What Is a Boy?
Between the innocence of babyhood and the seriousness of manhood we find a delightful creature called a “boy”. Boys come in different sizes, weights, and colors, but all boys have the same belief: to enjoy every second of every minute of every hour of every day and to fill the air with noise until the adult males send them off to bed at night.
Boys are found everywhere – on top of, under, inside of, climbing on, swinging from, running around, or jumping to. Mothers spoil them, little girls hate them, older sisters and brothers love them, and God protects them. A boy is TRUTH with dirt on its face, BEAUTY with a cut on its finger, WISDOM with chocolate in its hair, and the HOPE of the future with a snake in its pocket.
When you are busy, a boy is a trouble – maker and a noise. When you want him to make a good impression, his brain turns to jelly or else he becomes a wild creature destroying the world and himself with it.
A boy is a mixture – he has the stomach of a horse, the digestion (消化) of stones and sand, the energy of an atomic bomb, the curiosity of a cat, the imagination of a superman, the shyness of a sweet girl, the brave nature of a bull, the violence of a firecracker(鞭炮), but when you ask him to make something, he has five thumbs on each hand.
He likes ice cream, knives, saws, Christmas, comic books, woods, water (in its natural habitat), large animals, Dad, trains, Saturday mornings, and fire engines. He is not much for Sunday schools, company, schools, books without pictures, music lessons, neckties, barbers, girls, overcoats, adults, or bedtime.
Nobody else is so early to rise, or so late to supper. Nobody else gets so much fun out of trees, dogs, and breezes. Nobody else can put into one pocket a rusty knife, a half eaten apple, a three-feet rope, six cents and some unknown things.
A boy is a magical creature – he is your headache but when you come home at night with only destroyed pieces of your hopes and dreams, he can mend them like new with two magic words, “Hi, Dad!”
1.The whole passage is in a tone (语气) of _________.
A. humor and love B. anger and disappointment
C. hope and expectation D. confidence and imagination
2.What’s the meaning of the underlined sentence?
A. He has altogether five fingers.
B. He is slow, foolish and clumsy.
C. He becomes clever and smart.
D. He cuts his hand with a knife.
3.According to the writer, boys appreciate everything in the following except _________.
A. ice cream B. comic books
C. Saturday mornings D. Sunday schools
4.What does the writer feel about boys?
A. He feels curious about their noise.
B. He is tired of these creatures.
C. He is amazed by their naughtiness.
D. He feels unsafe staying with them.
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
For those who study the development of intelligence(智力)in the animal world, self-awareness is an important measurement. An animal that is aware(意识)of itself has a high level of intelligence.
Awareness can be tested by studying whether the animal recognizes itself in the mirror, that is, its own reflected image(反射出的影像).Many animals fail this exercise bitterly, paying very little attention to the reflected image. Only humans, and some intelligent animals like apes and dolphins, have shown to recognize that the image in the mirror is of themselves.
Now another animal has joined the club. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers report that an Asian elephant has passed the mirror self-reflection test.
“We thought that elephants were the next important animal,” said Dinana Reiss of the Wildlife Conservation Society, an author of the study with Joshua M.Plotnik and Fans B.M. de Waal of Emory University. With their large brains, Reiss said, elephants “seemed like cousins to apes and dolphins.”
The researchers tested Happy, Maxine and Patty, three elephants at the Bronx Zoo.They put an 8-foot-square mirror on a wall of the animals’ play area (out of the sight of zoo visitors) and recorded what happened with cameras, including one built in the mirror.
The elephants used their long noses to find what was behind it, and to examine parts of their bodies.
Of the three, Happy then passed the test, in which a clear mark was painted on one side of her face. She could tell the mark was there by looking in the mirror, and she used the mirror to touch the mark with her long nose.
Diana Reiss said, "We knew elephants were intelligent, but now we can talk about their intelligence in a better way."
1.What can mirror tests tell us about animals?
A. Whether they have self-awareness.
B. Whether they have large brains.
C. Whether they enjoy outdoor exercises.
D. Whether they enjoy playing with mirrors.
2.Why does the author mention apes and dolphins in the text?
A. They are most familiar to readers.
B. They are big favorites with zoo visitors.
C. They are already known to be intelligent.
D. They are included in the study by Reiss.
3.What made Happy different from Maxine and Patty?
A. She used her nose to search behind the mirror.
B. She painted a mark on her own face.
C. She recognized her own image in the mirror.
D. She found the hidden camera.
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
The rapid growth of cities worldwide over the next two decades will cause significant risks to people and the global environment, according to analysis.
