Born in 1949, Diana Nyad took an early interest in swimming as a sport and was a
题型：不详难度：来源：
For ten years Nyad devoted herself to becoming one of the world’s best long-distance swimmers. In 1970, she swam a ten-mile marathon in Lake Ontario, setting the women’s record for the course. In 1972 she set another record by swimming 102.5 miles from an island in the Bahamas to the coast of Florida. Then she broke a third record when swimming around Manhattan Island in 1975.
Nyad attempted to swim the distance between Florida and Cuba in 1978. Though the span of water is less than 100 miles wide, it is rough and dangerous. After battling the water for two days, she had to give up for the sake of her own health and safety. Even so, she impressed the world with her courage and strong desire to succeed. For Nyad her strength of purpose was just as important as reaching Cuba. That is how she defined success. It did not matter that her swim came up short; she believed she had touched the other shore.
When Nyad ended her career as a swimmer, she continued to try new things---travelling the world as a reporter, writing books and giving public speeches about her life. Diana Nyad works to inspire others, just as she did when she swam the waters of the world.
小题1: What prevented Nyad from taking part in the Olympic Games? (No more than 5 words)
__________________________________________________________________________
小题2:What does the underlined word “obstacles” mean? (1 word)
___________________________________________________________________________
小题3:What achievement did Nyad make in 1970? (No more than 10 words.)
________________________________________________________________________________
小题4:Why did Nyad believe that she had touched the other shore? (No more than 10 words)
___________________________________________________________________________ |
答案
小题1:A serious illness(did).
小题2:Difficulties/Problems/Troubles/Challenges
小题3:She swam a ten-mile marathon and set women’s record.
Or: She swam a ten-mile marathon, setting the women’s record.
Or: She set the women’s record for a ten-mile marathon swimming.
小题4:Because she had tried her best ( to fulfill the task .)
Or: Her strength of purpose was as important as reaching Cuba. |
解析
试题分析：本文叙述了一位名叫Nyad的游泳运动员顽强奋斗的故事。她因为得了疾病没法参加奥运会的游泳比赛。但是她没有放弃，继续努力，参加马拉松游比赛，并在1970年在女子马拉松游泳比赛中创造了新的记录。后来，她开始旅行，写书，她的作品激励着其他人继续前进。
小题1:根据第一段的but a serious illness kept her from competing in the Games. 可知一种严重的疾病阻止 Nyad参加奥运会比赛。因此此处问题的答案是A serious illness(did).
小题2:根据第一段的by distance,（距离） danger（危险）, cold（寒冷）, and exhaustion（精疲力尽）这些都是阻碍人前进的困难或麻烦。因此obstacles 的意思是Difficulties/Problems/Troubles/Challenges
小题3:根据第二段的In 1970, she swam a ten-mile marathon in Lake Ontario, setting the women’s record for the course. She swam a ten-mile marathon and set women’s record.可知她在1970年在女子马拉松游泳比赛中创造了新的记录。因答案是She swam a ten-mile marathon, setting the women’s record.或者 She set the women’s record for a ten-mile marathon swimming.
小题4:根据第三段的For Nyad her strength of purpose was just as important as reaching Cuba. 可知她虽然没有到达对岸，但是她的努力仍然很重要。因此问题的答案是Because she had tried her best ( to fulfill the task .)或者 Her strength of purpose was as important as reaching Cuba. |
举一反三
Sleepless in Seattle? Hardly. West Virginia is where people are really staying awake, according to the first government study to monitor state-by-state differences in sleeplessness. West Virginians’ lack of sleep was about double the national rate, perhaps a side effect of health problems such as obesity (肥胖), experts said.
Nearly 1 in 5 West Virginians said they did not get a single good night’s sleep in the previous month. The national average was about 1 in 10, according to a federal health survey. Tennessee, Kentucky and Oklahoma also were notably above average with nearly 1 in 7 people reporting in a lack of sleep. In contrast, North Dakota was below average, with only 1 in 13 reporting that degree of sleeplessness. Health officials do not know the exact reasons for the differences.
In the survey, people weren’t required to answer the question why they were not able to get enough rest or sleep. But experts noted several possible explanations: West Virginia ranks at or near the bottom of the nation in several important measurements of health, including obesity, smoking, heart disease and the proportion of adults with disabilities.
