Franz Kafka wrote that “a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us.

Franz Kafka wrote that “a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us.

题型:不详难度:来源:

Franz Kafka wrote that “a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us. ”I once shared this sentence with a class of seventh graders, and it didn’t seem to require any explanation.
We’d just finished John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men. When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. “Are you crying?” one girl asked, as she got out of her chair to take a closer look. “I am,” I told her, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.”
But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I’ve taught kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel’s terrible logic—the giving way of dreams to fate (命运).
For the last seven years, I have worked as a reading enrichment teacher, reading classic works of literature with small groups of students from grades six to eight. I originally proposed this idea to my headmaster after learning that a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school—one that often attracts the literary-minded children of Manhattan’s upper classes—into a less competitive setting. The daughter of immigrants, with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates. I thought additional “cultural capital” could help students like her develop better in high school, where they would unavoidably meet, perhaps for the first time, students who came from homes lined with bookshelves, whose parents had earned Ph. D.’s.
Along with Of Mice and Men, my groups read: Sounder, The Red Pony, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. The students didn’t always read from the expected point of view. About The Red Pony, one student said, “it’s about being a man, it’s about manliness. ”I had never before seen the parallels between Scarface and Macbeth, nor had I heard Lady Macbeth’s soliloquies (独白) read as raps (说唱), but both made sense; the interpretations were playful, but serious. Once introduced to Steinbeck’s writing, one boy went on to read The Grapes of Wrath and told me repeatedly how amazing it was that “all these people hate each other, and they’re all white.” His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening. Year after year, former students visited and told me how prepared they had felt in their first year in college as a result of the classes.
Year after year, however, we are increasing the number of practice tests. We are trying to teach students to read increasingly complex texts, not for emotional punch (碰撞) but for text complexity. Yet, we cannot enrich (充实) the minds of our students by testing them on texts that ignore their hearts. We are teaching them that words do not amaze but confuse. We may succeed in raising test scores, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.
小题1:The underlined words in Paragraph 1 probably mean that a book helps to __________.
A.realize our dreamsB.give support to our life
C.smooth away difficultiesD.awake our emotions
小题2:Why were the students able to understand the novel Of Mice and Men?
A.Because they spent much time reading it.
B.Because they had read the novel before.
C.Because they came from a public school.
D.Because they had similar life experiences.
小题3:The girl left the selective high school possibly because__________.
A.she was a literary-minded girlB.her parents were immigrants
C.she couldn’t fit in with her classD.her father was then in prison
小题4:To the author’s surprise, the students read the novels__________.
A.creativelyB.passivelyC.repeatedlyD.carelessly
小题5:The author writes the passage mainly to__________.
A.introduce classic works of literature
B.advocate teaching literature to touch the heart
C.argue for equality among high school students
D.defend the current testing system

答案

小题1:D
小题2:D
小题3:C
小题4:A
小题5:B
解析
这是一篇议论文,内容讲是“老师谈教学生文学阅读的感受”。
小题1:句意猜测题。该句运用了明喻和暗喻的写作手法,将书比作斧子,冰冻的大海意指读者封锁的情感。作者引用这句话旨在告诉学生:一本好书应有助于唤醒读者的情感。
小题2:细节归纳题。根据第三段内容可知,小说“Of Mice and Men”中的悲剧在学生生活中有类似经历,如“kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parentsthemselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods.”因此答案是D。
小题3:细节理解题。根据第四段“…a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school”及“… she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates”可知答案是C。
小题4:细节归纳题。根据第五段“The students didn’t always read from the expected point of view.”“I had never before seen …, nor had I heard…, but both made sense; the interpretations were playful, but serious.”“His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening.”可知答案是A(creatively创造性地)。passively“被动地”;repeatedly“重复地”;carelessly“粗心地”。
小题5:主旨归纳题。纵观全文,文章开头引用Franz Kafka的名言说明文学作品对唤醒学生情感的作用,接着详细介绍在平时教学生文学阅读过程中如何触及学生心灵的。因此答案是B。
举一反三

