山东省2015年高考阅读表达专项训练（十六）
阅读下面的短文并用英语回答问题，然后将答案写到答题卡相应的位置上（请注意问题后的字数要求）。
A
Spring is coming. For students in the US, that means a vacation is on its way. In the US, students may begin their spring vacation at different times, depending on where they live. So while students from one town are on vacation, their neighbours in the next town might have classes as usual.
Spring vacation is also known as “spring break”. During this time, students have one to two weeks off from school. The break usually happens in late March or April. Spring break is a fun and relaxing time. Teachers usually don’t give assignments over the break, so students can spend their days and nights free from school-time stress.
There are lots of ways to spend the time. Some families go on vacation, visiting a new state or even a new country. Others may travel to visit family members who live far away. Or students may enjoy the break by relaxing at home, reading books and watching movies, or visiting friends’ houses.
Sometimes teachers lead overseas trips for groups of students. On a ten-day trip, for example, students might go on a tour through Spain, France, and Italy. These trips are often expensive, but they give students an unusual chance to see other parts of the world.
No matte r how they’ve spent the break students return to school feeling relaxed and ready to finish the school year.
1. When do the students in the US have their spring vacation?（ No more than 10 words ）_________________________ _______________
2. Why are the students in the US freed from school-time stress?（No more than 15 words）
____________ ____________________________
3. How do the students in the US spend their spring vacation? （No more than 20 words）_______________ _________________________
4. What’s the main idea of the passage?（No more than 10 words）
_______________ _________________________
5. What does the underlined word “assignments” in the fourth p aragraph mean? （No more than 5 words）
_________________ _______________________
1. The break usually happens in late March or April.
细节理解题。从文章的第二大段…The break usually happens in late March or April.可找出答案。
2. Because their teachers usua lly don’t give them homework during the break.
细节理解题。文章第四段的Teachers usually don’t give assignments over the break, so students can spend their days and nights free from school-time stress.可看出选项A是正确的。
3. Visiting a new state or even a new country, travelling to visit family members ,relaxing at home, reading books and watching movies, or visiting friends’ houses.
细节理解题。从文章的倒数第三段可找到答案。
4. What do the students do in US during their spring vacation?/ How do the students in the US spend their spring vocation?
主旨大意题。整篇文章在介绍美国的中学生在他们的春假里所做的事情。
5. Homework./A duty that you are assigned to perform.
B
Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart（购物手推车）. They will, in a lifetime, push the chrome-plated contraptions many miles. But few will know—or even think to ask—who it was that invented them.
Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers lugging（吃力地携带）groceries around in baskets they had to carry.
One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.
On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention.
But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try.
Aft er a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. “Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?” one shopper replied.
But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only he could persuade people to give them a try. To this end, Goldman hired a group of people to push carts around his market and pretend they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying the phony（假冒的） customers.
As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. But not only did more people come—those who came bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers unconsciously bought a greater number of items than before.
Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s original model. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did before 1937—before the coming of the shopping cart.
1. The underlined words “chrome-plate contraptions” in Paragraph 1 refer to ______.
（No more than 3 words）
2. What was the purpose of Goldman’s invention? （No more than 10 words）