A
Venice is built on 118 small islands in the middle of the Venetian Lagoon of the Adriatic Sea in Northern Italy. The beautiful city experiences water surges (汹涌) from the rising tides at least four times a year, usually during winter.
However, the 1.87meter tide that swept through the city on November 12,2019, was one of the highest ever experienced, second only to the 1.94meter wave that flooded Venice in 1966. To make matters worse, it was followed by two water surges, both topping 1.5 meters on November 15 and 17. The rapid series of high tides covered over 80 percent of the city of canals, causing widespread destruction to museums, homes and businesses.
Though difficult, it is always important to find a hope in such events. In Venice, it has come in the form of the “Angels of the Salt” — hundreds of young volunteers who came to the city. The young people from all over Italy were alerted (提醒注意) to the situation by Venice Calls, an organization consisting of 35 young students. Its spokesperson, Piero Risica, told CNN, “When we saw the historic flooding on Tuesday night, November 12, we immediately started to gather volunteers to help the city. The first day we were 200, yesterday 550, and today more than 1,700.”
Besides helping remove the flood waters from neighbourhoods, the volunteers were also removing the garbage on the street. Some volunteers came to Venice's Music Conservatory, which suffered water damage. Because of the work of volunteers like Maria, who had been carefully using paper towel (纸巾) to absorb water from historic manuscripts (手稿) that were wet with salt water, many historic manuscripts in the Music Conservatory were rescued.
What's upsetting Venetians is that the disaster could have been avoided if the Moveable Barrier System had been in place. This project to place moveable floodgates that would prevent the high tides has been under construction since 2003, and has already cost D|S5 billion. However, due to the cost overruns, and opposition from some people concerned about the project's impact on the weak canal ecosystem, it is nowhere close to completion.
语篇解读：本文是一篇记叙文。威尼斯遭遇了潮水入侵，对该城市造成了很大破坏。
1．What makes Venice struggle according to the text?
A．The location of the city.
B．The lack of enough city canals.
C．The unpredictable weather in winter.
D．The destruction of seasonal water surges.
解析：选D 细节理解题。根据第一段中的“The beautiful city ...during winter.”和第二段中的“causing widespread destruction to museums, homes and businesses”可知答案。
2．What can be inferred from Piero Risica's words?
A．Venice Calls can predict the flooding.
B．Venice Calls is active in fighting disasters.
C．Volunteers in Venice are brave and respectful.
D．Volunteers in Venice are shocked by the disaster.
解析：选B 推理判断题。根据第三段中的“Venice Calls ... we immediately started to gather volunteers to help the city”可知，在应对灾难面前，Venice Calls工作很积极。
3．What does the author mainly talk about in Paragraph 4?
A．What volunteers did to help the city.
B．How volunteers saved the historic manuscripts.
C．Why water surges were highly destructive in Venice.
D．What damage water surges caused to Venice's Music Conservatory.
解析：选A 段落大意题。第四段主要讲述了水灾发生后志愿者所做的工作。
4．What is the author's attitude towards the Moveable Barrier System?
A．Critical. B．Regretful.
C．Confused. D．Doubtful.
解析：选B 观点态度题。根据最后一段中的“the disaster could have been avoided if the Moveable Barrier System had been in place”可知，作者对Moveable Barrier System没有投入使用感到惋惜。