Plants are flowering faster than scientists predicted(预测)in reaction to climate change, which could have long damaging effects on food chains and ecosystems.
Global warming is having a great effect on hundreds of plant and animal species around the world, changing some living patterns, scientists say.
Increased carbon dioxide(CO2)in the air from burning coal and oil can have an effect on how plants produce oxygen, while higher temperatures and changeable rainfall patterns can change their patterns of growth.
“Predicting species’ reaction to climate change is a major challenge in ecology,” said the researches of several U.S. universities. They said plants had been the key object of study because their reaction to climate change could have an effect on food chains and ecosystem services.
The study, published on the Nature website, uses the findings from plant life cycle studies and experiments across four continents and 1,634 species. It found that some experiments had underestimated(低估)the speed of flowering by 8.5 times and leafing by 4 times.
“Across all species, the experiments under-predicted the speed of the advance — for both leafing and flowering — that results from temperature increases,” the study said.
The design of future experiments may need to be improved to better predict how plants will react to climate change, it said.
Plants are necessary for life on the Earth. They are the base of the food chain, using photosynthesis(光合作用)to produce sugar from carbon dioxide and water. They let out oxygen which is needed by nearly every organism on the planet.
Scientists believe the world’s average temperature has risen by about 0.8℃ since 1900, and nearly 0.2℃ every ten years since 1979.
So far, efforts to cut emissions(排放)of planet-warming greenhouse gases are not seen as enough to prevent the Earth heating up beyond 2℃ this century — a point scientists say will bring the danger of a changeable climate in which weather extremes are common, leading to drought, floods, crop failures and rising sea levels.
小题1:What is the key information the author wants to give in Paragraph 1?
A.Plants’ reaction to weather could have damaging effects on ecosystem.
B.The increasing speed of flowering is beyond scientists’ expectation.
C.Climate change leads to the change of food production patterns.
D.Food chains have been seriously damaged because of weather.
小题2:We can learn from the study published on the Nature website that ______.
A.plants’ flowering is 8.5 times faster than leafing
B.there are 1,634 plant species on the four continents
C.scientists should improve the design of the experiments
D.the experiments failed to predict how plants react to climate change
小题3:Scientists pay special attention to the study of plants because _______.
A.they can prove the climate change clearly
B.they are very important in the food chains
C.they play a leading role in reducing global warming
D.they are growing and flowering much faster than before
小题4:What can be inferred from the last two paragraphs about the world’s temperature?
A.It has risen nearly 0.2℃ since 1979.
B.Its change will lead to weather extremes.
C.It is 0.8℃ higher in 1979 than that of 1990.
D.It needs to be controlled within 2℃ in this century.

题型:不详难度:| 查看答案

If you are looking for an animal to take the title of “most violent fish in the sea”, then the tiger puffer (河豚) fish would have to be a strong contestant. Not only is it deadly poisonous --- though that doesn’t stop people trying to eat it --- but it is also able to scare off enemies by inflating itself to become much larger than normal, when it is young it even chews on its own brothers and sisters.
Tiger puffer fish attach their eggs to rocks near the bottom of the sea, often at the mouths of bays. Then the larvae (幼鱼) move to the entries of rivers and lakes once they have grown a little. Then, having put on a lot of weight, they head out to sea. There’s no innocent childhood for the puffer fish, as Shin Oikawa of Kyushu University in Japan and his colleagues found out when they put the larvae of tiger puffer fish in the lab and monitored them for two months. They found that the larvae went through three steps in which their metabolic(新陈代谢) rates increased dramatically when they reached body weights of 0.002g, 0.01g, and 0.1g. When a larva went through one of these steps, its behavior also changed. For instance, once a larva had passed the first level it would have grown its first tooth and could start attacking larvae that had not yet reached that stage. Similarly, any larva that had reached the 0.01g or 0.1g levels would start attacking lighter larvae.
The researchers noted that the baby fish had a “relatively small mouth”, so rather than swallowing their brothers and sisters whole, they would bite pieces out of them. Despite this limitation, the fish caused plenty of deaths --- up to 12 per cent of the deaths that happened in the lab each day.
Those fish that grew fast enough to be able to chew on their fellows had an advantage. The extra food accelerated their growth and development. Tiger puffer fish are likely to be faster and swifter, so they can deal better with enemies.
As the name suggests, puffer fish can inflate to make themselves seem much larger than they really are, thus scaring off enemies. They do this by filling their stomachs, which are extremely elastic(弹性的), with water. If that’s not enough of a threat, the tiger puffer fish --- like most of the other puffer fish in the family --- carries a deadly toxin(毒素). Eat one puffer fish and the poison will paralyze (瘫痪) your muscles, including the muscles responsible for breathing, so death is usually caused by a lack of oxygen. Famously, the fish is a delicacy in Japan, where highly qualified chefs produce dishes that contain the safe level of the poison. Interestingly, the puffer fish does not go to the trouble of producing the poison itself. Instead, it hosts bacteria (细菌) that produce the stuff. It obtains these bacteria from its diet, so the youngest adult fish are not poisonous.
小题1:All of the following statements account for the violence of puffer fish except that_____.
A.they are very difficult to catch
B.they can become larger to threaten enemies away
C.they kill their younger companions as they grow up
D.they are deadly poisonous
小题2:We can learn from the second paragraph that puffer fish _____.
A.can only grow to a weight of 0.1g
B.do not change their behavior as they grow up
C.like to find a safe place to hatch the next generation
D.begin to grow teeth when they reach the third level
小题3:Where does the poison in the puffer fish’s body come from?
A.Its inner organs.B.The air it breathes in.
C.The diet it eats.D.The bacteria around it.
小题4:Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?
A.Puffer fish can only produce poison when they face danger.
B.People like eating puffer fish even though they are poisonous.
C.The larvae are more aggressive than adult puffer fish.
D.Young puffer fish taste better than adult puffer fish.

