When I was seven my father gave me a Timex, m...

When I was seven my father gave me a Timex, my first watch. I loved it, wore it for years, and haven’t had another one since it stopped ticking a decade ago. Why? Because I don’t need one. I have a mobile phone and I’m always near someone with an iPod or something like that. All these devices（装置）tell the time—which is why, if you look around, you’ll see lots of empty wrists; sales of watches to young adults have been going down since 2007.

But while the wise have realized that they don’t need them, others—apparently including some distinguished men of our time—are spending total fortunes on them. Brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Breitling command shocking prices, up to £250.000 for a piece.

This is ridiculous. Expensive cars go faster than cheap cars. Expensive clothes hang better than cheap clothes. But these days all watches tell the time as well as all other watches. Expensive watches come with extra functions—but who needs them? How often do you dive to 300 metres into the sea or need to find your direction in the area around the South Pole? So why pay that much of five years’ school fees for watches that allow you to do these things?

If justice were done, the Swiss watch industry should have closed down when the Japanese discovered how to make accurate watches for a five-pound note. Instead the Swiss reinvented the watch, with the aid of millions of pounds’ worth of advertising, as a message about the man wearing it. Rolexes are for those who spend their weekends climbing icy mountains; a Patek Philippe is for one from a rich or noble family; a Breitling suggests you like to pilot planes across the world.

Watches are now classified as“investments”(投资). A 1994 Philippe recently sold for nearly £350, 000, while the 1960s Rolexes have gone from £15, 000 to £30, 000 plus in a year. But a watch is not an investment. It's a toy for self-satisfaction, a matter of fashion. Prices may keep going up—they’ve been rising for 15 years. But when fashion moves on, the owner of that £350, 000 beauty will suddenly find his pride and joy is no more a good investment than my childhood Timex.

1.It seems ridiculous to the writer that_______________.

A．people dive 300 meters into the sea

B．expensive clothes sell better than cheap ones

C．cheap cars don’t run as fast as expensive ones

D．expensive watches with unnecessary functions still sell

2.What can be learned about Swiss watch industry from the passage?

A．It’s hard for the industry to beat its competitors.

B．It targets rich people as its potential customers.

C．It wastes a huge amount of money in advertising.

D．It’s easy for the industry to reinvent cheap watches.

3.Which would be the best title for the passage?

A．Watches? Not for Me!                    B．My Childhood Timex

C．Timex or Rolex?                        D．Watches—a Valuable Collection

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

When I was seven my father gave me a Timex, my first watch. I loved it, wore it for years, and haven’t had another one since it stopped ticking a decade ago. Why? Because I don’t need one. I have a mobile phone and I’m always near someone with an iPod or something like that. All these devices（装置）tell the time—which is why, if you look around, you’ll see lots of empty wrists; sales of watches to young adults have been going down since 2007.

But while the wise have realized that they don’t need them, others—apparently including some distinguished men of our time—are spending total fortunes on them. Brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Breitling command shocking prices, up to £250.000 for a piece.

This is ridiculous. Expensive cars go faster than cheap cars. Expensive clothes hang better than cheap clothes. But these days all watches tell the time as well as all other watches. Expensive watches come with extra functions—but who needs them? How often do you dive to 300 metres into the sea or need to find your direction in the area around the South Pole? So why pay that much of five years’ school fees for watches that allow you to do these things?

If justice were done, the Swiss watch industry should have closed down when the Japanese discovered how to make accurate watches for a five-pound note. Instead the Swiss reinvented the watch, with the aid of millions of pounds’ worth of advertising, as a message about the man wearing it. Rolexes are for those who spend their weekends climbing icy mountains; a Patek Philippe is for one from a rich or noble family; a Breitling suggests you like to pilot planes across the world.

