WhenmiddleagedAlexquithisjoban-优题课

D
Edmund Halley was an English scientist who lived over 200 years ago. He studied the observations of comets(彗星)which other scientists had made. The orbit of one particular comet was a very difficult mathematical problem. He could not figure it out. Neither could other scientists who dealt with such problems.
However, Halley had a friend named Isaac Newton, who was a brilliant mathematician. Newton thought he had already worked out that problem, but he could not find the papers on which he had done it. He told Halley that the orbit of a comet had the shape of an ellipse(椭圆形).
Now Halley set to work. He figured out(解决，计算出)the orbits of some of the comets that had been observed by scientists. He made a surprising discovery. The comets that had appeared in the years 1531, 1607, and 1682 all had the same orbit. Yet their appearance had been 75 to 76 years apart.
This seemed very strange to Halley. Three different comets followed the same orbit. The more Halley thought about it, the more he thought that there had not been three different comets as people thought. He decided that they had simply seen the same comet three times. The comet had gone away and had come back again.
It was an astonishing idea! Halley felt certain to make a prediction(预言)of what would happen in the future. He decided that this would appear in the year 1758. There were 53 years to go before Halley’s prediction could be tested. In 1758 the comet appeared in the sky. Halley did not see it, for he had died some years before. Ever since then that comet had been called Halley’s comet, in his honor.
63. Edmund Halley figured out the orbit of ____.
A. some different comets appearing several times
B. the same comet appearing at different times
C. three different comets appearing at the same time
D. several comets appearing at the same time
64. Halley made his discovery ____.
A. by doing experiments
B. by means of his own careful observation
C. by using the working of other scientists
D. by chance
65. Halley made a surprising, but correct prediction in the year____.
A. 1704 B. 1705 C. 1706 D. 1707
66. This passage in general is about ____.
A. Halley and other scientists B. the orbit of a comet
C. Newton and Halley D. Halley and his discovery

C
Have you ever played the game Hot Potato? Jon Scieszka and a team of 13 popular children’s book authors are playing a writer’s version of the game, and are having a blast.
Here’s how it works. In The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, the “hot potato” is the story, and it is passed from one author to the next. Scieszka wrote the first chapter. Then he passed the story to another author Katherine Paterson. If Scieszka decides to introduce a roller-skating baby into the story, Paterson and the other contributing authors will have to decide what to do with the baby in later chapters. Every two weeks a new chapter, written by a different author, will be published on the Library of Congress’s read. Gov site. The high rate of hits has proved that Scieszka did not fail to make the readers laugh with his incredibly silly story.
“Working on The Exquisite Corpse Adventure was so much fun,” Scieszka says. “I got to write the first chapter so I could set up all these foolish traps for the other authors and make them have to write about clowns and ninjas(忍者).”
The story might be crazy, but all of the authors agreed that writing the story together was a whole lot of fun. “I started in the middle of the story,” author Steven Kellogg said, “That’s kind of fun. I got to read about everyone else’s characters and then brought them into the chapter that I was writing. It’s really good to think about other authors’ ideas and connect them with my own.”
You may wonder why the book is called The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. In fact Kellogg and the other authors are playing a game that is over 100 years old. Exquisite Corpse is actually the name of an old game in which players begin a story on a sheet of paper and pass it on to the next player to continue the tale. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud.
59. How is the game Hot Potato played according to the passage?
A．People make up the story about the “hot potato” one by one.
B．People throw the “hot potato” to hit one another.
C．People pass the “hot potato” from one person to the next.
D．People hit by the “hot potato” must tell a funny story.
60. We can infer from the passage that________.
A．it’s the first time such a game of writing has ever been played
B．the story hasn’t been finished yet
C．the clues of the story have been decided by Kellogg
D．every chapter will be online for two weeks
61.Kellogg thinks the game is fun because________.
A．the story is very silly and crazy
B．he writes the main part of the story
C．he could continue the story by sharing it with other authors
D．there are so many different characters in the story
62.The last paragraph is mainly about________.
A．how the game ended B．when the game stared
C．how the book was named D．how the Exquisite corpse worked

B
As a kid, I can remember going to the supermarket and grabbing eggs off the shelf. I would run them home to my mother because they were usually going into a delicious cake. Times have changed. Cage-free? Organic? Brown? White? Omega-3s(一种脂肪酸)?Help! Here are some tips to help you figure out which eggs you should be eating.
Brown or white? In fact, color is simply a sign of the breed of hen. Find the freshest egg with the most flavor and let color be a secondary concern.
Extra Omega-3s? Omega-3 eggs come from a hen whose diet has added flaxseed (亚麻籽)，which produces an egg containing an average of 225 mg of Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E. The countless health benefits for humans make these eggs an attractive purchase. My opinion? Eat a piece of fresh fish and get a pure pill of Omega-3s. Let eggs be eggs.
Does your egg need exercise? Free-range eggs are from hens raised without the limit of a cage, though they may or may not have spent much time outdoors. Organic eggs are from hens whose food must meet organic standards. These hens must be raised humanly, and they must be given time to the outdoors. Hey, happier hens do lay tastier eggs.
Does local make a difference? Nothing is better than local eggs. They may have a feather or two stuck to them or be a little imperfect in shape and may or may not be certified organic; however, they have one quality. I know exactly where my food came from and how it came into being! In some cases I can even ask the farmer when the eggs were laid and what they were fed.
55.What’s the best title for this passage?
A．Which Eggs Should You Be Eating? B．Eggs Are Changing as Times Are Changing
C．Which Kind of Egg Is the Best? D. The First Concern When Choosing Eggs
56. What does the author think of extra Omega-3s eggs?
A．They are a good choice for people to buy.
B．They contain fewer Omega-3s than fresh fish.
C．They have the highest content of pure Omega-3s.
D．They are not the best source of Omega-3s.
57. The underlined word “free-range” probably means “________ ”
A．wild B．cage-free C．organic D．Omega-3-free
58.According to the passage, which of the following has nothing to do with an egg’s quality?
A．The egg’s color. B．The hen’s exercise.
C．The hen’s living conditions. D．The hen’s food.