题型:不详难度:| 查看答案

For those who are tired doing the laundry, Samsung has found an answer: a washing machine that can tell you when your laundry is done via a smartphone app(application).
Strange though it may seem — “my wife already does that” was a common response among attendees viewing the device when it was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week — Samsung is just one of many appliance makers racing to install (安装) a large number of internet-connected features in machines in an effort to make them “smart”.
Last year, it was a refrigerator that tweeted. This year, it’s Wi-Fi-enabled laundry machines and fridges that can tell you when your groceries are going bad.
The washers and dryers, available starting in the spring, connect to any smartphone through a downloadable application. The phone can then be used as a remote control, so the machines can be turned on and off while their owners is at work or on the bus.
Samsung says it’s not just something new — the app connection actually has some practical uses.
“If you started to dry clothes in the morning and forgot to take them out, you can go to your phone and restart your dryer for the time when come home, so your clothes are refreshed and ready to go,” said spokesperson Amy Schmidt.
The company also says that with electricity rate(电价)varying depending on the time of day, more control over when the machines are used can help save money.
Perhaps, but what they will probably really accomplish is what all good technologies do —enable laziness. Rather than getting up to check on whether the laundry is done, users will instead monitor it on their phones while watching TV.
小题1:What can be inferred from the common response of the attendees at the CES?
A.The machine will be a big success.
B.their wives like doing the laundry.
C.The machine is unrelated to their life.
D.This kind of technology is familiar to them.
小题2:What can we learn about the new laundry machines?
A.They can tell you when your clothes need washing
B.They can be controlled with a smartphone
C.They are difficult to operate
D.They are sold at a low price
小题3:We can conclude form Samsung’s statements that ___________.
A.the app connection makes life easier
B.it is better to dry clothes in the morning
C.smartphone can shorten the drying time
D.we should refresh clothes back at home
小题4:What is the main idea of the last paragraph?
A.The laundry should be frequently checked
B.Lazy people like using such machines
C.Good technologies also cause problems
D.Television may help do the laundry.

