Americans gave nearly $300 billion away last year. Do you know the reason? Beyond the noble goals of helping others, it is that giving will make them happier.
It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who give money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are “very happy” about their lives. Similarly, volunteers are 42% more likely to be very happy then non-volunteers.
The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith, as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances, but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, over 40 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-givers.
A number of studies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the “Helper’s High”. They believe that charitable activity produces a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.
Of course, not only does giving increase our happiness, but also our happiness increases the possibility that we will give. Everyone prefers to give more when they are happy. Researchers have investigated this by conducting experiments in which people are asked about their happiness before and after they participate in a charitable activity, such as volunteering to help children or serving meals to the poor. The result is clear that giving has a strong, positive causal impact on our happiness, so does happiness on giving
1.According to Paragraph 2. We can learn that .
A. only those people who gave money to charity will be happy
B. more givers say they feel having happy lives than non-givers
C. those who donate money are happier than those who volunteer
D. 42% of the volunteers say they are as happy as the non-volunteers
2.What causes the happiness difference?
A. Income. B. Faith.
C. Education. D. Donation.
3.The underlined word “euphoria” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to .
A. relaxation B. uncertainty
C. nervousness D. pleasure
4.If a person feels happy, he may .
A. ask for more donations
B. stop charitable activity
C. be likely to give more
D. cook food for the poor
5.Which of the following is the main theme of this passage?
A. Giving brings happiness.
B. Americans love donating.
C. The happiness difference.
D. Feelings of volunteers.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题
Americans gave nearly $300 billion away last year. Do you know the reason? Beyond the noble goals of helping others, it is that giving will make them happier.
It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who give money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are “very happy” about their lives. Similarly, volunteers are 42% more likely to be very happy then non-volunteers.
The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith, as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances, but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, over 40 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-givers.
A number of studies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the “Helper’s High”. They believe that charitable activity produces a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.
Of course, not only does giving increase our happiness, but also our happiness increases the possibility that we will give. Everyone prefers to give more when they are happy. Researchers have investigated this by conducting experiments in which people are asked about their happiness before and after they participate in a charitable activity, such as volunteering to help children or serving meals to the poor. The result is clear that giving has a strong, positive causal impact on our happiness, so does happiness on giving
1.According to Paragraph 2. We can learn that .
A. only those people who gave money to charity will be happy
B. more givers say they feel having happy lives than non-givers
C. those who donate money are happier than those who volunteer
D. 42% of the volunteers say they are as happy as the non-volunteers
2.What causes the happiness difference?
A. Income. B. Faith. C. Education. D. Donation.
3.The underlined word “euphoria” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to .
A. relaxation B. uncertainty
C. nervousness D. pleasure
4.If a person feels happy, he may .
A. ask for more donations B. stop charitable activity
C. be likely to give more D. cook food for the poor
5.Which of the following is the main theme of this passage?
A. Giving brings happiness. B. Americans love donating.
C. The happiness difference. D. Feelings of volunteers.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Americans gave nearly $300 billion away last year. Do you know the reason? Beyond the noble goals of helping others, it is that giving will make them happier.
It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who give money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are “very happy” about their lives. Similarly, volunteers are 42% more likely to be very happy then non-volunteers.
The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith, as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances, but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, over 40 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-givers.
A number of studies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the “Helper’s High”. They believe that charitable activity produces a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.
Of course, not only does giving increase our happiness, but also our happiness increases the possibility that we will give. Everyone prefers to give more when they are happy. Researchers have investigated this by conducting experiments in which people are asked about their happiness before and after they participate in a charitable activity, such as volunteering to help children or serving meals to the poor. The result is clear that giving has a strong, positive causal impact on our happiness, so does happiness on giving
1.According to Paragraph 2. We can learn that .
A. only those people who gave money to charity will be happy
B. more givers say they feel having happy lives than non-givers
C. those who donate money are happier than those who volunteer
D. 42% of the volunteers say they are as happy as the non-volunteers
2.What causes the happiness difference?
A. Income. B. Faith.
C. Education. D. Donation.
3.The underlined word “euphoria” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to .
A. relaxation B. uncertainty
C. nervousness D. pleasure
4.If a person feels happy, he may .
A. ask for more donations
B. stop charitable activity
C. be likely to give more
D. cook food for the poor
5.Which of the following is the main theme of this passage?
