高三寒假阅读综合测试(116266)-高三英语阅读(610)-21英语网

A

Seventh-grader Jonah Maxwell has become a local celebrity after an anti-bullying (反欺凌) video he made went viral (走红) online.

He wrote and directed a six-minute 30-second film with friends from school. Their faces cannot be seen in order to take back power from bullies insulting (辱骂) others on social media.

“If it’s happened to you, you have to tell someone. If you are doing it, just think about this: It’s just as easy to be nice as it is to be mean and manners and respect cost nothing,” he said.

This social media has given bullying a new life far beyond fights in the school lunchroom or hallways. “It’s mainly happening through social media but there is physical and social bullying. I have seen people getting ‘booked’ in hallways – somebody gets bumped (碰撞) and the books fall all over the floor. The victim gets embarrassed.”

Jonah has been interested in making videos since he was even younger. The first video he ever made was filmed with a Crayola camera when he was 6 years old. His dad is a filmmaker and he helped him with the final editing (编辑) for his anti-bullying video.

The youngster said he wants people to “speak up” and tell someone if they are being bullied. “Tell someone – it’s too hard to go through something like this alone,” he said.

“The bullying sometimes never stops if there is social media involved – you don’t leave it behind you at the school gates. It’s scary for me to think what kids go through but what is worse is that the kids don’t feel they should or can tell. Jonah’s message clearly states it doesn’t have to be this way,” said Jonah’s mother Jenny Maxwell.

Maxwell said teachers in the United States and abroad, including Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Australia, have been showing the video in school.“If it changes one person’s life it will have made a difference in our lives,” she said.

1. In Jonah’s anti-bullying video, ______.

A. his friends being bullied are shown as faceless to protect their privacy

B. he reminds potential bullies that being kind and respectful requires little effort

C. he makes the point that bullies are afraid to show their faces on social media

D. people are asked to report the bullies around them and take away their power

2. The example of people getting “booked” in hallways is mentioned to ______.

A. prove that bullying is everywhere

B. describe bullying on social media

C. give an example of physical bullying

D. show that bullying in whatever form hurts the victim deeply

3. What can we learn about Jonah Maxwell from the article?

A. He has become famous nationwide for his anti-bullying video.

B. He made a six-and-a-half-minute anti-bullying video with the help of his mother.

C. He has been interested in photography since he was 6 years old.

D. He believes sharing an experience of being bullied helps people deal with it.

4. From Jonah and his mother’s words, we can conclude that they ______.

A. hope to encourage people being bullied to speak up

B. have no doubt that bullies will be educated by the video

C. are proud that the video spread to other countries in the world

D. believe the video can only be said to be helpful if it has a big influence

B

It is a celebration of the enduring (持久的) power of letter writing.

Letters Live, which started in December 2013, was held at the Freemasons’ Hall in London from March 10 to 15. The show featured various great performers who read remarkable letters that had been written around the world over the centuries.

“Bringing letters alive through memorable performances is one of the most powerful ways in which the joy and pain and humor and tragedy (悲剧) of being human can be shared,” Jamie Byng, managing director of Canongate Books publishing firm, told the Nowness video channel.

British actor Benedict Cumberbatch agreed. “Letters are windows into the love, beauty, pain and humor of their creators and receivers,” he told The Guardian. “Letters Live makes us stop and imagine the lives behind the letters read and where they came from. It’s a privilege to read this oldest of communications live to an audience.”

This year, the Sherlock (《神探夏洛克》) star treated the audience to an impersonation (模仿) of a 17-year Tom Hanks. He put on the young actor’s voice when he read his letter to the Hollywood director George Roy Hill, a letter that urged Hill to “discover” him. The letter revealed that two-time Oscar winner Hanks’ teenage dream was not to “be a big-time, Hollywood superstar” but to one day own a Porsche car and call his favorite US actor Robert Redford his nickname “Bob”.

Other famous faces at the event included Carey Mulligan, who played a fictional laundry worker turned feminist (女权主义的) activist in the 2015 movie Suffragette (《妇女参政论者》). The British actress once again played the role of a suffragette when she read a passionate letter demanding the vote for women by Bertha Brewster. The suffragette sent a forthright (直率的) 1913 note to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

“Everyone seems to agree upon the necessity of putting a stop to Suffragist anger, but no one seems certain how to do so,” Mulligan read out. “There are two, and only two, ways in which this can be done. Both will be effectual. One, kill every woman in the UK. Two, give women the vote.”

