阅读理解综合训练（三)(67823)-高三英语阅读(425)-21英语网

本文作者： 21ST

A

There is a loving couple and their two-year-old son was the gem (宝石) of their eyes.

One morning the husband saw a medicine bottle open. He was late for office so he asked his wife to cap the bottle and keep it in the cupboard. His wife, busy in the kitchen, totally forgot the matter. The boy saw the bottle and playfully went for it. Fascinated by the colorful pills inside the bottle, the boy ate them all. It happened to be a poisonous medicine meant for adults in small dosages (剂量). When the child collapsed (病倒), the mother hurried him to the hospital, where he died. The mother was terrified how to face her husband.

When the mad father came to the hospital and saw the dead child, he looked at his wife and said just five words: “I am with you Darling”.

The husband’s totally unexpected reaction is a proactive (主动的) behavior. The child is dead. He can never be brought back to life. There is no point in finding fault with the mother. Besides, if only he had taken time to keep the bottle away, this would not have happened. No one is to be blamed. She had also lost her only child. What she needed at that moment was consolation (安慰) and sympathy from the husband. That is what he gave her.

Blaming, most of the time, is no use at all. What matters the most is the future. Accusing can’t bring one to see his or her mistake, instead, it often makes them defensive and repeat their mistakes. Blaming can’t bring back what has been lost. It cannot foster (培养) responsibility. It will only hurt your loved ones and even push them further away.

Let there be less blame and more care!

1. The boy died because ______.

A. it took too long to take him to the hospital

B. her mother didn’t notice it when he fell ill

C. he took the poisonous pills from the bottle

D. his parents didn’t give him enough care

2. From the text, we can conclude the father ______.

A. put his work before his family

B. did what was best for his wife

C. was ruined by what happened to his son

D. blamed himself for the death of his child

3. What is the main point of the article?

A. Parents shouldn’t leave their children alone.

B. One cannot be too careful in raising their child.

C. In case of losses, we should find out both reasons and solutions.

D. We should stop focusing on whose fault it is when things go wrong.

B

The more time children spend watching television the poorer they perform academically (学业上地), according to three new studies.

Too much television viewing has been blamed for increasing rates of childhood overweight and for aggressive (攻击性的) behavior, while its impact on schooling has been inconclusive (不确定的), researchers said.

But studies published on the topic concluded television viewing tended to have an adverse effect on academic performance.

For instance, children in third grade who had televisions in their bedrooms – and therefore watched more TV – scored lower on standardized (标准化的) tests than those who did not have sets in their rooms.

On the other hand, the study found having a home computer with access to the Internet resulted in comparatively higher test scores.

“Consistently, those with a bedroom television but no home computer access had, on average, the lowest scores and those with home computer access but no bedroom television had the highest scores,” wrote study author Dina Borzekowski of Johns Hopkins University.

American homes with children have an average of nearly three televisions each, the report said, and children with televisions in their bedrooms averaged nearly 13 hours of viewing a week compared to nearly 11 hours by children who did not have their own sets.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has urged parents to limit children’s television viewing to no more than one to two hours per day – and to try to keep younger children away from TV altogether.

In two other studies published in the same journal, children who regularly watched television before the age of 3 ended up with lower test scores later on, and children and adolescents who watched more television were less likely to go on to finish high school or earn a college degree.

University of Washington researchers reported that 59 percent of US children younger than age 2 watch an average of 1.3 hours of television per day, though there is no programing of proven educational value for children that young.

TV watching appeared to help 3– to 5–year–olds with basic reading recognition and short–term memory, but not reading comprehension or mathematics, so the net effect of television watching is “limited in its beneficial impact,” wrote study author Frederick Zimmerman.

4. The underlined word “adverse” in Paragraph 3 means ______.

A. not obvious B. negative

C. beneficial D. little

5. According to the finding of the first study mentioned, it would be best for children to ______.

A. have no televisions in their bedrooms

B. watch only three hours of TV each day

C. have only a computer with Internet access in their bedrooms

D. have both TV and a computer with Internet access in their bedrooms

6. According to the other two studies, we can conclude that ______.

A. TV watching greatly helps 3– to 5–year–olds with their later schooling

B. parents should select TV programs of proven educational value for children

C. children who watch TV less than 14 hours a week are likely to get a university degree

D. parents should limit their kids’ TV watching and even forbid them watching when they are very young

7. The point of the article is to ______.

A. report on new studies on the effect of watching TV

B. give the advantages and disadvantages of watching TV

C. inform of the diverse effects of watching TV on children

D. criticize American parents for the bad habit of watching TV

C

Word travels quickly in the small fishing village of Port Washington, Wisconsin. So when Mardy McGarry wanted to build a playground for kids with special needs, she knew it wouldn’t take long to create interest in the project. But she never expected that 2,800 people (a third of the town) would roll up their sleeves and use their vacation days to bring her vision (想法) to life.

“A lot of learning comes through play,” says McGarry, 52, a special education teacher for 28 years. But her students were too often left out. She’d seen the wood chips and sand of traditional playgrounds stop wheelchairs dead in their tracks.