A. Giving brings happiness.
B. Americans love donating.
C. The happiness difference.
D. Feelings of volunteers.
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
What makes Americans spend nearly half their food dollars on meals away from home? The answers lie in the way Americans live today. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, canned and other convenience foods freed the family cook from full-time duty at the kitchen range. Then, in the 1940s, work in the wartime defense plants took more women out of the home than ever before, setting the pattern of the working wife and mother. Today about half of the country’s married women are employed outside the home. But, unless family members pitch in with food preparation, women are not fully liberated from that housework. Instead, many have become, in a sense, prisoners of the completely cooked convenience meals. It’s easier to pick up a bucket of fried chicken on the way home from work or take the family out for pizzas or burgers than to start opening cans or heating up frozen dinners after a long , hard day. Also, the rising divorce rate means that there are more single working parents with children to feed. And many young adults and elderly people, as well as unmarried and divorced mature people, live alone rather than as part of a family unit and don’t want to bother cooking for one.
Fast food is appealing because it is fast, it doesn’t require any dressing up, it offers a “fun” break in the daily outline, and the outlay of money seems small. It can be eaten in the car--- sometimes picked up at a drive-in window without even getting out---or on the run. Even if it is brought home to eat, there will never be any dirty dishes to wash because of the handy disposable (一次性的) wrappings. Children, especially, love fast food because it’s finger food, no struggling with knives and forks, no annoying instructions from adults about table manner.
1.Americans enjoy fast food mainly because __________.
A. it can be eaten in the car
B. it is much more tasty than home-made food
C. one only uses his fingers while eating it
D. it is time-saving and convenient
2.It can be inferred that children __________.
A. want to have more freedom at table
B. never wash dishes after each meal
C. are good at using forks and knives while eating
D. take eating time as a fun break
3. Many Americans are eating out and not cooking at home partially because __________.
A. they want to make a change after eating the same food for years at home
B. the food made outside home tastes better than food cooked at home
C. many of them live alone and don’t like taking trouble to cook
D. American women refuse to cook at home due to women’s liberation movement
4.According to the text, a drive-in window is a __________.
A. car window from which you can see the driver
B. window in the restaurant from which you get your takeout in the car
C. place where you check the mechanic condition of your car
D. place where you return the used plates after eating
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
—What do you think of her speech last night?
—Just so-so. She gave us too much information,so that everyone got________.
A. confused B. to confuse
C. confusing D. to be confused
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
We produce 500 billion of plastic bags in a year worldwide and they are thrown away polluting oceans, killing wildlife and getting dumped in landfills where they take up to 1000 years to decompose. Researchers have been unsuccessfully looking for a solution.
The 16-year old Canadian high school student, Daniel Burd, from Waterloo Collegiate Institute,
has discovered a way to make plastic bags degrade(分解) in as few as 3 months, a finding that won him first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, a $10 000 prize, a $20 000 scholarship, and a chance to revolutionize a major environmental issue.
Burd's strategy was simple: Since plastic does eventually degrade, it must be eaten by microorganisms (微生物). If those microorganisms could be identified, we could put them to work eating the plastic much faster than under normal conditions.
With this goal in mind, he ground plastic bags into a powder and concocted(调制) a solution of household chemicals, yeast(酵母) and tap water to encourage microbes growth. Then he added the plastic powder and let the microbes work their magic for 3 months. Finally, he tested the resulting bacterial culture on plastic bags, exposing one plastic sample to dead bacteria as a control. Sure enough, the plastic exposed to the live bacteria was 17% lighter than the control after six weeks.
The inputs are cheap: maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide.
“Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have piles of plastic bags falling on top of me. One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags. The answer: not much. So I decided to do something myself.” said Daniel Burd.
1.Daniel Burd won first prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair because________.
A. he found a new kind of microorganism
B. he contributed much to environmental protection
C. he found a way to degrade plastics in shorter time
D. he could encourage microbes growth in an easier way
2.Daniel Burd exposed one plastic sample to dead bacteria to ________.
A. make the live bacteria work better
B. test how effective his method was
C. know which bacteria worked faster
D. control the temperature in the process
3.Maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because ________.
A. plastics can get hot easily
B. microbes can produce heat themselves
C. much carbon dioxide is produced
D. the temperature can be controlled
4.Daniel Burd got his idea from ________.
A. his school textbook B. the failure of researchers
C. his everyday work D. the practice of other people
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
When Americans Kay and Larry Day found a store selling kites nearly 20 years ago, they decided to buy a few kites for their children. For fun, Larry bought one for himself. “He went out and flew it and decided he needed to go back and get a better one.” Kay remembered. Since then, she and her husband have loved kite - flying. They own many kites and plan trips around flying them. They also organize a kite - flying event each winter in their hometown in lowa. “I’m at peace when I’m flying.” said Larry.
Kite - flying has a long history as an activity for adults and children. The custom of flying a piece of cloth high in the sky began more than 2, 000 years ago in China. Since then, kites have been used to do scientific experiments, power boats, take pictures from the air and much more.
