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I wanted a change of pace, a break from routine. The past few years found me working long hours at my marketing job while my husband, Steven, put in equally full days as a physics tutor. We were both burned out from the constant boredom.
Vacation experiences at first glance seem a little difficult for us. How do you find comfort in an ever-changing environment? And I, someone who enjoys more planned fun, had to adapt.
But I was surprised at how easily I was able to adapt to a new mode of operation, a more relaxed version of myself who wasn’t worried where we’d park and sleep each night. The fact that we both became so accustomed to sleeping in the back of a cargo van is another surprise we experienced on this journey. The van was our main transportation and, with a full-size bed in the back, it also provided us with a bit of comfort that made us continue. At first, every sound outside was foreign, and we both took longer to fall-and stay-asleep. But, after a couple of weeks into van life, we let the sounds fade into soft background music.
Over the course of our seven- month trip, one of our big goals was to come away from each park with one spectacular image. That shared goal placed us on the same team: It brought us together, even more than before, gave us more to talk about, and encouraged us to motivate each other along the way.
By this point, you’re probably wondering how we paid for all of this, or maybe you’re assuming we come from wealthy backgrounds. The truth is, we actually managed this entire adventure on a middle-class budget. Steven did part-time remote work about 10 hours per week for his employer from the road. I ended up finding some temporary jobs through the trip. We also continued our photography business, setting up an online shop to sell our landscapes.
We only visited some parks in the 48 states. And the experience would still be worth every penny. It is really a chance to lose and find ourselves in our nation’s park lands.
1.Why did the author want to change?
A.Because she wanted a rest from daily routine.
B.Because she was interested in travelling.
C.Because she fell ill with long working hours.
D.Because she didn't like her marketing job.
2.What did the author think of the vacation before the journey?
A.Exciting. B.Helpful.
C.Doubtful. D.Boring.
3.What can we infer from the last but one paragraph?
A.The couple visited 48 states during the trip.
B.The couple tried different jobs to maintain their trip.
C.The husband worked harder than the wife.
D.The couple came from a middle-class family.
4.What is the passage mainly about?
A.Introducing a couple’s daily life.
B.Sharing a couple’s travel experience.
C.Showing the importance of traveling.
D.Advising some travel plans to readers.
高二英语阅读选择中等难度题查看答案及解析
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A bunch of strangers showed up at the gym in the early morning of the last Sunday of April. A few athletes were already stretching their arms, but most of us could barely focus. As I was burning off last night’s wrong decision-a big meal, I spotted a poster about a gym’s 21-day workout challenge, and I immediately signed up. I always wanted to train for a marathon, so I considered this as my warm-up. Besides, I needed to stop being lazy and this was my chance to make a change.
It was easy to promise on paper, but three weeks of recommended exercise routines and diet restrictions wouldn’t be easy, I stuck to working out 30 minutes a day, and I didn’t disturb my normal routine. Instead, I had to be faced with the tough work of being more creative in my spare time, thus breaking some bad habits.
Overcoming weaknesses with willpower was my goal for the next part of the journey. But the difficult part about making a challenge is realizing that “wanting” and “doing” are two very different things. Just like a career, you have to physically work for it rather than just wait for it to happen. But that’s hard. Throughout the 22 days, I often told myself that the challenge was meaningless and tried to sabotage myself from exercising. However, finally I overcame that negative thought and kept working out.
At the end of the challenge, I learned something even more important: Feeling the results is better than seeing them. I had fewer headaches and more energy, and was simply happier. I even felt a little smarter as I researched which foods were better for my body, and learned how to make healthier meals. I felt a sense of accomplishment, too, because even though I wanted to give up dozens of times, I didn’t. I felt my waist got smaller and my arms got stronger, and I no longer felt guilty after having a piece of cake or a drink.
1.What is paragraph 2 mainly about?
A.Some of the author’s bad habits.
B.Some ways of the author’s killing his spare time.
C.The importance of sticking to the normal daily routine.
D.The difficulty of the author’s keeping on with the workout plan.
2.What does the underlined word“sabotage”in paragraph 3 probably mean?
A.prevent B.hear
C.improve D.distinguish
3.What did the author learn from the workout challenge?
A.Eating healthy food is more important than exercising.
B.Overcoming a challenge could bring good feelings to him.
