urban Advisory Council ，and you treat him like a common servant.”The manager of the drugstore apologized and said ，“Ifonly he had introduced himself and explained who he was ，then ，of course I should have given him proper service.”

I had to explain once again that he had missed my point. Why should I have to introduce myself every time I went into a store…anymore than I should have to buy my medicine by going to a European friend ？I want to prove that any man of any color ，whatever his position ，should have the right to go into any shop and buy what he wanted.

1.“Colorbar”in the first paragraph comes closest in meaning to ___.

A.a bar which is painted in different colors.

B. the fact that white and black customers are served separately.

C. a bar of chocolate having different colors.

D. a counter where people of different colors are served with beer.

2.The writer was ，at the time of the story ，___.

A. a black school teacher

B.an African servant

C. a black ，but a friend of Europeans

D a rich black

3.The manager of the drugstore shouted at the writer in a bastard language because ___.

A. he hadn't learned to speak polite English. B. he thought the writer wouldn't understand English.

C. that was the usual language used by Europeans when speaking to Africans.

D. that was the only language he could speak when he was angry.

4.In the third paragraph ，“hewas one of the old school”means ___.

A he believed in the age-old practice of racial discrimination.

B. he was a very old man.

C. he graduated from an old ，conservative school.

D. he was in charge of an old school.

5.Why didn't the writer wait at the window of the drugstore like other black African ？

A. Because he thought he was educated and should be treated differently.

B. Because he thought ，being an important person ，he should not be kept waiting.

C. Because he thought his white friends would help him out.

D. Because he wanted to protest against racial discrimination.

2

Look at the keyboard of any standard typewriter or computer. "Q," "W," "E," "R," "T" and "Y"

are the first six letters. Who decided on this arrangement of the letters? And why?

People tried for centuries to invent the typewriter. In 1714in England, Henry Mill

filed a patent for a machine called An Artificial Machine or Method for the Impressing or Transcribing of Letters, Singly or Progressively one after another, as in Writing, whereby

all Writing whatsoever may be Engrossed in Paper or Parchment so Neat and Exact as not to be distinguished from Print. That machine probably didn' t sell because no one could remember its name!

The first practical typewriter was patented in the United States in 1868by Christopher Latham Sholes. His machine was known as the type-writer. It had a movable carriage, a lever for turning paper from line to line, and a keyboard on which the letters were arranged in alphabetical order.

But Sholes had a problem. On his first model, his "ABC" key arrangement caused the keys to jam when the typist worked quickly. Sholes didn' t know how to keep the keys from sticking, so his solution was to keep the typist from typing too fast.Sholes asked his brother-in-law to rearrange the keyboard so that the commonest letters were not so close together and the type bars would come from opposite directions. Thus they would not clash together and jam the machine.The new arrangement was the QWERTY arrangement typists use today. Of course, Sholes claimed that the new arrangement was scientific and would add speed and efficiency. The only efficiency it added was to slow the typist down, since almost any word in the English language required the typist' s fingers to cover more distance on the keyboard.

The advantages of the typewriter outweighed the disadvantages of the keyboard. Typists memorized the crazy letter arrangement, and the typewriter became a huge success. By the time typists had memorized the new arrangement of letters and built their speed, typewriter technology had improved, and the keys didn' t stick as badly as they had at first.

1.We know from the passage that the inventor of the first practical typewriter is_____.