听第 9 段材料，回答第 13 至 16 题。

13．What did the woman do last night?

A．She learned American social customs. B．She met some nice people.

C．She went to a cocktail party.

14．When does the cocktail party start?

A．At 5：30 pm. B．At 6 pm. C．At 7：30 pm.

15．What is the purpose of their cocktail party according to the man?

A．To celebrate Christmas. B．To follow the American custom.

C．To welcome newcomers.

16．What does the French phrase "faux pas" mean?

A．Friend. B．Social manner. C．Mistake.

听第 10 段材料，回答第 17 至 20 题。

17．When is the high tourist season in England?

A．June and July. B．July and August. C．August and September.

18．When is the holiday period of state schools in England?

A．From about mid-July to the end of August. B．From mid-July to midAugust.

C．From early-July to mid-August.

19．Where do people prefer to stay for holidays?

A．In boarding houses. B．In rented houses. C．In hotels.

20．What may British people refuse to do?

A．Talk about their holidays. B．Try new places to take holidays.

C．Change the times of their holidays.

第二部分：阅读理解(共两节，满分 40 分)

第一节(共 15 小题；每小题 2 分，满分 30 分)

阅读下面短文，从每题所给的 A、B、C 和 D 四个选项中，选出最佳选项。

In the future your automobile will run on water instead of gas ！ You will be able to buy a supercomputer that fits in your pocket！You might even drive a flying car!

Not all past predictions (预言) have been proven wrong.A few of them have been surprisingly accurate.Some great thinkers predicted the arrival of the credit card, the fax machine and even the Internet - years before they happened.But for each prediction that has come true, some others have missed by a mile.Many of these predictions didn't consider how people would want to use the technology or whether people really needed these high-tech (高科技的) things in their lives or not.Let's look at some predictions from the not-Too-distant past.

Robot helpers

Where's the robot in my kitchen？Nowhere, of course.And he's probably not coming anytime soon.Robots do exist today, but mostly in factories and other working environments.

Back in the 1950s, however, people said that by now personal robots would be in most people's homes.