There’s a case to be made, from things like Google search figures, that Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken – you know, the one about two paths diverging (分开) in a wood – is the most popular in modern history. Yet people still can’t agree what it means. On the surface, it’s a fridge-magnet cliché (陈词滥调) on the importance of taking risks and choosing the road less travelled. But many argue it slyly mocks (暗讽) that American belief in the individual’s power to determine his or her future. After all, the poet admits that both paths look roughly similarly well-travelled. And how could he be sure he took the right one? He’ll never know where the other leads. Looking back at our life histories, we tell ourselves we faced important dilemmas and chose wisely. But maybe only because it’s too awful to admit we’re stumbling (跌跌撞撞地走) mapless among the trees, or that our choices don’t make much difference.
Two psychologists, Karalyn Enz and Jennifer Talarico, throw light on these matters in a new study with a title that nods to Frost: Forks In The Road. They sought to clarify how people think about “turning points” versus “transitions” in life. A turning point, by their definition, is a moment that changes your future – deciding to leave a job or marriage, say – but often isn’t visible from the outside, at least at first. “Transitions” involve big external changes: going to university, marrying, emigrating (迁出). Sometimes the two go together, as when you move to a new place and realize it’s where you belong. (“New Yorkers are born all over the country,” Delia Ephron said, “and then they come to New York and it hits them: oh, that’s who I am.”) But it’s turning points we remember as most significant, Enz and Talarico conclude, whether or not they also involve transitions.
The distinction is useful: it underlines how the most outwardly obvious life changes aren’t always those with the biggest impact. Hence the famous “focusing illusion”, which describes how we exaggerate (夸大) the importance of a single factor on happiness: you switch jobs, or spouses, only to discover you brought the same troublesome old you to the new situation. Before it became a joke, “midlife crisis” referred to a turning point that happens because your circumstances don’t change, when your old life stops feeling meaningful. Turning points can be caused by mundane (世俗的) things – the offhand remark that makes you realize you’re in the wrong life – or by nothing at all.
1.Why do some people think the poem makes fun of the American belief?
A. Because the two roads are more or less similar in the poet’s view.
B. Because Americans believe they can decide their future themselves.
C. Because Americans can find their way easily in a forest just with a map.
D. Because Americans surely know which road to take without consideration.
2.Which of the following can be considered as a transition?
A. Your experience of midlife crisis.
B. Your choice of the road to take.
C. Your decision to travel abroad.
D. Your move into a new flat.
3.What can we infer from this passage?
A. Turning points involving transitions are often remembered as most significant.
B. The biggest impact is often characterized with obvious outside changes.
C. A fundamental change is often affected by more than one single factor.
D. We can rid ourselves of the unpleasant past with the change of a job.
4.What’s the best title of the passage?
A. Is our fate in our own hands?
B. Must people make changes in life?
C. Should we choose the road less travelled?
D. Are turning points connected with transitions?
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题
There’s a case to be made, from things like Google search figures, that Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken – you know, the one about two paths diverging (分开) in a wood – is the most popular in modern history. Yet people still can’t agree what it means. On the surface, it’s a fridge-magnet cliché (陈词滥调) on the importance of taking risks and choosing the road less travelled. But many argue it slyly mocks (暗讽) that American belief in the individual’s power to determine his or her future. After all, the poet admits that both paths look roughly similarly well-travelled. And how could he be sure he took the right one? He’ll never know where the other leads. Looking back at our life histories, we tell ourselves we faced important dilemmas and chose wisely. But maybe only because it’s too awful to admit we’re stumbling (跌跌撞撞地走) mapless among the trees, or that our choices don’t make much difference.