C.It’s more important to see what he likes than just feel it.
D.There was no need to feel guilty about things he disliked to do.
高二英语阅读选择中等难度题查看答案及解析
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Exercise is an important part of staying healthy. Studies show that it can help strengthen the body’s natural defenses against disease. But exercise does not just keep us healthy. For many people, it is part of their daily routine, making them feel better about themselves. Getting enough exercise at difficult times, such as the current coronavirus pandemic (新冠疫情), is important.
However, due to the bans on close contact between individuals, gyms and exercise studios are not open. In areas with stay-at-home orders, exercising outside may not be as simple as usual. So, people are changing the way they exercise during this pandemic.
Beth Berglin is the director of a gallery in Miami, Florida. Before the pandemic, her exercise routine involved going to camp-style classes four mornings a week. Now, the area where she trains is closed. But she is staying active through online classes. “Part of the reason we exercise is to have that mental break,” she said. “I can’t imagine getting through this without having some form of physical activity.”
Fitness companies are changing to meet the new environment. Some are helping people stay active by offering online classes, some of which are free or have reduced cost. Some are offering longer trial periods for at-home workouts. During a trial period, people can try a product or service for free. Some have completely moved their training programs online. Many of these online exercise classes are made for smaller spaces and do not require any special equipment.
Fitness companies that have been using an online model seem better prepared than others. They are using the pandemic to expand their fitness offerings and appeal to new customers. Some of those new customers include children who are now learning at home during the pandemic. Founders of one online exercise company, named Obe, said that they received requests for children’s classes from parents. So, they launched four 10-minute dance and strength workouts for children 10 years old and younger.
1.What does the word “this” in paragraph 3 probably refer to?
A.The unexpected loneliness. B.The daily exercise routine.
C.The great loss of business. D.The lasting health catastrophe.
2.According to the author, online fitness courses ______ .
A.call for less demanding places but more costs
B.face some challenges in developing new learning models
C.attract more customers by meeting their individual needs
D.are more popular compared with the usual way of exercise
3.What can be inferred from the passage?
A.Those who keep exercising have no risk of infection.
B.Regular exercise is an effective way to keep mental health.
C.Obe’s founders are optimistic about the future of their company.
D.The widespread pandemic forces people to break the exercise routine.
高二英语阅读选择中等难度题查看答案及解析
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Most of the new diseases we humans have faced in the past several decades have come from animals. The more we come into contact with wild animals, the more we risk a so-called disease “spillover” from animals to humans.
“As people move and wildlife move in response to a changing environment, humans and wildlife and animals will come in contact more regularly,” said Jeanne Fair from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Fair argues that by shifting animal habitats, climate change will also make the opportunities for disease spillover more frequent. “Everything is sort of shifting and will shift into the future as the environment changes through climate change,” Fair said.
Scientists, including climatologists and epidemiologists (流行病学家) on Fair’s team at Los Alamos, are beginning to model how changes to the climate will impact the spread of infectious diseases. It’s early days for this kind of research, but previous studies suggest that extreme weather has already played a role in at least one outbreak. Scientists say drought and deforestation have combined to force bats out of rain forests and into orchards (果园) in Malaysia to find food. Those bats, a common disease reservoir, then passed the Nipah virus through pigs to humans for the first time in the late 1990s.
“We’re going by the past data to really predict what’s going to happen in the future,” Fair said, “And so, anytime you increase that wildlife-human interface, that’s sort of an emerging disease hot spot. And so, that’s just increasing as we go forward.”
Jeffrey Shaman, head of the climate and health program at Columbia University’s public health school, argues we don’t yet know whether climate change will cause a net increase in infectious disease rates globally. For example, mosquitoes carry disease that affects millions of people across the world every year. As their habitats expand in some parts of the world, they might contract diseases elsewhere. Shaman says what we know for certain about climate change is that it will make it harder to predict where disease outbreaks will pop up.
1.How does climate change affect the spread of disease according to Fair?
A.By breaking animals’habits. B.By increasing animals’varieties.
C.By promoting animals’breeding. D.By changing animals’living environment.
2.What is the example of bats for in paragraph 3?
A.Explaining the influence of Nipah virus.
B.Proving the harm of bats to human beings.
C.Showing the effects of climate change on disease.
D.Presenting scientists’early study about the cause of disease.
