山西省太原双语中学高考英语-专题阅读理解强化训练集(四十六).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（四十六）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中。
A
Working as a manager in the head office of a bank, as I do, clothes can be a nightmare. In New York, where I worked for a time last summer, you have to brave the burning heat every time you dare to go outside, yet freeze once you arrive in a meeting with the air-conditioner turned up. I struggled to know what to wear. The problem was worsened by the office dress code for the months of July and August, which was “dress-down”.
The dress-down phenomenon seems to have begun in places where staff work through the terrible heat of summer while their families take shelter at the coast or in the hills. Dress-down, limited to Friday, allows staff to head straight for their out-of-town places on Friday evenings without going home to change. But in New York it has now become a week-round state of affairs. This move may have been born out of consideration; to allow people on Wall Street to travel to work in the heat in something more comfortable than a suit, but the effect is less kind.
For me, dress-down is bad for two reasons. The first is that it actually requires a whole new wardrobe. For my male colleagues in the US, it seemed to mean a switch from one uniform to another. I basically only own two types of clothes; suits for working in and truly casual clothes for relaxing weekends in the countryside.
Returning to London, I was therefore rather embarrassed to discover that my employers had started summer dress-down. Here too, though its relevance to the climate is far from immediately apparent. At first, I tried to sidestep it by simply turning up in my suit as usual, but my staff complained that they then felt pressured into doing the same. So, I found myself having to buy “smart casual” clothes specifically to wear to work; a ridiculous expense.
Even more annoying is the fact that I’m still required to have a suit hanging up in my office in case I’m suddenly called to a meeting on our conference floor, where dress-down is banned for fear that a client should witness it. One of my colleagues started to accumulate more and more very smart suits in her office, explaining that she was having her flat renovated and that in-office wardrobe was a necessity as she was staying at a different friend’s place each night. We weren’t convinced.
For the other great inconvenience of dress-down for the staff is that it makes it easier than ever to spot when colleagues are going to job interviews. For the rest of the year, it is easy enough to arrange these during the working week, but in the summer when dress-down rules, it’s a dead giveaway to arrive in overly smart clothes and then go out for a “dental appointment”. I would normally applaud this state of affairs, as an important part of my time is spent trying to prevent valued employees from moving elsewhere, and any clues about their intentions are helpful and allow me to nip things in the bud(消灭于萌芽中).
However, the clothes hanging in my office are now finding a second use. I have suddenly become the target for several “headhunters”, people employed by other companies to try and attract employees away with offers of better pay and conditions. The only problem with this is that I have just the one suit at the office. As a series of interviews with one future employer progresses, I’m having to bring in additional clothes. I can hardly present myself as a highly-paid investment banker, requiring a vast salary, if they only ever see me in one suit. At this rate, I shall have to tell my staff that I, too, have decided to have my flat done up.
1. According to the writer, “dress-down” in New York began as a way of ______.
A. making life easier for staff in the summer months
B. discouraging staff from taking summer holidays
C. showing concern for staff who lived out of town
D. rewarding those employees willing to work in the heat
2. What was the writer’s first reaction to the idea of “ dress-down” in her London office?
A. She argued against it. B. She attempted to ignore it.
C. She recognized the need for it. D. She persuaded her staff to adopt it.
3. Why does “ dress-down” annoy the writer?
A. Not everyone obeys the rule. B. Her clients find it embarrassing.
C. It does not apply on all occasions. D. The clothes themselves do not suit her.
4. In which aspect of her work does the writer find “dress-down” an advantage?
A. Training new members of staff. B. Providing her staff with some information.
C. Making sure that her staff remain faithful. D. Making her staff feel more comfortable at work.
5. The underlined word “giveaway” in the sixth paragraph means_________.
A. something that is given away free.
B. willingness to stop doing something.
C. willingness to give away to the other’s wishes.
D. something that makes it easy for you to guess something.
6. What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A. The writer wants to have her flat redecorated.
B. The writer is concerned about her dressing in the interviews.
C. The headhunters discovered the writer by her suit.
D. The writer feels it wrong to meet with the headhunters.

B
The aims of the Illustrators(插图画家)Exhibition, staged as part of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, organized by BolognaFiere and held from 19 to 22 March 2012, are to bring illustrators and publishers together and to promote illustrators and their works among publishers.