Researches from Yale and Stanford predict that by 2030 urban areas will expand by 590,000 square miles—nearly the size of Mongolia—to meet the needs of 1.47 billion more people living in urban areas.
“It is likely that these cities are going to be developed in places that are the most biologically diverse,” said Karen Seto, a famous scientist at Yale University. “They are going to be growing and expanding into forests, biological hotspots, savannas(热带稀缺大草原), coastlines—sensitive and vulnerable places.”
Urban areas, they found, have been expanding more rapidly along coasts. “Of all the places for cities to grow, coasts are the most sensitive. People and buildings along the coast are at risk of flooding and other environmental disasters,” said Seto.
The study provides the first estimate of how fast urban areas globally are growing and how fast they may grow in the future. “We know a lot about global patterns of urban population growth, but we know significantly less about how urban areas are changing,” she said. “Changes in land cover associated with urbanization lead to many environmental changes, from habitats loss and agricultural land conversion(转化) to changes in local and regional climate.”
The researchers examined studies that used satellite data to map urban growth and found that from 1970 to 2000 the world’s urban footprint had grown by at least 22,400 square miles—half the size of Ohio.
“This number is numerous, but, in actuality, urban land expansion has been far greater than what our analysis shows because we only looked at the published studies that used satellite data,” said Seto. “We found that 48 of the most populated urban areas have been studied using satellite data, with findings in journals. This means that we’re not tracking the physical expansion of more than half of the world’s largest cities.”
Half of urban land expansion in China is driven by a rising middle class, whereas the size of cities in India and Africa is driven primarily by population growth. “Rising incomes translate into rising demand for bigger homes and more land for urban development, which has a great effect on biodiversity conservations, loss of carbon sinks and energy use.”
1.According to the passage, the most dangerous place for city expansion is the _____.
A.forest B.desert C.savannas D.coastline
2.The underlined word “vulnerable” (in Para. 3) probably means “____”.
A.diverse in plants B.beautiful in scenery
C.easily damaged D.very productive
3.From Para. 5, we can infer that ____.
A.urbanization is a good way to improve people’s standards of living
B.cities develop very fast and more and more people come to live in cities
C.more and more agricultural farmlands are used to make room for local animals
D.in the past, researchers focused their attention on the expanding urban areas
4.Cities in Africa become bigger and bigger mainly because of their ____.
A.growing population B.rising middle class
C.unique living patterns D.economic development
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
In February, 2015, a South Korean woman was sleeping on the floor when her robot vacuum ate her hair, forcing her to call for emergency help. It surely isn’t what Stephen Hawking warned us that intelligent devices “mean the end of the human race”. But it does highlight one of the unexpected dangers of inviting robots into our home.
There are many examples of intelligent technology going bad, but more often than not, they involve cheating rather than physical danger. Meanwhile, increasing evidence suggests that we, especially children, tend to tell our deepest, darkest secrets to human robots. So how do we protect ourselves from giving-away code?
Once you’ve invited a robot into your home, you need to manage your expectations. Movies and marketing may have told us to expect deep interaction with robots friends but we’ve still got a long way to go before they are as socially aware as described. Given the gulf between expectation and reality, it’s important to avoid being tricked.
The message is clear: as robots became increasingly connected to the internet, and able to respond to natural language, you need to especially cautious about figuring out who or what you are talking about.
We also need to think about how information is being stored and shared when it comes to robots that can record our every move. Some recording devices may have been designed for entertainment but can easily be adapted for more dangerous purposes. Take Nixie, the wearable camera that can fly off your wrist at a moment’s notice and take shots around you in the air. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how such technology could be taken advantage of.
If the technology around us is able to record and process speech, images and movement, or listen secretly to us, what will happen to that information? Where will it be stored? Who will have access?
So, what is the safest way to welcome robots into our homes, public spaces, and social lives? We should be cautiously optimistic that intelligent machines could become enriching companions, while acknowledging that we need to determine strict boundaries for robots. There should be someone to turn to should your robot commit a crime, steal your card... or try to eat your hair.
1.The hair-eating story in Paragraph 1 is intended to .
A. introduce the topic of the discussion
B. show the poor quality of the product
C. appeal to us to take pity on the victim
D. warn us to keep far away from vacuum
2.According to the writer, it is wise to .
A. put a cautious trust in robots
B. make robots more socially aware
C. have deep interaction with robots
D. tell our secrets to robots straightly.
3.The underlined word “gulf” in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to .
A. trust B. distance
C. technology D. advantage
4.The writer’s attitude to our complete trust in robots can best be described as .