3.What can we infer from Fair’s words in paragraph 4?
A.Humans should give up studying animals.
B.Frequent contact with animals can cause disease outbreaks.
C.Disease hot spots will disappear if animals die out.
D.Past data can solve the problems in the future.
4.What could be the best title for the text?
A.Climate Change and Disease Spillover
B.Animals’Interaction with Humans
C.Early Studies about Extreme Weather
D.Scientists’Prediction for Disease Outbreaks
高二英语阅读选择中等难度题查看答案及解析
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There are numerous “secrets” out there on attaining success. The vast majority of these so called secrets all have one thing in common – Attitude.
1.
The key to developing a successful attitude is to decide that there are certain things in life that you need, rather than merely want. For example, do you want a luxury house? 2. Do you want fame and fortune in your career?
Sure, everyone wants these things. 3. That is because it’s never enough to merely want something. You have to be the type of individual who feels that they need these things in order to survive. This gives you the motivation to work towards your dream and do whatever it takes – except, of course, for breaking laws or hurting people – to get there. And all this must be done with the “fuel” of a positive attitude.
How do you begin to change your attitude?
It is always useful to connect with useful resources outside us in changing our attitude for the better. 4. Try to pay closer attention to your inner thoughts.
Realizing where negative thoughts come from can help us get to the point where we are able to erase them. Once they are erased, it is vital to replace them with more positive thoughts. 5.
Perhaps your friends and loved ones will not understand the new you. But you can become a role model for them — and it begins by developing a positive attitude!
A.What do you need?
B.Do you want a lot of money?
C.What is the secret to Success?
D.Do you find yourself constantly in doubt?
E.However, the change will always begin inside you.
F.Problem is, very few people are able to attain them.
G.This is how we begin to make an attitude adjustment.
高二英语七选五简单题查看答案及解析
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The Wonderful World of Makeup
As a busy mom, my makeup routine has changed significantly. Unless it’s a special occasion, I won’t spend much time on it. However, despite my speedy routine, makeup is fun. 1. I also enjoy freebies (赠品) very much. You too? Thought so. Let’s get started.
Be realistic. Are you a person who likes simplicity? 2. Besides time, how much money are you willing to invest in products? Do you know your skin type? Knowing how your skin reacts is important. Once you have a realistic idea of what you want to do, your skin type, and how much money you are willing to spend, you’re on your way.
Research. Think about your budget and check out different brands online. One of the very best websites and beauty retailers online is Sephora. The Sephora website gives you detailed information on each brand. Want to go green? Sephora has a great deal of information on green and natural products suited for every budget.
3. Once you’ve got an idea about brands, try it out. Sephora’s in-store product samples are enough and you are allowed and encouraged to give makeup a test. Don’t be afraid to ask questions.
4. When you make a purchase from Sephora, you always get to choose three free samples. If you join its Beauty Insider program, you will earn reward points that can be redeemed (兑现) for more samples, other products, and a free beautiful gift on your birthday.
A word on expensive brands. Some of the expensive brands really do have superior staying power and last a long time. 5. Personally, I like to mix things up (higher end with drugstore brands).
A. They are investments for our skins after all.
B. When time allows, I love playing with different colors and trying new products.
C. There’s no pressure to buy — just come and learn.
D. Don’t be shy away from drugstore brands.
E. Take advantage of freebies.
F. Try before you buy.
G. Do you prefer the 5-minute or less routine?
高二英语七选五中等难度题查看答案及解析
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The U.S. solar industry is growing at a record-breaking pace, while becoming more affordable and accessible than ever before. The industry’s forward progress comes in part thanks to support from the Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative(计划).
Set up in 2011 to rebuild U.S. leadership in the solar marketplace, SunShot is to aggressively drive down the cost of solar-powered electricity generation across America.
To achieve this goal, SunShot works to lower the price of solar electricity to $0.06 per kilowatt hour (KWh) — a cost target that will make solar-generated power to be fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by the end of the decade.
Just three years into the initiative, SunShot is making significant headway. Today, the Energy Department announced that the U.S. solar industry is more than 60 percent of the way to achieving cost-competitive utility-scale solar photovoltaic or PV (光伏) electricity. In many parts of the country, solar electricity is already cost-competitive with traditional energy sources, including California, Hawaii and Minnesota.
