山西省太原双语中学高考英语-专题阅读理解强化训练集(三十三).doc

山西省太原双语中学2012届高考英语专题精选阅读理解强化训练集（三十三）
阅读下列材料，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。
A
Famous centenarians (百岁老人) still active in arts, science are in no mood to retire. "Those who stand still, die," is one of Oliveira's favorite phrases. He knows from experience what it means, as the Portuguese film director has reached the age of 102 and is still active in his profession. Every year, Oliveira shoots a film and is currently working on his next project. "You have to work, work, work in order to forget that death is not far away," he said. When asked about his age, Oliveira said with some humility: "It's down to mother nature. It gave to me what it took from others."
Being both mentally and physically fit in old age is partly a matter of luck, but it also has something to do with character. Not every white-haired person is wise and social skills, openness and the ability to train the brain are essential for senior citizens.
Along with the architect Oscar Niemeyer (103), Nobel laureate Montalcini (101) and director Kurt Maetzig (100), Oliveira is one of those people of whom it would be very wrong to think as members of a listless elderly generation.
Another master in his profession is the architect Oscar Niemeyer. The 103-year-old Brazilian is best known for his futuristic-looking（未来派的）buildings in Brasilia, but he also speaks out on behalf of the poor. "The role of the architect is to struggle for a better world where we can develop a form of architecture that serves everyone and not just a privileged few," said Niemeyer recently. He spends almost every day working in his office in Copacabana, and even when he falls ill he keeps working on ideas: After a gallbladder (胆囊) operation he composed a samba tune (桑巴舞曲) in the clinic
Another man who could sing a song about age is 107-year-old Heesters. The Dutch-born opera singer spent most of his life performing in Germany, where he still works. Recently Heesters said: "I want to be at least 108-years-old." He also plans to keep performing. "Should I just sit at home and wait until they come and pick me up?" Heesters has not given up trying to add to his tally of awards and is looking for a "good stage role".
Italian scientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who is 101-year-old and is still active in medical science, has described the force that keeps driving her on: "Progress is created through imperfection." In 1986 she and her lab colleague were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work on nerve growth factor. She's convinced that humans grow on challenges.
With so many brilliant examples given, we can see clearly that age is no barrier to some high achievers.
1. From the first two paragraphs, we can see ______.
A. being active at 102 is achievable for everybody
B. Oliveira owes his long life to his mother’s help
   C. being fit in old age is a matter of luck and character
   D. social skills and wisdom are difficult for the senior
2. How many centenarians are mentioned in this passage?
   A. 4            B. 5          C. 6            D. 7
3. By saying "Should I just sit at home and wait until they come and pick me up?", Heesters shows us he ________.
   A. wants to sit or lie in comfort       B. is waiting for people to pick him up
   C. is willing to work till he dies       D. prefers to give performance at home
4. In the passage so many examples were given to show ________.
A. old age is a big problem if you want to succeed
B. as a senior citizen, you have to be open-minded and optimistic
C. ole people should never think of themselves as old
D. old age can not prevent a great person from achieving a lot
5. In the writer’s opinion, the architect Oscar Niemeyer is not ________.
A. sympathy B. pessimistic C. positive D. diligent
B
About five years ago , an American electrical engineer named Scott Brusaw and his wife Julie came up with the idea of putting solar panels(控制板)on the ground rather than the roof . Then they began to develop the Solar Roadway . The Solar Roadway is an intelligent road that provides clean renewable energy using power from the sun while providing safer driving conditions , along with power and data delivery . They predict that the Solar Roadway will pay for itself through the generation of electricity along with other forms of income and that the same money that is being used to build and resurface current roads can be used to build the Solar Roadways.
Each Solar Road Panel measures roughly 4 meters by 4 meters and contains a microprocessor(微处理器)that monitors and controls the panel , while communicating with neighboring panels and the vehicles traveling overhead . The inventors suggest that this provides a communications device every 4 meters on every road which could be used for example to warn drivers of cars which are moving across a centre line and various other speed control problems. The top of the Solar Road panels is made of super-strong glass that would offer vehicles the tractions(抓地力) they need.
