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）阅读下列短文, 从每题所给的四个选项 (A、B、C和D) 中, 选出最佳选项。
AThe bicycling craze came in when we were just about at the right age to enjoy it.At first even “safety” bicycles were too dangerous and improper for ladies to ride, and they had to have tricycles. My mother had (I believe) the first female tricyclein Cambridge; and I had a little one, and we used to go out for family rides, alltogether; my father in front on a bicycle, and my poor brother Charles standingmiserable on the bar behind my mother. I found it very hard work, pounding(轰隆隆行进) away on my hard tyres; a glorious, but not a pleasurable pastime.Then, one day at lunch, my father said he had just seen a new kind of tyre, filled up with air, and he thought it might be a success. And soon after that everyone hadbicycles, ladies and all; and bicycling became the smart thing, and the lords andladies had their pictures in the papers, riding along in the park, in straw hats.My mother must have fallen off her bicycle pretty often, for I remember seeingthe most appalling cuts and bruises(青肿) on her legs. But she never complained, and always kept these accidents to herself. However, the great Mrs. Phillips, our cook,always knew all about them; as indeed she knew practically everything that everhappened. She used to draw us into the servants’ hall to tell us privately: “Her Ladyship had a nasty fall yesterday; she cut both her knees and sprained her wrist.But don’t let her know I told you.” So we never dared say anything. Similar littleaccidents used to occur when, at the age of nearly seventy, she insisted on learningto drive a car. She never mastered the art of reversing(倒车), and was in every wayan unconventional and terrifying driver. Mrs. Phillips used then to tell us: “Her Ladyship ran into the back of a milk-cart yesterday; but it wasn’t much hurt”; or “A policeman stopped her Ladyship because she was on the wrong side of the road;but she said she didn’t know what the white line on the road meant, so he explainedand let her go on.” Mrs. Phillips must have h ad an excellent Intelligence Serviceat her command, for the stories were always true enough.1. Women did not ride bicycles at first because ______.A. bicycling demanded too much hard workB. bicycling was considered unsafe and unladylikeC. they preferred to ride tricyclesD. tricycles could carry young children as well2. How did the writer feel about tricycles?A. They were very hard to ride.B. They were safer and more convenient for women.C. They were not as fast as bicycles.D. They were not proper for women to ride.3. Cycling became popular when ______.A. the writer’s father popularised itB. air-filled tyres began to be usedC. noble people started enjoying itD. newspapers had pictures of cyclists4. The writer admired Mrs. Phillips because ______.A. she was the best cook they had ever hadB. she was in command of all the servantsC. she could keep secretsD. she had an outstanding ability to gather information5. The writer’s mother always had car accidents because ______.A. she could not control the carB. she was very old thenC. she did not understand the road systemD. she behaved too proudlyBBefore meeting with my friend Leticia from Honduras, Central America, I wouldask her if she was arriving according to North American time or Latin American time. Smiling, she would answer, "A la hora Latina, of course." This meant that she wouldbe late. The concept of time is very different for Latin Americans than for NorthAmericans.Life in the United States is fast-paced. There are fast food restaurants, overnight delivery services, shuttle services, instant cash machines, fast weightloss plans, and even instant minute rice. Keenly following such sayings as, "The early bird gets the worm," and, "First come, first served," North Americans even have their meals in an efficient manner. Microwaves help warm up their early breakfasts, noonlunches, and five-o'clock dinners."Time is money" for big businesses. Everyone follows set agendas（议事日程）. Minutes are taken at meetings that are precisely scheduled. North Americans take pride in juggling busy work schedules and still finding time to spend with family andfriends.Latin Americans stroll leisurely through life. They wander past open-air restaurants, across shaded patios tucked behind walls of Bougainvillea. In the cafes, the service is slow but courteous. Outside on the streets, people walk by, not forweight purposes, but to get somewhere. Buses arrive and depart on their own schedule, sometimes sooner or later than their printed times. And if you miss the bus, wait.One will come along eventually. Mid-morning breakfasts are homemade. Lunch is around three in the afternoon and dinner could be anytime after the arranged time. No onefollows a set agenda, but business is accomplished at a gradual and comfortable pace. Watches are not followed precisely, and one barely ever hears the question, "Whattime is it?"This cultural difference has proven to be a problem for many North Americansvisiting Latin American countries and vice versa. For example, this problem hasescalated on the issue of adoption. While in Honduras the summer of 1989, I translated for couples from the United States who were looking for children to adopt from Central America. All legal procedures were transacted between a lawyer from the U.S. and aHonduran lawyer. Legal matters on the North American end were handled almost immediately. The Honduran lawyer, however, was considerably slower with field workand paper work and was unable to give definite dates or times for the completion ofthe adoption. This created a cultural barrier and added to the confusion of thesituation.Without understanding these cultural differences, one could eventually feel offended. Having lived for five years in the Dominican Republic, I am able to understand the two concepts of time but am torn between them. People in the UnitedStates, while accomplishing much, need to live less by the clock and stroll throughmore of their days. Although Latin America can sometimes be very frustrating and