阅读理解 The zebra belongs to the horse family. One of nature"s great mysteries
题型：陕西省同步题难度：来源：
ebra belongs to the horse family. One of nature"s great mysteries is why the zebra has stripes. One theory
is that the stripes help the zebra cool down. On hot days the black stripes get a lot hotter than the white area of the zebra and under the black stripes there are special layers of fat for protection.
Hot air then rises off the black stripes, forcing colder air down around the white areas, cooling the zebra
down. This, however, is just a theory. The stripes can also confuse predators (食肉动物) when zebra
stay with other animals in great numbers.
Zebras have excellent hearing and eyesight and can run at a speed of up to 35 miles per hour
(56 kilometers per hour). They also have a powerful kick that can cause serious injury to a predator, like
a lion, or an African wild dog. Usually the lead male of the herd stays at the back of the group to defend
against predators if necessary, while the females and youngsters run from danger.
Zebras are herbivores and feed mostly on grasses, although they also might eat the leaves and stems (茎) of bushes a bit. They eat grasses for many hours each day, using their strong teeth. Spending so
much time chewing wears the zebra"s teeth down, so their teeth keep growing all their lives. As the dry
season arrives and the grasses die back, zebra herds travel to find more food and water holes for
drinking. Most zebras have no specific territories. They travel from place to place, never staying in one
area very long.
B. The black stripes help the zebra live through cold days.
C. The zebra can easily be attacked by predators.
D. The zebra always travels with other animals.
B. animals that only eat plants
C. animals that kill and eat other animals
D. animals that live in groups
B. are used all day
C. are always growing
D. are kept clean
B. Their stripes can confuse predators.
C. They can run 56 miles per hour.
D. They usually stay in one area all their lives.
rograms might the passage be adapted for?B. Everyday Tips
C. Digital Stadium
D. Discoveries
答案
举一反三
How far is the sun from the earth? This is really a question
________(引起兴趣) scientists of all times.
But they had no way of getting an exact answer.Now with
the use of radio telescope, they are a________to give a correct
answer:the sun is 92,956,000 miles________from
the earth.The airplane today travels at a speed of 700 miles
an hour.S________that you were flying to the
sun________this airplane.You could make no stops
for rest, nor for gas or________(油), because there
would be no place for you to stop.You would fly day and
________at such a speed.Yet by the time you arrived,
fifteen years would have passed.The________(电的)
train can travel as fast as 110 miles an hour.If a railway could be
b________on a sunbeam, it could take the train nearly
100 years to r________the sun.You would get very,
very tired even if you lived to finish the journey.
young people now get on with their parents, which is the opposite of the popularly held image of
unhappy teenagers locked in their room after endless family quarrels.
An important new study into teenage attitudes surprisingly shows that their family life is more
harmonious than it has ever been in the past."We were surprised by just how positive today"s young
people seem to be about their families, "said one member of the research team."They"re expected to be
rebellious (叛逆的) and selfish but actually they have other things on their minds; they want a car and
material goods, and they worry about whether school is serving them well. There"s more negotiation
(商议) and discussion between parents and children, and children expect to take part in the family
decision-making process. They don"t want to rock the boat."
So it seems that this generation of parents is much more likely than parents of 30 years ago to treat
their children as friends. "My parents are happy to discuss things with me and willing to listen to me,"
says 17yearold Daniel Lazall."I always tell them when I"m going out clubbing. As long as they know what I"m doing, they"re fine with it." Susan Crome, who is now 21, agrees."Looking back on the last 10 years,
there was a lot of what you could call negotiation. For example, as long as I"d done all my homework,
I could go out on a Saturday night. But I think my grandparents were a lot stricter with my parents than
that."
Maybe this positive view of family life should not be unexpected. It is possible that the idea of teenage
rebellion is not rooted in real facts. A researcher comments, "Our surprise that teenagers say they get
along well with their parents comes because of a brief period in our social history when teenagers were
regarded as different beings. But that idea of rebelling and breaking away from their parents really
happened during the 1960s when everyone rebelled. The normal situation throughout history has been a
smooth change from helping out with the family business to taking it over."
B. They dislike living with their parents.
C. They have to be locked in to avoid troubles.
D. They quarrel a lot with other family members.
B. cause trouble in their families
C. go boating with their family
D. make family decisions
B. are much stricter with their children
C. careless about their children"s life
D. give their children more freedom
B. is common nowadays
C. existed only in the 1960s
D. resulted from changes in families
also shows that the difference in life expectancy (预期寿命) between rich and poor becomes
smalleramong those who live in an environment with parks and trees.