Studies have increasingly found that sleeping problems often occurred among people with certain health problems, including obesity. “You would expect to see poorer sleep within a chronically (慢性地) diseased population,” noted Dr Ronald Chervin, a sleep disorders expert in University of Michigan.
Financial stress and work shifts (倒班) can play roles in sleeplessness, too, Chervin added. He suggested those may be contributing factors in West Virginia, an economically depressed state with tens of thousands of people working in coal mining.
The report was based on results of an annual telephone survey of more than 400,000 Americans, including at least 3,900 in each state. The survey did not include people who use only cellphones.
小题1:What is the main idea of Paragraph 1? (No more than 15 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
小题2:What does the underlined word “notably” in Paragraph 2 mean? (No more than 3 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
小题3: What was the possible reason for the high rate of sleeplessness in West Virginia according to Paragraph 3? (No more than 12 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________
小题4:List three factors that contribute to sleeplessness based on the passage.
(No more than 8 words.)
①____________________ ②_____________________ ③______________________
小题5:How was the research carried out? (No more than 10 words.)
___________________________________________________________________________ |
Brazil has become one of the developing world’s great successes at reducing population growth but more by accident than design. While countries such as India have made joint efforts to reduce birth rates, Brazil has had better result without really trying, says George Martine at Harvard.
Brazil’s population growth rate has dropped from 2.99% a year between 1951 and 1960 to 1.93% a year between 1981 to 1990, and Brazilian women now have only 2.7 children on average. Martine says this figure may have fallen still further since 1990, an achievement that makes it the envy of many other Third World countries.
Martine puts it down to, among other things, soap operas and installment plans introduced in the 1970s. Both played an important, although in direct, role in lowering the birth rate. Brazil is one of the world’s biggest producers of soap operas. Globo, Brazil’s most popular television network, shows three hours of soaps six nights a week, while three others show at least one hour a night. Most soaps are based on wealthy characters living the high life in big cities.
“ Although they have never really tried to work in a message towards the problems of reproduction, they describe middle and upper class values ---- not many children, different attitudes towards sex, women working,” says Martine. “ They sent this image to all parts of brazil and made people conscious of behavior and other values, which were put into a very attractive package.”
Meanwhile, the installment plans tried to encourage the poor to become consumers. “ This led to an enormous change in consumption patterns and consumption was incompatible with unlimited reproduction.” says Martine.
小题1:According to the passage, the two factors that lead to the success of population control in Brazil are _______________________________________.
小题2:The underlined phrase “ put down to ” in paragraph 3 has the closest meaning to _________________________________.
小题3:What made Brazil the envy of many other Third World countries?
_________________________________________________________________
小题4:Why did the author say that soap operas helped in lowering the birth rate?
_________________________________________________________________ |
When older honeybees take on tasks usually handled by younger bees, aging of their brains is effectively changed, a new study finds. The discovery suggests that in humans, social involvement ought to be considered
in addition to drugs as a way to treat age-related dementia(痴呆).
“We knew from previous research that when bees stay in the nest and take care of larvae—the bee babies---they remain mentally able as long as we observe them,” explained Gro Amdam, who led the research at Arizona State University. “However, after a period of nursing, bees fly out gathering food and begin aging very quickly.”
“After just two weeks, foraging(觅食的)bees have worn wings, hairless bodies, and more importantly, lose the brain function—-basically measured as the ability to learn new things,” Amdam said in a statement.
Amdam and his colleagues wanted to find out what would happen if they “asked” the foraging bees to take care of larval babies again. To find out, they removed younger nurse bees from a nest, leaving the older foraging bees to face a choice: forage or care for the larvae. Some of the older returned to searching for food, and others switched to caring for the nest and larvae. After ten days, about fifty percent of the older bees that had chosen to care for the nest and larvae had “greatly improved their ability to learn new things.”
The researchers also discovered changes in the proteins in the brains of the bees whose learning ability had improved. One of the proteins that changed, called Prx6, is also found in humans and is known to help protect against dementia.
“Maybe social involvement is something we can do today to help our brains stay younger,” Amdam says. “Since the proteins being researched in people are the same proteins bees have, these proteins may be able to respond to specific social experiences.”
Other studies have shown several non-drug methods can help improve brainpower in older people, including going for walks and taking music lessons.
