2019届二轮复习阅读理解专题说明文类型模拟试题10篇训练之三十二[一]Eudaimonia is an ancient Greek word, particularly stressed by the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, which deserves far more attention than it has because it corrects the shortfalls(缺失) in one of the most central, but troubling words in our modern language:happiness.When we nowadays try to clearly express the purpose of our lives, it is the word “happiness” that we commonly turn to. We tell ourselves and others that the most important principle for our jobs, our relationships and the conduct of our day-to-day life is the pursuit of happiness. It sounds like an innocent enough idea, but too much reliance on the term means that we frequently unfairly tend to quit or, at least, heavily question a great many challenging but worthwhile situations. The ancient Greeks did not believe that the purpose of life was to be happy;they proposed that it was to achieve Eudaimonia, a word which has been best translated as “fulfilment”. What distinguishes happiness from fulfilment is pain. It is very possible to be fulfilled and—at the same time—under pressure, suffering physically or mentally, overburdened and, quite frequently, in an irritable (易怒的) mood. This is a slight psychological difference that is hard for the word “happiness”to capture, for it s tricky to speak of being happy yet unhappy, or happy yet suffering. However, such a combination is readily accommodated within the respected and noble idea of Eudaimonia.The word encourages us to trust that many of life s most worthwhile projects will sometimes be in conflict with contentment, and yet will be worth pursuing. Properly exploring our professional talents, managing a household, keeping a relationship going, creating a new business venture or engaging in politics... none of these goals are likely to leave us cheerful and grinning on a daily basis. They will, in fact, involve us in all manner of challenges that will deeply exhaust and weaken us, provoke (激怒) and wound us. And yet we will perhaps, at the end of our lives, still feel that the tasks were worth undertaking. Through them, we ll have achieved something deeper and more interesting than happiness.With the word Eudaimonia in mind, we can stop imagining that we are aiming for a pain-free existence—and then blaming ourselves unfairly for being in a bad mood. We ll know that we are trying to do something far more important than smile all the time:we re striving to do justice to our full human potential.1. What do we know about “Eudaimonia” from the passage?A. It was first created by two Greek philosophers.B. It has received a lot of attention from the public.C. It still has some shortfalls that need to be corrected.D. It was regarded as the purpose of life in ancient Greece.2.According to Paragraph 3, happiness.A.is opposite to fulfilmentB.is free from physical or mental painC. stresses the psychological differenceD. serves as a respected and noble life goal3.We learn from the passage that.A. aiming for happiness may lead to wrong self-blamingB. goals that wound and weaken us result in happinessC. challenges leading to contentment are worth undertakingD. feeling fulfilled means we should avoid tough situations4.The passage encourages the readers to.A. find fulfilment with all effortsB. seek for a pain-free existenceC. keep optimistic whatever happensD. balance happiness and suffering答案1.D 2.B 3.A 4.A[二]Comedy and PsychologyEarlier this year I did a part-time comedy course. The class was taught by Ryan, a professional comedian. I had performed a show, which wasn t originally meant to be a comedy. However, the audience laughed at my first joke, then continued to laugh throughout the routines that were meant to be serious. So it was the audience who told me I was funny, but I didn t understand why or how to control the comic (滑稽的) moments. So, I joined the course to learn.“Turn off your editor that makes you say the right thing and remember how to be a child,”explained Ryan. “Don t try to be clever. Don t try too hard to be funny...and knowing all about the theory of humor is unlikely to help you much. Just behave in a silly way. That s what people want to see on stage.”Ryan would help us loosen up by saying things like, “Wander around talking to others, but make sure that you re the lowest status person here.”I d say that understanding the psychology of humor has actually helped. Recently I came across the book Inside Jokes:Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind. Its main idea is that any self-directed intelligent system will need to correct its own fault. There s a risk that the occasional error will be made. If this was boring or burdensome, we d be less willing