第三部分:阅读理解(共20小题,共40分)
第一节(共15题, 每小题2分,满分30分)
阅读下列短文,从每题所给的四个选项(A,B,C和D)中,选出最佳选项。
We often hear the phrase: “You have a greater chance of being struck by lightning.”It is used to describe something that hasn’t got much chance of happening.However, the common saying undermines(掩盖)the very real dangers of lightning.
Last Friday, at least 5 people were killed by lightning in Nepal(尼泊尔).
Lightning strikes are the second most common cause of deaths during natural disasters in the US.The first is floods.Around 400 people nationwide are struck by lightning each year, and of those, 70 people die.That is, more people are killed by lightning than by tornadoes and hurricanes.
Because lightning kills only one or two people at a time, its danger does not receive as much attention as other disasters.
“If you hear thunder, you are in danger from lightning, ”said Rocky Lopes, a disaster educator at the American Red Cross.
“Thunder means that lightning is close enough to hit you at any time, so you should move indoors immediately and stay there until the storm has ended.The most important thing to remember is to seek shelter,”Lopes said.
Summer is the peak time for lightning storms, so when lightning strikes across the sky, remember these safety tips:
*Stop working, fishing, swimming or playing in open fields.
*Do not stand under a tree.
*Get off bicycle and motorcycles.
*Crouch down(蹲下)if there is no shelter.
*Avoid open spaces, wire fences, metal objects and electrical objects such as hair driers.
56.Of the people who are struck by lightning each year in the U.S.A., about ____ people are lucky enough to continue to live.
A.400 B.330 C.70 D.5
57.If you hear the thunder, the most important thing you do is to _____.
A.find shelter to hide in B.stand still in the open spaces
C.stand under a tree D.stop working in the fields
58.Which of the following is NOT true?
A.If you hear the thunder, you needn’t move indoors right away.
B.Fewer than 70 people are killed by tornadoes and hurricanes each year in the U.S.A.
C.People don’t pay as much attention to the danger of lightning as that of floods.
D.Floods are the first most common cause of deaths during natural disasters in the U.S.A.
Whitney Houston, who died on February 11, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California, is being remembered across the globe as a trailblazer(开拓者). Among all of Houston’s outstanding achievements, including a total of more than 400 career a wards , her most significant achievement was her record-setting string of seven Number One singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart . It broke the previous record of six set by The Bee Gees and The Beatles. The string began on October 26 , 1985 with her Grammy-winning hit “Saving All My Love For You,” and ended on April 23, 1988 with her R&B ballad “Where Do Broken Hearts Go.” It was the fourth single from her album“Whitney”to go to Number One, also a record for a female artist. She sold more than 170 million albums worldwide and co-produced and recorded songs for one of the best-selling soundtracks(声带)of all time, The Bodyguard.
Whitney Houston was born the daughter of famed gospel(福音)singer Cissy Houston in Newak , New Jersey. Dionne Warwick was her cousin and Aretha Franklin her godmother. She began as a gospel singer and pianist in her mother’s church and sometimes performed alongside her in nightclubs. At age 15 , Whitney sang backup on Chaka Khan’s “I’m Every Woman,” a tune she later performed on The Bodyguard soundtrack.
Whitney signed with Arista in 1983 and released her self-titied debut album two years later. The New York Times called her first effort, “an impressive, musically conservative showcase(展示)for an exceptional vocal talent(声乐天才).” She continued to achieve similar praise for subsequent albums, while her fast-growing fan base put her into the world-class entertainer. In 1998, she released her most musically-diverse album to date, “My Love Is Your Love.” The title track became her third best-selling single ever.
The past 10 years were filled with highs and lows. While Whitney’s contract at Arista Records was renewed for $100 million, album sales began to slide. Her 14-year marriage to singer Bobby Brown ended in 2007 , she canceled concerts and interviews , and accusation arose of drug abuse. Her final album “I Look To you,” sold more than two million copies and reached the Number One spot in 2009.What’s Whitney Houston’s most outstanding achievements?
A.Selling more than 170 million albums worldwide. |
B.Her 400 career awards. |
C.Her vocal talent. |
D.Her record-setting string of seven Number One singles. |
According to the text, Houston.
A.was born in a gospel singer family |
B.released her famous album at the age of 15 |
C.sold the most of the albums worldwide |
D.Whitney first signed with Arista in 1985 |
What was Houston accused of ?
A.Her divorce with Bobby Brown. | B.Her conflict with her former husband. |
C.The canceled concerts and interviews. | D.Drug abuse. |
When did Whitney release her first self-titled album?
