Closed: 24-26 December and 1 January.

Admission

?4. Children under 12 years accompanied by an adult are admitted free.

Schools and Colleges

A special low entrance charge of f2 per person is available to all in full-time education, up to and including those at first degree level, in organised groups with teachers.

21. What is the right time for attending Raeburn's English Contemporaries?

A. Sun. 26 Oct. B. Thurs. 30 Oct. C. Thurs. 6 Nov. D. Thurs.13 Nov.

22. How much would a couple with two children under 12 pay for admission?

A. ?4. B. ?8. C. ?12. D. ?16.

23. How can full-time students get group discounts?

A. They should go on Sunday mornings. B. They should come from art schools.

C. They must be led by teachers. D. They must have ID cards with them.

B

In 1916, two girls of wealthy families, best friends from Auburn, N. Y.—Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood—traveled to a settlement in the Rocky Mountains to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. The girls had gone to Smith College. They wore expensive clothes. So for them to move to Elkhead, Colo. to instruct the children whose shoes were held together with string was a surprise. Their stay in Elkhead is the subject of Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden, who is a magazine editor and Dorothy Woodruff's granddaughter.

Why did they go then? Well, they wanted to do something useful. Soon, however, they realized what they had undertaken.

They moved in with a local family, the Harrisons, and, like them, had little privacy, rare baths, and a blanket of snow on their quilt when they woke up in the morning. Some mornings, Rosamond and Dorothy would arrive at the schoolhouse to find the children weeping from the cold. In spring, the snow was replaced by mud over ice.

In Wickenden's book, she expanded on the history of the West and also on feminism, which of course influenced the girls' decision to go to Elkhead. A hair-raising section concerns the building of the railroads, which entailed(牵涉)drilling through the Rockies, often in blinding snowstorms. The book ends with Rosamond and Dorothy's return to Auburn.

Wickenden is a very good storyteller. The sweep of the land and the stoicism(坚忍)of the people move her to some beautiful writing. Here is a picture of Dorothy Woodruff, on her horse, looking down from a hill top: "When the sun slipped behind the mountains, it shed a rosy glow all around them. Then a full moon rose. The snow was marked only by small animals: foxes, coyotes, mice, and varying hares, which turned white in the winter."

24. Why did Dorothy and Rosamond go to the Rocky Mountains?

A. To teach in a school. B. To study American history.

C. To write a book. D. To do sightseeing.

25. What can we learn about the girls from paragraph 3?

A. They enjoyed much respect. B. They had a room with a bathtub.

C. They lived with the local kids. D. They suffered severe hardships.

26. Which part of Wickenden's writing is hair-raising?

A. The extreme climate of Auburn. B. The living conditions in Elkhead.

C. The railroad building in the Rockies. D. The natural beauty of the West.

27. What is the text?

A. A news report. B. A book review. C. A children's story. D. A diary entry.

C

Can a small group of drones(无人机)guarantee the safety and reliability of railways and, at the same time, help railway operators save billions of euros each year? That is the very likely future of applying today's "eyes in the sky" technology to making sure that the millions of kilometres of rail tracks and infrastructure(基础设施)worldwide are safe for trains on a 24/7 basis.

Drones are already being used to examine high-tension electrical lines. They could do precisely the same thing to inspect railway lines and other vital aspects of rail infrastructure such as the correct position of railway tracks and switching points. The more regularly they can be inspected, the more railway safety, reliability and on-time performance will be improved. Costs would be cut and operations would be more efficient(高效)across the board.

That includes huge savings in maintenance costs and better protection of railway personnel safety. It is calculated that European railways alone spend approximately 20 billion euros a year on maintenance, including sending maintenance staff, often at night, to inspect and repair the rail infrastructure. That can be dangerous work that could be avoided with drones assisting the crews' efforts.

By using the latest technologies, drones could also start providing higher-value services for railways, detecting faults in the rail or switches, before they can cause any safety problems. To perform these tasks, drones for rail don't need to be flying overhead. Engineers are now working on a new concept: the rail drones of the future. They will be moving on the track ahead of the train, and programmed to run autonomously. Very small drones with advanced sensors and AI and travelling ahead of the train could guide it like a co-pilot. With their ability to see ahead, they could signal any problem, so that fast-moving trains would be able to react in time.

28. What makes the application of drones to rail lines possible?

A. The use of drones in checking on power lines. B. Drones' ability to work at high altitudes.

C. The reduction of cost in designing drones. D. Drones' reliable performance in remote areas.

29. What does "maintenance" underlined in paragraph 3 refer to?

A. Personnel safety. B. Assistance from drones.

C. Inspection and repair. D. Construction of infrastructure.