阅读理解。
The year was eighteen eighty-seven. The place was New York City. A young woman, Elizabeth
Cochrane,wanted a job at a large newspaper. The editor agreed,if she would investigate a hospital for
people who were mentally sick and then write about it.
Elizabeth Cochrane decided to become a patient in the hospital herself. She used the name Nellie
Brown so no one would discover her purpose. Newspaper officials said they would get her released
(释放) after a while.
To prepare,Nellie put on old clothes and stopped washing. She went to a temporary home for
women. She acted as if she had severe mental problems. She cried and screamed and stayed awake
all night. The police were called. She was examined by doctors. Most said she was insane.
Nellie Brown was taken to the mental hospital. It was dirty. Waste material was left outside the
eating room. Bugs ran across the tables. The food was terrible:hard bread and gray-colored meat.
Nurses bathed the patients in cold water
and gave them only a thin piece of cloth to wear to bed.
During the day,the patients did nothing but sat quietly. They had to talk in quiet voices. Yet,Nellie
got to know some of them. Some were women whose families had put them in the hospital because
they had been too sick with fever. Now they were well,but they could not get out.
Nellie recognized that the doctors and nurses had no interest in the patients' mental health. They
were paid to keep the patients in a kind of jail. Nellie stayed in the hospital for ten days. Then a lawyer
from the newspaper got her released.
Five days later,the story of Elizabeth Cochrane's experience in the hospital appeared in the New
York World Newspaper. Readers were shocked. They wrote to officials of the city and the hospital
protesting the conditions and patient treatment. An investigation led to changes at the hospital.
Elizabeth Cochrane had made a difference in the lives of the people there. She made a difference
in her own life too. She did not write it as Nellie Brown,however,or as Elizabeth Cochrane. She wrote
it under the name that always appeared on her newspaper stories:Nellie Bly. Later,Nellie Bly became
the best reporter in America.
1. What's the meaning of the underlined word"insane" ?
A. Sad.
B. Violent.
C. Mad.
D. Sick.
2. The hospital seemed like"a kind of jail"for all the following reasons EXCEPT ____.
A. the living conditions were terrible
B. the food was of poor quality
C. the patients could neither talk loudly nor get out freel
D. the doctors and nurses had no interest in the patients' mental health
3. What can be inferred from the text?
A. Readers called for human rights of the mental patients.
B. There was an investigation in the hospital.
C. The patients lived a better life after the hospital was uncovered.
D. The newspaper officials didn't know the women made up to live in the hospital.
4. It can be known from the text that ______was the reporter's real name.
A. Nellie Brown
B. Elizabeth Cochrane
C. Nellie Bly
D. Elizabeth Brown
5. The passage is mainly about_________.
A. how a young woman got a job at the New York World
B. how a woman could change the lives of people
C. how a kind of jail became a real mental hospital
D. how a best reporter in America got her pen name
