高一暑假阅读专项训练
本文作者： 21ST
A I always used to laugh when I heard of people lining up outside stores in order to get a video games console (电子游戏机). So I couldn’t quite believe that I found myself outside a Best Buy on a recent Saturday night preparing to spend 13 hours sleeping on concrete. I was a younger member of the crowd hoping to be one of the lucky customers to get the privilege of paying $250 for a “Nintendo Wii” (任天堂家用游戏机). The pursuit (寻求) of this game system began about one month earlier when my brother said that the only thing he wanted for Christmas was a Wii. Every store and website I checked had plenty of Playstations and Game Boys. However, no Wiis. Yes, the one overpriced piece of plastic that I wanted was nowhere to be found. Still, I pressed on. All this led to me camping on the street, while my peers either partied or slept. Upon calling Best Buy at 8 pm, I discovered that they would have several (the salesman said at least 18) Wiis available when they opened the store the next morning at 10 am. My feeling of excitement quickly turned to panic when I learned that “there were already four people in line”. After packing enough tents (帐篷), sleeping bags and blankets, my mom and I left at 9:04 pm. At 9:25, I arrived at Best Buy. There were already four people in the queue even more desperate to buy a Wii than me. Finally, the doors were opened at 9:52 am. Nearly 13 hours of chilly dedication was about to pay off. After parading us to the back of the store, we saw a mountain of 68, not 18, Wiis stood end to end. We were finally able to complete the mission, buying a Wii. Even though I still can’t feel my toes and fingers, my 13 hours of chilly dedication has been well worth the trouble. I’d say my brother owes me a few favors. By Mitch Smith 1. Why did the author spend 13 hours sleeping on concrete outside a Best Buy? A. He wanted to get a cheap video games console and sell it later. B. He wanted to buy a Wii for his brother as Christmas gift. C. The salesman at Best Buy promised him a lower price. D. Camping on the street was a new experience for him. 2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the article? A. Both the author and his brother were big fans of online games. B. The author was the first one camping outside Best Buy to buy a Wii. C. The author didn’t know that there were some Wiis for sale on the Internet. D. The author felt freezing cold after a whole night’s waiting. 3. What can we know about the author? A. He loved playing Wii as much as his brother did. B. His mother didn’t support him when he decided to line up to buy a Wii. C. He did what he could to get a perfect Christmas gift to his brother. D. He felt disappointed at the experience of dedicating 13 hours to buying a Wii. 4. What’s the best title for the passage? A. My brother owes me a lot. B. A crazy street-camping experience. C. A wonderful Game Boy. D. One overpriced piece of plastic. B On Stage On stage soon, on sale now: Ten African American women struggle to overcome their pasts and build their futures in The Women of Brewster Place, the world premiere (首场演出) musical adaptation of the novel by Gloria Naylor, Oct. 19 through Dec. 9 in the Arena Stage Kreeger Theater. Tickets cost $55 to $74. Call 202-488-3300. Six teens learn life lessons in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, the Broadway musical comedy visiting the National Theatre Oct. 23 through Nov. 4. Tickets cost $41.50 to $86.50. Call 800-447-7400. Tickets Tickets for three shows coming to Verizon Center go on sale Friday from Ticketmaster: starting at 10, comedian (喜剧) Dane Cook Nov. 16 ($33 to $103) and the Trans–Siberian Orchestra Dec. 16 ($39 and $49); starting at noon, Stevie Wonder Oct. 30 ($68 to $128). Call 202-397-7328. "An Elizabethan Winter Celebration" is the theme for the 25th annual Christmas Revels Dec. 8-9 and Dec. 14-16 at Lisner Auditorium. Tickets are on sale now; they cost $12 to $40. Call 800-595-4849. Tickets are on sale now from Tickets.com for these shows at the 9:30 club: Ani DiFranco Nov. 16 ($41); Hip Hop Live! with Ghostface Killah, Rakim, Brother Ali and the Rhythm Roots All-Stars Nov. 18 ($35); and the Hold Steady, Art Brut and the 1990s Nov. 20 ($20). Call 800-955-5566. 1. If you want to see dramas on the theme of growing up, you can call ______ to book tickets. A. 800-955-5566 B. 800-447-7400 C. 800-595-4849 D. 202-397-7328 2. On October 30, there will be performances of all the following shows EXCEPT ______. A. Stevie Wonder B. the 1990s C. The Women of Brewster Place D. The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee 3. According to the text, which of the following statements is TRUE? A. Shows at the 9:30 club all have a fixed price. B. Stevie Wonder has the largest ticket price range. C. Gloria Naylor is the leading performer in The Women of Brewster Place. D. The 25th annual Christmas Revels celebration will be staged between December 8 and December 16. 