阅读理解
阅读下列四篇短文，从每小题后所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。
Why are newspapers and TV broadcasts filled with disaster, corruption and incompetence? It may be because we’re drawn to depressing stories without realizing, according to psychologists.
When you read the news, sometimes it can feel like the only things reported are terrible, depressing events. Why do the media concentrate on the bad things in life, rather than the good? In fact, many people often say that they would prefer good news.
The researchers present their experiment as solid evidence of a so called “negativity bias(偏见)”, psychologists’ term for our collective hunger to hear, and remember bad news.
It isn’t just delight in other people’s misfortune, the theory goes, but that we’ve evolved to react quickly to potential threats. Bad news could be a signal that we need to change what we’re doing to avoid danger.
As you’d expect from this theory, there’s some evidence that people respond quicker to negative words. In lab experiments, flash the word “cancer”, “bomb” or “war” up at someone and they can hit a button in response quicker than if that word is “baby”, “smile” or “fun”. We are also able to recognize negative words faster than positive words, and even tell that a word is going to be unpleasant before we can tell exactly what the word is going to be.
There’s another interpretation (解释)that researchers put on their evidence: we pay attention to bad news, because on the whole, we think the world is more hopeful than it actually is. When it comes to our own lives, most of us believe we’re better than average, and that, like the cliches, we expect things to be all right in the end. This pleasant view of the world makes bad news all the more surprising and arresting. It is only against a light background that the dark spots are highlighted.
So our attraction to bad news may be more complex than just journalistic prejudice or a hunger springing from the darkness within.What is “negativity bias” according to psychologists?
| A．It is one’s delight in others’ misfortune. |
| B．It is one’s habit of reacting quickly to potential threats. |
| C．It is a signal with which we can avoid danger. |
| D．People are born to hear and remember bad news. |
What can we infer from the passage?
| A．Journalists only feel like reporting depressing bad news. |
| B．It is true that there are no good stories to be reported. |
| C．People unconsciously pay more attention to bad news. |
| D．People like to hear pleasant words rather than bad words. |
What will be read first by most readers according to the theory?
| A．Movie star arrested for taking drugs. |
| B．Movie star went on a campaign for ASL disease. |
| C．Movie star accepts Ice Bucket Challenge |
| D．Movie star awarded the third Oscar in three years. |
What causes people to focus more on bad news than on good news?
| A．The world is believed to be more hopeful than it actually is. |
| B．It is expected things will be all right in the end. |
| C．The world is believed to be full of darkness. |
| D．It is believed that we are better than others. |
For many parents, raising a teenager is like fighting a long war, but years go by without any clear winner. Like a border conflict between neighboring countries, the parent-teen war is about boundaries: Where is the line between what I control and what you do?
Both sides want peace, but neither feels it has any power to stop the conflict. In part, this is because neither is willing to admit any responsibility for starting it. From the parents’ point of view, the only cause of their fight is their adolescents’ complete unreasonableness. And of course, the teens see it in exactly the same way, except oppositely. Both feel trapped.
In this article, I’ll describe three no-win situations that commonly arise between teens and parents and then suggest some ways out of the trap. The first no-win situation is quarrels over unimportant things. Examples include the color of the teen’s hair, the cleanliness of the bedroom, the preferred style of clothing, the child’s failure to eat a good breakfast before school, or his tendency to sleep until noon on the weekends. Second, blaming. The goal of a blaming battle is to make the other admit that his bad attitude is the reason why everything goes wrong. Third, needing to be right. It doesn’t matter what the topic is. The laws of physics or the proper way to break an egg —the point of these arguments is to prove that you are right and the other person is wrong, for both wish to be considered an authority—someone who actually knows something — and therefore to command respect. Unfortunately, as long as parents and teens continue to assume that they know more than the other, they’ll continue to fight these battles forever and never make any real progress. Why does the author compare the parent-teen war to a border conflict?
| A．Both can continue for generations. | B．Both are about where to draw the line |
| C．Neither has any clear winner | D．Neither can be put to an end |
What does the underlined part in Paragraph 2 mean?
