湖北省武汉市江岸区2023-2024学年高二下学期7月期末英语试题

湖北省武汉市江岸区2023-2024学年高二下学期7月期末英语
试题
一、阅读理解
“The days that make us happy make us wise.” — John Masefield
When I first read this line by England’s Poet Laureate, it startled me. What did Masefield mean? Without thinking about it much, I had always assumed that the opposite was true. But his calm assurance was arresting. I could not forget it.
Finally, I seemed to grasp his meaning and realized that here was a profound observation. The wisdom that happiness makes possible lies in clear perception, not fogged by anxiety nor dimmed by despair and boredom, and without the blind spots caused by fear.
Active happiness-not more satisfaction or contentment — often comes suddenly, like an April shower or the unfolding of a bud. Then you discover what kind of wisdom has accompanied it. The grass is greener; bird songs are sweeter; the shortcomings of your friends are more understandable and more forgivable. Happiness is like a pair of, eyeglasses correcting your spiritual vision.
Nor are the insights of happiness limited to what is near around you. Unhappy, with your thoughts turned in upon your emotional sadness, your vision is cut short as though by a wall. Happy, the wall crumbles.
The long vista (展望) is there for the seeing. The ground at your feet, the world about you-people, thoughts, emotions, pressures—are now fitted into the larger scene. Everything assumes a fairer proportion. And here is the beginning of wisdom.
1．What was the author’s initial reaction to the line in the 1st paragraph?
A．Deep agreement B．Casualness C．Shock D．Complete confusion 2．What does the author believe happiness brings in terms of wisdom?
A．A reduction in fear and anxiety
B．Pessimistic expectations for the future
C．Discontent and complaints about life
D．An unclear understanding of the surrounding world
3．When the author mentions “the wall crumbles,” what does he refer to?
A．A physical obstacle disappears
B．Emotional distress and troubles fade away
C．Fears and worries about the future decrease
D．The pursuit of happiness becomes easier
I write this on a spring morning, in the van I have called home for two years now.
From one small window, I have a view of joggers pounding the sunny path by the Oxford Canal, and the other looks onto the busy railway line along which trains travel from Southampton Docks to Birmingham.
The woods where I’ve parked my van have grown up between them. This ancient van, a vehicle designed for freedom and the open road, has proved a stable solution for surviving the current housing crisis.
I became a travel writer after my studies ended, committing to brief “residencies” with museums and artcentres—where temporary accommodation is often provided in exchange for producing new work about a community. Over the years that followed, living and working on location in the polar regions or Scandinavia or the Alps, not settling down for very long, meant wherever I landed was always “home”.
During the pandemic it was necessary to adopt a more permanent engagement with locality. Oxford had often drawn me back. It’s a crossroads of reality and the imagination, the perfect city for a writer.
It takes a surprising amount of work to keep a tiny home in order: buying a used van online; ensuring the smooth running of a gas cooker and car batteries; fetching water and emptying the mobile toilet. I began to enjoy taking care of my immediate surroundings. Over the summer, I worked to turn waste-ground into a wild garden, replacing weeds with wild plants.
I made friends with the self-sufficient boaters living nearby, always ready to share knowledge on the low-carbon simplicity of life without electricity. I’ve learnt that comfort can be found away from the bright infrastructure of urban life: in watching the birds that nest in the tree and the foxes playing in the woods at dawn, in making a cup of coffee on a spring morning. My step away from conventional housing has been a necessary act of personal economy, but the
benefits include taking nothing for granted, and unexpected delight.
4．What do the joggers and the railway line represent in the author’s view?
A．Two sources of inspiration for writing.
B．Two obstacles to the author’s daily life.
C．Two places the author visits regularly.
D．Two ways the author travels around.
5．What does “immediate surroundings” in Paragraph 6i refer to?
A．a used van B．a gas cooker C．a wild garden D．a mobile toilet 6．What does the author enjoy most about his living style?
A．Driving his van around different places.
B．Transforming the waste-ground into a garden.