According to the inventors, the Solar Roadway creates and carries clean renewable electricity and therefore electric vehicles can be recharged at any conveniently located rest stop , or at any business that has paved Solar Road Panels in their parking lots.
The inventors say their Solar Roadway has many functions and advantages from main roads to driveways, parking lots, bike paths, sidewalks and runways.The Federal Highway Administration has given Brusaw ＄100,000 to develop the invention and Brusaw hopes to build a smart-road parking lot in the coming spring .
6. In the inventors’ opinion, the Solar Roadway .
A. is too expensive to build at present
B. costs no more money than current roads
C. can provide as many data as present computers
D. will bring them a large sum of money
7.The underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refers to .
A. the panels B. the inventors C. the researchers D. the vehicles
8.The Solar Roadway includes all the following advantages except .
A. providing safer driving conditions
B. helping drivers communicate with each other while driving
C. creating and carrying clean renewable electricity
D. warning drivers of various speed control problems
9. It can be inferred from the text that .
A. the Solar Roadway has already been put into use
B. ＄100,000 is only enough to build a smart-road parking lot
C. the Solar Roadway is not available for gas-powered cars
D. future electric vehicles can be charged anytime and anywhere
10. What can be the best title for the text?
A. Solar-powered smart road of the future
B. The great changes on the roadway
C. The influence the Solar Roadway has on people
D. The Solar Road—a much faster road
C
A third of primary schoolchildren in China are suffering from psychological ill-health as a result of classroom stress and parental pressure, according to a study published on Tuesday.
The problem is so bad that urgent measures are needed, warns the study, led by British and Chinese researchers.
The investigation surveyed 2,191 pupils aged nine to 12 in nine schools in urban and rural Zhejiang, a relatively prosperous coastal province in eastern China.
  Eighty-one percent of the youngsters said they worried "a lot" about exams, 63 percent feared being punished by their teacher, 44 percent had been physically bullied at least sometimes – with boys likelier to be victims than girls – and 73 percent had been physically punished by their parents.
Most of the children complained they struggled to cope with the amount of homework they were assigned.
  Over one-third reported headaches or abdominal pains – psychosomatic symptoms of stress – at least once a week. The most stressed children reported incidence of aches or pains of four times a week.
The investigation, led by Therese Hesketh, a professor at University College London (UCL) Centre for International Health and Development, pointed the finger at extreme competitiveness in China's education system, from the onset of primary school.
  "The competitive and punitive educational environment leads to high levels of stress and psychosomatic symptoms," the authors say.
"Measures to reduce unnecessary stress on children in schools should be introduced urgently."
The paper appears in Archives of Disease in Childhood, a peer-reviewed journal of the British Medical Association (BMA).
The "urban" setting for the study was Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang, while the "rural" setting was a poor county in Quzhou prefecture, in the west of the province.
The study highlights some of the complexities that, it says, explain the demands for academic excellence and intolerance of failure.
One factor is the country's dramatic rise in prosperity, which has created "previously unheard-off possibilities for upward mobility" and in turn stoked pressures on children to do well at school.
Other reasons are China's one-child policy and the Confucian traditions of respect for parents and elders, filial piety, obedience and discipline.
"The aspirations of many parents, who had limited educational opportunities themselves are now invested in their only children," it says.
Previous studies on school-related stress and its impact on health are few and generally come from Scandinavia.
A 2008 assessment among 10- to 13-year-old in Sweden found that 21 percent of boys of 30 percent of girls experienced headache, and 17 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls experienced abdominal pain at least once per week.