to do it. However, evolution has made the process fun.Here s a joke in the book:Two fish are in a tank. One says to the other, “Do you know how to drive this thing?”It works on the principle that we have started to imagine one thing—that the tank is the typical container people keep fish in—and, just in time, the following words tell us that our first assumption was wrong—it s a heavy vehicle. For correctly figuring out the error, we are rewarded with a pleasurable feeling. The joke is an efficient way of encouraging this natural reaction, and comedians have become experts in slightly touching this mental funny bone in order to make us laugh.Ryan was right when he said that knowing the theory of humor wouldn t help us that much as a comedian. During one exercise in the course, four of us were told to perform an opera. Susan and Caroline sang earnestly on either side of the stage, andI brought Henry to the floor, where we wrestled (摔跤) each other like out-of-control teenagers. The rest of the group was in uncontrollable fits of laughter. As a performer, I ll never appreciate just why it seemed so funny. But the point is that I would never have written this on the paper. It was a joyous, found moment.1. Why did the author attend the comedy course?A. He wanted to see how the theories worked in practice.B. He discovered he had some natural ability in comedy.C. He worried about how other performers would find him.D. He got unpleasant experiences when performing a comedy.2.Ryan required the people on the comedy course to.A. copy their favorite performanceB. imagine other people s reactionsC. help themselves feel comfortableD. behave in a more playful manner3. What is the purpose of the joke mentioned in Paragraph 4?A. To discuss what humor brings about exactly.B. To give an example of another kind of humor.C. To prove the point about psychology of humor.D. To show why some people are funnier than others.4. What view does the author put forward in the end?A. Visual humor is what appeals to people most.B. What people find funny is often unpredictable.C. Theories explaining humor tend to be mistaken.D. Learning comic skills proves to be a difficult task.答案1.B 2.D 3.C 4.B[三]Dear child,Take a seat. Daddy has something to share with you. I would like us to have a heart-to-heart—even though, over the years, you have slowly broken mine. Oh shut up;you so have! If you go out and ask any mother or father out there, I guarantee they ll say the same thing:All children break their parents hearts. It s just what children do. In fact, it s what Daddy s own mother continues to remind him still, to this very day, every time they speak on the phone.In your baby years, you vomited(呕吐), pooped and peed all over me. In your teen years, you came home from parties and vomited red wine all over my already-dirty carpets. There was a time you experimented with drugs and all those things I hate. Where does the heartbreak end?Still, I want you to know you are loved, because various parenting magazines insist that s my responsibility to make you feel special and valued and so on. And of course Daddy loves you! Don t you see?And Daddy values you. Very much so. How could he not value you, when you, as a test-tube baby, cost so much to come into this world?Now you re old enough to hear the truth about parenting. And it s this:all kids annoy their parents. Like you, I started off adorable. Then I went through my weird-body-shape-and-acne years, lost all my cuteness, developed an attitude and never once did I apologize to my parents for stealing the best years of their lives. When you become a parent yourself, here are some parenting skills you might want to try that have been passed down from countless generations of angry Asians before me. Passive aggression is always welcome. Regular scream “I WISH YOU HAD NEVER BEEN BORN” w ill help keep your own kid s self-respect in check. But whatever happens, ensure you earn enough money in your adult life. Then give it to me, so I can go on expensive international tours. If you do this I promise I ll stop complaining and leave you alone, because we both know that s what we really want. Love you lots, Cutie-Pie.Daddy1.The letter is probably written to.A. a young adultB. a little babyC. a parentD. a grandparent2.The letter discusses all the topics EXCEPT.A. babyhoodB. teenage problemsC. parentingD. death3.According to the letter, the author.A. used to take drugsB. regrets getting marriedC. broke his parents heartsD.was born as a test-tube baby4. Why does the author write the letter?A. To ask his child to earn more money.B. To encourage his child to be independent.C. To communicate to his child love and hope.D. To stop his child from being a troublemaker.