5. Which of the following statements is TRUE about Letters Live?

A. It is a performance of the moving stories from great letters.

B. It is held in the same month every year in London.

C. It was started to encourage people to communicate through letters.

D. It invites outstanding performers and chooses wonderful letters to share with audiences.

6. What does Cumberbatch think of bringing letters alive?

A. It shares the feelings and lives behind letters with people.

B. It is the strongest way to share human beings’ emotions.

C. It shows that letter writing is out of date.

D. Everyone should be given the honor of reading letters on stage.

7. The letter from Tom Hanks showed that ______.

A. George Roy Hill spotted Tom Hanks’ acting talent when he was young

B. Tom Hanks wanted George Roy Hill to help him become an Oscar winner

C. Tom Hanks had his mind set on making his name and fortune in Hollywood

D. Tom Hanks dreamed of making friends with his favorite US actor

8. We can conclude from the last two paragraphs that ______.

A. the letter Carey Mulligan performed is part of the movie Suffragette

B. Carey Mulligan usually appears in movies as a feminist activist

C. the letter made a strong and clear argument demanding that women have the right to vote

D. the 1913 note to the Daily Telegraph newspaper carried a very threatening tone

C

Wandering through a museum can take you to another time, leave you in awe (惊叹) of an artist or teach you something new about our world. It’s no wonder that for many travelers, a trip isn’t complete without a visit to a local museum.

On Sept 15, TripAdvisor, one of the world’s largest travel review websites, named the world’s top 25 museums in its Travelers’ Choice Awards. The awards were based on the reviews and opinions of travelers worldwide. Now let’s take a look at the top four museums around the world.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

It is the largest museum in the Western Hemisphere, with a collection of 2 million items from more than 5,000 years of world culture. The iconic (标志性的) museum includes important collections from ancient Egypt and medieval (中世纪的) Europe as well as ancient Greece and Rome. Here, visitors can get lost in different centuries: They can see the Temple of Dendur from early Egypt, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh’s Wheatfield With Cypresses and US pop artist Andy Warhol’s Souper Dress, all in one place.

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Located in the center of Paris on the banks of the River Seine, the Musée d’Orsay houses the world’s most amazing collections of impressionist and post-impressionist art. It offers the chance to view major works from greats like Van Gogh and Claude Monet. The museum is famous for being home to Starry Night Over the Rhone, an oil painting by Van Gogh that is often praised along with his masterpiece Starry Night.

Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

It was named the world’s best museum in 2014. The world-famous Windy City museum houses nearly 300,000 works, including one of the largest collections of modern art, including pieces such as Spanish painter Pablo Picasso’s The Old Guitarist, US artist Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Cross and French artist Henri Matisse’s Bathers by a River. A TripAdvisor reviewer commented: “No matter how many times I visit, it never gets old. Paintings from every era, works from every great artist.”

Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Nowhere is able to present the entire history of Spanish art like the Museo Nacional del Prado.

Here, visitors can enjoy a detailed view of the Spanish school of the Modern Age. Outstanding masterpieces by artists such as Diego Velázquez, Francisco Goya and Joaquín Sorolla make up an internationally-famous collection. In fact, “the study of almost any Spanish painter and his work is almost impossible without visiting the many galleries of the Museo Nacional del Prado”, Travel Channel noted.

The Italian school is another highlight of the museum’s collection, as it includes 15th century masterpieces such as The Annunciation by Fra Angelico, The Death of the Virgin by Andrea Mantegna and The Dead Christ Supported by Angels by Antonello da Messina.

The museum also has a fine collection of 16th century Venetian paintings, 17th century French classicists, Baroque paintings and Roman sculptures. Earlier this year, The Young Saint John the Baptist, the classical sculpture by Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, was found in Spain and put on display in the museum.

9. How is the Metropolitan Museum of Art different from the other three museums?

A. It is the largest art museum in the world.

B. It is so big that visitors may easily get lost in it.

C. It has the largest collection of the four museums.

D. Its main collection is from ancient Egypt and medieval Europe.

10. If you are interested in impressionist art, ______ is a place you cannot miss.

A. the Metropolitan Museum of Art

B. the Musée d’Orsay

C. the Art Institute of Chicago

D. the Museo Nacional del Prado

11. According to the article, both the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museo Nacional del Prado ______.

A. include a bigger collection of modern art than ancient art

B. are perfect places to study the history of Spanish art

C. are home to a large number of works from the Italian school

D. contain a collection of art from different eras and countries

12. Which is a correct match of the painting and the museum in which it is included?

A. Pablo Picasso’s The Old Guitarist – Musée d’Orsay

B. Henri Matisse’s Bathers by a River – Metropolitan Museum of Art

C. Vincent van Gogh’s Wheatfield With Cypresses – Art Institute of Chicago

D. Andrea Mantegna’s The Death of the Virgin – Museo Nacional del Prado

D

Famous US columnist (专栏作家) George F. Will once wrote: “Baseball is a habit. The slow build to the end of each game, the rhythm of the long season – these are the essentials and they are remarkably unchanged over nearly a century and a half. Of how many American institutions (制度) can that be said?”

He is right. Baseball, only one word, is enough to make millions of people in the US think of many images – spring afternoons, cold beers and hot dogs.