4. If you want to watch all three shows at Verizon Center with two friends, you have to pay at least ______. A. $140 B. 280 C. $420 D. 840 C Take a lot of junk food, feed it to some rats, and see what happens. Scientist Paul Johnson and his team did just that to try to understand how parts of the brain play a role in obesity (肥胖). The scientists observed that the more junk food the rats ate, the more they wanted to eat – a behavior very similar to that of rats addicted to heroin, a dangerous drug. Johnson said the experiment shows that the brain chemistry of obesity and drug addiction may be quite similar. In their experiment, Johnson and his team studied the "pleasure center" of rats’ brains. The pleasure center is a complicated network of nerve cells. If the animal exercises or eats, the cells reward the animal by releasing chemicals into the body that make it feel good. And when the body feels good, the animal – or person – will want to do the behavior again. Pleasure centers can release these chemicals in less healthy ways, too. Drugs like heroin can cause the pleasurable chemicals to be released. For the experiment, Johnson fed foods like cheesecake to one group of rats. Food like this is high in calories and fat. Another group of rats got a regular diet. The rats that ate junk food started to eat more and more. "They’re taking in twice the amount of calories as the control rats," says Paul Kenny, one of Johnson’s colleagues. Kenny and Johnson wanted to know what was going on in the brains of these rats. They first devised a way to deliver a small electrical charge to the rats’ brains. This electrical charge would stimulate the pleasure centers to release pleasure-causing chemicals. The rats could control how much stimulation – and how much pleasure – they received by running on a wheel. The more the rat ran, the more pleasure it received. The rats that had been eating junk food started running more and more. This behavior suggested that the junk-food-eating rats needed more brain stimulation to feel good compared with rats on a normal diet. In other words, their pleasure centers were becoming less sensitive and the junk food didn’t make them feel good unless they ate more and more. Experiments like this one could help scientists understand how chemicals in the brain contribute to obesity. With that information, they may be able to help people avoid obesity in the first place. 1. What was the purpose of the experiment mentioned in the article? A. To find out how much junk food a rat can eat. B. To understand the role the brain plays in obesity. C. To learn about what makes people happy. D. To study the effects of junk food on people. 2. According to the scientists, why do rats want to eat more and more junk food? A. Because junk food tastes really good. B. Because they need more nutrients to stay healthy. C. Because they need more junk food to stimulate their pleasure centers. D. Because the more junk food they eat, the hungrier they are. 3. The scientists suggest it is actually_______ that makes the rats feel good. A. chemicals in the brain B. a large amount of calories C. doing lots of sports D. some kinds of food 4. According to the article, which of the following is TRUE? A. Eating junk food makes the brain’s pleasure center more sensitive and release more chemicals. B. The more the junk-food-eating rats ran, the more their obesity declined. C. Scientists may invent ways to change the role the brain plays in obesity. D. Taking regular exercise doesn’t help with obesity. D There is a famous story about British poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was writing a poem when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. This was an age before telephones. Someone was delivering a message. When Coleridge got back to his poem, he had lost his inspiration. His poetic mood had been broken by the knock on his door. His unfinished poem, which could otherwise have been a masterpiece, would now never be more than a fragment (片段). This story tells how unexpected communication can destroy an important thought. Which brings us to the cellphone. The most common complaint about cellphones is that people talk on them to the annoyance of people around them. But more damaging may be the cellphone’s disruption (中断) of our thoughts. We have already entered a golden age of little white lies about our cellphones, and this is by and large a healthy, protective development. “I didn’t hear it ring” or “I didn’t realize my phone had shut off” are among the lies we tell to give ourselves space where we’re beyond reach. The notion of being unreachable is not a new concept–we have “Do Not Disturb” signs on the doors of hotel rooms. So why must we feel guilty when it comes to cellphones? Why must we apologize if we decide to shut off the phone for a while? The problem is that we come from a long–established tradition of difficulty with distance communication. Until the recent mass deployment (使用) of cellphones, it was easy to communicate with someone next to us or a few feet away, but difficult with someone across town, the country or the globe. We came to take it for granted. But cellphones make long-distance communication common, and endanger our time by ourselves. Now time alone, or a conversation with someone next to us which cannot be interrupted by a phone, is something to be cherished. Even cellphone devotees, myself usually included, can’t help at times wanting to throw their phone away, or curse the day they were invented. But we don’t and won’t, and there really is no need. All that’s required to take back our private time is a general social recognition that we have the right to it. In other words, we have to develop a healthy contempt (轻视) for the rings of our own phones. Given the ease of making and receiving cellphone calls, if we don’t talk to the caller right now, we surely will shortly later. A cellphone