QUALIFICATIONS
*Individual illustrators or groups of illustrators of any nationality, if they were born before 31st December 1994, whose artwork is intended for use in children’s books, are qualified to enter the Exhibition, either directly or through publishing houses or schools.
*Please state in the application form whether you are entering work for the Fiction or Non-fiction Category. Illustrators may only enter one category.
*Artwork previously presented to the Exhibition may not be re-entered.
*The confirmation(确认)form must be filled in and a photograph attached, then presented together with illustrations no later than 26 September 2011.
SHIPMENT
Entries may be delivered by post, express delivery service or by hand. From abroad, please use the following forms: Form “A” for registered mail or post by air; Form “B” if using an international forwarding agent or airline.
To avoid delays, material should not be sent by normal post. Material should be sent “carriage (运费)paid”, including any customs and delivery costs.
BolognaFiere may not be held responsible for the non-arrival or late arrival of artwork. All published works must be accompanied by a declaration bearing the ISBN number, publisher’s name and address.
REQUIREMENTS
The illustrations (i.e. the size of the sheet)must not exceed the following dimensions:
Fiction:32*42cm (or 42*32cm)
Non-fiction:50*70cm (70*50cm)
Illustrations in larger formats will not be considered, nor will they be returned by BolognalFiere. The illustrations must be on paper or flexible board, maximum thickness 2mm(for scanner separation purposes).
SELECTION PROCESS
All artwork received by the stated deadline and meeting the specified requirements will be examined and selected by an international group (whose decision is final), including five members(from publishing houses and art schools) appointed each year by BolognaFiere.
ANNUAL
Each illustrator selected by the Committee will be granted two pages in the Annual, for the reproduction of all or some of the illustrations as well as a space for the bibliography. BolognalFiere. Has the right to choose the works to be published in the Annual and to make complete or partial reproductions.
EXHIBITIONS ABROAD
After the Bologna event, the illustrator Exhibition will travel to Japan under the supervision of JBBY. The illustrator exhibition may afterwards be transferred to other venues in other countries. The Exhibitions of illustrations held abroad follow the same rules and regulations as the illustrator Exhibition, and the provision(条款)of the regulations are extended to the organizers of the exhibitions held abroad.
RETURN OF ARTWORK
All the works will be returned to their owners by BolognaFiere by the end of July 2012.
7.According to the text, the Illustrators Exhibitions_________.
A. will last five days in all in July every other year.
B. is intended for college students who are good at painting
C. is held by the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
D. can strengthen the relationship between illustrators and publishers
8.The illustrators of the Illustrators Exhibitions_________.
A. should be at least 16 and no more than 25
B. may re-enter their artwork after it is returned
C, should state the category of their artwork clearly
D. may choose to attach a photo to the application form
9.Which of the following is unacceptable for delivering entries?
A. Normal post. B. Airline post C. Registered mail. D. Express delivery
10. What is BolognaFiere responsible for?
A. Paying for the delivery costs. B. Late arrival of artwork.
C. Confirmation of the ISBN number. D. Returning the illustrator’s works.
11. The Illustrators’ works will not be considered if they________.
A. are received after the day of 26 September 2011.
B. are smaller than the size 32*42cm.
C. are thinner than 2mm.
D. don’t meet the demands of the international experts.

C
The $11 billion self-help industry is built on the idea that you should turn negative thoughts like "I never do anything right" into positive ones like "I can succeed." But was positive thinking advocate Norman Vincent Peale right? Is there power in positive thinking?
Researchers in Canada just published a study in the journal Psychological Science that says trying to get people to think more positively can actually have the opposite effect: it can simply highlight how unhappy they are.
