Igotyourletterandwasgladtofind-优题课

第三部分：阅读理解（共15小题；每题2分，满分30分）
请认真阅读下列短文, 从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中, 选出最佳选项, 并在答题纸上将该项涂黑。
A
Perhaps you have heard a lot about the Internet, but what is it, do you know? The Internet is a network. It uses the telephone to join millions of computers together around the world.
Maybe that doesn’t sound very interesting. But when you’ve gone into the Internet, there are lots and lots of things you can do. You can send E-mails to your friends, and they can get them in a few seconds. You can also do with all kinds of information on the World Wide Web (WWW).
There are many different kinds of computers now. They all can be joined to the Internet. Most of them are small machines sitting on people’s desks at home, but there are still many others in schools, offices or large companies. These computers are owned by people and companies, but no one really owns the Internet itself.
There are lots of places for you to go into the Internet. For example, your school may have the Internet. You can use it during lessons or free time. Libraries often have computers joined to the Internet. You are welcome to use it at any time.
Thanks to the Internet, the world is becoming smaller and smaller. It is possible for you to work at home with a computer in front, getting and sending the information you need. You can buy or sell whatever you want by the Internet. But do you know 98% of the information on the Internet is in English? So what will English be like tomorrow?
56. Which is the quickest and cheapest way to send messages to your friends?
A. By post. B. By E-mail. C. By telephone. D. By satellite.
57. According to the last paragraph, which may be the possible place for people to work tomorrow?
A. In the library. B. At school. C. At home. D. In the shop.
58. What does the writer try to tell us with the last two sentences?
A. English is important in using the Internet. B. The Internet is more and more popular.
C. Most of the information is in English. D. Every computer must have the Internet.

E
In the atmosphere．carbon dioxide．acts rather like a one-way mirror or the glass in the roof of a greenhouse which allows the sun’s rays to enter but prevents the heat from escaping．
According to a weather expert’s prediction，the atmosphere will be 3°C warmer in the year 2050 than it is today, if man continues to burn fuels at the present rate．If this warming up took place，the ice caps in the poles would begin to melt, thus raising sea level several meters and severely flooding coastal cities．
Also，the increase in atmospheric temperature would lead to great changes in the climate of the northern hemisphere，possibly resulting in an alteration of the earth’s chief food growing zones．
In the past，concern about a man-made warming of the earth has concentrated on the Arctic because the Antarctic is much colder and has a much thicker ice sheet．But the weather experts are now paying more attention to West Antarctic，which may be affected by only a few degrees of warming，in other words，by a warming on the scale that will possibly take place in the next fiftyyears from the burning of fuels．
Satellite pictures show that large areas of Antarctic ice are already disappearing．The evidence available suggests that a warming has taken place．This fits the theory that carbon dioxide warms the earth．
However, most of the fuel is burnt in the northern hemisphere，where temperatures seem to be falling．Scientists conclude，therefore，that up to now natural influences on the weather have gone beyond those caused by man．The question is：Which natural cause has most effect on the weather?
One possibility is the variable behavior of the sun．Astronomers at one research station have studied the hot spots and ‘cold’ spots (that is，the relatively less hot spots)on the sun．As the sun rotates，every 27．5 days，it presents hotter or colder faces to the earth，and different aspects to different parts of the earth．This seems to have a considerable effect on the distribution of the earth’s atmospheric pressure，and consequently on wind circulation．The sun is also changeable over a long term：its heat output goes up and down in cycles，the latest trend being downward．
Scientists are now finding shared relation between models of solar weather interaction and the actual climate over many thousands of years，including the last Ice Age．The problem is that
the models are predicting that the world should be entering a new Ice Age and it is not．One way of solving this theoretical difficulty is to assume a delay of thousands of years while the solar effects overcome the inertia(惰性)of the earth’s climate．If this is right，the warming effect of carbon dioxide might thus be serving as a useful opposed balance to the sun’s fading heat．
72．It can be concluded that a concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would______．
A．mean a warming-up in the Arctic
B．raise the temperature of the earth’s surface
C．prevent the sun’s rays from reaching the earth’s surface
D．explain the cause of great changes in the climate in the northern hemisphere
73．Although the fuel consumption is greater in the northern hemisphere, temperatures there
seem to be falling．This is _______．
A．mainly because the levels of carbon dioxide are rising
B．partly due to changes in the output of solar energy
C．possibly because the ice caps in the poles are melting
D．only due to the effect of the inertia of the earth’s climate
74．On the basis of their models , scientists are of the opinion that ________
A．the climate of the world should be becoming cooler
B．the new Ice Age will be delayed by the greenhouse effect
C．the man．made warming effect helps to increase the solar effects
D．it will take thousands of years for the inertia of the earth’s climate to take effect
75．If the assumption about the delay of a new Ice Age is correct , _________
A．ice would soon cover the northern hemisphere
B．the greenhouse effect could work in favor of the earth
C．the best way to overcome the cooling effect would be to bum more fuels
D．the increased levels of carbon dioxide could warm up the earth even more quickly