11. What mainly caused schoolchildren to suffer from psychological ill-health?
A. Competitiveness in education system
B. Classroom stress and parental pressure
C. Physical punishment from their parents
D. Endless homework from school teachers
12. The underlined part “cope with” in Para.5 most probably means ______.
A. to fit in B. to adapt to C. to deal with D. to get along with
13. From Paragraph 4, we know what the schoolchildren worry most is _______.
A. bullying behavior at school
B. many examinations at school
C. physical punishment by parents
D. physical punishment by teachers
14. What can we infer from the passage?
A. More and more schoolchildren will drop out of school soon
B. Homework and examinations will be cancelled at all schools
C. Parents and teachers will give up educating the schoolchildren
D. Too much stress does great harm to schoolchildren physically and mentally
15. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. Children in China sickened by school pressure
B. Measures to reduce unnecessary stress on children
C. The investigation, led by University College London
D. Extreme competitiveness in China’s education system
D
It was a cold night in Washington, D. C., and I was heading back to the hotel when a man approached me. He asked if l would give him some money so he could get something to eat. I'd read the signs: "Don't give money to beggars." So I shook my head and kept walking.
I wasn't prepared for a reply, but he said, "I really am homeless and I really am hungry! You can come with me and watch me eat!" But I kept on walking.
The incident bothered me for the rest of the week. I had money in my pocket and it wouldn't have killed me to hand over a buck or two even if he had been lying. Flying back to Anchorage, I couldn't help thinking of him. I tried to rationalize (找借口)my failure to help by assuming government agencies, churches and charities were there to feed him. Besides, you're not supposed to give money to beggars.
Somewhere over Seattle, I started to write my weekly garden column for The Anchorage Daily News. Out of the blue, I came u p with an idea. Bean's Cafe, the soup kitchen in Anchorage, feeds hundreds of hungry Alaskans every day. Why not try to get all my readers to plant one row in their gardens dedicated (奉献)to Bean's? Dedicate a row and take it down to Bean's. Clean and simple.
     Folks would "fax me or call when they took something in. Those who only grew flowers donated them. Food for the spirit. In 1995, the Garden Writers Association of America held their annual convention in Anchorage and after learning of Anchorage's program, Plant a Row for Bean's became Plant a Row For The Hungry. The original idea was to have every member of the Garden Writers Association of America write or talk about planting a row for the hungry sometime during the month of April.
As more and more people started working with the Plant a Row concept, new variations cropped up. Many companies gave free seed to customers and displayed the logo, which also appeared in national gardening public actions. Row markers with the Plant a Row logo were distributed to gardeners to set apart their "Row for the Hungry."
Garden editor Joan Jackson, backed by The San Jose Mercury News and California's nearly year-round growing season, raised more than 30,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables her first year, and showed GWAA how the program could really work.
Texas fruit farms donated food to their local food bank after being inspired by Plant a Row. Today the program continues to thrive and grow.
I am stunned that millions of Americans are threatened by hunger. If every gardener in Amer ica---and we're seventy million strong---plants one row for the hungry, we can make quite a decrease in the number of neighbors who don't have enough to eat. Maybe then I will stop feeling guilty about abandoning a hungry man I could have helped.
16. The writer described the incident at the beginning of the text to __________.

A. introduce a topic B. tell a story C. describe a scene D. say sorry
17. What does the underlines phrase "out of the blue" mean?
A. a bit disappointed
B. unexpectedly
C. as a matter of fact
D. attentively
18. The program has been supported by many farmers, journalists and people in different fields for many years. They usually donate many things to it except______            .
A. money
B. flowers
C. seeds
D. beans
19. Which is WRONG according to the passages?
A. In the eyes of the masses, the program can really help the people in need.
B. Nowadays, the program is no longer a regional one, and it arouses the attention of many farmers, gardeners and journalists.
C. It occurred to the author that they could run such a program the moment he gave the beggar nothing.
D. The author felt relieved and surprised when he saw the program turned into a nation-wide one.
20. What does the phrase “plant a row for the hungry” mean ?
A. Teach him how to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime
B. You never know what you can till you try
C. Planting has no better measures but ploughing deeply and fertilizing much more.  
D. Where there is life, there is hope.

C