四级阅读练习

There are two major parties in Britain today,the Conservative Party and the Labour Party,which have been in power by turns since 1945.The two—party system of Britain was formed in the course of the development of the capitalist state and the political parties.In order to strengthen the state machine,the British bourgeosie have let it come into being and exist in one form or another form since the 17th century.P.S.Tregidgo once said:“The more parties there are,the less likely it is that any one of them will be strong enough in Parliament to outvote all the others;but when there are only two,one of them is sure to have a majority o f seats.This helps to ensure a strong and stable government.”This may be the reason why the British have the two party system.

The division into two parties grew out the establishment of a Protestant Church of England in the 16th century.Because of a purely religious difference of opinion,the Puritans were separated from the broad body of the Anglican Church.The non Puritan Anglicans were on the side of the King and Church,and their supporters were called by their opponents “Tories.”The Puritans were for Parliament and trade,and their supporters were called by the “Tories”“Whigs”.The Tories and the Whigs were in power a long time.In 1833,the Tory party split into two and its name was changed to Conservative.In the 1860s the Whigs became Liberals.From that time on,the Liberals and the Conservatives were in office by turns until 1922.The policies they put into effect were sometimes different,but they were both controlled by the rich.

The working class became more and more unwilling to follow the Conservatives and the Liberals.They wanted to have their own party.So the Labour party was formed by the trade unions.After 1922 the Labour Party gradually replaced the Liberal Party to become one of the two major parties in Great Britain.

1.What does “it” stand for in the third line?

A)The two party system. B)The state machine.

C)The Partiament. D)The capitalist state.

2.We can learn from what P.S Tregidgo once said that ____.

A)if there are parties in Britain,none of them will be strong enough to have con trol in the government

B)the more patients there are,the more likely it is that they will have the deci sive say in the government

C)the two party system contributes to the establishment of a powerful and long lasting government

D)if there are only two parties in Britain,it will be easy for the government to control them

3.What can we infer from the forming of the Tory Party and the Whig Party?

A)These two parties originally believed in different religions.

B)These two parties were established under the influence of different religious believes.

C)The British King and the Parliament supported different religions becaused they were for the two party system.

D)The British King and the Parliament were supported by different parties for political reasons.

4.According to the passage,why was the Labour Party established in Britain?

A)Because the trade unions did not do much good for the working people.

B)Because the Liberal Party were not strong enough to defeat the Conservative Party.

C)Because the working people would not like to be members outside the Liberal Party.

D)Because neither of the two major parties was the parties for the working people.

5.Which of the following is true concerning the Tory Party or the Whig Party?

A)The Whig Party no longer exists in Britain.

B)The Tory Party has kept its unity until the present day.

C)The Whig Party has taken the place of the Liberal Party.

D)The Tory Party has taken the place of the Conservative Party.

答案与解析：

1.A 本题要求读者指出第3行的“it”指代什么。A为两党制，B为国家机器，C 为议会，D 为资本主义政府，从原文可知，资产阶级是为了强化国家机器，而让两党制形成并存在的。故答案为A。

2.C 本题要求读者指出从P.S.特莱吉欧说的话中可得知什么。A意思是：如果英国有政党的话，哪个党也不能控制政府。B意思是：政党越多，他们就越有可能在政府中有决定性的发言权。C意思是：两党制有利于建立一个有力的持久的政

府。D意思是：如果英国只有两个政党，政府会很容易控制他们。从原文可知，A，B，D都不符合原文，故正确答案为C。

3.B 本题要求读者指出从托利党和辉格党的形成可得出什么推论。A意思是：这两个党原来属于不同的宗教信仰。B意思是：这两个党是受不同的宗教信仰影响而建立起来的。C意思是：英国的国王和议会支持不同的宗教因为他们拥护两党制。D意思是：英国的国王和议会由于政治上的原因受不同的党派的支持。从原文可知，由于继宗教上的原因，英国国教分化为清教徒和非清教徒，这两支后来发展为辉格党和托利党。所以正确答案为B。

4.D 本题要求读者指出英国工党是为什么建立的。A意思是：因为工会没有为工人阶级谋多少利益。B意思是：因为自由党对抗不过保守党。C意思是：因为工人阶级不想成为自由党外的成员。D意思是：因为当时的两大政党都不代表工人阶级利益。从原文可知，工党的建立起因是工人阶级不愿受自由党和保守党的控制，且这两大党都是富人的党。所以正确答案为D。