答案1.A 2.D 3.C 4.C[四]Four years ago, we asked ourselves: what if we could create a shopping experience with no waiting in line and no checkout? Or could we create a physical store where customers could simply take what they want and go? Our answer to those questions is Amazon Go, where you could experience the idea of “just walk out shopping”. Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world s most advanced shopping technology, so you never have to wait in line. With our “just walk out shopping”experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go! No lines, no checkout.Our checkout-free shopping experience is made possible by the same types of technologies used in self-driving cars: computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning. Our “just walk out technology” automatically detects when products are taken from or returned to the shelves and keeps track of them in your virtual cart. When you re done shopping, you can just leave the store. Shortly after, we ll charge your Amazon account and send you a receipt.We offer delicious ready-to-eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options made fresh every day by our on-site chefs and favorite local kitchens and bakeries. Our selection of foodstuff ranges from bread and milk to cheeses and locally made chocolates. You ll find well-known brands we love, plus special finds we re excited to introduce to customers. For a quick home-cooked dinner, pick up one of our chef-designed Amazon Meal Kits, and you can make a meal for two in about 30 minutes.Our 1,800-square-foot shopping space is conveniently compact(紧凑的), so busy customers can get in and out fast. It is located at 2131,7th Ave, Seattle, WA, on the corner of 7th Avenue and Blanchard Street. All you need is an Amazon account, a supported smartphone, and the free Amazon Go app.Amazon Go is currently only open to Amazon employees in our testing program, and will be open to the public soon.1.From the passage, we can learn that Amazon Go.A.is a checkout-free storeB.sells all kinds of goodsC.is open to the publices unknown technologies2. What is mainly discussed in Paragraph 3?A. When Amazon Go charges.B. How Amazon Go works.C. Where Amazon Go lies.D. What Amazon Go sells.3.Customers pay for the products from Amazon Go by.A. paying cash at the counterB. walking out of the storeC. using their Amazon accountsD. scanning smartphones when leaving4.The main purpose of the passage is to.A. encourage people to shop onlineB. advise people to work for AmazonC. inform people of a new concept storeD. tell people the shopping experience答案1.A 2.B 3.C 4.C[五]The fight is on to get rid of air pollution in our cities. While the best solution in the long-term would be to ban fossil-fueled cars, that won t help the millions who are dying in the meantime, and so some high-tech solutions are now on the cards.In March 2016,ten London pigeons became famous. These pigeons were set free from Primrose Hill in north London, wearing backpacks monitoring air pollution. Once in the air, the backpacks sent live air-quality updates to the smartphones of the Londoners below.The pigeons and their backpacks were just the latest in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to monitor and control air pollution. London s air pollution problem has been getting worse for years, and it often rises to more than three times the European Union s legal limit.Another promising approach can be found in Beijing, after China declared a “waragainst pollution”in 2014.A seven-metre-high “Smog Free Tower”, designed by a Dutch scientist, Daan Roosegaarde, opened in Beijing s 751D•Park in September 2016.It is a huge, outdoor air purifier. Airborne particles(颗粒)are sucked into the tower where they receive a positive charge. The particles are then caught by a negatively charged dust-removal plate and clean air is blown out of the other end. “Changing smog p articles does not take much current,” Roosegaarde said.As for what to do with the collected PM waste, he has currently set up a business making jewellery out of the waste. Prince Charles owns a set of “smog free”cuff links(袖扣). If the waste is collected on a big scale, Roosegaarde believes it could even be used as a building material.Mexico City has an alternative solution. Looking to Nature to maximize the surface area of a building, Allison Dring, a Berlin-based architect, managed to catch light and wind from all sides. She is now making a building material by burning agricultural crop by-products in the absence of oxygen. “It means that you are actually taking carbon(碳)out of the sky, transforming it into a material, and then using it to build,”says Dring.The fight