PART III    READING COMPREHENSION (40 MIN.)
　
SECTION A: READING COMPREHENSION (30 MIN.)
In this section there are four reading passages followed by fifteen multiple-choice questions. Read the passages and then mark your answers on your Answer Sheet.

TEXT    A
It is now June 1567. Two months previously the explosion to Kirk O’Field, which awakened Edinburgh, startled courts as far away as Rome. In the flash of gunpowder, England, France, and the Holy See received a pin-sharp picture of Scotland which shook even the hardened nerves of the sixteenth century. The Queen’s consort murdered. The Queen implicated. The Earl of Bothwell more than implicated. Talk of love between them. No one minded murder in the sixteenth century; it was a good old Scottish custom, and elsewhere it was recognized as a political expedient. No one regretted the end of the miserable Darnley, a poor drunken coward; but what stirred the conscience of the age was the news that the Queen of Scotland was ready to bring her husband’s murderer not to the gallows but to her bed. Even Elizabeth, who was not Mary’s best friend, became human and wrote to her "dear cousin" imploring her to see justice done. But no: Mary Queen of Scots was fated to think the cup of sorrow to the very end.

Has any woman lived more violently, yet more mysteriously -- for we shall never know her heart -- than Mary in the last six months before Carberry Hill? There is the amazing evening in Edinburgh, when, surrounded by armed men, the lords of Scotland sign Bothwell’s document naming himself the Queen’s suitor. There is the astonishing holdup outside Edinburgh with the Queen. What can we make of it? Was she his victim or did he fly to his brutality as to a stronghold? There is the silent ten-day honeymoon at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh; the angry murmur of the common people. Then, as if the drama had not been exhausted, we see Mary in flight, riding through the night disguised as a boy. She and her strong man ride out to meet her nobles at Carberry Hill. There is no battle; Bothwell offers to fight any man of equal rank in the opposing army. Even hang fire.
Marry will not hear of Bothwell’s fighting. Why? Surely because she loves him? She learns that the nobles are resolved on his death. Her heart is set on securing his escape. They say farewell, in great pain and anguish and with many long kisses.

The lords escort her to Edinburgh, where a man cries out for her death. There is a terrible glimpse of her at a window, her hair about her shoulders, crying and appealing to the crowds to save her. The next day she is taken to Loch Leven, to a castle on an island. Mary’s long captivity had begun.

36. Mary’s husband, Lord Darnley, had been ____
A. killed in the explosion at Kirk O’Field.
B. told to wake up all the people of Edingburgh.
C. startled by the explosion at Kirk O’Field.
D. stabbed by the people of Edingburgh.
正确答案是

37. It was reported all over Europe that the Queen of Scotland ____
A. knew nothing about the murder but wanted to marry Bothwell.
B. knew about the murder, which Bothewell had organized.
C. had carried the gunpowder, because she hated her husband.
D. had been asked by Bothwell to murder Darnley.
正确答案是

38. The author says that we shall never understand ____
A. why Mary was such an unlucky and unhappy woman.
B. why Mary was violent and mysterious.
C. Mary’s motives for her action.
D. the reason why Mary fell in love with Bothwell.
正确答案是

39. Mary was taken back to Edinburgh by the nobles and ____ 
A. put to death by her own people.
B. rescued by the people of Edinburgh.
C. thrown straight into prison.
D. later taken to a very secure prison. 
正确答案是