D
A child who has once been pleased with a tale likes, as a rule, to have it retold in almost the same words, but this should not lead parents to treat printed fairy stories as formal texts. It is always much better to tell a story than read it out of a book, and, if a parent can produce what, in the actual situation of the time and the child, is an improvement on the printed text, so much the better.
A charge made against fairy tales is that they harm the child by frightening him or making him sad thinking. To prove the latter, one would have to show in a controlled experiment that children who have read fairy stories were more often sorry for cruelty than those who had not. As to fears, there are, I think, some cases of children being dangerously terrified by some fairy story. Often, however, this arises from the child having heard the story once. Familiarity with the story by repetition turns the pain of fear into the pleasure of a fear faced and mastered.
There are also people who object to fairy stories on the grounds that they are not objectively true, that giants, witches, two-headed dragons, magic carpets, etc. do not exist; and that, instead of being fond of the strange side in fairy tales, the child should be taught to learn the reality by studying history. I find such people, I must say so peculiar(奇怪的) that I do not know how to argue with them. If their case were sound, the world should be full of mad men attempting to fly from New York to Philadelphia on a stick or covering a telephone with kisses in the belief that it was their beloved girl-friend.
No fairy story ever declared to be a description of the real world and no clever child has ever believed that it was.
68. The author considers that a fairy story is more effective when it is _______.
A. repeated without any change B. treated as a joke
C. made some changes by the parent D. set in the present
69. The advantage claimed for repeating fairy stories to young children is that it _______.
A. makes them less fearful
B. develops their power of memory
C. makes them believe there is nothing to be afraid of
D. encourages them not to have strange beliefs
70. The author’s mention of sticks and telephones is meant to suggest that _______.
A. fairy stories are still being made up
B. there is some misunderstanding about fairy tales
C. people try to modernize old fairy stories
D. there is more concern for children's fears nowadays
71. One of the reasons why some people are not in favor of fairy tales is that _______.
A. they are full of imagination
B. they just make up the stories which are far from the truth
C. they are not interesting
D. they make teachers of history difficult to teach