against outdoor air pollution is really just starting. Even if none of the ideas take off, at least Prince Charles cuff links, the special building surface and pigeons wearing backpacks will have brought the issue more to the public s attention.1.The ten pigeons in London were used to.A. monitor air pollutionB. warn LondonersC. update weather forecastD. promote backpacks2. What can we learn about the Smog Free Tower?A. Its power consumption is high.B.PM waste from it can be reused.C. It is built of agricultural by-products.D. It can attract light and wind from all sides.3. What s the best title for the passage?A. When can humans get rid of smog?B. Why is technology used to fight smog?C. How are the world s cities fighting smog?D. What makes smog a worldwide problem?答案1.A 2.B 3.C[六]The British love word-play and they re enthusiastic about defending the use of their language. In recent years, books about the grammar, pronunciation and punctuation(标点符号)of English have been written by the dozen, and sold extremely well, reflecting people s love of the English language. People want to defend the “correct”use of their language, but also to preserve its ability to evolve along with society. Lynne Truss s book Eats, Shoots & Leaves is an excellent exampleof these two opposite ideas. Its title shows the way that punctuation can change the meaning of a sentence. “Eats shoots and leaves”is a perfectly normal description of a panda s diet: he eats the shoots and leaves of bamboo trees. But the position of the comma(逗号)turns those nouns into verbs, and makes up a ridiculous little story:the panda eats(his dinner), he shoots(a gun), and he leaves(the building). It s a silly joke, but it shows how changing something as simple as a comma can change the entire meaning of a sentence.Published in 2003, Eats, Shoots & Leaves was an unexpectedly huge success. It is easy to assume the typical reader of this kind of book as the humourless type. However, the book has sold thousands and thousands of copies—it must be appealing to a wide range of people. The book s winning secret is this: it makes some serious points about language and punctuation, but also has a light-hearted dimension, and uses stories and jokes to show its points. It has invited some tough criticism, too, especially from the US. On a broader range, Eats, Shoots & Leaves has opened up a lot of public debate on Truss s ideas. Whether they agree with her or not, punctuation and grammar has become a popular topic to discuss.In every generation there will be people who think that the standard of language is in decline, and who are more than happy to write to the newspapers to express their concern and opinions. Truss s book also appeals to those who think that texting and blogging(博客)is lowering the standard of literacy. Whether the standard of the English language is decreasing, or simply evolving into new forms, the success of Eats, Shoots & Leaves proves that this is a subject that many English speakers find interesting and important.1.The title of the book Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a joke which shows.A. a funny feelingB. a trend in writingC. a grammatical pointD. a fact about animals2.The book has been successful because.A.it presents the new research on EnglishB.it solves a serious English language problemC.it shows the British like to teach English to other peopleD.it causes concern for proper use of language in a fun way3. What can be inferred from the passage?A. The English language was better in the past.B. The English language is being improved by technology.C. There is often dissatisfaction with the standard of English.D. There have always been debates on the use of punctuation.4. What is the best title for the passage?A. The Difference a Comma Made.B. The Problem Punctuation Created.C. Proper Understanding of Silly Jokes.D. Public Debate about Language Standards.答案1.C 2.D 3.C 4.A[七]Plastic-Eating WormsHumans produce more than 300 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that winds up in landfills(垃圾填埋场), and up to 12 million tons pollute the oceans. So far there is no effective way to get rid of it, but a new study suggests an answer may lie in the stomachs of some hungry worms.Researchers in Spain and England recently found that the worms of the greater wax moth can break down polyethylene, which accounts for 40% of plastics. The team left 100 wax worms on a commercial polyethylene shopping bag for 12 hours, and the worms consumed and broke down about 92 milligrams, or almost 3% of it. To confirm that the worms chewing alone was not responsible for the polyethylene breakdown, the researchers made some worms into paste(糊状物)and applied it to plastic films. 