Unit 1 Living well 专题练习I.阅读理解A(2019·郑州第三次质量预测)US student Vanessa Tahay stands out from the other teenagers in her school. Her skin is dark and her accent is thick. If you ask her, she will tell you these are the things she is proudest of. Tahay is a poet, and at 18 she was considered among the best in Los Angeles.When she is on the stage, audiences often go silent. They also laugh, shout and cry. But this doesn't come easily for someone who comes from a village that sits at the base of a huge mountain range in Central America. When she first appeared at school, she was teased by others for being short and different.She never spoke, so they called her “mouse”.“How do I defend myself?” Tahay thought. “I don't know how.”“Keep going,” her mother would tell her. “At some point, you'll learn.”She spent hours after school and on weekends watching the same DVD: English Without Barriers.Tahay's elder brother, Elmer, persuaded her to go to the afterschool poetry club.In the last six years, her English teacher Laurie Kurnick has turned Cleveland Charter High School's poetry program into one of the most respected in the city. Her team draws from the likes of urence, Pat Mora and Kendrick Lamar to create poems about their own lives. The poems focus on many things — some funny, some painful.The first time Tahay read the group's poems, she was wild with joy. “I wish I could write like that,” she thought. “I want to say something.”She wrote her first poem about her first year in America. She called it Invisible.The day her turn came to recite poems in front of the team, she broke down crying.She cried for 15 minutes. “I had so much held in,” Tahay said. “I couldn't even finish it.”But she kept at it despite her lessthanperfect grammar, spelling and diction (措辞). Still, she wouldn't tell her friends about her poetry because she worried they would make fun of her.But with time, her poems changed her. “They gave me pride,” Tahay said. “They told me that I'm worth something.”“She had this innocence,” Kurnick said. “This willingness to be genuine shows you things you don't ever see.”1.What did Tahay's mother suggest she do when she was teased by others?A.Fight with them bravely.B.Report them to her teachers.C.Ignore them and keep going.D.Try hard to make friends with them.2.What are the themes of Laurie Kurnick and her team's poems?A.Their admiration for the great poets.B.Their appreciation of natural beauty.C.Their expectations of a better future.D.Funny and painful stories about their lives.3.How did Tahay probably feel when she first read the group's poems?A.She was cold.B.She was excited.C.She was nervous.D.She was frightened.4.How did Tahay benefit from writing poems?A.She felt more confident about herself.B.She won many national poetry competitions.C.She became the first student poet in the city.D.She improved her grammar and spelling greatly.BWhen I was a small boy, I noticed that though many of the adults around me were wealthy and educated, they were not always happy and this sometimes led them to behave in ways, which I, as a child, thought strange. As a result of that, I decided to try to understand what happiness was and how best to achieve it. It was not surprising, then, that I decided to study psychology.On arrival at the university, I was disappointed to find that academic psychologists were trying to understand human behaviour by studying rats in a lab. I felt that there must be other more useful ways of learning how we think and feel.I decided to build my career on trying to discover what made others happy. I started out by studying creative people such as musicians, artists and athletes because they were people who devoted their lives to doing what they wanted to do, rather than things that just brought them financial rewards.Later, I expanded the study by inventing a system called “the experience sampling method”. Ordinary people were asked to keep an electronic pager (传呼机) for a week which gave out a beeping sound eight times a day. Every time it did so, they wrote down where they were, what they were doing, how they felt and how much they were concentrating. This system has now been used on more than 10,000 people, and the answers are consistent: as with creative people, ordinary people are happiest when concentrating hard.I found that the most obvious cause of happiness is intense concentration. This must be the main reason why activities such as music, art, literature, sports and other forms of leisure have survived. In order to concentrate, whether you're reading a poem or building a sandcastle, what you need is a challenge that matches your ability. The way to remain continually happy, therefore, is to keep finding new opportunities to improve your skills. This may mean learning to do your job better or faster, or doing other more difficult jobs. As you grow older, you have to find new challenges which are more appropriate to your age.5.What led the author to study psychology?A.His determination to become rich.B.His observation of adults.C.His unhappy childhood.D.His interest in strangers.6.Who were the author's study subjects at the start of his career?A.People having deep affection for their career.B.People very aware of their personal life.C.People successful in acquiring wealth.D.People with more freedom.7.The author used his system to show that ________.A.people's happiness depends on who they are withB.people are happier when they focus on an activityC.creative people are happier than ordinary peopleD.ordinary people find it hard to concentrate8.According to the text, people concentrate more when they are doing ________.A.something strange and enjoyableB.something difficult but possibleC.things appropriate to their agesD.many things at the same timeCIt was September 5, 2009. Lexi Youngberg, then 16, was on vacation in Spring Lake, Michigan. She was riding on a small boat with her friends, Robby and Kaitlin, when a motorboat crashed into them. The sound was so loud that other boaters heard it over the roar (轰鸣声) of their engines. The teen boy who had been driving the motorboat stepped on the gas by mistake. Kaitlin, 23, had only small cuts, but Robby, 15, had been badly cut by the propeller (螺旋桨). And Lexi was floating facedown in the water. When one boater swam to Lexi, she was breathing. However, she was unconscious. She had a deep cut on her head. And the lower part of her left leg, just below the knee, was gone. A doctor rode up in another boat and tried to save Robby, but it was too late.For Lexi, the good news is that she survived while the bad news is that she lost one of her legs forever. When Lexi looked at her swollen leg, she felt hopeless. But as time passed, Lexi began to feel stronger. She was grateful that her life had been spared, and she decided to make the most of it. At the end of November 2009, Lexi met with Dr. John Hardy, who was an expert at making artificial legs. She hoped he would help her get back to doing the things she loved.Three years after the accident, Lexi moved on with her life. In spring 2011, she joined a soccer team in her school. That fall, she started college. Lexi is thankful that she can still do the things she loves. One day, she wants to be a physical therapist (理疗师) and work with those with disabilities. But first she plans to compete in the Paralympics. Whatever Lexi decides to do, one thing is certain: Nothing is going to get in her way.9.How was Lexi in the accident?A.She had a small cut on her head.B.She was unable to feel anything.C.She was badly cut by the propeller.D.She lost the lower parts of her legs.10.What's the right order of the events about Lexi?a.She went to college.b.She met with Dr. John Hardy.c.She had one of her legs removed.f.She played with her friends on a boat.e.She joined a soccer team in her school.A.d，c，b，e，aB.c，b，a，e，dC.d，c，e，a，bD.c，d，a，e，b11.It can be inferred from the text that Lexi was ________.A.generousB.strongmindedC.creativeD.warmhearted12.The main purpose of the text is to ________.A.persuade us not to go boatingB.entertain us with sports newsC.tell us the story of a brave teenD.show how to survive an accidentII.短文改错My favorite sport is play basketball. In the middle school, I joined the basketball team. All the teammate practised hardly after school. Once our team had match against another school's. At the very beginning, we were so nervous which we couldn't cooperate very well, because this was the first time we had competed with the school honor. In the half of the match they fell behind. Our team leader calls us together and said that we must got united in order to beat them. Then we tried our best and won the game at last. Playing basketball makes me to realize the importance of union and teamwork.参考答案I.阅读理解A语篇解读：本文是一篇记叙文，主要讲述了美国学生Vanessa Tahay的故事：她通过自己的努力战胜了别人的嘲笑，并找到了自己的人生价值。