| A．The teens blame their parents for starting the conflict. |
| B．The teens agree with their parents on the cause of the conflict |
| C．The teens cause their parents to mislead them |
| D．The teens tend to have a full understanding of their parents |
Parents and teens want to be right because they want to ________.
| A．give orders to the other | B．know more than the other |
| C．gain respect from the other | D．get the other to behave properly |
What will the author most probably discuss in the paragraph that follows?
| A．Causes for the parent –teen conflicts | B．Examples of the parent –teen war. |
| C．Solutions for the parent –teen problems | D．Future of the parent-teen relationship |
Two men, Alan and Henry, both seriously ill, shared a hospital room. Alan was allowed to sit up in his bed and his bed was next to the room’s only window. Henry had to spend all his time flat on his back.
The men talked for hours, of their wives, families, their homes and their jobs. And every afternoon when Alan, in the bed next to the window, could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm among flowers. Trees and skyline could be seen in the distance. As he described all this, Henry, on the other side of the room, would close his eyes and imagine the scene.
One warm afternoon Alan described a parade (游行) passing by. Although Henry could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head: why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never got to see anything? It doesn’t seem fair. Henry felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed seeing more sight, his envy grew and soon let him down. He began to find himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window—and that thought now controlled his life.
Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling. Alan began to cough. He was choking. Henry watched in the dim room as the struggling man tried hard to reach for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence—deathly silence.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, Henry asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.
Slowly, painfully, he struggled to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He looked out, but faced a black wall.Judging from the passage, the meaning of the underlined word “alien” is ______.
| A．disappointing | B．sudden | C．new | D．strange |
What finally happened to Alan?
| A．He was moved to another room. | B．He died. |
| C．He switched his bed with Henry. | D．He was very sick. |
Henry, who had his bed switched, had expected _____.
| A．to see the black wall | B．to feel the joy of seeing the outside world |
| C．to feel the joy of breathing fresh air | D．to see more than Alan |
Which of the following words could be used to describe Alan?
| A．Kind-hearted and imaginative | B．Well-informed and humorous |
| C．Talkative and funny | D．Cold-hearted and indifferent |
I had applied for the nuclear（核）submarine(潜艇) program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job. It was the first time I met Admiral Rickover, and we sat in a large room by ourselves for more than two hours, and he let me choose any subjects I wished to discuss. Very carefully, I chose those about which I knew most at the time – recent events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics(海军战术), electronics, gunnery(射击学) – and he began to ask me a lot of questions that were more difficult. Every time after my answers, he soon showed that I knew rather little about the subjects I had chosen.
He always looked right into my eyes, and he never smiled. I was saturated with cold sweat.
Finally, he asked me a question and I thought it was my turn to show myself off. He said, “How did you stand in your class at Georgia Tech before entering Annapolis as a first year student?” I had done very well, and I threw my chest with pride and answered, “Sir, I stood thirty-ninth in a class of 820!” I sat back to wait for the congratulations – which never came. Instead, the question: “Did you do your best?” I started to say, “Yes, sir,” but I remembered who this was, and thought of several of my times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies(二战时的同盟国), our enemies, weapons strategy(战略) and so on, so I finally said, “No, Sir, I didn’t always do my best.”
He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget – or to answer. He said, “Why not?” I sat there for a while, shaken, and then slowly left the room.The passage suggests that ___.
| A．the atmosphere of the interviews was very serious |
| B．the author always did his best in doing everything |
| C．the author and Admiral Rickover were good friends |
| D．Admiral Rickover knew the author quite well |
The word “saturated” in the second paragraph may probably mean ___.
| A．very satisfied | B．completely wet | C．rather sad | D．too excited |
When the author said: “Sir, I stood thirty-ninth in a class of 820!’’ He meant __.
| A．he did better than most of his classmates at the Academy |
| B．he had 820 classmates and he was Number thirty-nine |
| C．he was proud that the class he was in was very large |
| D．in the class only thirty-nine students stood in front of him |
My elder brother Steve, in the absence of my father who died when I was six, gave me important lessons in values（价值观念） that helped me grow into an adult.
Steve taught me to face the results of my behavior. Once when I returned in tears from a Saturday baseball game, it was Steve who asked me what happened. When I explained that my baseball had soared through Mrs. Holt’s basement window, breaking the glass with a crash, Steve encouraged me to admit to her. Although my knees knocked as I explained to Mrs. Holt, I offered to pay for the window from my pocket money if she would return my ball.
