2014届高考英语一轮复习限时阅读训练38

第 1 页2019届高考英语一轮复习限时阅读训练38

（A）

Next Halloween, a small vegetable that looks like a pumpkin may appear in a garden near you. The vegetable is a type of pepper that is called “Lil'Pumpkin”. It's very special because it has orange, pumpkin-like fruit.

You might think that all vegetables are grown to provide food to eat. But some vegetables are grown mainly for the lively color

and holiday spirit that they bring to gardens. These are called “ornamentals (观赏性植物)”

. Just like lights decorate a Christmas tree, they decorate a garden. The peppers were bred (培育) by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists John Stommel and Robert Griesbach. Another pepper the scientists developed is called “Pepper Jack”. Because Pepper Jack has orange and black cone-shaped (锥形的) fruit, it might remind you of the popular Halloween treat “candy corn”. Stommel says that vegetable crops such as peppers were first widely grown in Europe in the 15th century. At that time, people liked these crops more because they looked pretty than because they provided food.

Back then, when a gardener grew plants for decoration and plants for food, the garden was called a “potager”. An example of this is the large gardens on the lawns (草坪) of castles and very large homes where kings and queens lived. One of those large royal homes was the French king's palace at Versailles during the 1600s. The palace is still there today, and people from all over the world still go there to visit and see the gardens.

Today, Stommel says using vegetables as decorations in gardens has become popular again.

So you might be wondering, if these peppers are for decoration, can people eat them? Yes, but the fruit from both of these peppers has a sharp taste (kind of like onions).

These peppers are scheduled to become available in mid-2019. These pretty

第 2 页peppers can be grown in containers and also in garden beds. They grow

best with plenty of light and warm temperatures, Stommel says. 9. What does the passage mainly talk about? A. Different kinds of peppers. B. The history of peppers.

C. Peppers with the Halloween spirit.

D. Food for the Halloween festival.

10. What do we know about “Lil'Pumpkin” and “Pepper Jack”? A. They are used to decorate Christmas trees. B. They are grown mainly to provide food to eat.

C. Their fruits have different shapes.

D. Their fruits are of the same color.

11. The underlined word “they”in Paragraph 2 refers to “_______”. A. these vegetables B. these holidays C. these lights

D. these scientists

12. According to the passage, a potager was _______. A. the place where kings and queens lived B. the garden in the French king's palace

C. a place providing vegetables for the royal homes

D. a garden with plants for decoration and for food

（B）

Before Nicolas Sarkozy became French president, he was asked if he thought about “Not just when I'm presidency when he looked in the mirror while shaving (刮

胡子), ” he answered.

When Francois Hollande, now president-elect (总统当选人) of France, was asked the same question, he replied: “Do I see myself as president? No, I am a presidential candidate. A candidate must

not think himself president; he must give hope that he becomes president. ”Hollande has promised to be a “normal president”—something Sarkozy certainly was not. Sarkozy celebrated his election in 2019 at a world-class Parisian

restaurant.

第 3 页He took holidays on the yachts (游艇) of wealthy business people.

Hollande, by contrast, was still going around Paris on his three-wheeled motorbike at the start of this year. One member of his party said he looked “more like a pizza delivery man” than the next president.

“That is the key to Hollande's success because the election is turning into a sort of referendum (公民投票) for or against Nicolas Sarkozy, ” Eric Dupin, a journalist and political observer (观察员) told Global Post. “Francois Hollande is the one who appears not only as his main opponent politically, but also as his complete opposite psychologically (心理上地). ”

When he was the Socialist party leader, Hollande was nicknamed“the marshmallow (软糖)” because he hated fights. Sarkozy, by contrast, is known to be loud and aggressive.

When faced with Sarkozy's verbal attacks, Hollande stayed calm. “I wish he would just let go and savage (用暴力对付) Sarkozy, ” one Hollande voter said to the Guardian.

But Hollande still knows how to fight. Stéphane Le Foll, a Socialist MEP who has been one of Hollande's closest advisors for 17 years and is co-directing his