5.A 本题要求读者指出关于托利党和辉格党的正确叙述。A意思是：在英国辉格党已经不存在了。B意思是：直到今天托利党还保持着完整统一。C意思是：辉格党取代了自由党。D 意思是：托利党取代了保守党。从原文可知，辉格党发展成后来的自由党，自由党又为工党取代。所以正确答案为A。

CET-6

Directions: In this part, you will have 15 minutes to go over the pas sage quickly and answer the questions on Answer sheet 1. For question s 1-4, mark

Y (for YES) if the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;

N (for NO) if the statement contradicts the information given in the passage;

NG (for NOT GIVEN) if the information is not given in the passage.

For questions 5-10, complete the sentences with the information given in the passage.

April Fools’ Special: History’s Hoaxes

Happy April Fools’ Day. To mark the occasion, National Geographic Ne ws has compiled a list of some of the more memorable hoaxes in recent history. They are the lies, darned(可恨的) lies, and whoppers(弥天大

谎)that have been perpetrated on the gullible(易受骗的)and unsuspecting to fulfill that age-old desire held by some to put the joke on others.

Internet Hoaxes

The Internet has given birth to a proliferation(增

殖)of hoaxes. E-mail inboxes are bombarded on an almost daily basis with messages warning of terrible computer viruses that cause users to delete benign(良性)chunks of data from their hard drives, or of credit card scams that entice the naive to give all their personal information, including passwords and bank account details, to identity thieves. Other e-mails give rise to wry(歪曲的)chuckles, which is where this list begins.

Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide(一氧化二氢)

City officials in Aliso Viejo, California, were so concerned about th

e dangers o

f dihydrogen monoxide that they scheduled a vote last mont

h on whether to ban foam(泡

沫)cups from city-sponsored events after they learned the chemical wa

s used in foam-cup production.

Officials called off the vote after learning that dihydrogen monoxide is the scientific term for water.

"It’s embarrassing," city manager David J. Norman told the Associate

d Press. "W

e had a paralegal(律师助手)who did bad research."

Indeed, the paralegal had fallen victim to an official-looking Web

site touting the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. An e-mail originally authored in 1990 by Eric Lechner, then a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, claimed that dihydrogen monoxide "is used as an industrial solvent and coolant, and is used in the production of Styrofoam(聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料)."

Other dangers pranksters(爱开玩笑的人)associated with the chemical included accelerated corrosion and rusting, severe burns, and death from inhalation.

Versions of the e-mail continue to circulate today, and several Web sites, including that of the Coalition to Ban DHMO, warn, tongue-in-cheek, of water’s dangers.

Alabama Changes Value of Pi

The April 1998 newsletter put out by New Mexicans for science and Rea son contains an article titled "Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi" . It was penned by April Holiday of the Associmated Press (sic) and t old the story of how the Alabama state legislature voted to change th e value of the mathematical constant Pi from 3.14159 to the round num ber of 3.

The ersatz(假的)news story was written by Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Mark Boslough to parody(滑稽地模仿)legislative and school board attacks on the teaching of evolution in New Mexico.

At Boslough’s suggestion, Dave Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for science and Reason, posted the article in its entirety to the In ternet newsgroup Talk. Origins on April 1. (The newsgroup hosts a liv ely debate on creation vs. evolution.) Later that evening Thomas post ed a full confession to the hoax. He thought he had put all rumors to bed.

But to Thomas’s surprise, however, several newsgroup readers forward ed the article to friends and posted it on other newsgroups.

When Thomas checked in on the story a few weeks later, he was surpris ed to learn that it had spread like wildfire. The telltale signs of t he article’s satirical intent, such as the April 1 date and misspell ed "Associmated Press" dateline, had been replaced or deleted.

Alabama legislators were bombarded with calls protesting the law. The legislators explained that the news was a hoax. There was not and ne ver had been such a law.

TV and Newspaper Hoaxes

Before the advent of the Internet, and even today, traditional media outlets such as newspapers, radio, and television, have sometimes hoa xed their audiences. The deceptions run the gamut from purported natu ral disasters to wishful news.