Two psychologists, Karalyn Enz and Jennifer Talarico, throw light on these matters in a new study with a title that nods to Frost: Forks In The Road. They sought to clarify how people think about “turning points” versus “transitions” in life. A turning point, by their definition, is a moment that changes your future – deciding to leave a job or marriage, say – but often isn’t visible from the outside, at least at first. “Transitions” involve big external changes: going to university, marrying, emigrating (迁出). Sometimes the two go together, as when you move to a new place and realize it’s where you belong. (“New Yorkers are born all over the country,” Delia Ephron said, “and then they come to New York and it hits them: oh, that’s who I am.”) But it’s turning points we remember as most significant, Enz and Talarico conclude, whether or not they also involve transitions.
The distinction is useful: it underlines how the most outwardly obvious life changes aren’t always those with the biggest impact. Hence the famous “focusing illusion”, which describes how we exaggerate (夸大) the importance of a single factor on happiness: you switch jobs, or spouses, only to discover you brought the same troublesome old you to the new situation. Before it became a joke, “midlife crisis” referred to a turning point that happens because your circumstances don’t change, when your old life stops feeling meaningful. Turning points can be caused by mundane (世俗的) things – the offhand remark that makes you realize you’re in the wrong life – or by nothing at all.
1.Why do some people think the poem makes fun of the American belief?
A. Because the two roads are more or less similar in the poet’s view.
B. Because Americans believe they can decide their future themselves.
C. Because Americans can find their way easily in a forest just with a map.
D. Because Americans surely know which road to take without consideration.
2.Which of the following can be considered as a transition?
A. Your experience of midlife crisis.
B. Your choice of the road to take.
C. Your decision to travel abroad.
D. Your move into a new flat.
3.What can we infer from this passage?
A. Turning points involving transitions are often remembered as most significant.
B. The biggest impact is often characterized with obvious outside changes.
C. A fundamental change is often affected by more than one single factor.
D. We can rid ourselves of the unpleasant past with the change of a job.
4.What’s the best title of the passage?
A. Is our fate in our own hands?
B. Must people make changes in life?
C. Should we choose the road less travelled?
D. Are turning points connected with transitions?
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
There are energy savings to be made from all recyclable materials, sometimes huge savings. Recycling plastics and aluminum, for instance, uses only 5% to 10% as much energy as producing new plastic or smelting（提炼）aluminum.
Long before most of us even noticed what we now call "the environment," Buckminster Fuller said, "Pollution is nothing but the resources（资源）we are not harvesting. We allow them to be left around because we've been ignorant of their value." To take one example, let's compare the throwaway economy（经济）with a recycling economy as we feed a cat for life.
Say your cat weigh 5kg and eats one can of food each day. Each empty can of its food weights 40g. In a throwaway economy, you would throw away 5,475 cans over the cat's 15-year lifetime. That's 219kg of steel-more than a fifth of a ton and more than 40 times the cat's weight.
In a recycling economy, we would make one set of 100 cans to start with, then replace them over and over again with recycled cans. Since almost 3% of the metal is lost during reprocessing, we'd have to make an extra 10 cans each year. But in all, only 150 cans will be used up over the cat's lifetime-and we'll still have 100 left over for the next cat.
Instead of using up 219kg of steel, we've used only 6kg. And because the process of recycling steel is less polluting than making new steel, we've also achieved the following significant savings: in energy use-47% to 74%; in air pollution-85%; in water pollution-35%; in water use-40%.
1.What does Buckminster Fuller say about pollution?
A. It is becoming more serious.
B. It destroys the environment.
C. It benefits the economy.
D. It is the resources yet to be used.
2.How many cans will be used up in a cat's 15-year lifetime in a recycling economy?
A. 50 B. 100
C. 150 D. 250
3.What is the author's purpose in writing the text?
A. To promote the idea of recycling.
B. To introduce an environmentalist.
C. To discuss the causes of pollution.
D. To defend the throwaway economy.
【推理关系】题干What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?☞文章内容In a recycling economy, we would make one set of 100 cans to start with, then replace them over and over again with recycled cans
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
There are energy savings to be made from all recyclable materials, sometimes huge savings. Recycling plastics and aluminum, for instance, uses only 5% to 10% as much energy as producing new plastic or smelting (提炼)aluminum.
