【正文】 attempt to improve road safety and raise awareness among Russia’s notoriously( 臭名昭著地 ) careless drivers. The light grey horses， painted with black stripes， carried signs on their backs reading： “Careful ， children are on their way to school.” The police sent the fake zebras to several different locations in the Russian capital， where officials in orange vests walked them over zebra crossings and handed out leaflets to passing drivers. Some held up rainbow173。coloured umbrellas over the painted animals to protect them from the roads are notoriously dangerous and drivers still rarely take the initiative(主動采取措施 ) to avoid half of all traffic accidents in the country’s big cities are caused by cars hitting pedestrians ，and a third of those occur on crossings， according to traffic police figures published last month. In the first six months of this year,378 people were killed and more than 6,600 injured on pedestrian crossings in Russia， according to Moscow alone,43 people were killed， including two children. Though police officials said that only safe paint would be used on the animals，animal rights activists still disagreed with the idea， accusing the police of “treating animals like garbage” ． “Children understand that paints are bad for animals ： they can cause internal swelling， ” the Interfax news agency quoted president of Vita an imal rights group Irina Novozhilova as saying. Since there were no “zebra” stampedes( 驚逃 ) through the city， I can only assume that these horses were taken from the urban stables(馬廄 ) that house animals forced to work like pulling tourists in horse173。drawn any other city in the world clinging to this outdated tradition， Moscow’s carriage horses are out of their element— suffering injuries， illness and short careers due to being overworked，walking on pavement instead of pastures(牧場 )． Let’s hope this po rtion of the campaign is over and animals are left out of future attempts to raise pedestrian awareness. 1． Why do Moscow police have “zebras” walk across on the busiest streets? A． To raise people’s awareness of protecting animals. B． To inform people zebras are in danger of extinction. C． To tell people it is dangerous to cross the streets. D． To make drivers better aware of road safety. 答案 D 解析 細節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)第一段中的 “...in an attempt to improve road safety and raise awareness among Russia’s notoriously( 臭名昭著地 ) careless drivers.” 可知，他們這樣做是為了提高司機的安全意識。 2． What does the underlined word “them” in Paragraph 2 refer to? A． The zebras. B． The horses. C． The policemen. D． The drivers. 答案 B 解析 代詞指代題。根據(jù)上文的 “The police sent the fake zebras to several different locations in the Russian capital...” 可知，這里的 them指的就是 “the fake zebras” ，即 the horses。 3． From the text we can see that . A． all of the Russian drivers are careless B． Russian drivers often ignore traffic lights C． the driving skills of Russian drivers are bad D． Russian drivers seldom give way to pedestrians 答案 D 解析 推理判斷題。根據(jù)第三段中的 “...drivers still rarely take the initiative( 主動采取措施 ) to avoid pedestrians.” 可知，司機很少主動采取措施避讓行人，也就是很少給行人讓路。 4． What do animal rights activists think of the new attempt? A． Drivers must slow down at pedestrian crossings. B． These animals are ill173。treated by the police. C． The paints used on the horses are safe. D． Road safety should be improved. 答案 B 解析 推理判斷題。根據(jù)第五段中的 “...accusing the police of ‘treating animals like garbage’ ． ” 可知，動物保護主義者指責警察虐待動物。 Ⅱ .閱讀填空 The price of gasoline has been going up. 1 Many people want to know how they can conserve best way to conserve fuel is to change driving habits. The accelerator(加速踏板 )， or gasoline pedal， has a lot to do with how much gasoline you faster you drive， the more gasoline you should slow down a bit to conserve fuel. 2 Accelerating slowly to get to the speed you want to go helps conserve gasoline too. The more you drive your car， t