Within the past few years, utility-scale PV has risen from a relative newcomer to the solar market to the fastest growing sector of the industry. These projects feature large, centralized PV systems that feed power directly to the grid (电网). While the operating history of utility-scale PV is brief, it is expected to take up most of the U.S. PV market through 2018, helping create new jobs, support other U.S. industries and improve economic growth as it expands.
One of the biggest benefits of the expanding solar industry is its influence on the U.S. job market. The Solar Foundation’s National Solar Jobs Census 2017 finds solar jobs increased nearly 20 percent since the fall of 2016, 10 times the national average job growth rate. There are more than 140,000 solar workers in the United States, up from about 119,000 in 2016. Not only did the industry go beyond growth expectations, but the pace of hiring has quickened, producing new hires at a rate 50 percent higher than last year.
1.From the passage we can learn that SunShot was set up to .
A.lower the price of solar electricity
B.rebuild U.S. leadership in the solar marketplace
C.compete with traditional energy sources
D.drive down the cost of solar-powered electricity
2.What can we learn about U.S. utility-scale PV?
A.It has been developed for a quite long period. B.It has lowered the price 60% than other sources.
C.It has been the leading role of the U.S. PV market. D.It has brought some benefits to the U.S. economy.
3.How does the author develop the last paragraph?
A.By providing data. B.By giving examples.
C.By reasoning. D.By analyzing causes.
4.Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A.SunShot Is Promoting U.S. Solar Industry
B.Solar Industry Defeats Traditional Energy Sources
C.U.S. Employment Benefits from Solar Industry
D.Solar Industry’ Growth Determines U.S. Economy
高二英语阅读选择中等难度题查看答案及解析
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The evidence for harmony may not be obvious in some families. But it seems that four out of five young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image(印象)of unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more harmonious than it has ever been in the past. “We were surprised by just how positive today’s young people seem to be about their families,” said one member of the research team. “They’re expected to be rebellious(叛逆的)and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds: they want a car and material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There’s more negotiation and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family decision-making process. They don’t want to rock the boat.”
So, it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat their children as friends. “My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,” says 17-year-old Daniel Lazall. “I always tell them when I’m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I’m doing, they’re fine with it.” Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees. “Looking back on the last 10 years, there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I’d done all my homework, I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than that.”
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenagers’ rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, “Our surprise that teenagers say they get along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really only happened during one time in the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over.”
1.What is the popular images of teenagers today?
A.They always worry about school.
B.They dislike living with their parents.
C.They have to be locked in to avoid troubles.
D.They quarrel a lot with other family members.
2.The study shows that teenagers don’t want to ______.
A.cause trouble in their families B.share family responsibility
C.go boating with their family D.make family decisions
3.Compared with parents of 30 years ago, today’s parents _____.
A.care less about their children’s life
B.give their children more freedom
C.are much stricter with their children
D.go to clubs more often with their children
4.What is the passage mainly about?
A.Negotiation in family. B.Harmony in family.
C.Education in family. D.Teenage trouble in family.
高二英语阅读选择中等难度题查看答案及解析
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As the sound of footsteps behind her grew louder, she quickened her pace. She didn’t want to turn around as the memory of that morning’s newspaper headline made her afraid of what she would see: “City Killer Claims Fourth Victim.”
“Why did I stop for a few drinks in the bar after work?” she thought to herself. Now it was dark and the streets deserted. She was alone and a sitting duck.
She felt as if she was walking in the rain. Her clothes were damp from nervous sweat and as each short hot breath hit the night air, it turned to steam, coating her glasses in a thin film so all she saw seemed covered in fog.
The footsteps were closer now. She needed to get off this street. Her eyes began a useless search for an open store or lighted window. Passing a small lane she looked through，for a possible escape route. But the lane was a dead - end and she laughed to herself at the irony.
The sound of a car behind her turning onto the street interrupted her self – pity. Escape was at hand. But as she was about to throw herself onto the road and shout for the car to stop, the car’s headlights cast a shadow that paralyzed （使瘫痪） her with terror.
It was the footsteps’ owner. The figure was huge and in its raised arm it held what looked like a lead-pipe, no doubt the one that was about to claim victim number five.