Watches are now classified as“investments”(投资). A 1994 Philippe recently sold for nearly £350, 000, while 1960s Rolexes have gone from £15, 000 to £30, 000 plus in a year. But a watch is not an investment. It's a toy for self-satisfaction, a matter of fashion. Prices may keep going up—they’ve been rising for 15 years. But when fashion moves on, the owner of that £350, 000 beauty will suddenly find his pride and joy is no more a good investment than my childhood Timex.

1.It seems ridiculous to the writer that_______________.

2.What can be learnt about Swiss watch industry from the passage?

3.Which would be the best title for the passage?

高三英语阅读理解极难题查看答案及解析

When I was seven my father gave me a Timex, my first watch. I loved it, wore it for years, and haven’t had another one since it stopped ticking a decade ago. Why? Because I don’t need one. I have a mobile phone and I’m always near someone with an iPod or something like that. All these devices （装置） tell the time — which is why, if you look around, you’ll see lots of empty wrists; sales of watches to young adults have been going down since 2007.

But while the wise have realized that they don’t need them, others — apparently including some distinguished men of our time — are spending total fortunes on them. Brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe and Breitling command shocking prices, up to ￡250,000 for a piece.

This is ridiculous. Expensive cars go faster than cheap cars. Expensive clothes hang better than cheap clothes. But these days all watches tell the time as well as all other watches. Expensive watches come with extra functions — but who needs them? How often do you dive to 300 metres into the sea or need to find your direction in the area around the South Pole? So why pay that much of five years’ school fees for watches that allow you to do these things?

If justice were done, the Swiss watch industry should have closed down when the Japanese discovered how to make accurate watches for a five-pound note. Instead the Swiss reinvented the watch, with the aid of millions of pounds’ worth of advertising, as a message about the man wearing it. Rolexes are for those who spend their weekends climbing icy mountains; a Patek Philippe is for one from a rich or noble family; a Breitling suggests you like to pilot planes across the world.

Watches are now classified as “investments” （投资）. A 1994 Patek Philippe recently sold for nearly ￡350,000, while 1960s Rolexes have gone from ￡15,000 to ￡30,000 plus in a year. But a watch is not an investment. It’s a toy for self-satisfaction, a matter of fashion. Prices may keep going up — they’ve been rising for 15 years. But when fashion moves on, the owner of that ￡350,000 beauty will suddenly find his pride and joy is no more a good investment than my childhood Timex.

1.The sales of watches to young people have fallen because they ________.

A. have other devices to tell the time              B. think watches too expensive

C. prefer to wear an iPod                       D. have no sense of time

2.It seems ridiculous to the writer that ______.

A. people dive 300 metres into the sea

B. expensive clothes sell better than cheap ones

C. cheap cars don’t run as fast as expensive ones

D. expensive watches with unnecessary functions still sell

3.What can be learnt about Swiss watch industry from the passage?

A. It targets rich people as its potential customers.

B. It’s hard for the industry to beat its competitors.

C. It wastes a huge amount of money in advertising.

D. It’s easy for the industry to reinvent cheap watches.

4.Which would be the best title for the passage?

A. Timex or Rolex?                      B. My Childhood Timex

C. Watches? Not for Me!                     D. Watches — a Valuable Collection

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

I was seven when I first questioned my imagination. I remember watching the first Harry Potter film and my friend was complaining that the characters weren't how she imagined them to be. I couldn't understand what she meant because, in my mind, they had never been images at all, just concepts. When l shut my eyes, I see nothing. I have no visual imagination.

I thought everyone's minds worked this way until about two years ago, when I came across a text about aphantasia, a condition where you lack a functioning mind's eye. I was 23, and it blew my mind to learn that others could visualize things. It was clear I had aphantasia, too, and a lot of things started to make more sense. For me, imagination had always been impossible. If someone asked me to close my eyes and picture myself by the sea, I would see nothing.

