In the nineteenth century, many stories creat...

In the nineteenth century, many stories created by novelists would come to an end with a series of coincidences, most of which were not likely to happen.

In the nineteenth century, a novelist would bring his story to a c1. by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences-most of them wildly improbable.

2. Misfortunes never come singly, which is always true.

What i2. happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment.

3. Qualities such as patience and the ability to recognize the worth of something are absolutely necessary for a bargain hunter of art treasures with devotion.

A truly d3. bargain hunter of art treasures must have patience, and above all, the ability to recognize the worth of something when he sees it

4. It turns out that a man is without question innocent or guilty, which means: “it serves him right”

We might say that justice has been done when a man's innocence or guilt has been proved b4. doubt.

5. Three guests made a sudden visit to your home for dinner invited by your husband, which added to your helplessness and sadness.

As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, u5. bringing three guests to dinner.

高二英语单词拼写困难题查看答案及解析

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the great nineteenth century English novelist, was born near Portsmouth. His father ran heavily into debt and when he was twelve, he had to go and work in a factory for making boot polish. The only formal education he received was a two-year schooling at a school for poor children. In fact, he had to teach himself all he knew. He worked for a time as junior clerk in a lawyer’s office. After that, he worked as a reporter in the law courts, and later in parliament, for London newspapers. His career as a writer of fiction began in 1833 with short stories and essays in periodicals, and in 1837 his comic novel The Pickwick Papers made him the most popular author at his time in England.

He was a great observer of people and their places because he was attracted by life and conditions in mid-nineteenth century London. He wrote 19 novels all his life and in many of them, Dickens gave a realistic picture of all classes of England society, showing deep sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, exposing the injustice and inhumanity（不人道） of the bourgeoisie（资产阶级）.

Many of his novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and so on drew attention to the unsatisfactory social conditions that existed in England over a hundred years ago.

Dickens criticized capitalist society from the point of view of bourgeois humanism（人文主义）. He wished to see improvement in the living conditions of the poor, but failed to find any effective means to achieve that end.

61. Dickens only received a little formal education because______.

A. he wanted to teach himself

B. he wanted to work and made a lot of money

C. he was too poor to afford any more formal education

D. he wanted some working experiences to be a novelist

62. According to Dickens, the society at his time in England was________.

A. just     B. poor    C. comfortable        D. unsatisfying

63. Which of the following novel made Dickens the most popular writer at his time in England?

A. Oliver Twist             B. The Pickwick Papers

C. A Tale of Two Cities       D. Great Expectations

64. According to the passage, which of the following about Dickens is true?

A. He didn’t go to school at all.

B. He only wrote about poor people and showed deep sympathy for them.

C. He began to write fictions when he was 21years old.

D. He found some effective ways to improve the living conditions of the poor.

65. It can be inferred from the passage that________.

A. Dickens had a miserable childhood

B. Dickens tried many different jobs before he became a professional writer

C. Dickens wrote many novels but only some of them are popular

D. Dickens criticized capitalist（资本主义的）society and helped to improve the living conditions of the poor

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the great nineteenth century English novelist, was born near Portsmouth. His father ran heavily into debt and when he was twelve, he had to go and work in a factory for making boot polish. The only formal education he received was a two-year schooling at a school for poor children. In fact, he had to teach himself all he knew. He worked for a time as junior clerk in a lawyer's office. After that, he worked as a reporter in the law courts, and later in parliament, for London newspapers. His career as a writer of fiction began in 1833 with short stories and essays in periodicals, and in 1837 his comic novel The Pickwick Papers made him the most popular author at his time in England.

　He was a great observer of people and their places because he was attracted by life and conditions in mid-nineteenth century London. He wrote 19 novels all his life and in many of them, Dickens gave a realistic picture of all classes of England society, showing deep sympathy for the poor and unfortunate, exposing the injustice and inhumanity（不人道） of the bourgeoisie（布尔乔亚阶级）.

　Many of his novels like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and so on drew attention to the unsatisfactory social conditions that existed in England over a hundred years ago.

　Dickens criticized capitalist society from the point of view of bourgeois humanism. He wished to see improvement in the living conditions of the poor, but failed to find any effective means to achieve that end.

1.Dickens only received a little formal education because______.

2.According to Dickens, the society at his time in England was________.

3.Which of the following novel made Dickens the most popular writer at his time in England?

4.According to the passage, which of the following about Dickens is true?