A.In 1983. | B.In 1985. | C.In 1989. | D.In 1987. |
What is the main idea of the first paragraph?
A.Whitney’s success. | B.Whitney’s achievements. |
C.Whitney’s best singles. | D.Whitney’s music talents. |
Many rural areas in the United States have no doctor. Some medical schools are trying different ways to treat the problem . One idea is to educate doctors in smaller communities and hope they stay. Dr. William Cathcart-Rake heads a new program at the University of Kansas in the Midwest.
“We need more doctors. There’s somewhere like a quarter of all of our physicians in Kansas who are sixty years of age or older. So we need to be replacing physicians, too.”Says Dr. William Cathcart. He also says medical students from rural areas now typically study in Wichita or Kansas City, two of the biggest cities in Kansas. They say, “You know, I really have every intention of coming back to rural Kansas,”but they meet a soul mate, they get married, their soul mate happens to be from a big city and we never see them again. They get captured in the big city. Hopefully, if we train them in smaller communities, they can meet the future spouses here , they can network here, and they have those connections which can hopefully be lifelong.
The program is based in Kansas’ tenth largest city , Salina, home to about fifty thousand people. Salina is about a three-hour drive from Kansas City, past fields of corn, soybeans and cattle.
Student Claire Hinrichsen grew up in a town of about six hundred people. She attended the University of Kansas, or KU, as an undergraduate. One reason why the chose the Salina program is because of the size. There are only eight students—the smallest medical school in the country. Classes are taught by professors in Salina or on a video link from Kansas City or Wichita.
Students who complete the four year program will then do their residency training in a small community in the surrounding area. One place a resident might work is the Clay Center Clinic, where Dr. Kerry Murphy is a family physician.
Rural doctors generally serve older, poorer patients. Going into a specialty in a big city can mean better working hours and more money to pay off student loans.
The Salina program will pay tuition for each year that students practice in a rural area in Kansas.What does the underlined word “spouses”in Paragraph 2 mean?
A.Wives husbands. | B.Homes. | C.Families. | D.Physicians. |
The reason why the medical students don’t want to go back to rural areas is that.
A.they don’t like to live in the rural Kansas |
B.there are not many girls in the rural Kansas |
C.they found their soul mates in cities |
D.the life in rural Kansas is so hard |
From the text we learn that.
A.Salina has a population of 500,000 |
B.a quarter of all physicians in Kansas are too old for the ideal doctors |
C.William Cathcart-Rake heads a new program in rural Kansas |
D.Educating more doctors in cities can settle the problem |
Why did student Claire Hinrichsen choose the Salina program?
A.Because she found her soul mate in rural Kanas. |
B.Because she likes to work as a doctor. |
C.Because she grew up in a town of 6,000 people. |
D.Because she likes the size of the program. |
What is the purpose of the passage?
A.To make it known that it lacks doctors very much in rural Kansas. |
B.To introduce a program handling the lack of doctors in rural Kansas. |
C.To train students to become doctors for rural Kansas. |
D.To meet the demands of doctors for many rural towns in Kansas. |
India is traditionally a tea-drinking country. But, it is now gaining a new taste for coffee. This has led international coffee companies to consider opening businesses in the huge market. Local business people are also hoping to profit from the country’s tea-drinking habits. They want to open new stores that offer tea.
It is ten thirty in the morning in India. Two cafes are within meters of each other, near a college in New Delhi. And they are selling a lot of tea. Their main customers are undergraduate students.
“We have a lot of break between classes, so whenever we get time, we just go and we enjoy ourselves. It’s a lot of fun , especially when you are with people you enjoy spending time with.”
In the past ten years , cafes have become increasingly popular in India. The country’s huge young population have quickly taken to the coffee culture.
Coffee stores have spread from major cities like New Delhi and Mumbai to smaller towns. Coffee use has doubled in the last ten years . It is the success of this market that has gained the attention of companies like the American-based coffee chain Starbucks. The company will open its first store in India later this year. Other companies like Lavazza and Costa Coffee are already there.
Yet, the growth of coffee will not reduce the popularity of tea. Indians drink eight times more tea than coffee. They have been drinking tea for more than one hundred and fifty years. India is one of the world’s biggest producers of tea, which is known locally as “chai”. Outside homes and offices, it is mostly sold by small businesses on the street.Why do international coffee companies consider opening businesses in India?
A.India consumes very little coffee. | B.India has a large population. |
C.People in India now prefer coffee to tea. | D.Indians come to like the taste of coffee. |
Which one is correct about undergraduate students?
A.They only have tea in the cafes. |
B.They are the main customers in the cafes. |
C.They like enjoying coffee with friends in cafes. |
D.They like to go to the cafes to escape lessons. |
What can we learn about coffee in India?
