56. What might be the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A. To seek help for Nauru’s problems.
B. To give a warning to other countries
C. To show the importance of money
D. To tell a heartbreaking story of a war.
57. What was Nauru like before the Europeans came?
A. Rich and powerful     B. Modern and open
C. Peaceful and attractive    D. Greedy and aggressive
58. The ecological disaster in Nauru resulted from _______.
A. soil pollution       B. phosphate overmining
C. farming activity       D. whale hunting
59. Which of the following was a cause of Nauru’s financial problem?
A. Its leaders misused the money    B. It spent too much repairing the island
C. Its phosphate mining cost much money   D. It lost millions of dollars in the civil war.
60. What can we learn about Nauru from the last paragraph?
A. The ecological damage is difficult to repair.
B. The leaders will take the experts’ words seriously.
C. The island was abandoned by the Nauruans
D. The phosphate mines were destroyed
B
One of the greatest contributions to the first Oxford English Dictionary was also one of its most unusual. In 1879, Oxford University in England asked Prof. James Murray to serve as editor for what was to be the most ambitious dictionary in the history of the English language. It would include every English word possible and would give not only the definition but also the history of the word and quotations (引文)showing how it was used.
This was a huge task. So Murrary had to find volunteers from Britain, the United States, and the British colonies to search every newspaper, magazine, and book ever written in English. Hundreds of volunteers responded, including William Chester Minor. Dr. Minor was an American Surgeon who had served in the Civil War and was now living in England. He gave his address as “Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire,”” 50 miles from Oxford.
Minor joined the army of volunteers sending words and quotations to Murray. Over the next years, he became one of the staff’s most valued contributors.
But he was also a mystery. In spite of many invitations, he would always decline to visit Oxford. So in 1897， Murray finally decided to travel to Crowthorne himself. When he arrived, he found Minor locked in a book-lined cell at the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally insane.
Murray and Minor became friends, sharing their love of words. Minor continued contributing to the dictionary, sending in more than 10,000 submissions in 20 years. Murray continued to visit Minor regularly, sometimes taking walks with him around the asylum grounds.
In 1910, Minor left Broadmoor for an asylum in his native America. Murray was at the port to wave goodbye to his remarkable friend.
Minor died in 1920, seven years before the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. The 12 volumes defined 414,825 words, and thousands of them were contributions from a very scholarly and devoted asylum patient.

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