remind us that, indeed, patience is a virtue, one should slow down long enough to enjoy life's simple pleasure. So whenever I am asked, "Why are you late?" I simply reply, "According to whose time?"6. Which is probably North Americans’ behavior?A. Walk to the destination even though it is far away.B. Have dinner at 9pm in the evening.C. Plan the meeting time precisely.D. Do business in a slow pace.7. If you invite a Latin American friend for a party at 8p.m., when will he/she belikely to arrive?A. After 8p.m..B. Before 8p.m..C. At 8p.m..D. Not come.8. That the writer gives an example of adoption is to show that ______.A. it is impossible for North Americans to adopt a child from Latin AmericaB. Latin American lawyers are incapableC. North Americans and Latin Americans can’t work togetherD. the different time concepts may cause difficulties in the cooperation betweenNorth Americans and Latin Americans9. What’s the writer’s opinion on North Americans’ and Latin Americans’ attitudes towards time?A. North Americans’ attitude is better.B. Both are good.C. Latin Americans’ attitude is better.D. Neither is good.10. What does the writer want to convey?A. It is important to learn about cultural differences.B. In this fast-pace society, we should learn to slow down and enjoy life.C. Patience is a virtue.D. We need to live by the clock in this competitive society.CGoing to school means learning new skills and facts in such subjects as reading, math, science, history, art or music. Teachers teach and students learn, and manyscientists are interested in finding ways to improve both the teaching and learningprocesses.Some r esearchers, such as Sian Beilock and Susan Levine, are trying to learn about learning. Beilock and Levine are psychologists at the University of Chicago.Psychologists study the ways people think and behave, and these researchers want toknow how a person’s thoughts and behavior are related.In a new study about the way kids learn math in elementary school, Beilock andLevine found a surprising relationship between what female teachers think and whatfemale students learn: If a female teacher is uncomfortable with her own math skills, then her female students are more likely to believe that boys are better than girlsat math.“If these girls keep getting math-anxious female teachers in later grades, it may create a snowball effect on their math achievement,” Levine told Science News. The study suggests that if these girls grow up believing that boys are better at math than girls are, then these girls may not do as well as they would have if they weremore confident.Just as students find certain subjects to be difficult, teachers can find certain subjects to be difficult to learn—and teach. The subject of math can be particularly difficult for everyone. Researchers use the word “anxiety” to describe such feelings: anxiety is uneasiness or worry. (Many people, for example, have anxiety about goingto the dentist because th ey’re worried about pain.)The new study found that when a teacher has anxiety about math, that feeling caninfluence how her female students feel about math. The study involved 65 girls, 52boys and 17 first- and second-grade teachers in elementary schools in the Midwest.The students took math achievement tests at the beginning and end of the school year, and the researchers compared the scores.The researchers also gave the students tests to tell whether the students believed that a math superstar had to be a boy. Then the researchers turned to the teachers:To find out which teachers were anxious about math, the researchers asked the teachers how they felt at times when they came across math, such as when reading a sales receipt.A teacher who got nervous looking at the numbers on a sales receipt, for example,was probably anxious about math.Boys, on average, were unaffected by a teacher’s anxiety. On average, girls with math-anxious teachers scored lower on the end-of-the-year math tests than other girls in the study did. Plus, on the test showing whether someone thought a math superstarhad to be a boy, 20 girls showed feeling that boys would be better at math—and all of these girls had been taught by female teachers who had math anxiety.According to surveys done before this one, college students who want to becomeelementary school teachers have the highest levels of anxiety about math. Plus, nine of every 10 elementary teachers are women, Levine said.This study was small, and it’s often difficult to see large patterns in small studies, David Geary told Science News. Geary, a psychologist at the University ofMissouri in Columbia, studies how children learn math. “This is an interesting study, but the results need to be interpreted as preliminary and in need of replication with a larger sample,” Geary said. That means that the results are just showing something that might be happening, but more studies should be done. If more studies find thesame trend as this one, then it’s possible that a teacher’s anxiety over math really is affecting her female students.11. Sian Beilock and Susan Levine carried out the new research in order to ______.A. know the effects of teaching on learningB. study students’ ways of learning mathC. prove women teachers are unfit to teach mathD. find better teaching methods for teachers12. The underlined part in paragraph 4 most probably means that girls may ______.A. end up learning math with anxiety from their teachersB. study the ways their female teachers behaveC. have an influence on their math-anxious female teachersD. gain unexpected achievement in such subjects as math13. In the study, what were the teachers required to do?A. Prepare two math achievement tests for the students.B. Tell their feelings about math problems.C. Answer whether a math superstar had to be a boy.D. Compare the students’ scores after the math tests.14. What is the finding of the new study?A. No male students were affected by their teachers’ anxiety.B. Almost all the girls got lower scores in the tests than the boys.C. About 30% of the girls thought boys are better at math than girls.D. Girls with math-anxious teachers all failed in the math tests.15. Which of the following is TRUE according to the text?A. 117 students and teachers took part in the new study.B. The researchers felt surprised at the findings of their study.C. Beilock and Levine are interested in teaching math.D. Men teachers are better at teaching math than women teachers.DMany a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage suchpeople, but I also explain that there’s a big difference between “being a writer” and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, notthe lon g hours alone at the typewriter. “You’ve got to want to write,” I say to them, “not want to be a writer.”The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there are thousands more whose dreams are never fulfilled. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did.When I left a 20-year career to become a writer, I had no prospect(前途) at all. What I did have was my friend George who found me at my home—a storage room which was cold and had no bathroom. Immediately I bought a used typewriter and felt likea real writer.After a year or so, however, I still hadn’t received a break and began to doubt myself. It was so hard to sell a story that I barely made enough to eat. Then oneday I got a call that changed my life. It wasn’t an agent or editor offering a bigcontract. It was the opposite—a call persuading me to give up my dream. On the phone was an old acquaintance. He had once lent me money. “When am I going to get the $15, Alex?” he asked.“Next time I make a sale.”“I have a better idea,” he said. “We need a new public-information assistant, and we’re paying $6,000 a year. If you want it, you can have it.”Six thousand a year! That was real money in 1960. I could get a nice apartment,a used car, pay off debts and maybe s ave a little something. As the dollars were dancing in my head, something cleared my senses. I had dreamed of being a writer-- full time. And that’s what I was going to be. “Thanks, but no,” I heard myself saying. “I’m going to stick it out and write.”Afterward, as I paced around my little room, I started to feel like a fool. Reaching into my cupboard, I pulled out all that was there: two cans of sardines(沙丁鱼). Putting my hands into my pockets, I came up with 18 cents. I took the cans and coinsand jammed them into a paper bag. There Alex, I said to myself. There’s everything you’ve made of yourself so far.I wish I could say things started getting better right away. But they didn’t. Thank goodness I had George to help me over the rough spots.Through him I met other struggling artists, like Joe Delaney, a painter. OftenJoe lacked food money, so he’d visit a neighborhood butcher(肉贩) who would give him big bones with little meat. That’s all Joe needed to make down-home soup. Another village neighbor was a handsome young singer who ran a struggling restaurant. Hisname was Harry Belafonte. People like Delaney and Belafonte became role models forme. I learned that you had to make sacrifices and live creatively to keep workingat your dreams.As I absorbed the lesson, I gradually began to sell my articles. I was writingabout what many people were talking about then: civil rights, black Americans andAfrica. Soon, like birds flying south, my thoughts were drawn back to my childhood.One day at lunch with editors of Reader’s Digest, I said that I had a dream to trace my family’s history to the first African brought to these shores in chains. I leftthat lunch with a contract that would help support my research and writing for nineyears.Yet in 1970, Roots was published. Instantly I had the kind of fame and successthat few writers ever experience. For the first time I had money; the phone rang allthe time with new friends and new deals. I packed up and moved to Los Angeles, whereI could help in the making of the Roots TV mini-series. I was blinded by the lightof my success.Then one day, while unpacking, I came across a box filled with things I had owned years. Inside was a brown paper bag.I opened it, and there were two sardine cans and 18 cents. Suddenly the past came flooding in. I could picture myself once again writing in that cold, one-room apartment. And I said to myself: The things in this bag are part of my roots, too. I can’t ever forget that.I sent them out to be framed(镶框) in plastic. I keep that clear plastic casewhere I can see it every day. I can see it now above my office desk, along with prizes Roots won for me. I’d be hard pressed to say which means the most to me. But onlyone reminds me of the courage and persistence(坚持) it takes to stay the course.16. According to the author, “there’s a big difference between ‘being a writer’ and writing” (Para.1) and the latter means ______.A. having a dream you cherishB. spending hours at the typewriter writingC. expecting the fame and wealth of a writerD. mistaking “writing” for wealth and fame17. Which of the following opinions would the author agree?A. Writing is not as good as many people think.B. Only those who succeed in writing know neglect and poverty.C. As long as you work hard at writing your works will achieve recognition.D. Only those whose dream is never fulfilled know long periods of neglect andpoverty.18. The author took the examples of Joe Delaney and Harry Belafonte to show that ______.A. some people never succeed despite their hard workB. people who have dreams have to sufferC. people have to make sacrifices to live creativelyD. successful artists always have dreams19. What put the author in the spotlight of fame?A. He wrote articles that began to sell.B. He wrote essays about civil rights.C. He went south and wrote about his childhood.D. He researched and traced his family’s history in his book Roots.20. When the author rediscovered his sardine cans and eighteen cents years later,______.A. he could hardly believe that they once belonged to himB. he felt sad and cold, thinking of his past years as a lonely writerC. he thought that they were part of his roots and important to himD. he had them framed because they won him a lot of awardsBABDA CADCB BABCB BABDC。
