第二部分　阅读理解 (共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分)

A

Residents along Australia’s east coast awoke in the morning to an orange sky as winds swept millions of tons of red dust from the country’s inland and dumped it on Sydney．

Tanya Ferguson，living in Sydney，saw that the room was completely orange．She thought there was a bush fire．But when she went outside，the entire city was covered in a film of orange dust．

“It was like being in the outback(澳大利亚内陆)，but it was right here in the city，”she said On that day，a big dust storm swept through Sydney．It covered the city in orange dust for about eight hours，making landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge invisible．

The storm affected the transportation system．Flights were delayed．Roads were busy as drivers struggled in the difficult conditions．Children and the elderly were told to stay indoors until the dust had cleared．Later strong winds blew it out to the sea and up the coast．

No one was hurt in the storm，though health officials answered hundreds of calls from

people with breathing difficulties．Emergency services responded to hundreds of calls about

tree branches brought down by strong winds．

Dust storms are common in the Australian outback，where the land is arid(贫瘠的)．But the storms rarely reach the coastal regions．

Officials said it was the worst dust storm of the past 70 years．Air pollution levels were

15，500 micrograms of pollutants per cubic meter．

“On a clear day the pollutants are around 10—20 micrograms per cubic meter，”said Chris

Eiser of the NSW department of the environment．

Experts said that dry conditions in the outback and strong winds caused the sandstorm．

“Ten very dry years over inland southern Australia and very strong winds have combined to produce the storm，”said Nigel Tapper，an environmental scientist at Monash University， Australia．

56．The article is about            ．

A．the causes of the major dust storm in Australian cities

B．different reactions to a dust storm in Australia

C．the damage caused by the big dust storm in Australia

D．the worst dust storm in Australia in the past 70 years

57．Which of the following is TRUE?

A．The dust storm didn’t blow up to the coastal regions of Australia．

B．The level of air pollution was very high due to the dust storm．

C．People called the emergency service because they had got lost．

D．Children stayed indoors for the schooling had been cancelled．

58．From the passage we can see that              ．

A．Tanya Ferguson lives in the Australian outback at the moment

B．a bush fire may have brought the orange dust along the coast

C．this terrible sandstorm lasted about 24 hours after it hit the city

D．Sydney’s landmarks were out of sight when the storm happened

59．The tone of the article is               ．

A．worried              B．sympathetic                C．objective         D．Angry