Swiss Spaghetti (意大利式细面条) Harvest

Alex Boese, curator of the Museum of Hoaxes, a regularly updated Web site that also appeared in book form in November 2002, said one of hi s favorite hoaxes remains one perpetrated by the British Broadcasting Company.

On April 1, 1957, the BBC aired a report on the television news show Panorama about the bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland.

Viewers watched Swiss farmers pull pasta off spaghetti trees as the s how’s anchor, Richard Dimbleby, attributed the bountiful harvest to the mild winter and the disappearance of the spaghetti weevil.

The broadcaster detailed the ins and outs of the life of the spaghett

i farmer and anticipated questions about how spaghetti grows on trees . Thousands of people believed the report and called the BBC to inqui re about growing their own spaghetti trees, to which the BBC replied, "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for th

e best."

"It was a great satirical effect about British society," Boese said. "British society really was like that at that time. The British have

a tendency to be a bit insulated(绝缘的) and do not know that much about the rest of Europe."

Taco Liberty Bell

On April 1, 1996, readers in five major U.S. cities opened their news papers to learn from a full page announcement that the Taco Bell Corp oration had purchased the Liberty Bell from the U.S. government. The announcement reported that the company was relocating the historic be

ll from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Irvine, California. The move, the corporation said in the advertisement, was part of an "effort to help the national debt".

Hundreds of other newspapers and television shows ran stories related to the press release on the matter put out by Taco Bell’s public re lations firm, PainePR. Outraged citizens called the Liberty Bell Nati onal Historic Park in Philadelphia to express their disgust. A few ho urs later the public relations firm released another press announceme nt stating that the stunt was a hoax.

White House press secretary Mike McCurry got into the act when he rem arked that the government would also be "selling the Lincoln Memorial to Ford Motor Company and renaming it the Lincoln-Mercury Memorial".

Crop Circles

Strange, circular formations began to appear in the fields of souther

n England in the mid-1970s, bringing busloads of curious onlookers, media representatives, and believers in the paranormal out to the countryside for a look.

A sometimes vitriolic(讽刺

的)debate on their origins has since ensued(跟着发生), and the curious formations have spread around the world, becoming more and more elaborate as the years go by.

Some people consider the crop formations to be the greatest works of modern art to emerge from the 20th century, while others are convince d they are signs of extraterrestrial communications or landing sites of UFOs.

The debate rages even today, although in 1991 Doug Bower and Dave Cho rley, two elderly men from Wiltshire County, came forward and claimed responsibility for the crop circles that appeared there over the pre ceding 20 years. The pair made the circles by pushing down nearly rip e crops with a wooden plank suspended from a rope.

Moon Landing—a Hoax?

Ever since NASA sent astronauts to the moon between 1969 and 1972, sk eptics have questioned whether the Apollo missions were real or simpl y a ploy to one-up(领

先)the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The debate resurfaced and re ached crescendo levels in February 2001, when For television aired a program called Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?

Guests on the show argued that NASA did not have the technology to la nd on the moon. Anxious to win the space race, NASA acted out the Apo llo program in movie studios, they said. The conspiracy theorists poi nted out that the pictures transmitted from the moon do not include s tars and that the flag the Americans planted on the moon is waving, e ven though there is though to be no breeze on the moon.

NASA quickly refuted these claims in a series of press releases, stat ing that any photographer would know it is difficult to capture somet hing very bright and very dim on the same piece of film. Since the ph otographers wanted to capture the astronauts striding across the luna r surface in their sunlit space suits, the background stars were too faint to see.

As for the flag, NASA said that the astronauts were turning it back a

nd forth to get in firmly planted in the lunar soil, which made it wa ve.

1. Some people have the age-old desire to put the joke on others.

2. According to the passage, the only form of Internet hoaxes is e-ma il hoax.

3. Dihydrogen monoxide is a very dangerous chemical, which is often u sed as an industrial solvent.

4. Dihydrogen monoxide can accelerate corrosion and rusting, and caus

e sever burns and even death from inhalation.

5. The reason why the ersatz news that Alabama changed the value of P

i spread wildly was that ________ forwarded the article to friends an d posted it on other newsgroups.

6. Traditional media outlets such as ________ may still hoax their au diences nowadays.

7. According to Boese, many people believed the report of Swiss spagh etti harvest because the British did not know ________.

