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Everyone has heard of the San Andreas fault, which constantly threatens California and the West Coast with earth- quakes. But how many people know about the equally serious New Madrid fault in Missouri.'?

Between December of 1811 and February of 1812, three major earthquakes occurred, all centered around the town of New Madrid, Missouri, on the Mississippi River. Property damage was severe.

Buildings in the area were almost dest oyed. Whole forests fell at once, and huge cracks opened in the ground, allowing smell of sulfur to filter upward.

The Mississippi River itself completely changed character, developing sudden rapids and whirlpools. Several times it changed its course, and once, according to some observers, it actually appeared to run backwards. Few people were killed in the New Madrid earthquakes, probably simply because few people lived in the area in 1811; but the severity of the earth- quakes are shown by the fact that the shock waves rang bells in church towers in Charleston, South Carolina, on the coast. Buildings shook in New York City, and clocks were stopped in Washington D.C. Scientists now know that America's two major faults are essentially different. The San Andreas is a horizontal boundary between two major land masses that are slowly moving in opposite directions. California earthquakes result when the movement of these two masses suddenly lurches forward.

The New Madrid fault, on the other hand, is a vertical fault; at some point, possibly hundreds of millions of years ago, rock was pushed up toward the surface, probably by volcanoes under the surface. Suddenly, the volcanoes cooled and the rock collapsed, leaving huge cracks. Even now', the rock continues to settle downwards, and sudden sinking motions trigger earthquakes in the region. The fault itself, a large crack in this layer of rock, with dozens of other cracks that split off from it, extends from northeast Arkansas through Missouri and into southern Illinois.

Scientists who have studied the New Madrid fault say there have been numerous smaller quakes in the area since 1811; these smaller quakes indicate that larger ones are probably coming, but rite scientists say they have no method of predicting when a large earthquake will occur.

31. This passage is mainly about ______.

Part B

52. Directions:

Write an essay based on the following table on the production of TV sets in a factory.

You should write about 160 -200 words neatly on ANSWER SHEET II. (20 points)

Part A

51. Directions:

Your are asked to write a recommendation for a student. Please give your suggestions and express your opinions clearly a bout 100 words on ANSWER SHEET II. Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. (10 points)

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Part C

Directions: Read the following text carefully and then translate the underlined segments into Chinese. Your translation should be written clearly on ANSWER SHEET II. ( 10 points)

Do animals have rights.'? This is how the question is usually put. It sounds like a useful, ground clearing way to start. 46)Actually, it isn't, because it assumes that there is an agreed account of human rights, which is something the world does not have.

On one view of rights, to be sure, it necessarily follows that animals have none. 47)Some philosophers argue that rights exist only within a social contract, as part of an exchange of duties and entitlements. Therefore, animals cannot have rights. The idea of punishing a tiger that kills somebody is absurd, for exactly the same reason, so is the idea that tigers have rights. However, this is only one account, and by no means an uncontested one. It denies rights not only to animals but also to some people—4or instance to infants, the mentally incapable and future generations.

In addition, it is unclear what force a contract can have for people who never consented to it, how do you reply to somebody who says "I don' t like this contract" ?

The point is this: without agreement on the rights of people, arguing about the rights of animals is fruitless. 48 )It leads the discussion to extremes at the outset: it invites you to think that animals should be treated either with the consider- ation humans extend to other humans, or with no consideration at all. This is a false choice. Better to start with another, more fundamental, question: is the way we treat animals a moral issue at all?

Many deny it. 49)Arguing from the view that humans are different from animals in every relevant respect, extremists of this kind think that animals lie outside the area of moral choice.

Any regard for the suffering of animals is seen as a mistake—a sentimental displacement of feeling that should properly be directed to other humans.

This view which holds that torturing a monkey is morally equivalent to chopping wood, may seem bravely "logical". In fact it is simply shallow: the confused center is right to reject it. The most elementary form. of moral reasoning—the ethical equivalent of learning to crawl—is to weigh others' interests against one's own. This in turn requires sympathy and imagination: without there is no capacity for moral thought. To see an animal in pain is enough, for most, to engage sympathy. 50)When that happens, it is not a mistake: it is mankind' s instinct for moral reasoning in action, an instinct that should be encouraged rather than laughed at.

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40. What is the tone of this passage?