A. positive B. objective
C. critical D. pessimistic
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Roller coasters are fast and exciting. But passing a painful kidney (肾) stones is not. The process is painful and can take a long time. But American researchers have found that a roller coaster ride just might help those suffering from a kidney stone. They say such rides help patients pass the stones with a 70 percent success rate.
David Wartinger led the study. He found that where the person sits on the roller coaster can make a big difference. He said, “In the pilot study, sitting in the last car of the roller coaster showed about a 64 percent passage rate. Sitting in the first few cars only had a 16 percent success rate.”
It also mattered where the stones were located in the kidney. The researchers found that stones located in the upper part of the kidney model were passed 100 percent.
When it comes to passing kidney stones, not all roller coasters are equal. The researchers used 174 kidney stones of differing shapes, sizes and weights to see if each model worked on the same ride and on two other roller coasters. They found that Big Thunder Mountain was the only one that worked. The other two roller coasters both failed the test. Wartinger said the other rides were too fast and too violent. The movement forced the stones against the side of the kidney. He said that the ideal roller coaster is rough and quick with some twists and turns.
Wartinger thinks roller coaster rides could also be used as a preventative measure. He said that a yearly ride on a roller coaster could even prevent stones from developing. “You need to heed the warnings before going on a roller coaster,” he said. “If you have a kidney stone, but are otherwise healthy and meet the requirements of the ride, patients should try it.”
He adds that it’s definitely a lower cost alternative to other treatments. And riding a roller coaster is definitely more fun!
1.According to the text, passing kidney stone is ______.
A. fast B. exciting
C. interesting D. painful
2.Which of the following benefits people with a kidney stone most?
A. Sitting in the first car of a roller coaster.
B. Sitting in the middle car of a roller coaster.
C. Sitting in big roller coasters with doctors’ care.
D. Sitting in rough and fast roller coasters with twists and turns.
3.What’s Wartinger’s attitude to riding roller coasters for people having a kidney stone?
A. Worried. B. Negative.
C. Supportive. D. Skeptical.
4.What would be the best title for the text?
A. Some treatments of kidney stones
B. Advantages of riding roller coasters
C. Roller coasters can help pass kidney stones
D. Kidney stones can be cured by riding roller coasters
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Five meteorologists (气象学家) who were trapped for two weeks after polar bears surrounded their weather station are now able to leave after the creatures were chased away. Their supervisor told NBC News early Wednesday.
Russian officials had feared the siege could last for another month, the time it would take to reach the islands in the Kara Sea, high in the Arctic Circle. But on Tuesday night a research ship took a detour (绕道) to assist those weathermen, station supervisor Vasily Shevchenko told NBC News. The ship run by Russia’s state-run oil firm Rosneft frightened away the bears using its helicopter, before resupplying the weather station with more food and puppies (幼犬). The puppies are not yet big enough to deter the bears, but the station is planning to draft in a replacement adult guard dog as soon as possible.
Some of the bears had taken to sleeping directly outside the windows of remote outpost. There was no risk of the researchers starving because they had a year’s worth of food, but they were forced to take dangerous trips to a nearby building, holding a gun for protection, according to Shevchenko.
Polar bears are an endangered species. In Russia, it’s a crime to shoot them unless in self-defense. The bears usually leave the islands in the summer, but this time they were trapped by the melting ice, an apparent sign of climate change, according to Shevchenko. “They’ve stayed on the island because there is nowhere for them to go,” he said.
The animals suffer from global warming because it shrinks the floating ice that forms their main hunting ground. According to the environmental group the World Wide Fund for Nature, known as the WWF, this has got some polar bears to go near human habitats in search of food.
1.What did the research ship do to help the five meteorologists?
A. Drive them home.
B. Shoot all the bears.
C. Use its helicopter to scare the bears away.
D. Supply the weather station with more money.
2.The underlined Word “deter” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to “______”.
A. stop B. respect
C. protect D. raise
3.What made the bears trapped on the island according to the text?
A. Sea Pollution. B. Climate change.
C. Humans’ hunting. D. Animals’ hunting
4.What can we infer from the text?
A. People in Russia can hunt bear for money.
B. The melting ice will kill all the polar bears.
C. The five meteorologists hated the bears very much.
D. WWF made some contributions to protecting polar bears.
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Chuck Berry, the man often called the “father of rock and roll” is still performing at 85. Another music great, Smokey Robinson, has described Chuck Berry as “the inspiration for all of today’s rock 'n' roll guitarists." And, Anthony Kiedis calls him “a musical scientist who discovered a cure for the blues.”
On stage, he became known for his wild performances, and his “duck walk” that many musicians copied. But his songwriting skills—some call him a rock and roll poet—and his guitar work really set him apart. Early in his career he played mostly blues for black audiences in clubs in St. Louis, Missouri. But the most popular music in the area was country. So this musical scientist mixed country and blues.