I am currently studying for a PhD in biology at college. A good little test for me is drawing. I can copy things almost like for like if they are in front of me, but if I were to draw from my imagination it would look terrible. It doesn't mean you cannot be creative; you just have to adapt. Regardless of how many times I read a technique, it didn't make sense. But when I came to do it in the lab, I understood it immediately. If you have a visual imagination, you can look at a diagram and it triggers your memory; but I learn by repetition or physically doing something.

I'd love to experience life with a mind's eye. I think it'd be cool and beneficial to imagine things so vividly. If you offered me a day with a visual imagination, I'd be excited. I think it'd be so brilliant that I wouldn't want to give it back.

1.After watching the first Harry Potter film, the author ______.

A.misunderstood what her friend said

B.became a huge fan of the Harry Potter film

C.found it impossible to picture its characters in her mind

D.complained its characters different from what she imagined

2.How did the author know she had aphantasia?

A.Her friend told her the fact.

B.She read about aphantasia.

C.She had a medical examination.

D.Her life experience made it clear.

3.What can we learn about the author?

A.She lacks creativity.

B.She always draws terribly.

C.She learns by hands-on practice.

D.She gets benefit from techniques.

4.What is the author's attitude towards her disability?

A.Uncertain. B.Uncaring. C.Upset. D.Positive.

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

When I was seven, my parents gave me a doll, a doll’s house and a book. The Arabian Nights, came wrapped in red paper. I was just ready to read when my mother walked into my room．

“Isn’t your doll just beautiful?” my mother asked. I looked at the doll, with fair hair in a pink dress----I’ll have to call her “she” because I never gave her a name. I folded my lips and raised my eyebrows, not really knowing how to let my mother down easily.

“This doll is different.” My mother explained, trying to talk me into playing with it.

Thinking the doll needed love, I hugged her tightly for a long time. Useless, I said to myself. Finally, I decided to play with the doll’s house. But since rearranging the tiny furniture seemed to be the only active possible, I lost interest. I caught sight again of the third of my gifts The Arabian Nights, and I began to read it. From that moment, the book was my constant companion.

Every day I climbed our garden tree, nestled among its branches, I read the stories in The Arabian Nights to my heart’s content. My mother became concerned as she noticed I wasn’t playing with either the doll or the little house. She insisted that I take the doll up the tree with me.

Trying to read on a branch 15 feet off the ground while holding on to the silly doll was not easy. After nearly falling off twice, I tied one end of a long vine around the doll’s neck and the opposite one around the branch, letting the doll hang in mid air while I read. I always looked out for my mother, though. I sensed that my playing with the doll was of great importance to her. So every time I heard her coming, I lifted the doll up and hugged her. The smile in my mother’s eyes told me my plan worked.

The inevitable(不可避免的) happened one afternoon. Totally absorbed in the reading, I didn’t hear my mother calling me. When I looked down, I saw my mother staring at the hanging doll. Fearing the worst of scolding, I climbed down in a flash, reaching the ground just as my mother was untying the doll. To my surprise, she didn’t scold. She kept on staring at the doll．

The next day, my father came home early and suggested he and I play with the doll’s house. Soon I was bored, but my father seemed to be having so much fun, I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Quietly I slipped out, picking up my book on my way to the yard. So absorbed was he in arranging and rearranging the tiny furniture that he didn’t notice my quick exit.

Almost 20 years passed before I found out why the hanging-doll incident had been so significant for my parents. By then I was a parent myself. After recalling the incident, my mother said all those years she had been afraid whether I would turn out to be a most loving and understanding mother to my son．

My mother often thanks God aloud for making me a good parent, pointing out that with education I might have been a rich dentist instead of a poor poet. I look back on that same childhood incident, recalling my third gift, the book in red-paper, and I take advantage of the experiences that have made me who and what I am. Sometimes I pause to wonder at life’s wonderful ironies （讽刺）.

1.Why didn’t the author give the doll a name?

