2016-2017学年高二英语下学期期末考试试题

I卷
第一部分阅读理解（共两节，满分60分）
第一节（共15小题；每小题3分，满分45分）
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳选项
A
Housework is a frequent source of disputes(争论) between lazy husbands and their hard-working wives, but women have been warned not to expect men to pull their weight any time soon.
A study from OxfordUniversity has found that men are unlikely to be doing an equal share of housework before 2050. Mothers, the researchers warned, will continue to shoulder the burden of childcare and housework for the next four decades, largely because housework such as cleaning and cooking is still regarded as “women’s work”. The gap between the amount of time men and women spend on housework has narrowed slowly over the past 40 years. But it will take another four decades before true housework equality(平等) is achieved, the study concluded.The research found that in the Nordic countries, the burden of housework is shared more equally between men and women. In the UK, women spend an average of four hours and forty minutes each day on housework, compared with two hours and twenty-eight minutes for men. This is an improvement from the 1960s, when British women typically spent six hours a day on housework, while men spent just 90 minutes every day.
But progress towards housework equality appears to be slowing in some countries. Dr. Oriel Sullivan, a research reader from Oxford’s Department of Sociology, said, “We’ve looked at what is affecting the equality in the home, and we have found that certain tasks seem to be given according to whether they are viewed as ‘men’s work’ or ‘women’s work’.”
Dr. Sullivan said cultural attitudes taught at school may be responsible for the views of housework. “At school it is much easier for a girl to be a tomboy, but it is much more difficult for a boy to enjoy baking and dan cing,” she said.
1. The underlined part “pull their weight” in Paragraph 1 probably refers to “”.
A.lose weight
B.be lazy
C.earn money
D.do equal housework
2. Women will continue to do more housework before 2050 mainly because.
A.men are too busy to help
B.they would like to do so
C.they can do better in housework
D.housework will still be considered as women’s work
3. From Paragraph 4 we know that in the UK.
A.men now spend just 90 minutes a day on housework on average
B.women now are too busy with their work to do housework
C.women now spend less time on housework than before
D.housework is shared equally between men and women
4. In Dr. Sullivan’s opinion, what is to blame for the housework inequality?
A.Cultural attitudes towards housework
B.Policies made by the government
C.The time spent on work
D.The type of housework
B
As they migrate(迁移), butterflies and moths(飞蛾) choose the winds they want to fly with, and they change their body positions if they start floating in the wrong direction. This new finding suggests that insects mayemploy some of the same methods that birds use for traveling long distances. Scientists have long thought that insects were simply at the mercy of the wind.
Fascinating as their skills of flight are, migrating behavior has been difficult to study in insects because many long distant trips happen thousands of feet above ground. Only recently have scientists developed technologies that can detect such little creatures at such great heights.
To their surprise, though, the insects weren’t passive but active travelers on the winds. In autumn, for example, most light winds blew from the east, but the insects somehow sought out ones that carried them south andthey positioned themselves to navigate(导航) directly to their wintering homes.
Even i n the spring, when most winds flowed northward, the insects didn’t always go with the flow. Ifbreezes weren’t blowing in the exact direction they wanted to go, the insects changed their body positionsto compensate(抵消). Many migrating birds do the same thing.
The study also found butterflies and moths actively flew within the air streams that pushed them along. By adding flight speeds to wind speeds, the scientists calculated that butterflies and moths can travel as fastas 100 kilometers an hour. The findings。