I also learned from Steve that personal property（财产） is a sacred（神圣的） thing. After I found a shiny silver pen in my fifth-grade classroom, I wanted to keep it, but Steve explained that it might be important to someone else in spite of the fact that it had little value. He reminded me of how much I’d hate to lose to someone else the small dog my father made with a piece of cheap wood. I returned the pen to my teacher, Mrs. David, and still remembered the smell of her perfume (香水) as she patted me on the shoulder.
Yet of all the instructions Steve gave me, his respect for life is the most unforgetful in my mind. When I was twelve I killed an old brown sparrow(麻雀)in the yard with a BB gun. Excited, I screamed at Steve to come and take a look. I shall never forget the way he stood for a long moment and stared at the bird on the ground. Then in a dead, quiet voice, he asked, “Did it hurt you first, Mark?” I didn’t know what to answer. He continued with his eyes firm, “The only time you should even think of hurting a living thing is when it hurts you first, and then you think a long, long time.” I really felt terrible then, but that moment stands out as the most important lesson my brother taught me.What is the passage mainly about?
| A．The relationship between Mark and Steve. |
| B．The important lessons Mark learned in school. |
| C．Steve’s important role in Mark’s growth stage. |
| D．Mark and Steve’s respect for living things. |
When Mark admitted his mistakes to Mrs. Holt, he ____.
| A．was surprised | B．felt frightened |
| C．was light-hearted | D．cried before her |
From the third paragraph, we can know that Mark _____.
| A．had a shiny silver pen | B．respected his teacher |
| C．hated his father very much | D．once owned a small wooden dog |
To Mark, which is the most important lesson Steve taught him?
| A．Respecting life. | B．Being responsible for one’s behavior. |
| C．Being honest. | D．Respecting others’ property |
Wendy Gallegos writes “concer” on the board. One of her students raises her hand.
“Ms. Gallegos, you should have written ‘conocer’ instead,” she said, referring to the Spanish verb for “to know.”
Gallegos looks at the board, smiles and quickly erases her mistake.
“You see, I have taught you so well, you pick up on my mistakes,” she said with a laugh.
To Gallegos, the scene in her classroom is typical（特有的）of the children she teaches. Gallegos teaches high school Spanish. She became part of their lives and families for three years. She is willing to help her children succeed. After a couple of years, Gallegos’ class becomes like home. Gallegos’ Spanish class is taught mostly in English in sixth grade. By the time the students are eighth-graders, they are speaking fewer words of English and more of Spanish during the 50-minute classes.
“My goal is to get my kids to say something in Spanish every day,” she said, “I want them to be able to talk to me. That’s why I help them, I praise them, I recognize them when they do good work. And we have fun. The day I stop having fun is the day I am going to consider a different job.’’
If a student needs help, Gallegos offers the student a “lifesaver,” which is help from a classmate. The lifesaver gets a piece of candy as a reward. As the students said: “Gallegos’ class is anything but boring.” It is because of Gallegos’ efforts and determination that she is the teacher who they think is most deserving of one of Collier County’s Golden Apple Awards.
“I don’t teach a subject, I teach kids. This is what I was born to do,” Gallegos said.The scene（情景）in Gallegos’ class is mentioned at the beginning of the passage to ____.
| A．show Gallegos, as a teacher, makes a mistake |
| B．tell teachers can help students correct mistakes. |
| C．show her good teaching method in daily class |
| D．point out the students’ impolite behavior in class |
The underlined sentence in Paragraph 6 implies that_____.
| A．having fun is Gallegos’ goal in hunting jobs. | B．Gallegos likes her job very much |
| C．Gallegos is considering changing her job | D．teaching Spanish will not last long |
What made Gallegos get Golden Apple Award?
| A．Her interesting class. | B．Her determination in study. |
| C．Rewarding her students with prizes. | D．Her efforts made to teach kids. |
What would be the best title for the passage?
| A．This is what I was born to do | B．Golden Apple Awards |
| C．Spanish classes with fun | D．How to get along with kids |