5.It can be inferred from the passage that________.

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

Nineteenth-century writers in the United States, whether they wrote novels, short stories, poems or plays, were powerfully drawn to the railroad in its golden years. In fact, writers responded to the railroads as soon as the first were built in the 1830’s. By the 1850’s, the railroad was a major presence in the life of the nation. Writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David saw the railroad both as a boon(要求) to democracy(民主国家) and as an object of suspicion. The railroad could be and was a despoiler(掠夺者) of nature, furthermore, in its manifestation of speed and noise. It might be a despoiler of human nature as well. By the 1850’s and 1860’s, there was a great distrust among writer and intellectuals of the rapid industrialization of which the railroad was a leading force. Deeply philosophical historians such as Henry Adams lamented the role that the new frenzy for business was playing in eroding traditional values. A distrust of industry and business continued among writers throughout the rest of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

For the most part, the literature in which the railroad plays and important role belong to popular culture rather than to the realm of serious art. One thinks of melodramas, boys’ books, thrillers, romances, and the like rather than novels of the first rank. In the railroads’ prime years, between 1890 and 1920, there were a few individuals in the United States, most of them with solid railroading experience behind them, who made a profession of writing about railroading—works offering the ambience of stations, yards, and locomotive cabs. These writers, who can genuinely be said to have created a genre, the “railroad novel”, are now mostly forgotten, their names having faded from memory. But anyone who takes the time to consult their fertile writings will still find a treasure trove of information about the place of the railroad in the life of the United States.

1.The underlined word “it” in the passage refers to______.

　A. railroad 　　B. manifestation　　 C. speed 　　D. nature

2.In the first paragraph, the author implies that writers’ reactions to the development of railroads were______.

　A. highly enthusiastic 　 B. both positive and negative　  C. unchanging　 　D. Disinterested

3. According to the passage, the railroad played a significant role in literature in all of the following kinds of books except_______.　

A. thrillers 　 B. boys’ books　　C. romances　　D. important novels

4. The phrase “first rank” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to______.

A. largest category(类别) 　B. highest quality　  C. earliest writers 　D. most difficult language

5. Which of the following topics is the main idea of passage?

A. The role of the railroad in the economy of the USA　

B. Major nineteenth century writers

C. The conflict between expanding industry and preserving nature

D. The railroad as a subject for literature

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

By the mid-nineteenth century, the “icebox” had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families of their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursors of modern refrigerator, had been invented.

Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.

But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium(奖金) price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.

1.What does the passage mainly discuss?

A．The influence of ice on the diet.

B．The development of refrigeration.

C．The transportation of goods to market.

D．Sources of ice in the nineteenth century.

2.According to the passage, when did the word “icebox” become part of the language of the United States?

A．in 1803                               B．sometime bore 1850

C．during the civil war                      D．near the end of the nineteenth century.

3.The phrase “forward-looking” in line 3 is closest in meaning to______.

A．progressive        B．popular           C．thrifty            D．well-established

4.The author mentions “fish” in the passage because _____.

A．many fish dealers also sold ice.

B．fish was shipped in refrigerated freight cars.

C．fish dealers were among the early commercial users of ice

D．fish was not part of the ordinary person’s diet before the invention of the icebox.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

There are many stories about the Mid-Autumn Festival, 1. has been celebrated in China for centuries. But the most 2.(move) one is the story of Chang’e. It tells after Hou Yi shot down the 3.(nine) suns, a goddess gave him magic medicine to thank him. Hou Yi planned share it 4. his wife, Chang’e .But a bad man, Pang Meng, tried to steal the medicine when Hou Yi 5.(be) out. Chang’e refused to give it to him and then drank it all. She became very light and 6.(fly) up to the moon. Hou Yi was so sad and missed her very much. One night, he found that the moon was so bright and round 7. he could see his wife there. He 8.(quick) laid out her favorite fruits in the garden. 9. he wished that she could come back!

After this, people started the tradition of admiring the moon and sharing mooncakes that carry 10. (they) wishes to the families they love and miss.

高二英语短文填空困难题查看答案及解析

Born in London in 1825, Thomas Henry Huxley was one of the greatest men of the nineteenth century. In 1846 Thomas Henry Huxley was appointed assistant doctor aboard H. M.S. Rattlesnake. The ship had been asked to survey areas of the Great Barrier Reef and the neighboring seas. This gave Thomas Henry Huxley an opportunity to study animal life and was the start of his biological career. The voyage lasted four years, during which time he gathered much information on plankton (浮游生物).