第三部分：阅读理解（共20小题;每小题2分，满分40分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项。
A
“Mr. Mandela has spent 67 years making the world a better place. We’re asking you for 67 minutes”. Nelson Mandela turns 91 on the 18th of July, and the call has gone out for people everywhere to celebrate his birthday and the global launch of Mandela Day by acting on the idea that each person has the power to change the world.
The call by the Nelson Mandela Foundation and its sister organizations for the creation of an official global Mandela Day is gaining great support. It is to be celebrated on the 18th of July every year－Mandela’s birthday.
“The celebration of Mandela Day aims to call on people to recognize their power and devote 67 minutes to making an imprint (印记) and helping change the world around them for the better”, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said at the launch of the campaign in April.
“Nelson Mandela has been making an imprint on the world for 67 years, beginning in 1942 when he first started to fight for the human rights of every South African. He has set a good example to the world. ”
Mandela said at the time of the launch that he would be honoured if such a day can serve to bring together people around the world to fight poverty and improve peace.
Former US president Bill Clinton said Mandela’s example showed that the power of public kindness does not require public office, but a well-placed heart and a determined mind .
South African President Jacob Zuma said it would give people in South Africa and all over the world the opportunity to do something good to help others. Let us wholeheartedly support Mandela Day and encourage the world to join us in this wonderful campaign.
51. The underlined word “launch” in the first paragraph can be replaced by“________”.
A．celebration B．creation C．realization D. activity
52. The aim of setting up Mandela Day is to________ .
A．celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 91st birthday
B．improve the international position of South Africa
C．encourage people to fight poverty
D．call on people to make the world a much better place
53. It can be inferred from the passage that Bill Clinton and Jacob Zuma________.
A．do not support some ideas of Nelson Mandela
B．were too busy to attend Nelson Mandela’s 91st birthday celebration
C．think highly of the contribution Nelson Mandela has made to the world
D．disagree with the idea of setting up a global Mandela Day
54. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A．Nelson Mandela began to fight for the human rights in 1942.
B．It took 67 minutes to celebrate Mandela’s birthday.
C．Presidents form all around the world will attend the celebration.
D．The Nelson Mandela Foundation made 18th July Mandela Day.

E
It is true that good writers rewrite and rewrite and then rewrite some more .But in order to work up the desire to rewrite, it is important to learn to like what you write at the early stage.
I am surprised at the number of famous writers I know who say that they so dislike reading their own writing later that they even hate to look over the publishers’ opinions .One reason we may dislike reading our own work is that we’re often disappointed that the rich ideas in our minds seem very thin and plain when first written down .Jerry Fodor and Steven Pinker suggest that this fact may be a result of how our minds work..
Different from popular belief ,we do not usually think in the works and sentences of ordinary language but in symbols for ideas (known as “mentalese”), and writing our ideas down is an act of translation from that symbolic language .But while mentalese contains our thoughts in the form of a complex tapestry (织锦)，writing can only be composed one thread at a time .Therefore it should not be surprising that our first attempt at expressing ideas should look so simple .It is only by repeatedly rewriting that we produce new threads and connect them to get closer to the ideas formed in our minds.
When people write as if some strict critics (批评家) are looking over their shoulder, they are so worried about what this critic might say that they get stuck before they even start. Peter Elbow makes an excellent suggestion to deal with this problem. When writing we should have two different minds. At the first stage, we should see every idea, as well as the words we use to express it, as wonderful and worth putting down. It is only during rewrites that we should examine what we excitedly wrote in the first stage and check for weaknesses.
68. What do we learn from the text about those famous writers?
A. They often regret writing poor works
B. Some of them write surprisingly much.
C. Many of them hate reading their own works
D. They are happy to review the publishers’ opinions.
69. What do people generally believe about the way human minds work?
A. People think in words and sentences.
B. Human ideas are translated into symbols.
C. People think by connecting threads of ideas.
D. Human thoughts are expressed through pictures.
70. What can we conclude from the text?
A. Most people believe we think in symbols.
B. Loving our own writing is scientifically reasonable.
C. The writers and critics can never reach an agreement.
D. Thinking and writing are different stages of mind at work.