How should one invest a sum of money in these clays of inflation (通货膨胀)? Left in a bank it will hardly keep its value, however high the interest rate. Only a brave man, or a very rich one, dares to buy and sell on the Stock Market. Today it seems that one of the best ways to protect your savings, and even increase your wealth is to buy beautiful objects from the past. Here I am going to offer some advice on collecting antique clocks, which I personally consider are among the most interesting of antiques.
I sometimes wonder what a being from another planet might report back about our way of life. "The planet Earth is ruled by a mysterious creature that sits or stands in a room and makes a strange ticking sound. It has a face with twelve black marks and two hands. Men can do nothing without its permission, and it fastens its young round people's wrists so that everywhere men go they are still under its control. This creature is the real master of Earth and men are its slaves（奴隶）."
Whether or not we are slaves of time today depends on our culture and personality, but it is believed that many years ago kings kept special slaves to tell the time. Certain men were very clever at measuring（量） the time of clay according to the beating of their own hearts. They were made to stand in a fixed place and every hour or so would shout tire time. So it seems that the first clocks were human beings.
However, men quickly found more convenient and reliable（可靠的） ways of telling the time. They learned to use the shadows cast by the sun. They marked the hours on candles, used sand in hour- glasses, and invented water-clocks. Indeed, any serious student of antique should spend as much time as possible visiting palaces, stately homes and museums to see some of the finest examples of clocks from the past.
Antique clocks could be very expensive, but one of the joys of collecting clocks is that it is still possible to find quite cheap ones for your own home. After all, if you are going to be ruled by time, why not invest in air antique clock and perhaps make a future profit（收益）?
【小题1】According to the passage, collecting antique clocks____.

短文填空  先通读下面的短文，然后根据短文内容和所给首字母，在空格内填入一个适当的单词，使短文意思完整。所填单词必须在答题卡标有题号的横线上完整写出。（本大题共10空，每空0.5分，共5分）

Last month in New Zealand, three dogs learned how to drives cars. T 1.   it sounds like April Foolery, it’s real. These dogs are driving cars. They are just sitting in the cars looking   l 2.  they are driving ; they are, in f 3. , operating the moving vehicles--- first training cars and then Minis. Their f 4.  are working the gas and brake(刹车), their paws are handling the steering wheel(方向盘) and their eyes are scanning the road for bunnies(可爱的女郎).

First, researchers put the dogs through driving school in s 5.  built wooden training cars for eight weeks; then they tested the dogs in modified(改装) Minis.

“We train the dogs to do v 6.  actions,” said Mark Vette, the animal trainer who was teaching the dogs. Touch is the first thing and then we teach them to touch the different objects w 7. right paw and left paw. “They’ve all come through at this point and they’re all going really w 8. ,” he said.

“The dogs have a 9.  amazing things in eight short weeks of training,” Mark said. “Which really s 10. that, with the right environment, how much potential(潜力) all dogs have as family pets”