第二部分.阅读理解(共25小题。第一节每小题2分,第二节每小题1分;满分45分)
第一节阅读下面五篇短文,从每题后所给的四个选项中选出最佳答案。
Most of us lead unhealthy lives; we spend far too much sitting down. If in addition we are careless about our diets, our bodies soon become loose and fatty and our systems slow moving. There are some aspects(方面) of our unhealthy lives that we cannot avoid. I am thinking of such features of modern city life as pollution, noise, rushed meals and stress. But keeping fit is a way to reduce the effects of these evils. The usual suggestion to a person who is looking for a way to keep fit is to take up some sport or other. While it is true that every weekend you will find people playing football and hockey in the local park, they are outnumbered a hundred to one by the people who are simply watching them.
For those who do not particularly enjoy competitive sports — and it is especially difficult to do so if you are not good at them — there are such separate activities as cycling, walking, jogging and swimming. What often happens though is that you do them in such a leisurely way, so slowly, that it is doubtful if you are doing yourself much good, except for the fact that you have at least managed to get up out of your armchair.
Even after you have found a way for keeping in shape, through sport or gymnastics, you are still only half way to good health, because, according to the experts, you must also master the art of complete mental and physical relaxation(放松). It has to do with deep breathing, emptying your mind of all thoughts, meditation, and so on. Yoga, as practiced in the West, is the most widely known and popular of the systems for achieving the necessary state of relaxation. It seems ironical (讽刺性的), though, that as our lives have improved in a material sense we have found it increasingly necessary to go back to forms of activity — physical effort on the one hand and relaxation on the other — which were the natural way of life of our forefathers.
41. Pollution, noise and stress are examples of _____.
A. the causes of unfitness B. bad features of modern living
C. the things we can completely do away with D. unavoidable things in town
42. We don’t get much out of separate sports because we _____.
A. don’t do them very often B. don’t do them actively enough
C. find it hard to get out of our armchairs D. don’t find them interesting
43. To be healthy we must _____.
A. keep fit and active B. keep fit and learn to relax
C. be active and practise Yoga D. have a sound mind
44. Our forefathers were healthy because______.
A. their way of life closely connected with both exercise and relaxation
B. they were careful to get plenty of fresh air
C. they spent most of the time out of doors
D. their environment was not polluted
Do you know what really troubles me? For some reason, words with silent letters have always bothered me. For example, consider these words: know, design, island, school, wrist, naughty, and salmon. All of these words have at least one letter that is not typically pronounced, and these words are just a very small part of words with silent letters in them.
Some words are even worse, consider this word: colonel. Not only are some letters not pronounced, but letters that are not even there are pronounced.
Even foreign languages, especially French, are guilty of this needless complexity and confusion. I know there must be some main historical reasons why the words are spelled and pronounced the way they are, but that does not mean bad traditions must continue to survive. Especially if they are no longer logical.
Unfortunately, there is very little that anyone can do for it, because there’s no group of people who can change or have the right to change the English language for everyone. However, the only thing we can do is make changes in the way we talk and write in hopes that it catches on. For example, I pronounce the letter “l” in salmon on purpose to make people annoyed and to sound more different or complicated. I even pronounce colonel the correct or French way.
I can only hope these two minor changes to the English language make sense to you, and you will help to keep up these minor changes forever in your everyday life.Which of the following is the main reason for silent letters?
A.French language. | B.Historical reasons. |
C.Some linguists | D.Bad traditions. |
The underlined phrase “catches on” probably means “________”.
A.becomes popular | B.gets across |
C.follows the fashions | D.doesn’t fall behind |
Which of the following is the best title for this passage?
A.Troubles in everyday life |
B.Traps in English words |
C.Words with silent letters |
D.Necessary changes of languages |
HIGHFIELD COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL SCHOOL REPORT Form Teacher:G. Baker Pupil’s Name: Simon Watkins Term:Summer 2014 Form:Ⅳ B
FORM TEACHER’S REMARKS HEADMASTER |
According to the comments of the Physical Education teacher, Simon_______.
A.is too talkative in the class |
B.likes to work with his classmates |
C.doesn’t exercise his body at the right time |
D.becomes weak because he doesn’t exercise at all |
Which of Simon’s subjects will attract the headmaster’s attention in future?
A.Biology and Maths. |
B.History and French. |
C.English and Chemistry. |
D.Physics and Physical Education. |
Which of the following statements best describes Simon?
A.He has made great progress in language classes. |
B.His potential has been fully reflected in science classes. |
C.His grade in maths makes him a born scientist. |
D.He needs to improve his attitude on certain subjects. |
Based on the school report, which of the following statements is true?
A.Simon didn’t bother his teacher to revise French. |
B.Basically, Simon did a good job in science. |
C.Simon is a determined learner in English. |
D.Simon is able to pay attention to history for long. |
In 1939 two brothers, Mac and Dick McDonald, started a drive-in restaurant in San Bernadino, California. They carefully chose a busy corner for their location. They had run their own businesses for years, first a theater, then a barbecue(烤肉) restaurant, then another drive-in. But in their new operation, they offered a new, shortened menu: French fries, hamburgers, and sodas. To this small selection they added one new idea: quick service, no waiters or waitresses, and no tips.
Their hamburgers sold for fifteen cents. Cheese was another four cents. Their French fries and hamburgers had a remarkable uniformity(一致性), for the brothers had developed a strict routine(程序) for the preparation of their food, and they insisted on their cooks sticking to their routine. Their new drive-in became surprisingly popular, particularly for lunch. People drove up by the hundreds during the busy noontime. The self-service restaurant was so popular that the brothers had allowed ten copies of their restaurant to be opened. They were content with this modest success until they met Ray Kroc.