C．The opportunity to meet new friends.
D．The sense of accomplishment and self-reliance.
7．Which of the following is the main benefit of unconventional housing?
A．Providing temporary shelter.B．Keeping a tiny home in order easily.
C．Embracing delightful surprises.D．Allowing for mobility and flexibility.
Not all birds sing, but several thousand species do. They sing to defend their territory and croon (柔声唱) to impress potential mates. “Why birds sing is relatively well-answered,” says Iris Adam, a behavioral neuroscientist. However, the big question for her was why birds sing so much.
“As soon as you sing, you reveal yourself,” Adam says. “Like, where you are and where your territory is.” In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, Adam and her co-workers offer a new explanation for why birds take that risk. They may have to sing a lot every day to give their vocal (发声的) muscles the regular exercise they need to produce top- quality songs. To figure out whether the muscles that produce birdsongs require daily exercise, Adam designed an experiment on zebra finches-the little Australian songbirds.
She prevented them from singing for a week by keeping them in the dark cage almost around the clock. Light is what galvanizes the birds to sing, so she had to work to keep them from warbling (鸣叫). “The first two or three days, it’s quite easy,” she says. “But the longer the experiment goes, the more they are like, “I need to sing. ““. At that point, she’d tap the cage and
tell them to stop singing.
After a week, the birds’ singing muscles lost half their strength. But Adam wondered whether that impacted the quality of songs. When she played a male’s song before and after the seven days of darkness, she couldn’t hear a difference. But when Adam played it to a group of female birds, six out of nine preferred the song that came from a male who’d been using his singing muscles daily.
Adam’s conclusion shows that “songbirds need to exercise their vocal muscles to produce top-performance songs. If they don’t sing, they lose performance, and their songs get less attractive to females.” This may help explain songbirds’ continuous singing.
It’s a good rule to live by, whether you’re a bird or a human-practice makes perfect, at least when it comes to singing one’s heart out.
8．According to Iris Adam, birds sing so much to ____________.
A．warn other birds of risks B．produce more songs
C．perform perfectly in singing D．defend their territory
9．What does the underlined word “galvanizes” in Paragraph 3 mean?
A．Prepares.B．Stimulates.C．Forbids.D．Frightens. 10．Why did Adam conduct an experiment on zebra finches?
A．To understand their mating behavior.
B．To study their singing patterns.
C．To test the effects of darkness on their singing muscles.
D．To analyze the quality of their songs.
11．What is the overall message of the passage?
A．Singing is beneficial for those that do.
B．Zebra finches are for studying singing patterns.
C．Singing is a risk for birds, but they have to.
D．Songbirds need to sing regularly for attraction.
We may weep for the dodo, but could and should we bring this lovely bird back from the dead? De-extinction is the science of restoring lost species and it has been in the news for decades.
The story in modern times began in 1990 when Michael Crichton published his science
fiction novel Jurassic Park, in which he imagined a world where scientists were able to bring dinosaurs back to life. Crichton imagined that polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology could be a way to amplify (放大) tiny quantities of dinosaur DNA and thus build a living embryo.
Sadly, biologists soon realized that DNA in fact breaks down super-fast; even after 10o years, DNA from museum skins of dodos was decayed (腐烂) beyond repair. They could be sequenced (测定序列) using massive computational power, but then only with considerable uncertainty. And even if you capture a DNA sequence, there’s still the problem of how you get living cells to read that sequence and express proteins that make the dinosaur or the dodo.
But why would anyone want to see mammoths, or something like them, roaming (漫游) present-day Siberia? Well, they were undoubtedly amazing beasts. As well as hunting them, our distant ancestors painted their likenesses in caves across Europe. Fascinating as they may be, there’s some ecological justification for the project too.
It was this diversity of land surface, broken up by heavy limbs and randomly fertilized by faeces (排泄物), that supported so much flora (植物群) . Without the mammoths, that diversity disappeared. Return them and landscapes would once again be with a variety of species, including flowers and bushes.
