高二英语阅读理解强化训练附解析Day 210

高二英语阅读理解强化训练附解析Day 210Passage 1Sometime early in the next century, human beings will move to Mars. They will live there for about a year, and then will be replaced with another group of pioneers. Building the base on Mars will advance our knowledge of the solar system and aid in our understanding of the earth.We already know that Mars resembles(像) the earth in many aspects: general size, presence of water, length of day, range of temperatures. These resemblances have caused many people to consider a centuries-long project: to terraform(创建仿地球生存环境) Mars. Terraforming means altering a planet's surface so that Earth's life forms can survive there. This concept, previously found only in science fiction is now being seriously considered by scientists.Terraforming Mars is theoretically simple: add nitrogen(痰气) and oxygen to the atmosphere; pump water to the surface; and add the earth's plants and animals in the order in which they developed on Earth. But it will take at least 300 years.Some people think that such a project is too huge for humans to undertake, but there are very good reasons to make the attempt. The earth now contains some 6 billion people, and no one has any idea of how many humans the earth can support. Our very existence and numbers are threatening many other species. We also have had some experience withterraforming our own planet: altering the landscape, the atmosphere and the climate. Currently terraforming earth has become a wiser activity as we try to control global warming, air and water pollution, and preserve some natural living places.While the possibility of such a project is small, it is not impossible. Even if earth-bound societies come and go in the next 300 years, the project can continue through the work of the Mars settlers without the need for constant backing from the earth.The future existence of all the people in our world may very well depend upon our ability to terraform Mars.1. What would be the best title for this passage?________A. Saving the Earth.B. Terraforming Mars.C. Travelling to Mars.D. A Newly-found Place.2. What does the underlined word "altering" mean in the second paragraph?________A. ChangingB. WarmingC. PlantingD. Building3. According to the passage the main purpose of terraforming Mars is to________ .A. do some scientific research workB. find out its similarity to earthC. avoid the dying away of many other speciesD. find on Mars living place for the increasing human beings4. The main reason for causing many people to consider terraforming Mars is that________ .A. there are some resemblances between Earth and Mars.B. terraforming Mars is theoretically simpleC. we have had some experience with terraforming our own planet: EarthD. the development of science and technology is very rapidPassage 2Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of parental involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting where schools expect them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.Keith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance.One of the things that was consistently negative was their parents'help with homework. "Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the tasks. "They may either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice. "Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically insignificant.Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved parents", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success. "A big surprise was that Asian﹣American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives. "1. The underlined expression "parental involvement" in paragraph 1probably means________A. parents' participation in children's educationB. parents' expectation on children's healthC. Parents' plan for children's futureD. parents' control over children's life2. What is the major finding of Robinson's study？________A. Parents are not able to help with children's homework.B. Parental involvement is not so beneficial as expected.C. Punishing kids for bad marks is mentally damaging.D. Modern parents raise children in a more scientific way.3. The example of Asian-American parents implies that parents should________ .A. help children realize the importance of schoolingB. take a more active part in school managementC. set a specific life goal for their childrenD. spend more time improving their own lives.Passage 3Learning any language is hard, but learning English can be especially challenging. Why? Because native speakers use the language in ways that textbooks could never describe. In particular, words that British people use cause many language students to scratch(JT) their heads.Here's an example: You happen to hear a Briton calling someone a "wazzock". But what exactly is a wazzock? This word, in fact, means a foolish person, although there's nothing about it that would help you guess that. There are many strange terms like this in British English-the Oxford English Dictionary would be much smaller without these strange usagesfilling its pages.How can these odd words be explained? Part of the answer is the British sense of humor. Britons don't like to take things too seriously, and this is evident through many British words and phrases. For example, to spend a penny means to use the bathroom. It refers to the days when people had to pay a penny to use a public toilet.In an interview for the BBC's website, British linguist David Crystal suggested there may be historical reasons for the sheer number of odd words and. phrases in British English. He thinks that they began in the late 16th and. early 17th centuries. This was a great age for the theatre, when Shakespeare and other writers worked hard to keep up with the demand for new plays. The theatre's popularity also created an incentive (刺激) to invent new words.With this in mind, perhaps Shakespeare and his peers are to blame for unusual British words such as "codswallop" and "balderdash"—which both, ironically, mean nonsense.While these strange words may be confusing to non-native speakers, they certainly make studying English a lot more interesting.1. According to the text, why may non-native speakers find it hard to learn English?________A. A great many strange words make no sense to them.B. Dictionaries don't explain odd usages of many words.C. The English textbooks they study are usual out of date.D. The English vocabulary is too large for them to learn.2. With the example of "spend a penny". the author intends to________ .A. explain the meaning and background of the phraseB. explain how some strange phases were createdC. show what typical British sense of humour isD. show British people's attitude toward strange words3. According to David Crystal, ________ .A. many of the words that Shakespeare invented were nonsenseB. Shakespeare's works are boring because of he odd words involvedC. the he theatre's success in the 17th century inspired the birth of many odd wordsD. the odd words in Shakespeare's plays contributed a lot to the theatre's popularity4. What is the text mainly about?________A. The development of the British English.B. Shakespeare's influence on British English.C. The origin and meanings of British humour.D. Some reasons for the large number of odd words in British English.Passage 4Early last year, the World Economic Forum issued a paper warningthat technological change is on the verge of upending the global economy. To fill fee sophisticated jobs of tomorrow, the authors argued, the 'reskilling and upskilling of today's workers will be critical'. Around the same time, the then president Barack Obama announced a 'computer science for all' programme for elementary and high schools in the United States. 