Long before most of us even noticed what we now call “the environment,” Buckminster Fuller said, “Pollution is nothing but the resources(资源)we are not harvesting. We allow them to be left around because we’ve been ignorant of their value.” To take one example, let’s compare the throwaway economy(经济)with a recycling economy as we feed a cat for life.
Say your cat weight 5kg and eats one can of food each day. Each empty can of its food weighs 40g. In a throwaway economy, you would throw away 5,475 cans over the car’s 15-year lifetime. That’s 219kg of steel-more tan a fifth of a ton and more than 40 times the cat’s weight.
In a recycling economy, we would make one set of 100 cans to start with, then replace them over and over again with recycled cans. Since almost 3% of the metal is lost during reprocessing, we’d have to make an extra 10 cans each year. But in all, only 150 cans will be used up over the cat’s lifetime-and we’ll still have 100 left over for the next cat.
Instead of using up 219kg of steel, we’ve use only 6kg. And because the process of recycling steel is less polluting than making new steel, we’ve also achieved the following significant savings; in energy use-47% to 74%; in air pollution—85%; in water pollution—35%; in water use—40%.
1.What does Buckminster Fuller say about pollution?
A. It is becoming more serious B. It destroys the environment
C. It benefits the economy D. It is the resources yet to be used
2.How many cans will be used up in a cat’s 15-year lifetime in a recycling economy?
A. 50. B. 100.
C. 150 D. 250
3.What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A. To promote the idea of recycling B. To introduce an environmentalist
C. To discuss the causes of pollution D. To defend the throwaway economy.
【推理关系】题干What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?☞文章内容In a recycling economy, we would make one set of 100 cans to start with, then replace them over and over again with recycled cans
高三英语阅读理解困难题查看答案及解析
Helping yourself to a cup of coffee may seem like a small, everyday thing. But it is not the case if you are quadriplegic (四肢瘫痪). Quadriplegics have lost the use of all four limbs. Thanks to a project organized by John Donoghue of Brown University, in Rhode Island, and his colleagues, quadriplegics have hope.
One of the participants in his experiments, a 58-year-old woman who is paralyzed and unable to use any of her limbs, can now pick up a bottle containing coffee and bring it close enough to her mouth to drink from it using a straw. She does so using a thought-controlled robotic arm fixed to a nearby stand. It is the first time she has managed something like that since she suffered a stroke, nearly 15 years ago.
Arms are more complicated pieces of machinery than legs, so controlling them via electrodes (多波段电极) attached to the skin of someone’s scalp (头皮) is not yet possible. Instead, brain activity has to be recorded directly. And that is what Dr Donoghue is doing. Dr Donoghue and his team have had small, multichannel electrodes implanted in the parts of the motor cortexes (运动皮质) of participants’ brains associated with hand movements.
Dr Donoghue and his team decoded signals from their participants’ brains as they were asked to imagine controlling a robotic arm making present movements. The woman and other volunteers were then encouraged to operate one of two robot arms by thinking about the movements they wanted to happen. When the software controlling the arms detected the relevant signals, the arms moved appropriately. The arm that the woman used to help herself to a drink is a lightweight device developed by DLR, German’s Aerospace Centre, as part of its robotics program.
Dr Donoghue and his colleagues have thus shown that a mechanical arm can be controlled remotely by the brain of a person with paralysis. Controlling an arm that is attached to the individual’s body will be trickier, but in time even that may be possible. In the meantime, a robotic arm attached to a wheelchair will be a real soon.
1.What does the underlined word “that” in Paragraph3 refer to?
A.Controlling a robotic arm via electrodes attached to the scalp.
B.Recording the activity of brain and implanting electrodes.
C.Controlling a robotic leg via electrodes attached to the scalp.
D.Controlling a mechanical arm attached to the individual’s body.
2.Which statement may the author agree with?
A.Thanks to the research by Dr Donoghue and his colleagues, a paralyzed woman can get herself a drink.