True, it’s not de-extinction in the sense of bringing a long-dead species back to life. Instead it’s more like making a “dodo” by engineering a modern pigeon, its closest relative, to become huge and flightless. The result would be a big, fatty pigeon that, whether it looked like a dodo or not, would probably fulfill some of its ecological roles.
As a paleontologist, I would of course love to see living dinosaurs, mammoths and dodos. In some ways, though, I am relieved that the optimistic claims for cloning and genetic technologies have not been borne out. The slowdown gives us time to consider the outcomes—and hopefully avoid some of Michael Crichton’s more fevered imaginings.
12．What is paragraph 2 of the text mainly about?
A．A science fiction review.B．The development of DNA．
C．An inspired guess of de-extinction.D．The application of PCR technology. 13．Why are people interested in cloning extinct species?
A．They expect to seek hunt fun.B．They lack sources of modern art.
C．They want to see biodiversity.D．They need them for research.
14．What does the slowdown in cloning and genetic technologies allow the author to do?
A．Witness the birth of cloned dinosaurs.
B．Avoid Michael Crichton’s imaginings,
C．Stop the progress of genetic engineering.
D．Consider the potential outcomes of these technologies.
15．What’s the author’s attitude toward cloning extinct species?
A．Cautious.B．Unclear.C．Dismissive.D．Approving.
There are several ups and downs in everyone’s life. No matter how strong an individual is, there is usually a time when he finds the need of someone encouraging him to meet the challenges.
16 That may make him feel the power and the energy to deal with all sorts of negativity in life.
The power of motivation is beyond explanation. However, the person, who benefits from it, understands its importance instantly he hears it. 17 The fact is that there exists the gap between the speech of an expert and that of the average. And probably the reason is the experience of a life coach in dealing with the life of countless people on the Earth in his entire career.
18 Or rather, whatever he says or advises is not only the output of the words on the page, but also what he has learned from the lives of people around. It is his real life experience that he uses to improve the lives of other people on the globe. Having met countless people throughout the career, the life coach becomes used to the problems. 19 So, his every suggestion goes straight, touches the heart and increases the energy of a listener, and eventually helps them address different problems in life.
If you think such speeches are mere words and sentences, you are absolutely wrong. But actually they are the magical words that bring a great change in the life of disappointed and annoyed people on the globe. With such speeches, life coaches dig out the problems that the listener is facing in life. 20
A．Sometimes, it is not difficult to define an expert.
B．In particular, a speech from an expert is motivational.
C．The knowledge of an expert is not limited to the books.
D．Especially when1 stuck in dilemma, you really feel helpless.
E．Besides, he knows what kind of solutions will prove the best.
F．And they also find the root cause to come up with a final solution.
G．If you think anyone can deliver such a speech, you might be wrong.
二、完形填空
When Eugenie George first heard that her friend passed a financial exam, her heart sank. She’d 21 the same test weeks earlier.
“Envy was eating me up,” recalls George. But anyway she 22 her friend. “And I told her I failed and admitted I was 23 ,” she says. George knew that being 24 would ease her envy, but she was surprised that it also enabled her to 25 her friend’s happiness and experience her own in turn.
Finding 26 in another person’s good fortune is what social scientists call freudenfreude, the great joy we feel when someone else succeeds, 27 it doesn’t directly involve us. Freudenfreude is like a kind of social 28 , says Catherine Chambliss, a professor of psychology. It makes relationships “closer and more enjoyable.”
Too often, we think our friends 29 us most during their hard times: a job 30 , getting divorced. In fact, how friends 31 our joy is even more important for us than how they respond to our 32 . Too often, we think of joy passively. We see it as something that come to us, instead of something we can 33 . While it can be difficult in practice, freudenfreude can lift us up and 34 our day. So celebrating our friends’ 35 is a win-win to us all.
