Section Ⅲ Reading Comprehension
(40 minutes)
Part A
Directions :
Read the following three texts. Answer the questions on each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Markyour answers on ANSWER SHEETl.
Text 1
It was fifteen past nine as Marie hurried into the office building where she was going to work.
Her bus had inched along through heavy morning traffic, making her a few minutes late for her very
first job. She decided to start out half an hour earlier the next day.
Once inside the lobby, she had to stand at the elevators and wait several minutes before she
could get on one going to the sixth floor. When she finally reached the office marked "Smith Enter-
prises" , she knocked at the door nervously and waited. There was no reply. She tapped on the door
again, but still there was no answer. From inside the next office, she could hear the sound of
voices, so she opened the door and went in.
Although she was sure it was the same office she had been in two weeks before when she had
the interview with Mr. Smith, it looked quite different now. In fact, it hardly looked like an office
at all. The employees were just standing around chatting and smoking. In the front of the room,
somebody must have just told a good joke, she thought, because there was a loud burst of laughter as
she came in. For a moment she had thought they were laughing at her.
Then one of the men looked at his watch, clapped his hands and said something to the others.Quickly they all went to their desks and, in a matter of seconds, everyone was hard at work. No one paid any attention to Marie. Finally she went up to the man who was sitting at the desk nearest to the door and explained that this was her first day in the office. Hardly looking up from his work, he told her to have a seat and wait for Mr. Smith, who would arrive at any moment. Then Marie realized that the day's work in the office began just before Mr. Smith arrived. Later she found out that he lived in Connecticut and came into Manhattan on the same train every morning, arriving in the office at 9:35,so that his staff knew exactly when to start working.
46. Marie felt nervous when she knocked at the door because _ .
[A] it was her first day in a new job
[B] she was a little bit late for work
[C] she was afraid that she had gone to the wrong place
[D] there was no answer from inside the office
47. Marie could hardly recognize the office she went into as .
[A] she had been there only once
[B] Mr. Smith was not in the office
[C] nobody was doing any work
[D] the office had a new appearance
48. The people in the office suddenly started working because .
[A] they saw a stranger in the office
[B] their morning break was ended
[C] no one wanted to talk to Marie
[D] the boss was about to arrive
49. We can infer from the text that the employees of the enterprise . .
[A] would start their work by listening to a joke
[B] were cold to newcomers
[C] were always punctual for work
[D] lacked devotion to the company
50. The best title for this text would be. .
[A] Punctual Like a Clock
[B] A Cold Welcome
[C] An Unpunctual Manager
[D] Better Late Than Never
