高二寒假综合测试(82526)-高二英语阅读(505)-21英语网

本文作者： 21ST

A

A foreigner trying to learn Chinese is like a couch potato trying to get in shape. The process is tough (艰难的), it’s difficult to start, and it’s easy to backslide.

Just as dieters wish the pounds would evaporate without all those grueling (令人精疲力尽的) workouts, language learners dream of chattering away fluently (流利地) without sweating through hours of classes.

Despite gallons of diet drinks and miles of running on gym machines, I’ve yet to find the athletic routine to turn my bulging belly (鼓起的肚子) into abs of steel (紧实的腹肌). However, I have discovered a one-size-fits-all program to get my head around the Chinese tones and characters – HSK training. It is the best way for a foreigner to get their language skills into shape.

Like tightening a beer gut (啤酒肚) into a six-pack (六块腹肌), it’s not easy.

It requires sticking to an expert-devised (专家制订的) diet of vocabulary and an intensive (强化的) system of grammar drills, listening exercises and character writing.

To pass HSK’s Level 1, you have to be able to recognize 150 characters, while to get through to Level 6, you need to know 4,800.

The listening comprehension is tough at every level. An example of a Level 3 exercise would be: “The nurses should have been ready at 2 pm for the operation at 4 pm. Question: When should the hospital employees have finished preparations?”

At Level 4, the question might go as follows: “The surgery starts at 4. The doctor was supposed to arrive an hour early but ended up being half an hour later than he should have been, which was an hour and a half later than the nurses were scheduled to have completed the final phase of preparations. Question: By what time were the nurses scheduled to finish prepping (准备工作)?”

There are no shortcuts to learning Chinese – but there are keys to making it work. Using Chinese when I didn’t have to (or didn’t want to) proved the “no pain, no gain” theory. I wouldn’t go to movies, outings or concerts until I passed the exams.

Getting in physical shape is about getting off the couch, no matter how much you don’t want to. But, as the HSK proves, it’s staying in your seat – no matter how much you want to get up and give up – which is the best way to firm up your Chinese.

1. The underlined word “evaporate” in the second paragraph is closest in meaning to ______.

A. go up B. stop growing

C. disappear D. recover

2. According to the article, the best way for foreigners to improve their Chinese is to ______.

A. find a good Chinese tutor

B. take up systematic HSK training

C. build up a large Chinese vocabulary

D. lots of grammar drills and oral practice

3. What can be inferred from the article about the HSK’s listening comprehension test?

A. They get easier as the levels go up.

B. It didn’t take the author much effort to pass the first two levels.

C. They are almost impossible for foreigners to pass.

D. At higher levels, you face longer questions that require better reasoning ability.

4. What does the author think helped him pass the HSK test?

A. His confidence and courage.

B. His determination and devotion to the task.

C. His early preparation for it.

D. Finding shortcuts to learning Chinese.

B

“Dining out”, or “eating out”, are phrases people use in Britain when they eat in a restaurant or a pub (酒吧). Eating out is more popular in Britain today than it has ever been. In 2006, for the first time ever, British people spent more on eating out in restaurants and pubs than on cooking for themselves.

However, eating out can also be expensive. As we Brits do not dine out every night of the week, eating in a restaurant is often seen as a special occasion (场合). When going on a first date, or if celebrating an anniversary (周年纪念) or a birthday, many people like to go to a restaurant to eat, people often eat in a restaurant before going to the cinema or the theatre.

As in all cultures, there are many rules of etiquette (礼节) surrounding food and eating, and nowhere is this more pronounced than when eating in a smart restaurant! People are almost always expected to eat with a knife and fork and these should be held in the correct hand and used in the correct way! It is also impolite to have your elbows on the dining table when you are eating.

There are many such “unspoken” rules – they are normally only important when eating in a very posh (奢华的) restaurant, and vary slightly from restaurant to restaurant and place to place. A recent nationwide survey of 2,231 people showed that there was a divide (区别) in manners between the north and south of

Britain – the “worst” manners were in Scotland and the north-east, and the “best” in Wales and the south-east! However, this survey was almost certainly done by someone in the south-east, so it may not be entirely fair!

Naturally, restaurants vary greatly in quality and price. However, almost all British cities have a vast range of food and culinary (烹饪的) styles to choose from as well as traditional British food, and all from the very cheap to the very expensive – French, Italian, Indian, Greek, Thai, Japanese and many, many more. In fact, when asked what their favorite food is, more British people say an Indian curry (咖喱) than any other dish!

As well as dining in a restaurant, when people are too tired to cook after work they often get a “take-away”. This means that they order from a take-away (or take-out) restaurant by phone, and then go to collect it and take it home to eat. Many take-out restaurants also deliver to your house (if you are especially tired, or lazy!). Whilst you can normally find a take-out restaurant for almost any cuisine (佳肴), the most popular are pizza (Italian), Indian and Chinese – and all you have to do is open the door, pay and eat!

5. What can be concluded from the first two paragraphs?

A. In 2006, dining out cost the British more money than cooking at home.

B. The British pay great attention to eating in a restaurant.

C. The British always dine out when celebrating some festivals.

D. People tend to eat in a restaurant after seeing a movie or a play.

6. What does the underlined word “pronounced” mean in Paragraph 3?

A. polite B. expensive C. strange D. obvious

7. According to the article, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A. There exist great differences of rules in different restaurants.

B. People from Wales and southeast Britain are the most polite.

C. Traditional British food is seldom served in British restaurants.

D. Your order in a take-out restaurant can be sent to your home.

8. What does the article mainly talk about?

A. Restaurant culture in Britain. B. Table manners in Britain.

C. Different restaurants in Britain. D. Take-away restaurants in Britain.

C

If the eyes are the romantic’s window into the soul, then the teeth are an anthropologist’s (人类学家) door to the stomach.

In a study published last month in the journal Science, Peter Ungar of the University of Arkansas and his partner, Matt Sponheimer of the University of Colorado, US, examined the teeth of our early human ancestors to find out what they were really eating.

They already knew that different foods cause different marks on teeth. Some cause scratches, while others cause pits (坑). The carbon left on teeth by different foods is also different. Tropical (热带的) grasses, for example, leave one kind of carbon, but trees and bushes leave another kind because they photosynthesize (光合作用) differently.

Traditionally, scientists had looked at the size and shape of teeth and skulls (头骨) to figure out what early humans ate. Big flat teeth were taken to be signs that they ate nuts and seeds, while hard and sharp teeth seemed good for cutting meat and leaves. But this was proven wrong.

The best example was the Paranthropus (傍人), one of our close cousins, some of whom lived in eastern Africa. Scientists used to believe that Paranthropus ate nuts, fruits and seeds because they had big crests (突起) on their skulls, suggesting that they had large chewing muscles and big teeth. If this had been true, their teeth should have been covered with pits like the surface of the moon. They would also have had a particular type of carbon on their teeth that typically comes from tree products, such as nuts and seeds.

However, when the two scientists studied the Paranthropus, it turned out to have none of these characteristics. The teeth had a different kind of carbon, and were covered with scratches, not pits. This suggested they probably ate grass, not nuts and fruit stones. It was the exact opposite of what people had expected to find.

Carbon “foodprints” give us a completely new and different insight into what different species ate and the different environments they lived in. If a certain species had the kind of carbon on its teeth that came from grasses, it probably lived in a tropical grassland, for example.

9. The underlined sentence in Paragraph 1 probably means that ______.

A. anthropologists can study the structure of human stomachs by studying their teeth

B. anthropologists can study the diet of early humans by studying their teeth