题型:不详难度:| 查看答案

Honey(蜂蜜)from the African forest is not only a kind of natural sugar, it is also delicious. Most people, and many animals, like eating it. However, the only way for them to get that honey is to find a wild bees" nest(巢)and take the honey from it. Often, these nests are high up in trees, and it is difficult to find them. In parts of Africa, though, people and animals looking for honey have a strange and unexpected helper一a little bird called a honey guide.
The honey guide does not actually like honey, but it does like the wax (蜂蜡) in the beehives (蜂房). The little bird cannot reach this wax, which is deep inside the bees’ nest. So, when it finds a suitable nest, it looks for someone to help it. The honey guide gives a loud cry that attracts the attention of both passing animals and people. Once it has their attention, it flies through the forest, waiting from time to time for the curious animal or people as it leads them to the nest. When they
finally arrive at the nest, the follower reaches in to get at the delicious honey as the bird patiently waits and watches. Some of the honey, and the wax, always falls to the ground, and this is when the honey guide takes its share.
Scientists do not know why the honey guide likes eating the wax, but it is very determined in its efforts to get it. The birds seem to be able to smell wax from a long distance away. They will quickly arrive whenever a beekeeper is taking honey from his beehives, and will even enter churches when beeswax candles are being lit.
小题1:Why is it difficult to find a wild bees" nest?
A.It"s small in size.
B.It"s hidden in trees.
C.It"s covered with wax.
D.It"s hard to recognize.
小题2:What do the words "the follower" in Paragraph 2 refer to?
A.A bee.B.A bird.
C.A honey seeker.D.A beekeeper.
小题3:The honey guide is special in the way________.
A.it gets its food
B.it goes to church
C.it sings in the forest
D.it reaches into bees" nests
小题4:What can be the best title for the text?
A.Wild Bees
B.Beekeeping in Africa
C.Wax and Honey
D.Honey-Lover"s Helper

题型:不详难度:| 查看答案

Mark and his brother Jason both were looking at the shining new computer enviously. Jason was determined not to go against their father’s wishes but Mark was more adventurous than his brother. He loved experimenting and his aim was to become a scientist like his father.
“Dad will be really mad if he finds out you’ve been playing with his new computer.” Jason said, “He told us not to touch it.”
“He won’t find out.” Mark said, “I’ll just have a quick look and shut it down.”
Mark had been scolded before for touching his father’s equipment. But his curiosity was difficult to control and this new computer really puzzled him.
It was a strange-looking machine –one his dad had brought home from the laboratory where he worked. “It’s an experimental model,” his father had explained, “so don’t touch it under any circumstances.” But his father"s warning only served to make Mark more curious. Without any further thought, Mark turned on the power switch. The computer burst into life and seconds later, the screen turned into colors, shifting and changing and then two big white words appeared in the center of the screen: “SPACE TRANSPORTER.”
“Yes!” Mark cried excitedly, “It’s a computer game. I knew it! Dad’s only been pretending to work. He’s really been playing games instead.” A new message appeared on the screen:
“ENTER NAMES
VOYAGER 1: …
VOYAGER 2: …”
Mark’s fingers flew across the keyboard as he typed in both of their names.
“INPUT ACCEPTED. START TRANSPORT PROGRAM. AUTO-RETRIEVE INITIATED(自动回收程序已启动).”
The screen turned even brighter and a noise suddenly rose in volume.
“I think we’d better shut it off, Mark,” Jason yelled, reaching for the power switch. He was really frightened.
But his hand never reached the switch. A single beam of dazzling white light burst out of the computer screen, wrapping the boys in its glow (光芒), until they themselves seemed to be glowing. Then it died down just as suddenly as it had burst into life. And the boys were no longer there. On the screen, the letters changed.
“TRANSPORT SUCCESSFUL. DESTINATION(目的地): MARS. RETRIEVE DATE: 2025.”
小题1:Why did Mark touch the computer against his father’s warning?
A.He wanted to take a voyage.
B.He wanted to practice his skill
C.He was so much attracted by it.
D.He was eager to do an experiment.
小题2:Where did the boy’s father most likely work?
A.In an electronic factory.
B.In a computer company.
C.In a scientific research center.
D.In an information processing center.
小题3:Mark thought “SPACE TRANSPORTER” on the screen was the name of          .
A.a computer gameB.a company website
C.a software producerD.an astronomy program
小题4:Why did Jason want to shut off the computer?
A.He was afraid of being scolded.
B.He didn’t like the loud noise and light.
C.He didn’t want to play games any more.
D.He was afraid something dangerous might happen.
小题5:What happened to the boys at the end of the story?
A.They were blown into the air.
B.They were sent to another planet.
C.They were hidden in the strong light.
D.They were carried away to another country

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