8. According to a hoax announcement, the Taco Bell Corporation bough the Liberty Bell and moved it to Irvine to help ________.

9. The crop circles were thought to be the greatest works of modern a rt, the signs of ________ or landing sites of UFOs.

10. Some people thought that NASA acted out the Apollo program in mov ie studios partially because the pictures transmitted from the moon d o not include ________.

1. Y 根据题干中的信息词age-old desire定位到原文第一段，可知美国围家地理新闻整理了近期历史上让人印象深刻的恶作剧，这些谎言欺骗的是那些易受骗的、轻易信任他人的人，用以满足有些人想要捉弄他人的想法，故该句表述正确。

2. NG 根据题干中的信息词Internet hoaxes定位到第一个小标题，可知互联网促进了恶作剧的增多，该部分接着介绍了通过电子邮件骗人的把戏，但并没有表明电子邮件恶作剧是惟一的网络恶作剧形式。

3. N 根据题干中的信息词Dihydrogen monoxide定位到第二个小标题，由该标题下的第二段可知，所谓的一氧化二氢其实就是H?2O，也就是水。而关于水被用做工业溶剂的说法是吓唬人的，故该句表述错误。

4. N 根据题干中的信息词Dihydrogen monoxide定位到第二个小标题，再由corrosion and rusting定位到该标题下的倒数第二段，可知爱开玩笑的人还将加速腐蚀和生锈、严重烧伤、吸入致死等其他危险和一氧化二氢联系起来，结合前文提到的一氧化二氢就是水可知，这些不过是哄弄人的说法，故该句表述错误。

5. several newsgroup readers。根据题干中的信息词Alabama changed the value of Pi定位到第三个小标题，再由forwarded the article定位到该标题下第四段，可知有些新闻读者将文章发给朋友，还将其登在其他新闻版块中。再结合上下文可知，正是这些新闻读者的做法导致了那条虚假新闻的大肆传播。

6. newspapers，radio，and television。根据题干中的信息词traditional media outlets定位到第四个小标题，可知在互联网出现之前，甚至是现在，报纸、广播和电视这类传统媒体有时也会捉弄公众，由此可得答案。

7. much about the rest of Europe。根据题干中的信息词Swiss spaghetti harvest定位到第五个小标题，该部分最后一段提到，Boese 表示，英国人不太了解欧洲其他国家。再结合上文可知，这正是许多英国人相信瑞士的意大利面条大丰收的原因。

8. the national debt。根据题干中的信息词Taco Bell Corporation和Liberty Bell定位到第六个小标题，再由Irvine定位到该标题下的第一段，可知一项公告报道Taco Bell公司买下了自由钟，并要将其挪到加利福尼亚的欧文市，该公司表示移动该钟是为了帮助缓解国家债务，由此可得答案。

9. extraterrestrial communications。根据题干中的信息词crop circles定位到倒数第二个小标题，再由UFOs定位到该标题下的倒数第二段，可知有些人认为麦田圈是现代艺术最伟大的作品，也有人确信那是外太空通信的迹象或不明飞行物的着陆地。

10. stars。根据题干中的信息词Apollo program和pictures transmitted from the moon定位到最后一个小标题下的第二段，可知有人认为阿波罗计划是在摄影棚里拍摄出来的，他们指出，从月球传回的画面上并没有星星，这应该就是他们怀疑登月真实性的部分原因。

CET-6

The bacteria that cause a common food-borne illness show low drug resistance in Australia, unlike similar strains from the United States

and Europe, a study has found. Scientists behind the finding say Australia’s de facto ban on certain antibiotics in poultry (家

禽) and other livestock helps explain why.

In the study, researchers analyzed samples of Campylobacter jejuni (

空肠弯曲杆菌) bacteria from 585 patients in five Australian states. Scientists found that only 2 percent of the samples were resistant to

ciprofloxacin (环丙沙星), one of the group of antibiotics known as fluoroquinolonones. By contrast, 18 percent of Campylobacter (弧形杆菌) samples in U.S. patients are immune to fluoroquinolonones, which have been used in the U.S. to prevent or treat respiratory (呼吸的) disease in poultry for a decade.

The study, led by Leanne Unicomb, a graduate student at Australian Na tional University in Canberra, was published in the May issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

"The findings add to the growing body of evidence suggestive of the p roblems of using fluoroquinolonones in food-producing animals," Unico mb wrote in an email.