call deserves no greater priority (优先考虑的事) than a random (随机的) word from the person next to us. Though the call on my cellphone may be the one–in–a–million from Steven Spielberg–who has finally read my novel and wants to make it his next movie. But most likely it is not, and I’m better off thinking about the idea I just had for a new story, or the slice of pizza I’ll eat for lunch. By Paul Levinson 1. What is the point of the anecdote about the poet Coleridge in the first three paragraphs? A. To direct readers’ attention to the main topic. B. To show how important inspiration is to a poet. C. To emphasize the disadvantage of not having a cellphone. D. To encourage readers to read the works of this poet. 2. What does the writer think about people telling “white lies” about their cellphones? A. It is a way of signaling that you don’t like the caller. B. It is natural to tell lies about small things. C. It is basically a good way to protect one’s privacy. D. We should feel guilty when we can’t tell the truth. 3. According to the author, what is the most annoying problem caused by cellphones? A. People get so obsessed with the cellphone rings that they fail to notice anything else. B. People feel guilty when they are not able to answer their cellphones. C. Cellphones interrupt people’s private time. D. With cellphones it is no longer possible to be unreachable. 4. What does last paragraph suggest? A. A person who calls us from afar deserves more of our attention. B. Steven Spielberg once called the author to talk about the author’s novel. C. You should always finish your lunch before you answer a call on the cellphone. D. Never let cellphones interfere too much with your life. E The British aren’t having as many children as they used to. One reason is that people are having children much older than before, meaning they have fewer years in which they can have them. After years at university, they need a few years of work experience before they can get the job they want. They might then get married, but it’s incredibly expensive to buy a house in the UK. The above explains why young British people now don’t move out of their parents’ home until they are around 30 years old on average. It is not until they are 30 that they can afford their own home. Increasingly, it is not until that age that they can afford to get married and start a new life in a new home. It’s only after this age that many young people start thinking about having a child. So a British person manages to get a job, get a home and get married. Why isn’t he or she then having at least two children on average? The main reason is that it is quite expensive to bring up a child in the UK. Why is it expensive? Well, these days, both parents need to work just to pay for their home and living expenses. Because both parents are at work, that means they then need to pay someone to look after their child during the day. Paying for this childcare is nearly always expensive. The recent financial crisis is making things even harder for families, since unemployment is rising and even fewer people can afford to have children. With so much pressure on families, is it any surprise that the divorce rate is so high? So what is Britain doing to try and save the British family? The government is trying to make it cheaper to have children. For example, there have been increases in money families can claim from the state each month. Also, there are increasing government subsidies (补贴) for nursery schools, so that parents do not need to pay so much for child care. The government is also trying to reduce the number of hours British parents have to work to earn enough money to pay their bills. If parents didn’t have to work so many hours, they’d have more time to spend with their children and wouldn’t need to spend so much on childcare. On average, a Briton works 49 hours a week, which is the most in Europe. The state is now considering introducing laws to encourage companies to improve their employees’ work-life balance. Let’s hope they’re not too late to save the British family. Otherwise, the British will always be too tired, and won’t have enough time and money, to have children. By A. J. Dalton 1. Young British people live in their parents’ home until around 30 because ______. A. They are allowed to get married at 30 B. they can’t find jobs to support themselves C. they can’t afford a house of their own until then D. they enjoy family life with their parents 2. The British are now having fewer children than before for all the following reasons EXCEPT that ______. A. they have fewer years to have children B. they live much shorter lives than before C. it is more expensive to bring up a child D. people are losing their jobs because of the recent financial crisis 3. To make it cheaper to have children, the British government is ______. A. bringing down prices B. raising the salaries of parents C. reducing family income tax D. increasing subsidies for families and nursery schools 4. It can be inferred from the text that ______. A. with long work hours, it is hard for British parents to balance life and work B. more and more families in Britain are breaking up because they are having fewer children C. among Europeans, British people work hardest and earn the least D. childcare takes up too much energy and time for the British (答案见C6版) |  |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
京公网安备 11010502033664号