Chuck Berry was born on October 18th, 1926, in St. Louis, where he still lives. His mother, Martha, was a high school principal. He was born the fourth of six children. He started singing in church when he was six years old. His interest in music stuck with him.
A lot of Chuck Berry's material is about teenage life, especially school. Chuck Berry and two friends were arrested after they used a gun to steal a car. He was released from prison four years later. But that would not be the last of his legal problems over the years.
Filmmaker Taylor Hackford made a documentary called “Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’ Roll,” named for a Chuck Berry song. It centered on the making of a concert to honor the musician on his sixtieth birthday in 1986. More than seventy-five artists and bands have done their own versions of Chuck Berry songs. Many have done several, including the Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Conway Twitty and Bruce Springsteen.
1.Which of the following makes Chuck Berry different from other musicians?
A. Wild performance and duck walk.
B. skills of creating songs and guitar work
C. Duck walk and skills of creating songs.
D. Guitar work and wild performance.
2.According to the text, Chuck Berry ________.
A. was influenced by the education of his mother
B. wrote most of his songs that reflected his teenage life
C. show his musical talent at an early age
D. didn’t have legal problems after he became a successful musician
3.What can we learn from the text?
A. Chuck Berry had a lot of music used in filmmaking.
B. Chuck Berry is also interested in performing in movies.
C. Chuck Berry had a concert to celebrate his sixtieth birthday.
D. Chuck Berry has a great influence on many musicians.
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
When I am feeling down, I listen to uplifting music to lift my spirits. When I want to calm down, I listen to Indian classical instrumental music. Many times, I look at contemporary Indian art - either in real art galleries or in virtual art galleries on the Web to improve my mood. I particularly like the paintings with vibrant(鲜明的)colors or ones which present a calm landscape using gentle colors.
Art therapy (治疗) uses the creation or viewing of art to help people discover and express their feelings. Unlike art for art’s sake, which focuses on the finished piece, art therapy focuses on the process of creation itself. Art therapists believe that the act of making a piece of art triggers internal activity that contributes to physical, emotional and spiritual healing. For people who are not able or ready to create art, going to an art museum or looking through art books or virtual art galleries can also be helpful. Simply viewing art refreshes the spirit and promotes relaxation.
Art therapy is helpful in healing in various ways. The aesthetic(审美的)quality of the work produced can lift a person’s mood, boost self-awareness, improve self-esteem and increase self-confidence. Also, research shows that physiological functions, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration(呼吸), become slow when people are deeply involved in an activity they enjoy.
Because art therapy uses a language other than words, it is often employed in treating patients with physical or emotional illnesses who have difficulty talking about their fears or hopes, or about their anger and other strong emotions. The creation of art helps people get in touch with thoughts and feelings that are often hidden from the conscious mind.
Stress reduction is also a significant benefit. Studies have shown that repressing strong feelings can lead to a buildup of stress, and that stress can intensify pain and the symptoms of various diseases. Because art therapy helps people access their unconscious mind and release pent-up(被抑制的) emotions, it has been found to be very useful in treating those suffering from stress and stress-related illnesses.
1.How does the author start the passage ?
A. By describing his own experiences.
C. By explaining a certain term.
B. By presenting a certain fact.
D. By giving figures.
2.The underlined word “triggers” in Paragraph 2 can be replaced by “___________ ”.
A. ignores B. causes C. decreases D. prevents
3.All of the following are helpful in healing EXCEPT _____________.
A. going to an art museum
C. surfing on the Internet
B. going to the virtual art galleries
D. reading art books
4.Why is art therapy useful to patients with physical or emotional illnesses?
A. It lets them forget about their fears.
C. It helps improve their social skills.
B. It helps them release their hidden feelings.
D. It helps them hide their feelings.
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Everyone sleeps. However, taking the time to develop a sleep habit is probably the last thing on your mind and some sleep advice simply can’t be forgotten. 1..
Watching TV until you fall asleep
It has nothing to do with what you watch —TV news isn’t a better pre-sleep choice than TV series. 2.. The bright light keeps you awake all the night. So even if you nod off (in front of the TV, for example), you probably won’t stay asleep for long.
Sleeping with pets
3.. They get comfortable, and then they move. This goes on all night, and whether you admit it or not, it interrupts your ability to get the level of sleep needed to feel rested.
Eating fatty, heavy foods too close to bedtime
Heartburn (烧心,胃痛) strikes anyone of any age, but it’s the most common GI disorder (胃肠失调) in older adults. If you’ve ever tried to go to sleep after eating a fatty meal, you’ve probably found the discomfort of stomach preventing you from falling asleep or staying asleep.