Campylobacter is the most common food-borne disease in the U.S. and many other industrialized countries.

People can contract the pathogen (病原体) by consuming undercooked poultry or meat, raw milk, or contaminated (被污染的) water.

Symptoms include fever, vomiting, and diarrhea (腹泻). In rare cases, the disease can trigger paralysis or death.

"In most industrial countries Campylobacter is more commonly reported than Salmonella (沙门氏

菌), a better-known cause of food poisoning," Unicomb said.

"The number of cases of Campylobacter has been on the rise in Austral ia since the early 90’s."

In the U.S., about 1.4 million people contracted Campylobacter infect ions last year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.

While the infection rate in the U.S. has dropped over the last decade , the bacteria have grown more drug-resistant.

According to the CDC, surveys between 1986 and 1990 found no signs of

resistance to the antibiotics in U.S. Campylobacter infections. But

by 1997, strains resistant to the antibiotics accounted for 12 percen

t of human cases. In 2001 the figure climbed to 18 percent.

Public health experts say many factors contribute to Campylobacter’s

drug resistance; the widespread use of fluoroquinolonones by U.S. po ultry farmers over the past decade is one of them.

Fluoroquinolones were first approved for use in humans by the U.S. Fo

od and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1986. In 1995 the FDA granted pou ltry farmers permission to the use the drugs in livestock. Last year the FDA banned the antibiotic from food-producing animals, citing the

concerns raised by public health experts over drug-resistant bacteri a.

Frederick Angulo, an epidemiologist with the CDC, monitors the drug r esistance of food-borne pathogens in the U.S. food supply. "The people who are most likely to get infected with food-borne diseases include the most vulnerable people in the population-infants and young children and also the elderly," he said. He says that Campylobacter infections are entirely preventable, as is the bacteria’s antibiotic resi stance. "In many ways what’s occurring with Campylobacter is an indicator for a broader issue, which is...antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the food supply," he said.

1. Why do food-borne pathogens in Australia show low drug resistance?

2. In many industrialized countries, the most common food-borne

disease is ________.

3. The food-borne disease may cause fever, vomiting, diarrhea and eve

n ________.

4. The FDA banned the use of antibiotic from food-producing animals because public health experts were concerned about ________.

5. What does Angulo say about the bacteria’s antibiotic resistance? 1. Because Australia bans the use of certain antibiotics in livestock.

根据题干中的关键词Australia和low drug resistance定位到文章开头，可知一项研究发现，在澳大利亚，导致常见食源性疾病的细菌抗药性很低，这与美国和欧洲的情况有所不同;做出该发现的科学家表示，澳大利亚禁止对家畜使用特定抗生素，这有助于解释上述情况。

2. Campylobacter

根据题干中的关键词industrialized countries和most common定位到第六段，可知弧形杆菌是美国和其他许多工业化国家中最常见的食源性疾病。

3. paralysis or death

原文第八段提到，患病的症状包括发烧、呕吐、腹泻，在个别病例中，还会导致瘫痪或死亡，而这些都是由食源性疾病导致的，由此可得答案。

4. drug-resistant bacteria

根据题干中的关键词food-producing animals和public health expels定位到倒数第二段，可知美国食品及药物管理局于去年禁止给产肉动物使用抗生素，其原因在于公共卫生专家对抗药细菌表示担忧。

5. It’s entirely preventable.

根据题干中的关键词Angulo和bacteria’s antibiotic resistance定位到最后一段倒数第二句，可知Angulo认为弧形杆菌感染完全可以预防，而细菌对抗生素的抗药性也是如此.

CET-6

The whole world put attention to the South Asia where the tsunami happened. Before, musicians p roduced a "sonic tsunami", Wall Street analysts 47________ "tsunamis" of bad earnings news and Japanese restaurants served "tsunami" sushi rolls. The word was used in dozens of different 48 , but now it likely will appear with just one tragic meaning.

Because of the South Asian tsunami disaster that has killed more than 150,000 people, the word as sumes a(n) 49 solemn use, much the way "Ground Zero", for the site of the World Trade Ce nter, had its meaning 50 from "starting point" to the center of the Sept. 11 tragedy, said Pau l Payack, head of Global Language Monitor. Payack said that since the Dec. 26 tsunami, the 51 word has appeared more than 18.5 million times and been the subject of 88,000 articles in maj or media.