The findings, announced this week, are detailed in the journal Experimental Gerontology.
小题1:What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 4 refer to? （No more than 5 words）
小题2:When do the brains of older bees age very fast? （No more than 9 words）
小题3:What is Amdam’s suggestion for old people to prevent dementia? （No more than 6 words）
小题4:What is the best title for the text? （No more than 6 words） |
阅读下面短文并用英语回答问题，然后将答案写到答案卡相应的位置上（请注意每个小题后面的词数要求）。
[1] Sometimes you are just having a really bad day, and it is easy for you to feel unhappy the whole day. If this is not dealt with properly, it really does harm to your health. Here are a few methods to help you out of trouble.
[2] Smile. Scientists say there is a direct connection between smiling and being happy. They found that smiling can produce a kind of substance (物质) in the body which helps to reduce the chance of getting ill. And they have discovered that most people who live long ______________.
[3] Exercise. Doing sports and games can help you forget your daily problems and make you happy. At the same time, it will help you stay in shape. You can choose from swimming, hiking or running. They are indeed helpful.
[4] Do something you love. Spend your time doing something that you like, such as cooking, reading, or shopping. If you don’t want to go outside, just watch some amusing programs on TV.
[5] Listen to positive music. Listening to happy music while singing along or dancing will take the anger or sadness right out of you! With the help of pleasant music, you will forget your daily problems and keep yourself in a good mood. You will feel that life is not so hard as you thought before.
[6] Think of others. It is better to forget yourself and look for ways to help others when you are feeling down. Look around and you will find there is surely someone in the world who is feeling worse than you. Try to help him and make his day better. In this way, you make yourself happy!
小题1:What does the word “it” (Line2, Paragraph1) probably refer to? (no more than 3 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
小题2:Fill in the blank in Paragraph 2 with proper words. (no more than 3 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
小题3:Point out the advantage of taking part in sports. (no more than 15 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
小题4:What will happen if you help those who are feeling even worse? (no more than 6 words)
____________________________________________________________________________
小题5:What is the passage mainly about? (no more than 8 words)
____________________________________________________________________________ |
Life on the Earth is wiped out every 27million years---and we have about 16 million years left until the next extinction, according to scientists.
Research into so-called ‘extinction events’ for our planet over the past 500 million years---twice as long as any previous studies ----has proved that they crop up with metronomic(有节奏的) regularity .
Scientists from the university of Kansas and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC are 99 percent confident that there are extinction every 27 million years.
In the 1980s scientists believed that Earth’s regular extinctions could be the result of a distant dark twin of the Sun, called Nemesis.
The theory was that Nemesis crashed through the Oort cloud every 27 million years and sent a shower of comets in our direction.
The Ocrt cloud is a vast belt of dust and ice that is believed to lie around one light year from the Sun and is the origin of many of the comets that pass through our solar system.
But now scientists claim that the regularity of the mass extinctions actually disproves the Nemesis theory because its orbit would have change over time as it interacted with other stars.
“Fossil data, which motivated the idea of Nemesis, now militate against(妨碍) it,” said the researchers.
The last extinctions event, 11 millions years ago, saw 10 percent of the Earth’s inhabitants (居民) wiped out.
This means there is around 16 million years until the next event takes place, although the graph shows that it occasionally the event takes place up to 10 million years early.
Asteroids(小行星) crashing into the Earth are commonly believed to be one of the main reasons behind mass extinctions like that suffered by the dinosaurs ---the Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction (白垩-第三纪灭绝事件).
The extinction wiped out more than half of all species on the planet clearing the way for mammals to become the dominant species(优势物种) on Earth.
The extinction was caused by a massive asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in Mexico.
The asteroid, which was around 15 kilometers wide, is believed to have hit Earth with a force one billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.
小题1: How many years are left until the next extinctions comes? (No more 6 words) (2′)
___________________________________________________________________
小题2:What resulted in the Earth’s regular extinctions according to scientists in the 1980s? (No more than 10words) (2′)
____________________________________________________________________
小题3: What did the last extinction event cause to the Earth? (No more than 10 words)(3′)
____________________________________________________________________
小题4:What’s believed to be one of the main reasons behind mass extinctions like that suffered by the dinosaurs? (No more than 7 words) (3′)
____________________________________________________________________ |
最新试题
热门考点