4.
Remember how poorly you sleep when you have a fever—turning over and over again, never really feeling rested? Well, heavy exercise too close to bedtime has the same effect—it raises your body temperature so that your sleep is disturbed until your body temperature drops to normal, which may take several hours.
Accepting snoring (打呼噜) as normal sleep behavior
Snoring may seem as common as breathing, but it’s considered the biggest sleep killer, and it’s linked to several causes: sleeping on your back, being overweight, having a cold, drinking, or taking drugs. 5.. For the snorer, it disturbs sleep by awakening him/her every so often in order to breathe normally. For the partner, the noise can be unbearable.
A. Exercising heavily too close to bedtime
B. Here are some suggestions you’ll need to follow
C. Reducing your body temperature before bedtime
D. Rather it’s the TV’s bright light that is the criminal
E. Here are some bad habits you need to get rid of
F. Most seriously, it’s caused by a dangerous illness
G. Pets sleep most of the day, and they move a lot when sleeping
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
A city child's summer is spent in the street in front of his home’, and all through the long summer vacations I sat on the edge of the street and watched enviously the other boys on the block play baseball. I was never asked to take part even when one team had a member missing—not out of special cruelty, but because they took it for granted, I would be no good at it. They were right, of course.
I would never forget the wonderful evening when something changed. The baseball ended about eight or eight thirty when it grew dark. Then it was the custom of the boys to retire to a little stoop(门廊) that stuck out from the candy store on the corner and that somehow had become theirs. No grownup ever sat there or attempted to. There the boys would sit,mostly talking about the games played during the day and of the game to be played tomorrow. Then long silences would fall and the boys would wander off one by one. It was just after one of those long silences that my life as an outsider changed. I can no longer remember which boy it was that summer evening who broke the silence with a question;but whoever he was, I nod to him gratefully now. “What's in those books you're always reading?” he asked casually. “Stories,” I answered. “What kind?” asked somebody else without much interest.
Nor do I know what drove me to behave as I did, for usually I just sat there in silence, glad enough to be allowed to remain among them; but instead of answering his question, I told them for two hours the story I was reading at the moment. The book was Sister Carrie. They listened bugeyed and breathless. I must have told it well, but I think there was another and deeper reason that made them so keen an audience. Listening to a tale being told in the dark is one of the most ancient of man's entertainments, but I was offering them as well, without being aware of doing it, a new and exciting experience.
The books they themselves read were the Rover Boys or Tom Swift or G.A. Henry. I had read them too, but at thirteen I had long since left them behind. Since I was much alone I had become an enthusiastic reader and I had gone through the booksforboys series. In those days there was no reading material between children's and grownups' books,or I could find none. I had gone right from Tom Swift and His Flying Machine to Theodore Dreiser and Sister Carrie. Dreiser had hit my young mind,and they listened to me tell the story with some of the wonder that I had in reading it.
The next night and many nights thereafter,a kind of unspoken ritual(仪式) took place. As it grew dark, I would take my place in the centre of the stoop and begin the evening's tale. Some nights, in order to taste my victory more completely, I cheated. I would stop at the most exciting part of a story by Jack London or Bret Harte, and without warning tell them that was as far as I had gone in the book and it would have to be continued the following evening. It was not true, of course; but I had to make certain of my newfound power and position. I enjoyed the long summer evenings until school began in the fall. Other words of mine have been listened to by larger and more fashionable audiences, but for that tough and athletic one that sat close on the stoop outside the candy store, I have an unreasoning love that will last forever.
1.Watching the boys playing baseball, the writer must have felt ________.
A. bitter and lonely B. special and different
C. pleased and excited D. disturbed and annoyed
2. The writer feels grateful even now to the boy who asked the question because the boy ________.
A. invited him to join in their game
B. liked the book that he was reading
C. broke the long silence of that summer evening
D. offered him an opportunity that changed his life
3. According to Paragraph 3, storytelling was popular among the boys basically because ________.
A. the story was from a children's book
B. listening to tales was an ageold practice
C. the boys had few entertainments after dark
D. the boys didn't read books by themselves
4.Sometimes the writer stopped at the most exciting part of a story to ________.
A. play a mean trick on the boys
B. add his own imagination to the story
C. experience more joy of achievement
D. help the boys understand the story better
5. What is the message conveyed in the story?
A. One can find his position in life in his own way.
B. Friendship is built upon respect for each other.
C. Reading is more important than playing games.
D. Adult habits are developed from childhood.
高二英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析