"Before Sept. 11, 2001, the term ground zero was a business cliche meaning starting point, especia lly when 52 a project over again as in ’going back to ground zero’. That term now represen ts what many consider to be hallowed ground and its old usage is rarely 53 ," he said.

"In the same manner, we envision that the word tsunami will be the subject of considerable discret ion before being used in any thing other than a most 54 manner," he said. Payack said thous ands of 55 teams around the world use tsunami into their names, like the Tsunami Aquatics Swim team of Livermore, California.

He said there are also some 10,000 products called tsunami, like Tsunami Point-to-Point Wireless Bridges, Tsunami Multimedia Speakers and Tsunami Image Processors. Newspaper headline write rs also liked the 56 word, as the Detroit News’ "Ford Releases a Tsunami of New Products " and "Heading for the presidency on a tsunami of visions" in London’s The Times.

[A] colorful [I] foolish

[B] concerts [J] solely

[C] serious [K] thought

[D] changed [L] Japanese

[E] pursuing [M] employed

[F] contexts [N] foresaw

[G] usually [O] sports

[H] beginning

47.N 分析句子结构可知，空格所在分句缺少谓语动词。结合前后两个分句的谓语动词produced和served可知，空格处应选动词过去式。原句意为“华尔街分析家________糟糕收益消息的‘海啸’”，因此所选动词应带有“估计，预测”的含义，N(预见)最适合。

48.F 该空格前为形容词different，再结合之前用于限定可数名词数量的dozens of可知，空格处应选复数可数名词。原句意为“该词过去被用于许多不同的________，但现在可能只会代表一个悲惨的含义”，因此F(上下文，背景)最适合。

49.J 该空格前为不定冠词a(n)，空格后为形容词solemn，因此空格处应选副词作状语。选项中有两个副词G(通常)和J(单独地)，结合句意“由于南亚的海啸灾难夺去了超过l5万人的生命，该词采取了________严肃的用法”可知，J最适合。

50.D 分析句子结构可知，该空格所在句包含had sth. done的结构，因此空格处应选动词过去分词。原句意为“……用于描述世贸大楼的‘归零地’将其含义从‘起点’________为9?11灾难的中心”，因此所选动词应意为“更改，改换”，D(改变)最适合。

51.L 该空格前为定冠词the，空格后为名词word，因此空格处应选名词、形容词、动词过去分词等作定语。原句意为“自12月26日海啸起，这个________单词出现次数高达l850多万次”，此处并没有表现出明显的感情色彩，因此L(日语的)最适合。tsunami从发音上来看，也确实应该是日语衍生过来的单词。

52.H 该空格前为引导时间状语的连词when，因此空格处应选动词现在分词与后

面的project构成动宾搭配。原句意为“在2001年9月11日之前，归零地是个商业套语，意为起点，特别是当就像‘回到归零地’所描述的那样重新________一个项目时”，因此所选单词应意为“开始”，H(开始)最适合。选项E虽然也为现在分词形式，但pursue意为“(继续)从事或忙于”，与原文不符，故排除。

53.M 该空格前为副词rarely，再结合之前的系动词is可知，空格处应选形容词，或动词过去分词表被动。原句意为“那个词现在用于表示许多人都认为是圣地的地方，其旧的用法很少________”，因此所选单词应带有“提及”或“应用”等含义，只有M(使用)最适合。

54.C 该空格前为最高级的标志词most，之后为名词manner，因此空格处应选多音节形容词。原句意为“海啸这个词在被用于最________的情况之外时，将值得慎重考虑”，因此所选形容词应带有“严肃的，严重的”的含义，C(严重的)最适合。

55.O 该空格前为介词of，空格后为名词teams，因此空格处应选名词、形容词、动词分词等作定语。原句意为“全世界数千________队的名字中都包含海啸的字样，例如加利福尼亚的利文摩尔海啸游泳队”，因此所选单词应与游泳或体育等有关，O(运动的)最适合。

56.A 该空格前为定冠词the，空格后为名词word，因此空格处应选名词、形容词、动词分词等作定语。结合句意“报纸头条作者也喜欢这个________词”和剩余选项可知，A(多彩的，有趣的)最适合。