The study's authors, Joanne Wood and John Lee of the University of Waterloo and Elaine Perunovic of the University of New Brunswick, begin by citing(引用) older research showing that when people get feedback which they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better. If you tell your depressed friend that he has the potential of an Einstein, you're just underlining his faults. In one 1990s experiment, a team including psychologist Joel Cooper of Princeton asked participants to write essays opposing funding for the disabled. When the essayists were later praised for their sympathy, they felt even worse about what they had written.
In this experiment, Wood, Lee and Perunovic measured 68 students' self-esteem. The participants were then asked to write down their thoughts and feelings for four minutes. Every 15 seconds, one group of students heard a bell. When it rang, they were supposed to tell themselves, "I am lovable."
Those with low self-esteem didn't feel better after the forced self-approval. In fact, their moods turned significantly darker than those of members of the control group, who weren't urged to think positive thoughts.
The paper provides support for newer forms of psychotherapy (心理治疗) that urge people to accept their negative thoughts and feelings rather than fight them. In the fighting, we not only often fail but can make things worse. Meditation (静思) techniques, in contrast, can teach people to put their shortcomings into a larger, more realistic perspective. Call it the power of negative thinking.
12. What do we learn from the first paragraph about the self-help industry?
A. It was established by Norman Vincent Peale.
B. It is based on the concept of positive thinking.
C. It is a highly profitable industry.
D. It has brought positive results.
13. What is the finding of the Canadian researchers?
A. Encouraging positive thinking may do more harm than good.
B. The power of positive thinking is limited.
C. Unhappy people cannot think positively.
D. There can be no simple therapy for psychological problems.
14. What does the author mean by “…you're just underlining his faults”?
A. You are pointing out the errors he has made. ks5u
B. You are not taking his mistakes seriously enough.
C. You are trying to make him feel better about his faults.

D. You are emphasizing the fact that he is not intelligent.
15. What do we learn from the experiment of Wood, Lee and Perunovic?
A. It is important for people to continually increase their self-esteem.
B. Forcing a person to think positive thoughts may lower their self-esteem.
C. Self-approval can bring a positive change to one's mood.
D. People with low self-esteem seldom write down their true feelings

D
My favorite teacher’s name was “Dead-Eye” Bean. Her real name was Dorothy. She taught American history to eighth graders in the junior high section of Creston, the high school that served the north end of Grand Rapids, Mich. It was the fall of 1944. Franklin D. Roosevelt was president; American troops were battling their way across France; Joe DiMaggio was still in the service; the Montgomery bus boycott was more than a decade away, and I was a 12-year-old black newcomer in a school that was otherwise all white.
My mother, who had been a widow in New York, had married my stepfather, a Grand Rapids physician, the year before, and he had bought the best house he could afford for his new family. The problem for our new neighbors was that their neighborhood had previously been pristine(in their terms) and they were ignorant about black people. The prevailing wisdom in the neighborhood was that we were spoiling it and that we ought to go back where we belonged (or, alternatively, ought not to intrude where we were not wanted). There was a lot of angry talk among the adults, but nothing much came of it.
But some of the kids, those first few weeks, were quite nasty. They threw stones at me, chased me home when I was on foot and spat on my bike seat when I was in class. For a time, I was a pretty lonely, friendless and sometimes frightened kid. I was just transplanted from Harlem, and here in Grand Rapids, the dominant culture was speaking to me insistently.
I can see now that those youngsters were bullying and I was culturally disadvantaged. I knew then that they were bigoted（偏执的）, but the culture spoke to me more powerfully than my mind and I felt ashamed for being different – a nonstandard person.
I now know that Dorothy Bean understood most of that and disapproved of it. So things began to change when I walked into her classroom. She was a pleasant-looking single woman, who looked old and wrinkled to me at the time, but who was probably about 40.
Whereas my other teachers approached the problem of easing in their new black pupil by ignoring him for the first few weeks, Mrs. Bean went right at me. On the morning after having read our first assignment, she asked me the first question. I later came to know that in Grand Rapids, she