第一部分：阅读理解（共两节，满分40分）
第一节：阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）
A
A young man named Charles Lyell had different ideas. He wrote a book about them called Principles of Geology (地质学). The earth，according to Lyell，was not only thousands of years old，it was millions of years old. As to (关于) the common belief that changes in the earth’s surface happen suddenly because of a single earthquake or flood，he said that this might happen once in a while，but usually these changes took place very slowly. He believed that the surface of the earth had been changing from the beginning of time. The changes，he said，were caused by the long-term action of the winds and seas，and by forces such as volcanoes breaking out under the earth’s surface. Once in a great while he thought，a mountain might appear for the first time after an earthquake. But usually mountains would rise slowly and steadily.
