PART III READING COMPREHENSIONS 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 Such joy. It was the spring of 1985, and President Reagan had just given Mother Teresa the Medal of Freedom in a Rose Garden ceremony. As she left, she walked down the corridor between the Oval Office and the West Wing drive, and there she was, turning my way. What a sight: a saint in a sari coming down the White House hall. As she came nearer, I could not help it: I bowed. "Mother", I said, "I just want to touch your hand." She looked up at me —— it may have been one of Gods subtle jokes that his exalted child spent her life looking up to everyone else —— and said only two words. Later I would realize that they were the message of her mission. "Luff Gott," she said. Love God. She pressed into my hand a poem she had written, as she glided away in a swoosh of habit. I took the poem from its frame the day she died. It is free verse, 79 lines, and is called "Mothers Meditation (in the Hospital)." In it she reflects on Christs question to his apostles: "Who do you say I am?" She notes that he was the boy born in Bethlehem," put in the manager full of straw…… kept warm by the breath of the donkey," who grew up to be "an ordinary man without much learning." Donkeys are not noble; straw is common; and it was among the ordinary and ignoble, the poor and sick, that she chose to labor. Her mission was for them and among them, and you have to be a pretty tough character to organize a little universe that exists to help people other people arent interested in helping. Thats how she struck me when I met her as I watched her life. She was tough. There was the worn and weathered face, the abrupt and definite speech. We think saints are great organizers, great operators, great combatants in the world. Once I saw her in a breathtaking act of courage. She was speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington in 1995. All the Washington Establishment was there, plus a few thousand born-again Christians, orthodox Catholics and Jews, and searchers looking for a faith. Mother Teresa was introduced, and she spoke of God, of love, of families. She said we must love one another and care for one another. There were great purrs of agreement. But as the speech continued it became more pointed. She asked, "Do you do enough to make sure your parents, in the old peoples homes, feel your love? Do you bring then each day your joy and caring?" The baby boomers in the audience began to shift in their seats. And she continued. "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion," she said, and then she told them why, in uncompromising term. For about 1.3 seconds there was complete silence, then applause built and swept across the room. But not everyone: the President and the First Lady, the Vice President and Mrs. Gore, looked like seated statues at Madame Tussauds, glistening in the lights and moving not a muscle. She didnt stop there either, but went on to explain why artificial birth control is bad and why Protestants who separate faith from works are making a mistake. When she was finished, there was almost no one she hadnt offended. A US Senator turned to his wife and said, "Is my jaw up yet?" Talk about speaking truth to power! But Mother Teresa didnt care, and she wasnt afraid. The poem she gave me included her personal answers to Christs question. She said he is "the Truth to be told…… the Way to be walked…… the Light to be lit." She took her own advice and lived a whole life that showed it. 36. Who was the exalted child? A) Mother Teresa. B) the author. C) I. D) God. 37. Who raised the question "who do you say I am?" A) the apostle. B) Christ. C) Mother Teresa. D) she. 38. Which of the following is not a quality of Mother Teresa? A) tough. B) definite. C) ethereal. D) like a steam-roller. 39. Why did the President and the First Lady, the Vice President and Mrs. Gore look like seated statues at the Madame Tussaud's? A) Because they didn't love Madame Tussaud. B) Because they didn't like to move. C) Because they were VIP. D) Because they didn't quite agree with Mother Teresa over the issue of abortion. 