【正文】 s many strange characters during my life and plenty of people have tried to borrow money from me. I have generally managed to avoid lending them any. But, perhaps because of the very directness of his appeal, I somehow had the impression that his need might be desperately urgent. “I39。m sorry,” I replied,“I39。m afraid I can39。t lend you anything, as I39。m not in the habit of carrying much money about with me. Don39。t you think the police might be the best people to ask for help?” He hesitated,“I dare not go to the police,” he said quietly. “If I do go, they will have to send me home. That39。s what I39。m afraid of. I don39。t know what to do. ” He shook his head rather sadly, raised his hat and left me. I caught my train and soon fot the incident. It was three weeks later that I happened to glance at an old evening paper and caught sight of a small paragraph at the bottom of the front page: “The unidentified body of a short bald man, with a deep scar across one cheek, was recovered from the River Thames yesterday. The police believed he had mitted suicide.” I then noticed the date: just two and a half weeks before. It was I who might have been the final cause of his terrible tragedy. For days afterwards the cruelty of my refusal made me suffer continual shame and regret. I swore that I would never again refuse any appeal for help. 21. At the beginning of the story, the little man approached the author to _______. A. invite him to watch a football match together B. ask him to show the direction to railway station C. inquire where there was a department store D. request to see if he might use his lighter 22. The author failed to get through in the phone box at his first attempt because_______. A. he didn39。t have any change with him B. he didn39。t realize it was a pay phone C. the number he had dialed was wrong D. the person he wanted to speak to was out 23. The main reason why the author hadn39。t lent the little man any money was that _______. A. he never lent others any money B. he happened not to carry any money C. he did not trust the little man D. he was afraid he mightn39。t get it back 24. What39。s the best title for the passage? A. Pity for a stranger. B. Never trust a stranger. C. Life is but a dream. D. The death of a beggar. B People have been painting pictures for at least 30,000 years. The earliest pictures were painted by people who hunted animals. They used to paint pictures of the animals they wanted to catch and kill. Pictures of this kind have been found on the walls of caves in France and Spain. No one knows why they were painted there. Perhaps the painter thought that their pictures would help them to catch these animals. Or perhaps human beings have always wanted to tell stories in pictures. About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and other people in the Near East began to use pictures as a kind of writing. They drew simple pictures or signs to represent things and ideas, and also to represent the sounds of their language. The signs these people used became a kind of alphabet(字母表 ). The Egyptians used to record information and to tell stories by putting picturewriting and pictures together. When an important person died, scenes and stories from his life were painted and carved on the walls of the place where he was buried. Some of these pictures are like modern icstrip (連環(huán)漫畫 ) stories. It has been said that Egypt is the home of the ic strip. But, for the Egyptians, pictures still had magic power. So they did not try to make their way of writing simple. The ordinary people could not understand it. By the year 1,000 BC, people who lived in the area around the Mediterranean Sea had developed a simpler system of writing. The signs they used were very easy to write, and there were fewer of them than in the Egyptian system. This was because each sign, or letter, represented only one sound in their language. The Greeks developed this system and formed the letter of the Greek alphabet. The Romans copied the idea, and Roman alphabet is now used all over the world. These days, we can write down a story, or record information, without using pictures. But we still need pictures of all kinds: drawings, photographs, signs and diagrams. We find them everywhere: in books and newspapers, in the street, and on the walls of the places where we live and work. Pictures help us to understand and remember things more easily, and they can make a story much more interesting. 25. Ancient people in France and Spain painted pictures on walls of caves probably because ______. A. they loved animals B. they enjoyed seeing pictures C. they preferred painting pictures to telling stories D. they thought pictures helpful 26. The Greek alphabet was simpler than the Egyptian system for all the following reasons EXCEPT that ______. A. the former was easy to write B. there were fewer signs in the former