2012届高考英语阅读理解限时训练题.doc

高三英语阅读理解限时训练（4）

(A)

My father was a foreman of a sugar-cane plantation in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico.

My first job was to drive the oxen that ploughed the cane fields. I would walk behind

an ox, guiding him with a broomstick. For $ 1 a day, I worked eight hours straight,

with no food breaks.

It was very tedious work, but it prepared me for life and taught me many lasting

lessons. Because the plantation owners were always watching us, I had to be on time

every day and work as hard as I could. I’ve never been late for any job since. I also

learned about being respectful and faithful to the people you work for. More important,

I earned my pay; it never entered my mind to say I was sick just because I didn’t want

to work.

I was only six years old, but I was doing a man’s job. Our family needed every

dollar we could make because my father never earned more than $ 18 a week. Our

home was a three-room wood shack with a dirty floor and no toilet. Nothing made me

prouder than bringing home money to help my mother, father, two brothers and three

sisters. This gave me self-esteem(自尊心), one of the most important things a person

can have.

When I was seven, I got work at a golf course near our house. My job was to

stand down the fairway and spot the balls as they landed, so the golfers could find

them. Losing a ball meant you were fired, so I never missed one. Some nights I would

lie in bed and dreamt of making thousands of dollars by playing golf and being able to

buy a bicycle.

The more I dreamed, the more I thought. Why not? I made my first golf club out

of guava limb(番石榴树枝) and a piece of pipe. Then I hammered an empty tin can

into the shape of a ball. And finally I dug two small holes in the ground and hit the

ball back and forth. I practiced with the same devotion and intensity. I learned

working in the field — except now I was driving golf balls with club, not oxen with a

broomstick.

41. The writer’s first job was _______.

A. to stand down the fairway at a golf course

B. to drive the oxen that ploughed the cane fields

C. to watch over the sugar-cane plantation

D. to spot the balls as they landed so the golfers could find them

42. The writer learned that_______ from his first job.

A. he should work for those who he liked most

B. he should work longer than what he was expected

C. he should never fail to say hello to his owner D. he should be respectful and faithful to the people he worked for

43. _______ gave the writer self-esteem.

A. Having a family of eight people

B. Owning his own golf course

C. Bringing money back home to help the family

D. Helping his father with the work on the plantation

44. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?

A. He wanted to be a successful golfer.

B. He wanted to run a golf course near his house.

C. He was satisfied with the job he got on a plantation.

D. He wanted to make money by guiding oxen with a broomstick.

(B)

You’re out to dinner. The food is delicious and the service is fine. You decide to

leave a big fat tip. Why? The answer may not be as simple as you think.

Tipping, psychologists have found, is not just about service. Instead, studies have

shown that tipping can be affected by psychological reactions to a series of different

factors from the waiter’s choice of words, to how they carry themselves while taking

orders, to the bill’s total. Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can

determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.

“Studies before have shown that mimicry (模仿) brings into positive feelings for

the mimicker,” wrote Rick van Baaren, a social psychology professor. “These studies

show that people who are being mimicked become more generous toward the person

who mimics them.”

So Rick van Baaren divided 59 waiters into two groups. He requested that half

serve with a phrase such as, “Coming up!” Those in the other half were instructed to

repeat the orders and preferences back to the customers. Rick van Baaren then

compared their take-home. The results were clear — it pays to mimic your customer.

The copycat(模仿者) waiters earned almost double the amount of tips to the other

group.

Leonard Green and Joel Myerson, psychologists at Washington University in St.

Louis, found the generosity of a tipper may be limited by his bill. After research on

the 1,000 tips left for waiters, cabdrivers, hair stylists, they found tip percentages in

these three areas dropped as customers’ bills went up. In fact, tip percentages appear

to plateau (达到稳定水平) when bills topped $100 and a bill for $200 made the

worker gain no bigger percentage tip than a bill for $100.