A.Coffee is consumed more than tea in India now. |
B.Coffee is much more welcomed by young Indians than tea. |
C.Coffee consumed today doubles that of ten years ago. |
D.The growth of coffee will reduce the consumption. |
Which statement is wrong according to the passage?
A.Coffee stores have spread to small towns in India. |
B.Some foreign coffee companies are trying to open Indian coffee market. |
C.Local people worry about losing profit on tea. |
D.Indians drink eight times more tea than coffee. |
What is the text mainly about?
A.Undergraduate students are main coffee consumers in India. |
B.Indians mainly consume both tea and coffee. |
C.India is traditionally a tea-drinking country. |
D.India is becoming a big new coffee consuming country. |
Modern inventions have speeded up people's lives amazingly.Motor cars cover a hundred miles in lithe more than an hour,aircraft cross the world inside a day,while computers operate at lightning speed.Indeed,this love of speed seems never ending.Every year motor cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boasts(吹嘘)of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.
All this saves time,but at a price.When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane,our bodies tell us so.We get the uncomfortable feeling known as j et lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind in another time zone.Again,spending too long at computers results in painful wrists and fingers.Mobile phones also,according to some scientists;too much use may put harmful radiation into our brains,a consequence we do not like to think about.
However,what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax,or so it seems.We are so accustomed to constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing or even just one thing at a time.Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio,letting imagination take us into another world.
There was a time when some people's lives were devoted simply to the cultivation(耕耘)of the land or the care of cattle.No multi tasking there;their lives went on at a much gentler pace,and in a familiar pattern.There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this.Yet before we do so,we must think of the hard tasks our ancestors faced:they farmed with bare hands,often lived close to hunger,and had to make tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.What's the passage mainly about?(within 10 words)
List the difficulties our ancestors met according to the text.(within 15 words)
①
②
③Fill in the blank in the 2nd paragraph with proper words or phrases.
Why do we make new products more and more time-saving according to Paragraph 1 of this passage?
Translate the underlined sentence in the 3rd paragraph into Chinese.
How often do you sit still and do absolutely nothing.The usual answer these days is“never”.or“hardly ever”.As the pace of life continues to increase,we are fast losing the art of relaxation.Once you are in the habit of rushing through life,being on the go from morning till night,it is hard to slow down.But relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body.
Stress is fl natural part of everyday life.There is no way to avoid it, since it takes many and varied forms-driving in traffic,problems with personal relationships are all different forms of stress.Stress,in fact,is not the“baddy”it is often reputed to be.A certain amount of stress is vital to provide motivation and give purpose to life.It is only when the stress gets out of control that it can lead to poor performance and ill health.
The amount of stress a person can withstand depends very much on the individual.Some people are not afraid of stress,and such characters are obviously prime material for managerial responsibilities.Others lose heart at the first sight of unusual difficulties.When exposed to stress,in whatever form,we react both chemically and physically.In fact we make a choice between “fight” or “fright” and in more primitive days the choice made the difference between life and death.The crisis we meet today are unlikely to be so extreme,but however little the stress,it involves the same response.All the energy is shifted to cope with the stress.It is when such a reaction lasts long,through continued exposure to stress,that health becomes endangered.Such serious conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease have established links with stress.
Stress in some people produces stomach disorders,while others experience tension headaches.Since we cannot remove stress from our 1ires,We need to find ways to cope with it.People are finding less and less time for relaxing themselves because.
A.they are working harder than they used to |
B.they are often too busy to find the time |
C.they are not clear of how to relax by themselves |
D.they are suffering from the effects of stress |
What is implied but not stated in the passage?
A.The art of relaxation can greatly help people bear stress. |
B.People in primitive days know certain ways to deal with stress. |
C.If one gets into the habit of relaxing every day he can overcome stress easily. |
D.Stress can lead to serious health problem if one is exposed to it for too long. |
The underlined sentence in Paragraph 2 suggests that.
A.stress is not always a bad thing for people |
B.stress has a bad reputation of causing ill health |
C.stress is not so terrible as people often believe it to be |
D.stress is always harmful to people all the time |
According to this passage,which of the following statements is true?
A.Relaxation in life only benefits us mentally. |
B.Different people can stand different amounts of stress. |
C.All the stress can lead to poor performance. |
D.Large amounts of stress is important to people's lire. |
What is the writer's attitude to stress according to the passage?
A.Stress as well as relaxation is essential for a healthy mind and body. |
B.Stress should not be rid completely from the life. |
C.Stress produces both positive and negative effects on people. |
D.People usually work better under stress if they are healthy. |