14 hours later the films had lost 13% of their mass—apparently broken down by enzymes(酶)from the worms stomachs. Their findings were published in Current Biology in 2017.Federica Bertocchini, co-author of the study, says the worms ability to break down their everyday food—beeswax—also allows them to break down plastic. “Wax is a complex mixture, but the basic bond in polyethylene, the carbon-carbon bond, is there as well,”she explains. “The wax worm evolved a method or system to break this bond.”Jennifer DeBruyn, a microbiologist at the University of Tennessee, who was not involved in the study, says it is not surprising that such worms can break down polyethylene. But compared with previous studies, she finds the speed of breaking down in this one exciting. The next step, DeBruyn says, will be to identify the cause of the breakdown. Is it an enzyme produced by the worm itself or by its gut microbes(肠道微生物)?Bertocchini agrees and hopes her team s findings might one day help employ the enzyme to break down plastics in landfills. But she expects using the chemical in some kind of industrial process—not simply“millions of worms thrown on top of the plastic.”1.What can we learn about the worms in the study?A. take plastics as their everyday food.B. They are newly evolved creatures.C. They can consume plastics.D. They wind up in landfills.2.According to Jennifer DeBruyn, the next step of the study is to.A. identify other means of the breakdownB. find out the source of the enzymeC. confirm the research findingsD. increase the breakdown speed3.It can be inferred from the last paragraph that the chemical might.A. help to raise wormsB. help make plastic bagsC.be used to clean the oceansD.be produced in factories in future4.What is the main purpose of the passage?A. To explain a study method on worms.B. To introduce the diet of a special worm.C. To present a way to break down plastics.D. To propose new means to keep eco-balance.答案1.C 2.B 3.D 4.C[八]It was a cold March day in High Point, North Carolina. The girls on the Wesleyan Academy softball team were waiting for their next turns at bat during practice, stamping their feet to stay warm. Eighth-grader Taylor Bisbee shivered(发抖) a little as she watched her teammate Paris White play. The two didn t know each other well—Taylor had just moved to town a month or so before.Suddenly, Paris fell to the ground. “Paris s eyes rolled back,”Taylor says. “She started shaking. I knew it was an emergency.”It certainly was. Paris had suffered a sudden heart failure. Without immediate medical care, Paris would die. At first, no one moved. The girls were in shock. Then the softball coach shouted out, “Does anyone know CPR?”CPR is a life-saving technique. To do CPR, you press on the sick person s chest so that blood moves through the body and takes oxygen to organs. Without oxygen, the brain is damaged quickly.Amazingly, Taylor had just taken a CPR course the day before. Still, she hesitated. She didn t think she knew it well enough. But when no one else came forward, Taylor ran to Paris and began doing CPR. “It was scary. I knew it was the difference between l ife and death,”says Taylor.Taylor s swift action helped her teammates calm down. One girl called 911. Two more ran to get the school nurse, who brought a defibrillator, an electronic device(器械) that can shock the heart back into work. Luck stayed with them: Paris s heartbeat returned.“I know I was really lucky,”Paris says now. “Most people don t survive this. My team saved my life.”Experts say Paris is right: For a sudden heart failure, the single best chance for survival is having someone nearby step in and do CPR quickly.Today, Paris is back on the softball team. Taylor will apply to college soon. She wants to be a nurse. “I feel more confident in my actions now,” Taylor says. “I knowI can act under pressure in a scary situation.”1.What happened to Paris on a March day?A. She caught a bad cold.B. She had a sudden heart problem.C. She was knocked down by a ball.D. She shivered terribly during practice.2.Why does Paris say she was lucky?A. She made a worthy friend.B. She recovered from shock.C. She received immediate CPR.D. She came back on the softball team.3.Which of the following words can best describe Taylor?A. Enthusiastic and kind.B. Courageous and calm.C. Cooperative and generous.D. Ambitious and professional.