阅读理解综合训练（一）(101925)-高三英语阅读(558)-21英语网

A

I believe in toughness, steeliness (顽强) and even meanness.

I learned these traits from my father. Toughness came first. I am the first-born and the son he never had. I’m the one he took to the gym, the one who could run faster than the boys, the one who played all day with a broken collarbone (锁骨). I’m the one who thought my daddy was the toughest man around – and I wanted to be just like him. He never missed a day of school, worked as a dishwasher to pay his college tuition, and worked as an accountant by day and attended law school at night.

My dad also taught me steeliness, an unwillingness to surrender. Steeliness kept me from an attacker once. I fought against him and left an imprint of my phone on his face. I memorized details of his face and clothing. Determined to keep other people from being attacked, I identified him, testified (作证) against him and made sure he went to jail (监狱).

Sometimes even toughness and steeliness aren’t enough. I also believe in meanness.

I am not a large woman. I cannot command respect with my presence and stature (身高). As a community college English instructor, I teach people who aren’t always eager to learn. I’m the mean teacher. I like to push students harder than they want to be pushed. Some of them don’t like me at the time, but they usually end up appreciating me later on. “Hate me now, love me later” is my motto.

I’m even mean with myself. Sometimes it’s meanness that gets me out of bed in the morning, like after a night of drinking too much. Meanness with myself keeps me responsible.

That tough and steely will my father gave me helps me bear the loss of him. I watched him die of cancer, but he never gave up on wanting to live. Perhaps it would have been easier on both him and the family had he given in to death, had he not fought to the absolute last breath. Although I do not have him in my life anymore, I got to see him as himself to the very end of his.

Women are usually encouraged to be gentle. But when life has tested me the most, I believe it’s my toughness, my steeliness and even my meanness that get me through.

1. What does the author think of her father?

A. She wants to be as successful as he was.

B. She blames him for being too tough with her.

C. She thought he should accept his fate from the beginning.

D. She believes he was a man who fought very hard throughout his life.

2. We can conclude that the author is a ______ person, according to the third paragraph.

A. smart and gentle B. brave and responsible

C. bitter and emotional D. determined and ambitious

3. According to the article, the author ______.

A. is popular among students

B. is small but full of humor

C. is not respected by her students

D. is strict with both herself and her students

4. How is the article mainly developed?

A. Through examples that have shaped the author’s personality.

B. By comparing her experience with others.

C. Through a timeline of events.

D. By classifying parts of her personality.

B

When we learn English, we are taught to greet someone with “How do you do?” But in the UK, the phrase “How do you do?” is in decline. As a result, Britons are increasingly unsure about how to greet each other, according to UK social anthropologist (人类学家) Kate Fox, reported The Independent newspaper.

Fox, writer of Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior, says the formal greeting has fallen into disuse in recent decades, leaving the shy English with no safe way of starting conversations with strangers.

Speaking recently at the annual Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts in Wales, Fox said the phrase “How do you do?” is thought to be too formal among many Britons. She said: “I know people think that ‘how do you do’ is an old, boring, sort of upper classy-type thing to say.

“But we really should be mounting a campaign for its revival (复兴) because since ‘how do you do’ declined as a standard greeting we haven’t known what to say.

“There is a ‘nice to meet you’, but quite a lot of upper middle class people aren’t happy with that because the etiquette (礼仪) books frown on it for very stupid reasons.”

Safe distance

Fox said about the Britons: “We don’t know what to do with our hands, we don’t know whether to kiss once or twice.

“Every single other nation on the planet has a straightforward ritual (礼节) for greeting someone. We seem to be the only ones who can’t reach a consensus (共识) on what’s appropriate,” she said.

The rise of social media has encouraged many Britons to open up to strangers online. But Fox also pointed out electronic devices are ways for people to avoid face-to-face conversation and eye contact.

She told the audience about a foreign friend who believed the UK to be a nation of intellectuals (知识分子) after seeing so many people reading on public transport. Fox said: “Unfortunately I had to explain to her that this was not about being brainy, this was about contact avoidance.”

Fox added that Britons often talk about the weather as a social icebreaker.

“When you say, ‘oh gosh isn’t it cold’, you’re not asking for a weather report. It’s a way of saying ‘hello’, or ‘I’d like to talk to you’, without having to say anything quite so direct,” she explained.

5. The underlined words “in decline” in the first paragraph means ______.

A. becoming less polite B. becoming less formal

C. becoming less popular D. becoming less boring

6. What does Fox think about the greeting phrase “How do you do”?

A. It is too formal to be used to start a conversation with strangers.

B. It is not as appropriate as “Nice to meet you”.

C. It is widely considered as a social icebreaker in the UK.

D. It should be reused as a common way of greeting.

7. According to the article, the rise of social media has pushed British people _______.

A. to be more socially active online than ever

B. to have more face-to-face conversations

C. to create new informal ways of greeting others

D. to reach agreement on what’s appropriate in social ritual

8. According to Fox, many British people read on public transport in order to ______.

A. follow other people’s example

B. get rid of the boredom of the trip

C. avoid communicating with people around them

D. keep up with what’s going on in the world

C

Have you ever imagined that one day everything your body needs will come in powder form and all you have to do is add water?

Soylent, a drink developed by a group of US engineers, claims it can do just that. It can provide your body with all the nutrients (营养) it needs and for as long as you want, you don’t have to eat any food. This April, Soylent shipped its first batch of products to consumers in the US.

Robert Rhinehart is the 25-year-old co-founder and chief executive of the firm selling the drink. He found himself spending too much time and money searching for nutritious meals while he was working in San Francisco.

An electrical engineering graduate, Rhinehart began to consider food as an engineering problem. He was quoted as saying by The New Yorker: “You need carbohydrates (碳水化合物), not bread.” He began to think that food was an inefficient way of getting what he needed to survive.

He took a break from work and taught himself about nutrition and nutritional biochemistry. Eventually, Rhinehart came up with a list of nutrients required for survival. Then, he ordered them on the Internet – mostly in powder or pill form – and poured everything into a blender, with some water. The result, according to The New Yorker article, looked like gooey (粘稠的) lemonade. Then, Rhinehart started living on it. In several interviews, Rhinehart said Soylent changed his life and made him healthier than ever before.