C
Everybody is happy as his pay rises. Yet pleasure at your own can disappear if you learn that a fellow worker has been given a bigger one. Indeed, if he is known as being lazy, you might even be quite cross. Such behavior is regarded as “all too human”, with the underlying belief that other animals would not be able to have this finely developed sense of sadness. But a study by Sarah Brosnan of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, which has just been published in Nature, suggests that it is all too monkey, as well.
The researchers studied the behaviors of some kind of female brown monkeys. They look smart. They are good-natured, co-operative creatures, and they share their food happily. Above all, like female human beings, they tend to pay much closer attention to the value of “goods and services” than males.
Such characteristics make them perfect subjects for Doctor Brosnan’s study. The researchers spent two years teaching their monkeys to exchange tokens (奖券) for food. Normally, the monkeys were happy enough to exchange pieces of rock for pieces of cucumber. However, when two monkeys were placed in separate and connected rooms, so that each other could observe what the other is getting in return for its rock, they became quite different.
In the world of monkeys，grapes are excellent goods (and much preferable to cucumbers). So when one monkey was handed a grape in exchange for her token, the second was not willing to hand hers over for a mere piece of cucumber. And if one received a grape without having to provide her token in exchange at all, the other either shook her own token at the researcher, or refused to accept the cucumber. Indeed, the mere presence of a grape in the other room (without an actual monkey to eat it) was enough to bring about dissatisfaction in a female monkey.
The researches suggest that these monkeys, like humans, are guided by social senses. In the wild, they are co-operative and group-living. Such co-operation is likely to be firm only when each animal feels it is not being cheated. Feelings of anger when unfairly treated, it seems, are not the nature of human beings alone. Refusing a smaller reward completely makes these feelings clear to other animals of the group. However, whether such a sense of fairness developed independently in monkeys and humans, or whether it comes from the common roots that they had 35 million years ago, is, as yet, an unanswered question.
64．According to the passage, which of the following statements is TRUE?
A．Only monkeys and humans can have the sense of fairness in the world.
B．Women will show more dissatisfaction than men when unfairly treated.
C．In the wild, monkeys are never unhappy to share their food with each other.
D．Monkeys can exchange cucumbers for grapes, for grapes are more attractive.
65．The underlined statement “it is all too monkey” means that ________.
A．monkeys are also angry with lazy fellows
B．feeling bitter at unfairness is also monkey’s nature
C．monkeys, like humans, tend to be envious of each other
D．no animals other than monkeys can develop such feelings
66．Which of the following conclusions is TRUE according to the passage?
A．Human beings' feelings of anger are developed from the monkeys.
B．In the research, male monkeys are less likely to exchange food with others.
C．Co-operation between monkeys stays firm before the realization of being cheated.
D．Only monkeys and humans have the sense of fairness dating back to 35 million years ago.
67．What can we infer about the monkeys in Sarah’s study?
A．The monkeys can be trained to develop social senses.
B．They usually show their feelings openly as humans do.
C．The monkeys may show their satisfaction with equal treatment.
D．Co-operation among the monkeys remains effective in the wild.

B
　　Although man has known asbestos for many hundreds of years, it was not until 160 years ago that it was mined for the first time on the North American continent. H. W. Johns, owner of a New York City Supply Shop for roofers, was responsible for he opening of that first mine.
　　Mr. Johns was given a piece of asbestos which had been found in Italy. He experimented with the material and then showed its surprising powers to his customers. After putting on a pair of asbestos gloves, which looked much like ordinary work gloves, he took red-hot coals from the fireplace and played with them in his hands. How astonished the customers were to discover that he was not burned at all. You can well imagine that he had increasing business in asbestos roofing materials. However, because it was very expensive to transport them from Italy to the United States, Mr. Johns sent out a young scientist to seek a source nearer home. This young man found great vein in the province of Quebec in Canada.
　　Ever since 1881 Quebec has led the world in the production of this unusual mineral, which is made up of magnesium, silicon, iron, and oxygen. When it is mined, the asbestos is heavy, just as you would expect a mineral to be. When it is separated, a strange thing happens; the rock breaks down into fine, soft, soapy fibers .
　　Scientists do not know why the rock can be separated easily into threads,but they have found thousands of uses of this fireproof material, of the so-called “cloth of stone”.
　60. Which title best expresses the main idea of this passage?
　 A. Asbestos mined in Canada B. Fireproof matter
C. A “wonder” mineral D. A new roofing material
　61. Johns proved his ability as a salesman by_______.
　 A. going into roofing business
B. carrying asbestos from Italy
　 C. sending a trained scientist
D. showing the use of asbestos gloves
　62. Which is the most important character of asbestos that the author wants to show us?
　 A. It is like thread. B. It feels soapy.
C. It burns easily. D. It is unusually heavy.
　63. The author’s main purpose in writing this passage was to _______.
　 A. show the need for more scientists
　 B. compare asbestos with other minerals
　 C. increase the sales of asbestos
　 D. present facts about asbestos