40. According to Mother Teresa, abortion is ____ A) one of Protestant works. B) one of Protestant faith. C) one of the Truths. D) not one of Protestant works TEXT B Since the Titanic vanished beneath the frigid waters of the North Atlantic 85 years ago, nothing in the hundreds of booksand films about the ship has ever hinted at a connection to Japan —— until now. Director James Camerons 200 million epic Titanic premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival last Saturday. Among the audience for a glimpse of Hollywoods costliest film ever descendants of the liners only Japanese survivor. The newly rediscovered diary of Masabumi Hosono has Titanic enthusiasts in a frenzy. The document is scrawled in 4,300 Japanese character on a rare piece of RMS Titanic stationery. Written as the Japanese bureaucrat steamed to safety in New York aboard the ocean liner Carpathia, which rescued 706 survivors, the account and other documents released by his grandchildren last week offer a fresh —— and poignant —— reminder of the emotional wreckage left by the tragedy. Hosono, then 42 and an official at Japans Transportation Ministry, was studying railway networks in Europe. He boarded the Titanic in Southampton, en route home via the US. According to Hosonos account, he was awakened by a "loud knock" on the door of his second-class deck with the steerage passengers. Hosono tried to race back upstairs, but a sailor blocked his way. The Japanese feigned ignorance and pushed past. He arrived on deck to find lifeboats being lowered into darkness, flares bursting over the ship and an eerie human silence. He wrote:" Not a single passenger would howl or scream." Yet Hosono was screaming inside. Women were being taken to lifeboats and men held back at gunpoint. "I tried to prepare myself for the last moment with no agitation, making up my mind not to do anything disgraceful as a Japanese," he wrote. "But still I found myself looking for and waiting for any possible chance of survival." Then an officer shouted, "Room for two more!" Hosono recalled:" I myself was deep in desolate thought that I would no more be able to see my beloved wife and children." Then he jumped into the boat. When Hosono arrived in Tokyo two months later, he was met with suspicion that he had survived at someone elses expense. The culture of shame was especially strong in prewar Japan. In the face of rumors and bad press, Hosono was dismissed from his post in 1914. He worked at the office part-time until retiring in 1923. His grandchildren say he never mentioned the Titanic again before his death in 1939. Even then, shame continued to haunt the family. In newspapers, letters and even a school textbook, Hosono was denounced as a disgrace to Japan. Readers Digest reopened the wound in 1956 with an abridged Japanese version of Walter Loads best seller. A Night to remember, which described "Anglo-Saxons" as acting bravely on the Titanic, while "Frenchmen, Italians, Americans, Japanese and Chinese were disgraceful." Citing his fathers diary, one of Hosonos sons, Hideo, launched a letter-writing campaign to restore the family name. But nobody in Japan seemed to care. The diary resurfaced last summer. A representative for a US foundation that plans to hold an exhibition of Titanic artifacts in Japan next August found Hosonos name on a passenger list. A search led him to Haruomi Hosono, a well-known composer, and to his cousin Yuruoi, Hideos daughter. She revealed that she had her grandfathers dairy as well as a collection of his letters and postcards. "I was floored," says Michael Findley, cofounder of the Titanic International Society in the US "This is a fantastic, fresh new look at the sinking and the only one written on Titanic stationery immediately after the disaster." The information allows enthusiasts to rearrange some historical minutes, such as which lifeboat Hosono jumped into. More chilling, the account confirms that the crew tried to keep foreigners and third-class passengers on the ships lower deck, effectively ensuring their name. The diary cannot correct injustice, but Hosonos family hopes it will help clear his name. The Titanic foundation also hopes to capitalize on the diary and the movie to promote its upcoming exhibition. To that end, Haruomi Hosono, the composer, has been asked to give a talk at next months public premiere of Titanic! The diary cannot, of course, match Camerons fictionalized epic for drama and intrigue. But at least Masabumi Hosonos tale really happened. 41. ______ was among the descendants of the Liner's only Japanese survivor. A) Masabumi Hosono. B) Yuriko. C) Cameron. D) RMS. 42. Why was Masabumi denounced as a disgrace to Japan? A) Because he killed some people on the Titanic. B) Because he was then an official. C) Because he was dismissed from his ministry post. D) Because the culture of shame was too strong. 43. What important role did the diary really play? A) It corrected injustice. B) It was as vivid as the movie "Titanic". C) It proved what Masabumi said was true. D) It made the Japanese believe what Masabumi had said.。