As the USA Today newspaper put it, “A hot dog at the ballpark is always better than one out of the microwave.”

Delicious treats aside, baseball is also a game for fathers and sons to enjoy. They play catch with each other on lawns (草坪) and in parks for many years. Fathers pass down favorite teams to their sons. Grandfathers share stories of games played long ago.

Many US children try to collect trading cards with the pictures of their favorite players on them. In schools it is as likely for friends to trade baseball cards as it is for them to trade lunches.

Baseball players are known as “the boys of spring” because that is the time of year at which the sport is most often played; indeed, the new season of MLB (Major League Baseball) began on April 3. And the players come in all shapes and sizes. To play baseball you don’t have to be tall like a basketball player or strong like an American footballer. You just need to want to have fun.

Besides, baseball games are not as fast-paced as basketball games so they allow viewers to relax, talk and get to know each other.

Today, baseball is not the US’ most-watched sport, but it is its most historical. It has gone past being simply a game and has become part of the fabric (构造) of US culture.

As The Telegraph newspaper noted, “Baseball is as American as apple pie, red, white and blue (the colors of the US national flag) and Grandma’s house.”

13. The main purpose of the text is to ______.

A. tell us about the development of baseball in the US

B. explain what baseball means to Americans

C. inform us of the differences between baseball and basketball

D. introduce the beauty, rules and tradition of baseball in the US

14. Compared with basketball, baseball ______.

A. games have a faster pace

B. players are usually stronger and shorter

C. is more enjoyable than exciting

D. is America’s most watched sport

15. According to the text, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A. Selling baseball cards is popular among American school children.

B. Favorite baseball teams are usually shared by different generations in the same family.

C. Baseball is relatively new compared to other sports in the US.

D. Most baseball matches in the US are played on lawns and in parks.

16. What can be concluded from the text?

A. Spring is when baseball is most often played.

B. Baseball is the most favorite sport for Americans.

C. Watching baseball games is more fun than basketball.

D. Women are not allowed to play baseball in America.

E

About 100 years ago, coal miners would take a bright yellow canary (金丝雀) down into the mines with them. The miners wanted to hear the bird’s sweet song, but not for the reason you might think. As long as the canary sang, the miners knew the air in the mine was clean and safe. If the canary got sick, they knew it was time to go.

The expression “a canary in a coal mine” came to mean a warning device. But with global warming, the canary isn’t a canary at all. It’s a purple finch.

As temperature across the United States has gotten warmer, the purple finch has been spending its winters more than 400 miles farther north than before.

A National Audubon Society study published last month found that more than half of 305 bird species in North America, including robins, gulls, chickadees and owls, are spending the winter about 35 miles farther north than they did 40 years ago.

Birds move for many reasons: They get chased away by more buildings and fewer trees, or they go in search of neighborhoods with backyard feeders. But researchers say the only explanation for why so many birds over such a broad area are wintering in more-northern locales is global warming.

Over the 40 years covered by the study, the average January temperature in the United States climbed by about five degrees. That warming was most noticeable in northern states, which have already recorded more southern birds.

“This is as close as science at this scale gets to proof,” said Greg Butcher, the study’s lead scientist. “It is not what each of these individual birds did. It is the wide diversity of birds that suggests it has something to do with temperature, rather than ecology.”

The study “shows a very, very large fraction (部分) of the wintering birds are shifting” northward, said Terry Root, a biologist at Stanford University. “We don’t know for a fact that it is warming. But ... we know it is not just a figment (虚构) of our imagination.”

Some birds will expand their range farther north. For example, the Carolina wren has turned into a Yankee (美国人的北方佬), based on Audubon’s calculations. It is now commonly seen in the winter well into New England as well as its namesake state of South Carolina.

Other species, such as the purple finch, spend their summers in the forests of Canada and fly south into the United States for the winter. Climate change could be playing a role in why they are not flying as far south as they used to.

17. What is the main topic of the text?

A. The effects of climate change on birds’ migration patterns.

B. The influence of global warming on bird diversity.

C. The reasons why the numbers of birds are decreasing.

D. The causes of global warming in recent years.

18. The underlined words “the canary” in Paragraph 2 ______.

A. refer to the canary in a coal mine

B. refer to the species of the canary

C. mean the warning device

D. mean any bird

19. What did Greg Butcher’s study find?

A. Most birds in North America have to move to new places for food.

B. Various species of birds are affected by ecological changes.

C. There was a general increase of five degrees in the US in the period of the study.

D. More northern birds in North America spend their winters farther south than before.

20. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the text?

A. The Carolina wren used to live in New England.

B. Scientists do not know for sure why so many kinds of birds winter farther north.

C. The purple finch was a very common bird in America 100 years ago.

D. The study in this article has been going on for a century.

(答案与解析见C8版)