阅读理解综合训练（一）(93610)-高三英语阅读(526)-21英语网

A

There’s a photo in my collection of vacation shots that I pull out from time to time to remind myself. It’s a picture of me from the late ’70s on a bench in London’s Victoria Station, my head resting against a wall, eyes closed with tiredness, clothes messed up.

I used to love that shot. It was evidence of my leisure time, of travel, of interruption from the office: miles covered, sights seen, train stations raced through, goals achieved.

However, as I leave work to hit the vacation trail this summer, I take along something extra. This traveling companion has a habit of ruining trips with feelings of guilt – the guilt that comes from attempting to vacation while thinking of the job.

The conflict between the time we want off and the guilt we feel when we actually give in to leisure is a long-running battle that has gone too far, driven by 24-7 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week) technology and an over-scheduling craze. It has made many feel as if their free moments are a form of truancy.

It’s hard to take it easy when you’ve been programmed not to. We have been taught for generations that work is the only goal.

Time that is unfilled is evil. We are led to believe, and unplanned enjoyment should be avoided. This is reinforced (加深) these days by a workplace culture that wants you to believe that advancement depends on your staying on the job.

Research now shows, however, that leisure time can do something job advancement and money can’t. Leisure activities increase your desire to work, leadership skills, your sense of awareness, and your ability to change.

Free time also promotes a positive mood and sense of well-being, because it develops self-worth. Deep down, everyone knows we need time off to make our lives better.

On holiday, using your productive output as a measure of yourself doesn’t work. This is because a vacation isn’t about output; it’s about input – exploring, learning, reflecting. The magic of a holiday is in the experience itself. This is the same as life satisfaction; it can’t be measured, only felt.

The best part of a vacation isn’t going somewhere else; it’s being where you are, fully involved in the experience.

1. The author mentions the photo at the beginning because ______.

A. it brings back good memories of a leisure tour

B. it shows how exhausting leisure travel can be

C. it shows the writer once considered leisure travel as a goal in itself

D. it proves interruptions from the office do not spoil his enjoyment of travel

2. What does the underlined phrase “this traveling companion” refer to?

A. The feeling of doing something wrong. B. Interruptions from the office.

C. Enjoying leisure time. D. Thinking of one’s goals.

3. What is one of the main benefits of leisure time according to the article?

A. It improves your productivity.

B. It is good for personal development.

C. It leads directly to job advancement.

D. It helps you see your goals in life more clearly.

4. What does the author suggest people do while on vacation?

A. Take leisure tours like he does.

B. Ignore job advancement and money.

C. Get rid of 24-7 technology when they are on vacation.

D. Enjoy the experience of being on vacation.

B

Disneyland calls itself the happiest place in the world, but to keep visitors happy in its five locations across the globe, each theme park is tweaked to cater to local cultures and tastes. Outside of the two original resort areas in the US, Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, the Disneylands in Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong offer subtly different layouts to make their millions of visitors each year feel at home.

Disneyland Paris

After excitedly entering Disneyland Paris, which opened in 1992, visitors are greeted with an arcade that features a small replica (复制品) of the Statue of Liberty – a gift from France to the US in 1886, making it a fitting introduction to Europe’s only instance of this American theme park. The arcade also offers essential cover from the cold and rain that typically hit Paris.

As you venture further into Disneyland Paris, you will see a lot of European visionaries, such as Leonardo da Vinci with the Orbitron attraction, a unique theater show featuring French director and actress Julie Delpy on screen with synchronized live actors, and the character Remy, a French chef rat from the Disney cartoon Ratatouille with an attached restaurant to match the cartoon’s fine-dining kitchen.

Tokyo Disneyland

Opened in 1983, Tokyo Disneyland is the third most visited of any theme park in the world after the two Disney parks in the US. Like Walt Disney World in Florida, Cinderella’s Castle is located at the center of the park, said to have been chosen because the princess’s qualities of duty and a strong work ethic would resonate more deeply in Japanese culture than Sleeping Beauty, whose castle is featured in the center of Disneyland California.

Hong Kong Disneyland

The Hong Kong Disneyland, opened in 2005, incorporates feng shui and traditional Chinese elements into its design to attract tourists from the Chinese mainland.

Feng shui balances the elements of wood, fire, earth, metal and water to create positive energy, and these elements can be seen throughout the theme park. Rocks represent stability and prevent good luck from flowing away, so two gigantic boulders have been placed at the park’s entrance to stop energy from flowing out of the resort. Water stimulates fortune and wealth, and the theme park is full of lakes, ponds and streams – not to mention the large fountain featuring Disney characters placed at the main entrance of the park.

5. From the text, we can conclude that in Disneyland Paris ______.

A. the arcade is a symbol of friendship between France and the US

B. there is a theater that shows the popular Disney cartoon Ratatouille

C. a theater shows famous French characters in great movies in different times

D. the Statue of Liberty replica reflects Disneyland’s status as the latest moment in the historical relationship between France and the US

6. The passage discusses how Hong Kong Disneyland ______.

A. is the oldest Disney theme park outside of America

B. has deep connections with traditional Chinese culture

C. has two boulders at the entrance to bring in good luck

D. provides many water-related entertainment activities

7. The main purpose of the passage is to ______.

A. offer visitors some money-saving tips for visiting Disneyland theme parks

B. show how Disneyland parks outside of the US are adjusted to local people’s taste

C. show the development of Disneyland theme parks around the world throughout history

D. tell visitors how to enjoy themselves at Disneyland theme parks

C

Volunteering abroad is great. Not only do you travel to an exotic country, you also meet like-minded people, and at the end of it all you have something to put on your CV to impress employers with. But did you ever stop to think about how great it is for the people on the receiving end?

In this context, Daniela Papi has a point – foreigners rushing heroically to volunteer in a country they’ve never heard of are unlikely to make a difference. But turning volunteering camps into classrooms, as Papi seems to advocate (提倡) in her article, risks throwing the baby out with the bath water by putting people off of volunteering.

Rather, learning should be a natural part of the experience, and the key to creating such an environment is positioning everyone as equals. In order for that to happen, volunteers need competent leaders who create an environment of equality.

When, a few years ago, I joined a group of international volunteers to help a small farming community in the Swiss Alps, we were all quite ignorant about the local conditions. But thanks to our group leader, it was both a helpful project for the locals and a fun and eye-opening experience for us. Before we had even traveled (at our own expense) to the mountaintop village, our group leader had spent time with the villagers preparing the project to make sure it would be of benefit to them. She arranged for us to help in different areas, ensuring that we always worked alongside locals rather than for them. It was never “us” and “them”, but always “we”, like a big family. As a result, conversation flowed and we learned a great deal just by casually talking to the locals as we worked. At the end, we left with a deep appreciation for the labor of love that goes into producing the food we eat every day – an appreciation we could treasure ourselves and share with our peers.

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