Kroc was a salesman who met the McDonald brothers in 1954, when he was selling milkshake-mixing machines. He quickly saw the special attraction of the brothers’ fast-food restaurants and bought the right to franchise(特许经营) other copies of their restaurants. The agreement included the right to duplicate(复制) the menu, the equipment, even their red and white buildings with the golden arches(拱门).
Today McDonald’s is really a household name. In 1976, McDonald’s had over $ l billion in total sales. Its first twenty-two years is one of the most surprising success stories in modern American business history.This passage mainly talks about _______.
A.the development of fast food services |
B.how McDonald’s became a billion-dollar business |
C.the business careers of Mac and Dick McDonald |
D.Ray Kroc’s business talent |
Mac and Dick managed all of the following businesses except _______.
A.a drive-in | B.a theater |
C.a cinema | D.a barbecue restaurant |
We may infer from this passage that _______.
A.Mac and Dick McDonald never became wealthy for they sold their idea to Kroc. |
B.the place the McDonalds chose was the only source of the great popularity of their drive-in |
C.forty years ago there were lots of fast-food restaurants |
D.Ray Kroc was a good businessman |
The passage suggests that _______.
A.creativity is an important element of business success |
B.Ray Kroc was the close partner of the McDonald brothers |
C.Mac and Dick McDonald became broken after they sold their ideas to Ray Kroc |
D.California is the best place to go into business |
Encouragement and praise can come in many forms, and some ways are better for child development than others. Researchers at the University of Chicago who studied mother-child interactions (互相作用) found that the type of praise children receive affects their attitudes towards challenges later in life.
Specifically, praise that focused on their behavior and the choices that kids made helped them deal with difficult experiences better five years later, compared with praise that focused more on the child himself, like “You’re a good boy.” The study, which appears in the journal Child Development, is the first major study of praise and child development done outside of a lab setting.
“It’s exciting to see it play out in the real world,” said Elizabeth Gunderson who led the study. “Praising the efforts, actions and work of kids is going to be more beneficial in their long-term persistence and desire to be challenged and work hard in the future.”
Such “process praise” includes comments such as “You worked really hard”, which emphasize a child’s actions. “Person praise” includes comments like “You’re so smart”, which focus on a child’s personal qualities. These distinctions (差别) aren’t new in the field of psychology, but exactly how they affect children’s development over the years hasn’t always been clear.
As part of the study, the researchers visited the homes of more than 50 kids between the ages of 1 and 3, and filmed their daily interactions with their parents during 90-minute sessions. Five years later, the researchers followed up with the families, measuring the children’s attitudes towards challenges and problem solving. The children who grew up with more process praise were more open to challenges. Though person praise didn’t seem to have any negative effect on the children, the study suggests that process praise teaches children that their talents and abilities can be developed and improved, while person praise sends the message that their abilities are fixed and therefore not easily changed.What can we learn from the first Paragraph?
A.Researchers encourage more mother-child interactions. |
B.Different kinds of praise have different effects on children. |
C.Encouragement and praise have the same effects on children. |
D.Researchers have different attitudes to children’s development. |
The underlined word "it" in Paragraph 3 refers to _______ .
A.the journal Child Development |
B.the study of praise and child development |
C.the relationship between parents and their children |
D.the relationship between progress praise and person praise |
Which of the following belongs to "progress praise"?
A.You did a good job! | B.What an adorable boy! |
C.You're a real gentleman! | D.We are so proud of you! |
Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A.Praise is good for children's development. |
B.Praise is more beneficial than punishment. |
C.Person praise is better than process praise. |
D.Process praise is more beneficial in the long run. |
If you hear the sound of a mobile phone beeping in a bag or pocket, you could think that someone has received a text message. Text messaging, or texting, is the art of sending a short, electronic message between two mobile phones. The users should pay a certain amount to send messages via SMS--- short message service. But in the last few years, with the development of smart phones, messaging in this way has been at a low ebb.
The rise of smart phones has seen an increase in the use of instant messaging apps. The apps offer a cheap alternative to traditional texts. Using wireless internet connections, people can send a number of messages to their friends at a very low cost. Unlike traditional mobile texts, the users usually only have to pay to download the app once, after which each message they send is free.
Instant messaging apps have become popular all over the world. Hundreds of millions of people use the apps to chat with their friends. These apps allow people to send pictures messages for free---something which previously was quite costly. Many of these apps also allow users to have access to a huge range of colourful emotions, which can help people express their emotions.
The research company Informa said that almost 19 billion messages were sent per day using chat apps last year, compared with 17.6 billion SMS texts. And it expects the chat app market to grow to 50 billion per day by 2015. So does this really mean the end of communicating by texting?
Pamela Clark-Dickson from Informa doesn’t think so. She says that there are a large number of people who use normal mobile phones, particularly in developing countries and prefer the SMS messaging tool. For the moment, these users still find that SMS is the best messaging experience for them.The underlined phrase “at a low ebb” can be replaced by “______”
A.on the increase | B.on the decrease |
C.in the end | D.at the moment |
What can we learn about instant messaging apps?
A.Normal mobile phones can be used to download the apps. |
B.The apps enjoy high popularity in developing countries. |
C.Only part of the messages sent by the apps are free of charge. |
D.It will cost the users some money for downloading the apps. |
Instant messaging apps won’t take the place of the SMS messaging tool soon in that_____________________________________
A.there are a large number of people who enjoy using normal mobile phones. |
B.many people in developing countries can’t afford to buy smart phones. |
C.many people in developing countries don’t like instant messaging apps |
D.instant messaging apps are only known to people in developed countries. |
In which section of an English newspaper will this text probably be found?
A.Science & Technology | B.Culture |
C.Entertainment | D.Health & care |