'We have to make sure all our kids are equipped for the jobs of the future, which means not just being able to work, with computer but developing the analytical and coding skills to power our innovation economy' he said.But the truth is, only a tiny percentage of people in the post-industrial world will ever end up working in software engineering, biotechnology or advanced manufacturing. Just as the huge machines of the industrial revolution made physical strength less necessary for humans, the information revolution frees us to complement, rather than compete with, the technical competence of computers. Many of the most important jobs of the future will require soft skills, not advanced algebra.Back in 1983, the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild coined the term ‘emotional labour’ to describe the processes involved in managing the emotional demands of work. She explored the techniques that flight attendants used to maintain the friendly manners their airline demanded in the face of abusive customers: taking deep breaths, silently reminding themselves to stay cool, or building empathy for the nasty passenger. ‘I try to remember that if he’s drinking too much, he’s probably really scared offlying, ’ one attendant explained. ‘I think to myself: “He’s like a little child. ”’Across the economy, technology is edging human workers into more emotional territory. In retail, Amazon and its imitators are rapidly devouring the market for routine purchases, but to the extent that bricks-and-mortar shops survive, it is because some people prefer chatting with a clerk to clicking buttons. Already, arguments for preserving rural post offices focus less on their services – handled mostly online – than on their value as centers for community social life.In the sphere of medicine, one of the toughest moments of a physician’s job is sitting with a patient, surveying how a diagnosis will alter the landscape of that patient’s life. That is work no technology can match – unlike surgery, where autonomous robots are learning to perform with superhuman precision. With AI now being developed as a diagnostic tool, doctors have begun thinking about how to complement these automated skills. As a strategic report for Britain’s National Health Service（NHS）put it in 2013: ‘The NHS could employ hundreds of thousands of staff with the right technological skills, but without the compassion to care, then we will have failed to meet the needs of patients. ’A growing real-world demand for workers with empathy and a talent for making other people feel at ease requires a serious shift in perspective. It means moving away from our singular focus on academic performanceas the road to success. It means giving more respect, and better pay, to workers too often generically dismissed as ‘unskilled labour’. And, it means valuing skills more often found among working-class women than highly educated men.1. What can we know from the first two paragraphs？________A. President Obama launched a programme to develop people’s soft skills.B. There is no need for people to continue developing technical skills.C. Today’s workers have to update their skills to compete with machines.D. Future jobs will require less physical strength but more soft skills.2. The underlined word “empathy” in Paragraph 3 probably means the ability ________ .A. to understand othersB. to forgive othersC. to respect othersD. to appreciate others3. According to the passage, which work of the following jobs doesn’t involve managing emotional demands？________A. Software engineersB. Flight attendantsC. Shop clerksD. Medical workers4. What is the author’s attitude towards emotional skills？________A. CriticalB. UnclearC. FavorableD. NegativePassage 5You Are What Y ou EatGenetic engineering is the scientific change of the genetic material in a living organism. It allows scientists to identify specific genes, to remove them from an organism's chromosomes (染色体), improve them, analyze them, and possibly clone them, and to then reinsert the changed gene into the original organism, or a completely different organism. Unlike traditional breeding (繁殖), where a desired quality would be bred within the same species, genetic engineering can insert desired ones into organisms of different species. Wow…Did you catch that?Genetic engineering creates many positive contributions to agriculture. For example, by genetically engineered (GE) foods, anti-cancer agents, minerals and vitamins can be increased. Improved taste, shelf life, and better transport are all possible. Also, GE plants can increase pest and bacterial resistance, therefore, making the food safe for consumers.But some argue that the possible negative effects outweigh the positives, and critics are starting to voice their concerns. Unlike Europe, in the United States labeling is not required on genetically engineered foods or on foods that contain genetically engineered products. Most Americans do not realize that they are, in fact, eating GE foods.The public is also concerned about the unknown health risks. With limited understanding of genes, scientists cannot predict possible effects.Because most genes introduced into GE plants come from sources not introduced into the human body, it is impossible to know if they will cause reactions. Moreover, due to the lack of labeling if allergies develop, it will be extremely difficult to find the origin of them.There is also a major moral question in many minds. For many, the conflict is not if it is safe or not, but it disturbs them because it is unnatural and unnecessary. We are currently producing one and a half times the amount of food needed to feed the world, yet one in seven people are starving. GE food is unnecessary, and fails to address the root of hunger. Many believe that the only people who will benefit are the corporations that produce it.Scientists cannot foresee the possible effects of GE foods, yet we eat them every day without even knowing it. We already have enough food. So why create more that could be potentially harmful to us, to the Earth and to all wildlife? I think that the benefits are amazing, but until we know for sure how these foods will affect us, they are not worth the risk.1. According to the passage, traditional breeding is different from genetic engineering because ________ .A. traditional breeding changes the genes in the same speciesB. traditional breeding changes the genes in different speciesC. traditional breeding takes place within the same speciesD. traditional breeding is more scientific2. "The lack of labeling" in Paragraph 4 indicates ________ .A. information concerning gene sources is unavailable to customersB. it is currently possible to find the origins of some allergiesC. scientists try to hide potential dangers from customersD. the US government is responsible for GE food3. According to Paragraph 5, GE food is unnecessary because ________ .A. it won't help solve the problem of hunger in the worldB. there are potential dangers in producing GE foodC. we're now producing more food than beforeD. customers will benefit from GE food4. What is the author's attitude towards genetic engineering?________A. Welcoming.B. Disapproving.C. Unconcerned.D. Optimistic.参考答案Passage 11. B主旨大意题。