A. Because the gift was given by her parents.

B. Because the girl didn’t care much for the doll.

C. Because her parents would give the doll a name.

D. Because the doll had little in common with her.

2.The author’s account of a childhood incident shows that, as a young girl, she viewed her parents as people who________.

A. hoped to shape their children’s future

B. were unconcerned about their behavior

C. ruined their children’s dreams completely

D. might withdraw their love at any moment

3. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A. The mother is now satisfied with her daughter’s career.

B. The daughter now regrets what she did when she was a girl.

C. The mother thinks the daughter’s achievements are unsatisfactory.

D. The daughter wishes that she had been allowed more freedom as a child.

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

When I was eleven, my parents gave me the first book I ever owned—The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. I distinctly remember opening it, reading the first lines of “The Cast of Amontillado,” and remarking to myself. “So this is what reading is!” My delight was unbounded. Little did I know at the time that I was at the beginning of a lifting journey.

So, if I read my first real book at 11, what was I reading before then? In a word, readers: relatively plotless, repetitive if well-intentioned attempts to teach child to recognize letters and their sounds and to build their vocabularies. Being a dutiful boy, I went through the motions and I learned what words were. But I had no idea what writing was until Poe. In Poe’s stories, the sentences were more complex and stylish than anything I had ever read before.

Poe, in short, was a star. My parents gave me that first book, but then I went off on my own. I liked science, which led me to discover Jules Verne, the Father of scene fiction and H G. Wells, well known for his novel The Time Machine. Other writers followed quickly one after another: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke. But I didn’t limit myself to science fiction. Other titles that deeply impressed me early on, and which I have carried on my life’s journey, include The Yearling, Shane, Ivanhoe, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Good Earth.

It went on from there. I became that kid who, long after his parents told him to turn the lights off, hid under the covers with a flashlight and a book, his greatest fear of being discovered and having his lighting taken away. I realize that my parents must have known I was defying (违背) them. But in their wisdom they pretended to be ignorant of it. And so I owe my star as a reader to my parents.

1.What did the author feel about The Tates of Edgar Allan Poe?

A. Attractive and interesting.

B. Complex and dull.

C. Distinct but difficult.

D. Plotless but easy.

2.From paragraph 3 we Can learn that the author ________.

A. liked reading tales best

B. enjoyed reading science fiction most

C. took no interest in realistic novels

D. liked reading freely and widely

3.What did the authors parents react to his reading by flashlight?

A. Told him to turn off the flashlight.

B. Took away his book.

C. Made allowance for him.

D. Scolded him at once.

4.What is the best title for the text?

A. My Start as a Real Reader

B. The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe

C. When I Began to Like Reading Freely

D. Edgar Allan Poe Was My Favorite Star

高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

I was ten when my father first sent me flowers. I had been taking ballet lessons for four months, and the school was giving its yearly performance. As a member of the beginners’ chorus group, I was surprised to hear my name called out at the end of the show along with the leading dancers and to find my arms full of red roses. I can still feel myself standing on that stage, seeing my father’s big smiles.

Those roses were the first of many bunches accompanying all the milestones in my life. Getting all those roses was wonderful, but they brought a sense of embarrassment. I enjoyed them, but I also felt they were too much for my small achievements.

Not for my father. He did everything in a big way. Once, when mother told him I needed a new party dress, he brought home a dozen. His behavior often left us without money for other more important things. Sometimes I would be angry with him.

Then came my 16th birthday. It was not a happy occasion. I was fat and had no boyfriend. And my well-meaning father furthered my suffering by giving me a party. As I entered the dining room, there on the table next to my cake was a huge bunch of flowers, bigger than any before.

I wanted to hide. Now everyone would think my father had sent flowers because I had no boyfriend to do it. Sweet 16, and I felt like crying. But my best friend, Jenny, whispered, “Boy, you’re lucky to have a father like that.”

