Tilly Smith, an 11-year-old British girl, who was called “Angel of the Beach”, saved 100 tourists from a Thai beach hit by a tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004 and had been named “Child of the Year 2005” by readers of a French children’s newspaper.

　　Tilly Smith is a schoolgirl at Danes Hill School in Oxshott, Surrey, England. Back from Thailand she told her geography class how the sea slowly rose and started to foam(起泡沫), bubble, and form whirlpools(漩涡) before the big waves came.

　　“What Tilly Smith described as happening was exactly the same as I’d shown on a video of a tsunami that hit the Hawaiian Islands in 1946,” said Andrew F. Kearney, Tilly’s geography teacher. “She saw the consequences of not acting when something strange happens.” Kearney said topics for sixth-grade pupils include earthquakes and volcanoes.

　　“We covered tsunamis because they can be caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, or landslides,” he added. “I’ve taught this particular course for at least 11 years.”

　　Kearney uses audiovisual(视听教学的) teaching aids such as interactive whiteboards to exploit geographic information online (his class often visits nationalgeographic.com). Tilly’s class had looked up U.S. websites about tsunami’s early warning systems.

　　“The teacher has a computer on the desk and can project different web pages onto the whiteboard,” Kearney said. “It’s helped make great strides in teaching geography, it really brings it into the classroom.”

　　On December 26,2004, Tilly Smith, ten, saw “bubbles on the water and foam sizzling(发出嘶嘶声) just like in a frying pan” while walking on Phuket Island beach with her family. Her mind kept going back to the geography lesson Mr. Kearney gave just two weeks before she flew out to Thailand on vacation. She recognized these as the warning signs of a tsunami.

　　She told her parents and alerted the staff of the Marriott Hotel, where they were staying. The beach was evacuated(撤离) just minutes before the killer tsunami struck. It was one of the few on Phuket Island where no one was killed or seriously hut.

　　1. The purpose of the passage is to tell us ______.

　　A. how geography is taught in British schools

　　B. how Tilly Smith used her knowledge to save tourists from tsunami

　　C. why Tilly Smith was named “Child of the Year 2005”

　　D. the relationship between classroom knowledge and its practical use

　　2. Which of the following words can best describe geography teaching in Britain?

　　A. Practical. B. Exciting. C. Audiovisual. D. Interactive.

　　3. The underlined word “it” in paragraph 6 refers to ______.

　　A. web page B. computer C. whiteboard D. geography

　　4. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

　　A. Tilly Smith’s parents and the hotel staff had no knowledge of tsunamis.

　　B. No other beaches on Phuket Island were evacuated before the tsunami struck.

　　C. The warning signs of the tsunami were the same as Tilly Smith had learned.

　　D. Tilly Smith and her family had not left the hotel room before the tsunami struck.

　　解读：本文报道英国小学生Tilly Smith利用课堂上所学到的地理知识在2004年印度洋海啸中拯救了100名游客，因而获得“2005年度最佳儿童”的称号。我们可以从文章中了解到英国小学在地理教学方面的先进理念。

　　答案与解析

　　1. B 主旨大意题。通读全文可知，文章重点介绍了Tilly Smith如何利用课堂上所学知识拯救游客的。答案为B。

　　2. A 推理判断题。根据文章所介绍的英国小学的地理教学模式以及Tilly Smith所做的一切可以得出结论：英国的地理教学很实用。

　　3. D 代词替代题。根据前文“The teacher has a computer on the desk and can project different web pages onto the whiteboard”可知，该句的意思应该是：它(计算机)把地理真实地带入了课堂。

　　4. C 推理判断题。从文章倒数第二段的介绍可以得到答案，Tilly Smith正是运用了地理课堂上学到的知识在海啸中救人。文章倒数第二段中“Her mind kept going back to the geography lesson…”也验证了这一点。B项与原文信息不符;A、D两项缺乏信息支持。