TEXT C 　 Fred Cooke of Salford turned 90 two days ago and the world has been beating a path to his door. If you havent noticed, the backstreet boy educated at Blackpool grammar styles himself more grandly as Alastair Cooke, broadcaster extraordinaire. An honorable KBE, he would be Sir Alastair if he had not taken American citizenship more than half a century ago. 　 If it sounds snobbish to draw attention to his humble origins, it should be reflected that the real snob is Cooke himself, who has spent a lifetime disguising them. But the fact that he opted to renounce his British passport in 1941 —— just when his country needed all the wartime help it could get —— is hardly a matter of congratulation. 　 Cooke has made a fortune out of his love affair with America, entrancing listeners with a weekly monologue that has won Radio 4 many devoted adherents. Part of the pull is the developed drawl. This is the man who gave the world "midatlantic", the language of the disc jockey and public relations man. 　 He sounds American to us and English to them, while in reality he has for decades belonged to neither. Cookes world is an America that exists largely in the imagination. He took ages to acknowledge the disaster that was Vietnam and even longer to wake up to Watergate. His politics have drifted to the right with age, and most of his opinions have been acquired on the golf course with fellow celebrities. 　 He chased after stars on arrival in America, fixing up an interview with Charlie Chaplin and briefly becoming his friend. He told Cooke he could turn him into a fine light comedian; instead he is an impressionists dream. 　 Cooke liked the sound of his first wifes name almost as much as he admired her good looks. But he found bringing up baby difficult and left her for the wife of his landlord. 　 Women listeners were unimpressed when, in 1996, he declared on air that the fact that 4 % of women in the American armed forces were raped showed remarkable self restraint on the part of Uncle Sams soldiers. His arrogance in not allowing BBC editors to see his script in advance worked, not for the first time, to his detriment. His defenders said he could not help living with the 1930s values he had acquired and somewhat dubiously went on to cite "gallantry" as chief among them. Cookes raconteur style encouraged a whole generation of BBC men to think of themselves as more important than the story. His treaty tones were the model for the regular World Service reports From Our Own Correspondent, known as FOOCs in the business. They may yet be his epitaph.

　　44. At the beginning of the passage the writer sounds critical of ____.

　　A) Cooke's obscure origins

　　B) Cooke's broadcasting style

　　C) Cooke's American citizenship

　　D) Cooke's fondness of America

　　45. The following adjectives can be suitably applied to Cooke Except ____.

　　A) old-fashioned

　　B) sincere

　　C) arrogant

　　D) popular

　　46. The writer comments on Cooke's life and career in a slightly ____ tone.

　　A) ironic

　　B) detached

　　C) scathing

　　D) indifferent

　　TEXT D 　 Mr. Duffy raised his eyes from the paper and gazed out of his window on the cheerless evening landscape. The river lay quiet beside the empty distillery and from time to time a light appeared in some house on Lucan Road. What an end! The whole narrative of her death revolted him and it revolted him to think that he had ever spoken to her of what he held sacred. The cautious words of a reporter won over to conceal the details of a commonplace vulgar death attacked his stomach. Not merely had she degraded herself; she had degraded him. His souls companion! He thought of the hobbling wretches whom he had seen carrying cans and bottles to be filled by the barman. Just God, what an end! Evidently she had been unfit to live, without any strength of purpose, an easy prey to habits, one of the wrecks on which civilization had been reared. But that she could have sunk so slow! Was it possible he had deceived himself so utterly about her? He remembered her outburst of that night and interpreted it in a harsher sense than he had ever done. He had no difficulty now in approving of the course he had taken. 　 As the light failed and his memory began to wander he thought her hand touched his. The shock which had first attacked his stomach was now attacking his nerves. He put on his overcoat and hat quickly and went out. The cold air met him on the threshold; it crept into the sleeves of his coat. When he came to the public-house at Chapel Bridge he went in and ordered a hot punch. 　 The proprietor served him obsequiously but did not venture to talk. There were five or six working-men in the shop discussing the value of a gentlemans estate in County Kildare. They drank at intervals from their huge pint tumblers, and smoke, spitting often on the floor and sometimes dragging the sawdust over their heavy boots. Mr. Duffy sat on his stool and gazed at them, without seeing or hearing them. After a while they went out and he called for another punch. He sat a long time over it. The shop was very quiet. The proprietor sprawled on the counter reading the newspaper and yawning. Now and again a tram was heard swishing along the lonely road outside. 　 As he sat there, living over his life with her and evoking alternately the two images on which he now conceived her, he realized that she was dead, that she had ceased to exist, that she had become a memory. He began to feel ill at ease. He asked himself what else could he have done. He could not have lived with her openly. He had done what seemed to him best. How was he to blame? Now that she was gone he understood how lonely her life must have been, sitting night after night alone in that room. His life would be lonely too until he, too, died, ceased to exist, became a memory —— if anyone remembered him.

　　47. Mr. Duffy's immediate reaction to the report of the women's death was that of ____.

　　A) disgust

　　B) guilt

　　C) grief

　　D) compassion

　　48. It can be inferred from the passage that the reporter wrote about the woman's death in a ____ manner.

　　A) detailed

　　B) provocative

　　C) discreet

　　D) sensational

　　49. We can infer from the last paragraph that Mr. Duffy was in a(n) ____ mood.

　　A) angry

　　B) fretful

　　C) irritable

　　D) remorseful

　　50. According to the passage, which of the following statement is Not true?

　　A) Mr. Duffy once confided in the woman.

　　B) Mr. Duffy felt an intense sense of shame.

　　C) Mr. Duffy wanted to end the relationship.

　　D) Mr. Duffy estranged probably after a quarrel.