McGarry started researching play equipment and contacting (联系) design firms. When a piece of land became available, the city council (议会) agreed to choose a part for a playground if she would build it. McGarry asked classrooms of kids for their wish list. She also asked experts for help. And she brought on board her friend Sue Mayer, whose eight–year–old son, Sam, has a disease called Down syndrome.

Her Kiwanis Club chapter (同济会分社) came through with $7,000, and that’s when the grassroots movement really got started. One woman gave $25,000 and had her company donate the same amount. Soon smaller businesses were helping. There were silent auctions (拍卖) and T–shirt sales. The local Pieper Family Foundation offered to donate half of the remaining $170,000 balance if McGarry could raise the rest.

The $450,000 covered materials, but the actual construction, the women learned, would cost an additional $900,000. Not a choice. But the community could build it.

On September 16, 2008, the first day of construction, they came. Two women heard about the project on the radio on the way to work and took the day off to help. A couple in their 80s operated the tool trailer (拖车). Ten–year–olds sanded surfaces.

Today, Possibility Playground is one of the most popular destinations in Ozaukee County. There’s a giant rocking pirate ship, a lighthouse, a rock-climbing wall, high and low rings, monkey bars, palm drums, sandboxes, swings, slides, bridges, and ramps (坡道), ramps, ramps.

All children play shoulder to shoulder. It’s exactly what McGarry wanted. “People used to ask, ‘Why do you want to build a playground just for children with disabilities?’” she says. “They didn’t get it. It’s only when you build a playground for children with disabilities that you build one for all children.”

8. From the text, we can conclude that Mardy McGarry teaches students who ______.

A. have strange diseases

B. suffer mental problems

C. are gifted

D. are disabled

9. Mardy McGarry wanted to build a playground for kids with special needs because ______.

A. they were often left out by other kids

B. she wanted to end her career with honor

C. traditional playgrounds were often inaccessible to them

D. they were often made fun of on traditional playgrounds

10. The underlined sentence “she brought on board her friend Sue Mayer” probably means that ______.

A. she put Sue Mayer in charge

B. she gave help to her friend Sue Mayer

C. she got Sue Mayer involved in the project

D. she had Sue Mayer monitor and inspect the construction

11.Which of the following is TRUE according to the article?

A. It turned out that the community constructed the playground.

B. Possibility Playground was so popular it even made profit.

C. Most people in the town understood McGarry’s intention.

D. The city government rented her a piece of land.

D

Why is it that flying to New York from London will leave you feeling less tired than flying to London from New York? The answer may be a clear case of biology not being able to keep up with technology.

Deep inside the brain there is a clock that governs every aspect of the body’s functioning: sleep and wake cycles, levels of alertness (警觉), performance, mood, hormone (荷尔蒙) levels, digestion, body temperature and so on. It regulates (调节) all of these functions on a 24-hour basis and is called the biological clock.

This body clocks programs us to be sleepy twice a day, between 3–5 am and again between 3–5 pm. Afternoon tea and nap (小睡) are all answers to our natural biological sleepiness in the afternoon.

One of the major causes of the travelers’ malady known as jet lag is the non-alignment (不协调) of a person’s internal body clock with clocks in the external world. Crossing different time zones confuses the biological clock, which then has to adjust to the new time and patterns of light and activity. To make matters more complex, not all internal body functions adjust at the same rate. So your sleep and wake may adjust to a new time zone at one rate, while your temperature adjusts at a different pace. Your digestion may be on a different schedule altogether.

Though we live in a 24–hour day, the natural tendency (趋势) of the body clock is to extend (延伸) our day beyond 24 hours. It is opposite to our biological programming to “shrink” our day.

That is why traveling in a westward direction is more body–clock friendly than flying east. NASA studies of long distance pilots showed that westward travel was associated with significantly better sleep quantity and quality than eastward flights.

When flying west, you are “extending” your day, thus traveling in the natural direction of your internal clock. Flying eastward will involve “shrinking” or reducing your day and is in direct opposition to your internal clock’s natural tendency.

One of the more common complaints (抱怨) of travelers is that their sleep becomes disrupted (打扰). There are many reasons for this: changing time zones and schedules, changing light and activity levels, trying to sleep when your body clock is programmed to be awake, disruption of the internal biological clock and working longer hours.

It is often suggested that you adjust your watch as soon as you board a plane, supposedly to try to help you adjust to your destination’s schedule as soon as you arrive. But it can take the body clock several days to several weeks fully to adjust to a new time zone.

So, our body clock truly can “govern” us.

12. The role of the body clock is to ______.

A. help us adapt to a 24–hour cycle

B. enable us to sleep 6 hours a day

C. control the body’s functions

D. keep up our body temperature

13. The word “malady” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to ______.

A. injury B. condition

C. discomfort D. excitement

14. According to the article, flying in a westward direction ______.

A. increases the degree of jet lag

B. helps sleep

C. make you overeat

D. shrink your day

15. The text tells us that ______.

A. biology is certainly against technology

B. there isn’t much you can do to avoid jet lag

C. different cultures have different responses for body clock programs

D. different body functions adjust to a new time zone at different rates

E