答案1.B 2.C 3.B[九]Hollywood s theory that machines with evil(邪恶的)minds will drive armies of killer robots is just silly. The real problem relates to the possibility that artificial intelligence(AI)may become extremely good at achieving something other than what we really want. In 1960 a well-known mathematician Norbert Wiener, who founded the field of cybernetics(控制论), put it this way:“If we use, to achieve our purposes, a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot effectively interfere(干预), we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire.”A machine with a specific purpose has another quality, one that we usually associate with living things:a wish to preserve its own existence. For the machine, this quality is not in-born, nor is it something introduced by humans;it is a logical consequence of the simple fact that the machine cannot achieve its original purpose if it is dead. So if we send out a robot with the single instruction of fetching coffee, it will have a strong desire to secure success by disabling its own off switch or even killing anyone who might interfere with its task. If we are not careful, then, we could face a kind of global chess match against very determined, super intelligent machines whose objectives conflict with our own, with the real world as the chessboard.The possibility of entering into and losing such a match should concentrate the minds of computer scientists. Some researchers argue that we can seal the machines inside a kind of firewall, using them to answer difficult questions but never allowing them to affect the real world. Unfortunately, that plan seems unlikely to work:we have yet to invent a firewall that is secure against ordinary humans, let alone super intelligent machines.Solving the safety problem well enough to move forward in AI seems to be possible but not easy. There are probably decades in which to plan for the arrival of super intelligent machines. But the problem should not be dismissed out of hand, as it has been by some AI researchers. Some argue that humans and machines can coexist as long as they work in teams—yet that is not possible unless machines share the goals of humans. Others say we can just “switch them off” as if super intelligent machines are too stupid to think of that possibility. Still others think that super intelligent AI will never happen. On September 11,1933, famous physicist Ernest Rutherford stated, with confidence, “Anyone who expects a source of power in the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.”However, on September 12,1933, physicist Leo Szilard invented the neutron-induced(中子诱导) nuclear chain reaction.1.Paragraph 1 mainly tells us that artificial intelligence may.A. run out of human controlB. satisfy human s real desiresC. command armies of killer robotsD. work faster than a mathematician2.Machines with specific purposes are associated with living things partly because they might be able to.A. prevent themselves from being destroyedB. achieve their original goals independentlyC.do anything successfully with given ordersD. beat humans in international chess matches3.According to some researchers, we can use firewalls to.A. help super intelligent machines work betterB.be secure against evil human beingsC. keep machines from being harmedD. avoid robots affecting the world4.What does the author think of the safety problem of super intelligent machines?A. It will disappear with the development of AI.B. It will get worse with human interference.C. It will be solved but with difficulty.D. It will stay for a decade.答案1.A 2.A 3.D 4.C[十]California Condor s Shocking RecoveryCalifornia condors are North America s largest birds, with wing-length of up to 3 meters. In the 1980s, electrical lines and lead poisoning(铅中毒) nearly drove them to dying out. Now, electric shock training and medical treatment are helping to rescue these big birds.In the late 1980s, the last few condors were taken from the wild to be bred(繁殖). Since 1992, there have been multiple reintroductions to the wild, and there are now more than 150 flying over California and nearby Arizona, Utah and Baja in Mexico.Electrical lines have been killing them off.“As they go in to rest for the night, they just don t see the power lines,”says Bruce Rideout of San Diego Zoo. Their wings can bridge the gap between lines, resulting in electrocution(电死) if they touch two lines at once.So scientists have come up with a shocking idea. Tall poles, placed in large training areas, teach the birds to stay clear of electrical lines by giving them a painful but undeadly electric shock. Before the training was introduced,66% of set-free birds died of electrocution. This has now dropped to 18%.Lead poisoning has proved more difficult to deal with. When condors eat dead bodies of other animals containing lead, they absorb large quantities of lead. This affects their nervous systems and ability to produce baby birds, and can lead to kidney(肾) failure and death. So condors with high levels of lead are sent to Los。