“There is a kind of a kite for everybody out there.” said Nic O’Neill, president of the American Kitefliers Association. “Kite - flying can be done alone or with friends and family. And kite - flying requires skill, but also a little artistry. Experience makes a difference, as does the weather.” she added.
“Sometimes the best flying conditions happen in winter - on a frozen lake.” said Kay Day, who with her husband organizes the Color the Wind Kite Festival. It takes place every February on Clear Lake in lowa. This year, more than 100 children attended a kite - making class. Kiters are a really good group of people. It’s a family.
“The kiting community makes everyone feel welcome. said Oregon. “Her two children started flying kites about three years ago after attending a kite festival. And the kite fliers we know want to teach the kids everything they can,” she added. “They like that there’s a new generation coming up.” Her sons, Dylan, and Cardin, fly with kiters of all ages. “I do enjoy seeing different people.” Dylan said.
The 13 - year - old also likes the happy feelings that he experiences when his kite moves through the sky.“ It’s really calming.” he said.
1.Why does Larry like flying kites?
A.It can bring much fun. B.It is his favorite hobby.
C.It will build up the body. D.It helps him feel good in mind.
2.According to Nic O’Neill, we know that
A.individuals are not recommended to fly kites
B.China is the home of flying kites
C.flying kites is suitable for all people
D.weather conditions are not important in kite - flying
3.What can we learn about people in kiting community?
A.They are a group of grown - ups.
B.They get on well with each other.
C.They can acquire everything.
D.They tend to make new friends.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A.Kite- Flying: a Lift to People of All Ages
B.Kite - Flying: a Traditional Custom of China
C.Kite - Flying: a Close Bond to Strangers
D.Kite - Flying: a Hobby of Family Members
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
Ocean animals have been getting bigger over the last half-billion years. Not a little bigger. Not even a lot bigger. They have mushroomed gigantically, scientists now conclude.
Their new finding lends support for something known as “Cope’s rule.” It holds that animals tend to evolve into species that are much larger than their distant ancestors. This hypothesis(假说)takes its name from the 19th century paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. While studying fossils(化石), he was the first to notice this trend.
Noel Heim is a paleontologist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He also is a co-author of the new study. His team compared the body size of animals between the Cambrian Period and modern times. This was a span of 542 million years. The animals studied included species from more than 17,000 genera. They ranged from ancient trilobites, plesiosaurs (extinct reptiles with a long neck and flippers) and many less familiar creatures to today’s whales and clams.
Ocean animals today are an average of 150 times larger than they were during the Cambrian, Heim’s group reports. The smallest animals alive today — tiny crustaceans called ostracods — are only about one-tenth the size of the Cambrian’s tiniest animals. But today’s largest ocean animals — whales — are more than 100,000 times bigger than the biggest in the Cambrian.
“Classes of animals that were already big … tended to live longer,” Heim says. They also tended to change more than classes of animals that were small did.
The size gains in ocean animals are much larger than would be expected by chance, says Jonathan Payne. He’s a co-author who also works at Stanford.
The scientists don’t know what drives the trend. One possibility is an arms race(军备竞赛)between predators and prey. The idea here is that larger animals are less likely to become some other animals’ meal. Another possibility has to do with oxygen. Land animals evolved from species that started in the ocean. Some of these land animals eventually returned to the ocean. And they kept the ability to breathe oxygen-rich air. That may have made it easier for them to outgrow animals that had to filter(过滤)their oxygen out of the water.
1.What current animals may best illustrate “mushroomed” in paragraph one?
A. Plesiosaurs. B. Ostracods.
C. Whales. D. African Elephants.
2.What is the third paragraph mainly about?
A. The result of the study.
B. The participants of the study.
C. The significance of the study.
D. The targeted animals of the study.
3.The ocean animals’ change in size ______.
A. is determined by environment
B. cannot be predicted by any factor
C. is fully explained by the new study
D. relates to the size of their ancestors
4.In the last paragraph, the explanations for the trend suggest that ______.
A. bigger animals will never be eaten
B. land animal can get oxygen more easily
C. oxygen is important to all ocean animals
D. land animals can grow bigger than ocean animals
高三英语阅读理解中等难度题查看答案及解析
—How long ________in America?
—Two years. I came back last month.
A.have you studied B.do you study
C.would you study D.did you study
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析
The World Cup in Tokyo last year.
Do you remember how many countries ?
A.took place; took part | B.hold; took part in |
C.played; joined | D.happened; joined |
高三英语单项填空简单题查看答案及解析
(2013·扬州模拟)—Do you know they got to know each other?
—It was last year they both taught Chinese in Scotland.
A. when was it that; when
B. when it was that; that
C. when it was that; when
D. when was it that; that
高三英语单项填空中等难度题查看答案及解析