The shadow dissolved as the car passed by and disappeared into the distance. She felt a hand on her shoulder. It was all happening as if in slow – motion. She was waiting for her life to flash before her eyes like all those novels said it would – but it didn’t. The only thing she thought of was her dear husband. She recalled phoning him from work that very afternoon and joking about, of all things, the city killer. It was a night full of ironies.
There was a voice talking to her now but she was lost in thoughts of her fate and didn’t respond. The hand then began turning her around. It was surprisingly gentle given what was about to come. She allowed it to guide her without resistance. （抵抗；反抗）
She looked up. She recognized the face, but she didn’t know from where. Its mouth was still talking to her but she couldn’t understand. Then she remembered. The face belonged to the foreign looking man who had served her at the bar. She looked down to his hand and saw in it not a lead – pipe but a rolled up copy of a work report she had been correcting in the bar as she drank.
His words suddenly started to register in her brain and she could hear him. “Miss, Miss. Are you OK? You left this in the bar and it looked important so I thought I’d better give it to you.”
1.The woman was feeling nervous because .
A．she had left her report in the bar
B．there was a killer in the city
C．she was being followed by someone
D．the streets were dark and empty
2.The underlined expression “a sitting duck” (paragraph 2) is closest in meaning to “ ”.
A．an easy target B．a frightened person
C．a foolish animal D．a still position
3.What is the correct order of events that happened to the woman on the day of the story?
a. She went for a drink in a bar. b. She corrected the report.
c. She heard loud footsteps. d. She read the newspaper.
e. She called her husband. f. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
A．d,c,a,e,b,f B．c,d,a,e,f,b C．d,a,b,e,c,f D．d,e,a,b,c,f
4.Why did the woman laugh when she looked into the lane?
A．She was excited because she thought it may be a way to escape.
B．She felt bitter because she had no chance to escape.
C．She was becoming more and more nervous.
D．She realized that she was behaving foolishly.
5.Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A．It was raining when she left the bar.
B．The woman had felt nervous about the city killer for days.
C．The temperature was very low that evening.
D．The woman was behaving unreasonably.
高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
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Plastic-Eating Worms
Humans produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that winds up in landfills(垃圾填埋场), and up to 12 million tons pollute the oceans. So far there is no effective way to get rid of it, but a new study suggests an answer may lie in the stomachs of some hungry worms.Researchers in Spain and England recently found that the worms of the greater wax moth can break down polyethylene, which accounts for 40% of plastics. The team left 100 wax worms on a commercial polyethylene shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and broke down about 92 milligrams, or almost 3% of it. To confirm that the worms’ chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers made some worms into paste(糊状物) and applied it to plastic films. 14 hours later the films had lost 13% of their mass — apparently broken down by enzymes (酶) from the worms’ stomachs. Their findings were published in Current Biology in 2017.
Federica Bertocchini, co-author of the study, says the worms’ ability to break down their everyday food — beeswax — also allows them to break down plastic. ＂Wax is a complex mixture, but the basic bond in polyethylene, the carbon-carbon bond, is there as well, ＂she explains, ＂The wax worm evolved a method or system to break this bond. ＂
Jennifer DeBruyn, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in the study, says it is not surprising that such worms can break down polyethylene. But compared with previous studies, she finds the speed of breaking down in this one exciting. The next step, DeBruyn says, will be to identify the cause of the breakdown. Is it an enzyme produced by the worm itself or by its gut microbes(肠道微生物)?
Bertocchini agrees and hopes her team’s findings might one day help employ the enzyme to break down plastics in landfills. But she expects using the chemical in some kind of industrial process — not simply ＂millions of worms thrown on top of the plastic.＂
1.What can we learn about the worms in the study?
A.They take plastics as their everyday food.
B.They are newly evolved creatures.
C.They can consume plastics.
D.They wind up in landfills.
2.According to Jennifer DeBruyn, the next step of the study is to .
A.identify other means of the breakdown
B.find out the source of the enzyme
C.confirm the research findings
D.increase the breakdown speed
3.It can be inferred from the last paragraph that the chemical might .
A.help to raise worms
B.help make plastic bags
C.be used to clean the oceans
D.be produced in factories in future
4.What is the main purpose of the passage?
A.To explain a study method on worms.
B.To introduce the diet of a special worm.
C.To present a way to break down plastics.
D.To propose new means to keep eco-balance.
高二英语阅读选择困难题查看答案及解析