As the years passed, other occasions—birthdays, awards, graduations—were marked with Dad’s flowers. Those flowers symbolized his pride, and my success. As my fortunes grew, my father’s health became worse, but his gifts of flowers continued until he died. I covered his coffin with the largest, reddest roses I could find.

Often during the dozen years since, I felt an urge to buy a big bunch to fill the living room, but I never did. I knew it would not be the same.

Then one birthday, the doorbell rang. I was feeling blue because I was alone. My husband and my two daughters were away. My 10-year-old son, Tommy, had run out earlier with a “see you later”. So I was surprised to see Tommy at the door. “Forgot my key,” he said. “Forgot your birthday too.” He pulled a bunch of roses from behind his back.

“Oh, Tommy,” I cried. “I love flowers!”

1.The writer felt embarrassed getting her first roses because 　　　　 .

A.she wasn’t a member of leading dancers.

B.she thought her success wasn’t big enough.

C.she regarded the flowers as a milestone in her life.

D.she found herself standing on the center of the stage.

2.Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A.The father made the writer happy by giving her a party.

B.The father was proud of the writer in her growth stages.

C.The father didn’t leave the family money for important things.

D.The father bought the writer flowers when she got angry with him.

3.Tommy came back again, mainly to 　　　　 .

A.take back his keys. B.show his love for flowers.

C.encourage his mother. D.bring his mother birthday gift.

4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

A.Love in Bloom. B.Father and Me.

C.Pleasure and Embarrassment. D.Father’s Flowers.

高三英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

When I first entered university, my aunt, who is an English professor, gave me a new English dictionary. I was1to see that it was an English English dictionary, also known as a monolingual（单语的） dictionary. 2it was a dictionary intended for non-native learners, none of my classmates had one and, to be honest, I found it extremely3to use at first. I would look up words in the dictionary and still not fully understand the meaning. I was used to the   4bilingual（双语的）dictionaries, in which the words are 5both in English and Chinese. I really wondered why my aunt6to make things so difficult for me. Now, after studying English at university for three years, I7that monolingual dictionaries are8 in learning a foreign language.

As I found out, there is in fact often no perfect equivalence(对应) between two9  in two language. My aunt even goes so far as to  10that a Chinese “equivalent” can never give you the11meaning of a word in English! Therefore, she insisted that I read the definition(定义) of a word in a monolingual dictionary when I wanted to get a better understanding of its meaning. 12, I have come to see what she meant.

Using a monolingual dictionary for learners has helped me in another important way. This dictionary uses a(n) 13number of words, around 2, 000, in its definitions. When I read these definitions, I am14exposed to the basic words and learn how they are used to explain objects and ideas.15this, I can express myself more easily in English.

高三英语完型填空中等难度题查看答案及解析

---A stranger gave me an umbrella when I was caught in the rain.

---________.

高三英语单项填空极难题查看答案及解析

When I was seven years old, my family grew our first square watermelon. No one 1. (see) a square watermelon before, so it became famous instantly. People visited our garden to see 2. unusual fruit. What’s so great about square watermelons? Well, besides their 3. (usual) shape, the melons pile nicely, fit in the refrigerator, and won’t roll off the table.

Whenever people ask4. they can grow their own square watermelons, my dad tells them to “use square seeds”. Truthfully, though, my dad discovered the key 5. square fruit by accident.

We have a small vegetable garden 6. we plant watermelons every summer. The young melons were placed on cinder blocks (空心砖) to keep them from rotting on the wet ground. In 1996, we went to London for vacation. When we returned weeks later, we were surprised 7. (find) a young melon stuck in the centre of a cinder block. The watermelon had grown inside the block until 8. was squeezed too tightly to remove.

“We didn’t want to kill it, so we just left it there, ” my father remembers. “9. (surprise), when we broke the cinder block at harvest time, we found a perfectly healthy melon–but it was also perfectly square.” Since that summer my family has been growing square watermelons on purpose because they are always well 10. (receive).

高三英语语法填空中等难度题查看答案及解析