21．A．taken B．passed C．failed D．prepared 22．A．congratulated B．forgave C．blamed D．ignored 23．A．badly-behaved B．over-burdened C．short-sighted D．green-eyed 24．A．tough B．honest C．tolerant D．optimistic 25．A．imagine B．understand C．share D．increase 26．A．hope B．passion C．confidence D．pleasure 27．A．even if B．as if C．now that D．so that 28．A．platform B．glue C．booster D．routine 29．A．support B．annoy C．upset D．need
30．A．loss B．change C．interview D．application 31．A．look forward to B．contribute to C．get used to D．react to
32．A．envy B．complaints C．suffering D．mistakes 33．A．predict B．produce C．choose D．measure 34．A．fill B．start C．brighten D．balance 35．A．survival B．success C．recovery D．generosity
三、语法填空
阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Desertification is a serious problem 36 (face) numerous countries in the world. Shi Guangyin, an eco-warrior from Shanxi Province, 37 (battle) desertification for about 40 years. Born in a town on the southern edge of the Mu Us Desert, Shi remembers how sandstorms easily destroyed the crops the villagers had grown and made their life 38 misery.
In 1984, the government issued new policies to encourage individuals to plant trees in contracted sand lands. Despite the 39 (oppose) of his family, Shi resigned from his leadership position at a state-owned farm and began his fight against desertification.
40 (initial), Shi met with the challenge of lacking funds. He managed to raise RMB 12,000 by selling all his sheep and borrowing money from door to door. 41 followed was tireless work by Shi and his team, planting several species of drought-enduring trees over sand. Langwosha is an area of about 400 hectares 42 strong winds blow hard all year round. After failing 43 the first two attempts, Shi realized scientific research was also important. In 1988, Shi challenged Langwosha the third time. This time he 44 (equip) with a newly acquired technique, which enabled most of the planted trees, well over 80%, 45 (survive).
“My fight continues as long as my life continues. I shall not stop planting trees until my last breath,” said Shi Guangyin.
四、书面表达
46．假定你是李华。

你校图书馆计划布置一个英语读书角，需要一张图片作为背景。

校方搜集了以下两张图片，向同学们征求意见。

请你给图书馆馆长写封邮件，内容包括：
(1) 你的选择；
(2) 你的理由。

注意：
1. 写作词数应为80左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Dear the head librarian,
_______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua 47．阅读下面材料，根据其内容和所给段落开头语续写两段，使之构成一篇完整的短文。

It was early spring and Nana was in the backyard with her grandchildren. Amy, Michael, and Justin were playing when Nana said, “I’m going to start planting my garden. Who wants to help me?”
“What are going to plant, Nana?” asked Amy. “I like big, yellow sunflowers.”
“I’m going to plant vegetables. That way we can have them to eat when they are ready,” said Nana.
“How long does that take?” asked Michael. He liked vegetables sometimes, especially carrots.
“It will take a few months before anything is ready to eat,” answered Nana. The children were surprised.
“Months? Why would you do all that work and then have to wait so long?” asked Amy. “You should just go to the store and buy them.”
“Patience, my sweeties! Don’t you know food always tastes best when you grow it yourself?” replied Nana. “And if all of you come to help, it won’t be too much work.”
“I’ll help you, Nana,” offered Justin. He put down the soccer ball and went to look at the gardening tools Nana had laid out. “What do we do first?” Michael and Amy came over to look, too.
Nana taught Justin how to use a trowel (小铲子) to dig small rows of holes for the seeds. Next, Nana showed Amy how to pour the seeds into each hole. And it was Michael’s job to cover up the holes with soil. Finally, Amy wrote the vegetable names on sticks that Justin pushed into the ground. “This way we can remember which vegetable seeds we have planted,” said Nana.
When they had planted everything, the children took turns filling up the watering can so that Nana could make the soil nice and wet for the seeds to start to grow.
“Now we just water them a little every day, and with some time and sunshine, we’ll have some delicious things to eat in the summer,” said Nana.
注意:1. 续写词数应为150左右；
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Whenever the grandchildren came to visit, they would dash into the garden.
_______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ Finally, Nana said it was time for the first harvest.
_______________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________。