历年新闻练习2-9 (93-2000) 答案及原文.doc

TEST FOR ENGLISH MAJORS (2) —GRADE FOUR— News item I A Nicaragua cardinal has failed to persuade three gunmen to release 19 hostages they have held since Monday in Nicaragua’s embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica. Cardinal Migao Abandou Rebalavo says the hostages, including Embassador Alfanso Rebel, are tired and hungry. Nicaragua has rejected the gunmen’s demand for a six-million-dollar-ransom and the firing of two officials. Key: 21. A 22. D News Item II Israeli authorities say they are searching for the killers of a Jewish woman whose body has been found in a minibus in the occupied Gaza Strip. They say she had been murdered with a sharp instrument. The bus was used to take laborers to work. At least 3 other Israelis have been stabbed and wounded in Israel and the occupied territories in the past 2 days. Although it is not known whether all the attackers were politically motivated. Key: 23. C 24. D News Item III The report accuses the prison services of making basic mistakes such as having no accurate picture of a number of foreign inmates and of confusing those who come from abroad with ethnic minority prisoners who are British. The current jail population is about 42,000 and Prison Reform Trust estimates that more than 3,000 are foreigners with a growing number convicted of drug smuggling. Starved of contact with family or friends, many suffer extreme depression and high incidents of stress-related illness. The report says that between 1986 to 1990 only 47 foreign prisoners were transferred to complete their sentence in their own country. While acknowledging some improvements, for example, the whole Mafia has cooperated in producing a foreign prisoner information pack. The report says the government and foreign embassies have a long way to go in grasping the scale of the problem. Key: 25. B 26. A News Item IV Most of the front pages of Tuesday morning’s British newspapers have emotional pictures of the funeral of a 2-year-old James Bordger. His murder in Li