B.The woman in the experiment drinks a bottle of coffee with a robotic arm attached to her scalp.
C.The woman is encouraged to control the mechanical arm by moving her body.
D.The robotic arm the woman used is remoted by DLR.
3.What’s the author’s attitude to the future of the robotic arm attached to quadriplegic?
A.Pessimistic. B.Objective.
C.Controversial. D.Optimistic.
4.What’s the main idea of the text?
A.Quadriplegics can use the artificial limbs developed by Dr Donoghue and lead a good life by themselves.
B.The newly-developed thought-controlled robotic arms can help the paralyzed in their daily life.
C.Scientists have invented a kind of robotic arm attached to the individual’s body.
D.A quadriplegic can be on his feet again due to the new invention.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
_________ there are certainly times when giving up trying is the right thing to do, in most cases all needed is commitment and communication.
A. Unless B. Before C. Although D. Since
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
Searching for airfares often seems like a game that passengers are bound to lose.
Prices change from day to day, even minute to minute. Looking through multiple websites for the best deal can be a big challenge. Even when you do book, there’s no guarantee that you are going to get the best price.
“You just don’t know when to pull the trigger. It’s not like buying anything else I can think of,” said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com.
Harriet Levy paid $179 for a recent round-trip flight on American Airlines between New York and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Sitting just one row behind her, Shirley Harrison paid $215. A few rows back, Ellis and Dianne Traub paid $317 each. There were at least 12 fares on the flight, ranging from $169 to $360.
There’s no reason for it, Harrison said.
Fares can vary significantly in just a few hours. One Delta flight from New York to Los Angeles jumped from $755 to $1,143 from a Friday to Saturday in late April, then fell to $718 on Sunday.
The flight was one of a dozen the Associated Press (美国联合通讯社)followed over three months for a vacation between July 16 and 22. The number one finding: avoid booking tickets on weekends. It’s the most expensive time to buy.
There’s no way to guarantee the best fare. But before booking, travelers should pay attention to this additional advice:
● Book on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That’s when airlines most often offer sales.
● Buy in advance, but not too early. The best time is four to six weeks before traveling. In general, prices for any given flight are highest eight to ten weeks and two to three weeks in advance.
● Make use of social media. Airlines are giving more benefits like exclusive (独家) sales to travelers who interact (互动) with them on Twitter and Facebook. Those specials are often gone within hours.
● The so-called discount airlines – JetBlue, Air-Tran, Southwest and Frontier – adjust their fares less frequently than other airlines, so you can feel more confident that the price will stay the same. But their prices aren’t always the lowest. Researching multiple airlines’ fares is the only way to get a good deal.
1. What can we infer from the first sentence of the text?
A. Passengers are unable to search for airfares.
B. Airlines often play games with passengers.
C. Airfares are set in different situations.
D. It’s difficult for passengers to get the best price.
2.The underlined phrase “pull the trigger” in Paragraph 3 probably means _______.
A. start searching B. get the highest price
C. make a purchase D. get on board the plane
3.By using a lot of figures, the author intends to _______.
A. show there is standard price for every single airline
B. discover the rules behind airfares
C. guarantee passengers a low price
D. prove airfares can vary widely
4.Passengers are advised to book flights _______.
A. in the middle of the week
B. on special websites
C. several months before traveling
D. with airlines which are famous for offering discount prices
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
--- What has made him upset recently?
--- __________ alone to face a troublesome case．
A．Left B．Being left C．Having left D．To leave
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
It is said that there are plenty of hotels in that town. There _____ be any difficulty for you to find somewhere to stay.
A. wouldn’t B. mustn’t C. shouldn’t D. needn’t
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
It’s said that there are plenty of hotels in that town. There ______ be any difficulty for you to find somewhere to stay.
A. wouldn’t B. mustn’t C. shouldn’t D. needn’t
高三英语单项填空困难题查看答案及解析
My friends thought they had made things very smooth for me, but I felt there was still much to ________ with.
A. wrestle B. compromise C. associate D. stress
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析