On his return from the voyage, Thomas Henry Huxley was made a member of the Royal Society in recognition of his scientific work. Although he continued to publish papers about plankton, his interest was turning towards vertebrate (有脊椎的) animals. For some time Thomas Henry Huxley and his workmates had been discussing the possibility that animal species had evolved (进化), one from another. No satisfactory theories had been put forward, but in 1859 Darwin’s Origin of Species appeared. Thomas Henry Huxley at once realized　 its importance and how the theory of natural selection provided “the working hypothesis (假说) we sought”.

For the rest of his life Thomas Henry Huxley struggled to ensure the full recognition of Darwin's work. In 1863 Thomas Henry Huxley published Man’s Place in Nature in which he compared man and great apes (猿). He clearly showed similarities.

Despite his many achievements, he was given no award by the British state until late in his life. From about 1870, Thomas Henry Huxley was too involved in other things to continue actual research. He had always been interested in education. He pioneered the teaching of biology and his method of selecting “type animals” is still followed today. He spent the last ten years of his life writing essays mainly on biology.

1.Why did Huxley go on the voyage?

A.To explore the deep sea. B.To do research on sea animals.

C.To work as a doctor on the ship. D.To gather information for his paper.

2.How did Huxley react to the theory of natural selection?

A.He had doubt about it. B.He thought highly of it.

C.He couldn’t understand it. D.He thought he developed it first.

3.What do we know about Huxley's book Man’s Place in Nature?

A.It discusses the importance of human beings.

B.It focuses on Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

C.It talks about the differences between man and apes.

D.It provides evidence about the evolution of man from apes.

4.What can we learn about Huxley from the last paragraph?

A.He contributed a lot to biology teaching.

B.He continued his research till his death.

C.He became a good novelist late in his life.

D.He never got awards for his achievements.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

In the mid-nineteenth century, as iceboxes became increasingly common in American homes, there were efforts to find cheaper and more reliable sources of ice. In the eighteen-thirties, scientists discovered a way to make ice, which is similar to how a refrigerator works. In 1860, there were four artificial-ice plants in the United States; in 1889, there were about two hundred; by 1909, there were two thousand. Ice now came from factories, not ponds, and it was turned out in three-hundred-pound blocks by lowering steel cans of pure water into tanks of refrigerated salted water. Kept below thirty-two degrees, the salted water did not freeze, but the water in the cans did. Those cans were then lifted from the tank, and the ice was taken out of them.

The ice blocks were delivered to home users, and to the fishing and chemical industries. On the railroads, trains carrying fruit and vegetables had cars at each end filled with blocks of ice. It was a growing industry.

The great trade began to fall away in the middle years of the twentieth century. The railroad business shrank, and, in the immediate postwar period, block ice lost out to home refrigerators and then to small commercial ice machines. By the nineteen-sixties, things looked very dark. “It was scary,” Dan Ditmar, an ice expert in San Antonito, told me. “Your biggest customers were cafeterias and country clubs, and you’d go out there and they’d say, ‘We don’t need you anymore; we’ve got ice machines.’”

Then the companies that survived the slump（a slump is a period when there is a reduction in business）began investing（投资）in newly developed ice-cube machines, and by the late sixties American ice was becoming a packaged-ice business. And packaged ice was exactly what the country needed. These were years of increased leisure time—more barbecues, more cars, and more houses by the lake. “Things exploded in the nineteen-seventies,^ Paul Handler said. Ice cubes evolved. They became hugely popular^ shoveled（铲）here and there into picnic coolers and fast-foof sodas. They became noisier.

1.What happened at the beginning of the 20th century?

A. Ice was mainly used on the railroads.

B. There was a great need for iceboxes.

C. Ice cubes got popular in the US.

D. The ice industry grew very last,

2.What was scary according to Dan Detmar?

A. The slump in the block-ice market.

B. The danger of producing block ice.

C. The social problems in the postwar period

D. The problems caused by home refrigerators.

3.What can we say about the investment in ice-cube machines?

A. It nearly destroyed the US ice industry.

B. It helped increase people’s leisure time.

C. It proved to be a huge success.

D. It caused a decline in ice sales.

4.Which can be the best title for the text?

A. From ponds to factories.　　 B. From ice blocks to ice cubes,

C. From iceboxes to refrigerators.　　 D. From refrigerators to ice machines.

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析

In 1863, the great novelist Jules Verne wrote a novel called Paris in the Twentieth Century. In the book he used the full power of his great ability to forecast the coming century. Unfortunately, the manuscript (手稿) was lost until his great-grandson happened to discover it lying in a safe where it had been carefully locked away for almost 130 years. Realizing what a treasure he had found, he arranged to have it published in 1994, and it became a bestseller at once.

Back in 1863, kings still ruled the ancient world in Europe, with so many poor people working in the fields. And steam power was just beginning to change the world. But Verne predicted that Paris in 1960 would have glass skyscrapers, air conditioning, TV, high-speed trains, gas-powered vehicles, and even something similar to the Internet. Verne descibed life in modem Paris almost without any mistakes.

Just two years later Verne made another amazing prediction. He wrote From the Earth to the Moon, in which he predicted the details of the task that sent several astronauts to the moon 100 years later in 1969. He correctly predicted the size of the space capsule, the number of astronauts who would carry out the task, the weightlessness that the astronauts would experience, and the final landing in the ocean.

How was Jules Verne able to predict 100 years into the future successfully? Although he was not a scientist himself, Verne often turned to scientists, asking them questions about their opinions of the future. He collected a vast amount of information about the great scientific discoveries of his time. Verne realized that science would make it possible for many amazing things to appear in the future. The secret of his successful prediction was his belief in the power of science to change society.

1.Paris in the Twentieth Century is a novel that 　　　　 .

A. was published long after it was finished

B. didn’t sell well when published at first

C. took Jules Verne five years to finish

D. people thought badly of at first

2.The third paragraph is mainly about 　　　　 .

A. the requirements of being an astronaut

B. how From the Earth to the Moon was created

C. what From the Earth to the Moon is about

D. the differences between the earth and the moon

3.According to the text, Jules Verne 　　　　 .

A. could predict what would happen to someone

B. was a great scientist and novelist

C. had Paris in the Twentieth Century published in 1994

D. showed strong interest in writing and science

4.What would be the best title for the text?

A. The early life of Jules Verne

B. Jules Verne: A writer ahead of his time

C. Jules Verne’s opinions about science

D. Jules Verne’s inventions came true

高二英语阅读理解简单题查看答案及解析

Argentina in the late nineteenth century was an exciting place. Around 1870, it was experiencing an economic boom（繁荣）, and the capital, Buenos Aires, attracted many people. Farmers, as well as a flood of foreigners from Spain and Italy, came to Buenos Aires seeking jobs. These jobs didn’t pay well, and the people felt lonely and disappointed with their new life in the city. As the unhappy newcomers mixed together in the poor parts of the city, the dance known as the tango(探戈舞) came into being.

At the beginning the tango was a dance of the lower classes. It was danced in the bars and streets. At that time there were many fewer women than men, so if a man didn’t want to be left out, his only choice was to dance with another man so that he could attract the attention of the few available women. Gradually, the dance spread into the upper classes of Argentinean society and became more respectable.

In Europe at this time, strong interest in dance from around the world was beginning. This interest in international dance was especially evident in Paris. Every kind of dance from ballet(芭蕾舞) to belly dancing could be found on the stages of the Paris theaters. After tango dancers from Argentina arrived in Europe, they began to draw the interest of the public as they performed their exciting dance in cafes. Though not everyone approved of the new dance, saying it was a little too shocking, the dance did find enough supporters to make it popular.

The popularity of the tango continued to grow in many other parts of the world. Soldiers who returned to the United States from World War I brought the tango to North America. It reached Japan in 1926, and in 2003 the Argentinean embassy(大使馆) in Seoul hired a local tango dancer to act as a kind of dance ambassador, and promote tango dancing throughout South Korea.

1.The origin of the tango is associated with ________.

A. the capital of Argentina

B. a Spanish city

C. American soldiers

D. belly dancers

2.Which of the following is true about the tango?

A. A dancer in Seoul became the Argentinean ambassador.

B. People of the upper classes loved the tango most.

C. It was often danced by two males in the beginning.

D. It was created by foreigners from Spain and Italy.

3.Before World War I, the tango spread to ________.

A. South Korea            B. Japan            C. France            D. America

4.What can be the best title for the text?

A. The Modern Tango Boom                    B. The History of the Tango

C. How to Promote the Tango                    D. How to Dance the Tango

高二英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析