Richard Mitchell, from Glasgow University, and his colleagues, found that the gap between the
number of deaths of people on high incomes and the number of deaths of those on low incomes in green
areas was half that compared with figures relating to builtup areas.
Green spaces, classified by the researchers as "open, undeveloped land with natural vegetation",
encouraged people to walk and be more active. Exercise in these settings could have greater benefits
than exercise elsewhere, the researchers said.
The benefits potentially go beyond exercise. Studies have shown that being around green spaces can
reduce blood pressure and stress levels, and possibly help patients recover faster.
A number of researchers have looked at the effects of greenery on our wellbeing. But few studies
had looked at whether living in green areas reduced health inequalities, the Glasgow team said.
Using information from a landuse database of 2001, the researchers divided the preretirement
population of England into four groups according to income level, and five groups according to access
to green space. They then looked at death rate for 2001～2005.
They found that the inequality in death rate from all causes relating to lack of money was less in
those populations in the greenest areas compared with the figures for people living in more builtup places. They found an even stronger relationship when it came to deaths from certain diseases such as heart
conditions and stroke (中风). There was no difference, however, in deaths from lung cancer.
The researchers said that changing the physical environment was an easier way to fight against poor
health than using media campaigns or giving out information on health. "The result of the study is clear:
Environments that promote good health might be very important in the fight to reduce health
inequalities."
B. the number of deaths
C. the income
D. the living area
B. They encouraged people to exercise in green areas.
C. They studied the effects of greenery on people"s health.
D. They focused on the influence of greenery on health inequalities.
B. People should take more exercise every day.
C. More trees and grass should be planted in cities.
D. People should help to fight against health problems.
B. Green spaces promote good health.
C. Income influences health less than environment.
D. Exercise in green areas benefits people a lot.
problem is growing."Teenagers really underestimate how much noise they are exposed to" Dr Josef
Shargorodsky said.__①__
The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, compared national surveys between the early 1990s and the mid2000s.In the first survey, about 15 percent of teenagers had some
degree of hearing loss.__②__Most of the hearing loss was in one ear only.While it was usually slight,
one in 20 adolescents had more pronounced (显著的) problems-up 50 percent since the first survey.
Hearing loss is very common in the elderly, Grimes said, but she added that it was concerning to see
it come into the younger age groups.In babies and young children, hearing problems are known to delay
language development, which in turn influences performance in other areas.Slight hearing loss, for instance, makes it difficult to distinguish between highfrequency consonants like "s" and "f"
__③__The science is less clear for adolescents, but it is easy to imagine how being hard of hearing could
influence learning, said Grimes."We know from a lot of data that noisy classrooms are one of the biggest
challenges to learning."
The reasons for the rise are still uncertain.When asked about noise exposure-on the job, from
firearms or recreational activities, for instance-the teenagers didn"t indicate any change.But Shargorodsky said, "We knew from before that it is difficult to ask this age group about noise exposure-they
underestimate it."__④__Although it"s not clear that these devices are to blame, Grimes said it was still a
good idea to turn down the volume.But she pointed out the advice would likely fall on deaf ears.She said
the American Academy of Hearing had also contacted Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, about adding a
volume limiter on iPods, but never heard back.
1. In which place should the sentence "Few people would call it noise when they listen to music on their
MP3 players, for instance." be put?
A. ①
B. ②
C. ③
D. ④
2. What"s the main idea of the third paragraph?
A. Hearing loss was very common in the elderly in the country.
B. The sounds like "s" and "f" are hard to distinguish by babies.
C. The number of teenagers with hearing problems is decreasing.
D. Babies and teenagers are also facing problems of hearing loss.
3. Which of the following is TRUE?
A. The reasons of the hearing loss are known to the researchers.
B. The surveys have been carried out for at most 15 years.
C. The reasons for the rise are clear to the researchers.
D. The results of the surveys have been published in a newspaper.
4. The American Academy of Hearing contacted the CEO of Apple in order to________.
A. share the surveys with the CEO of Apple
B. get more help in finance from the Apple Company
C. remind the company to add a volume limiter on iPods
D. express warning and threat to the CEO of Apple
The Chinese are very generous when it comes to educating their children.Some parents send their
children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the US or Australia, regardless of how much
this costs. Many also want their children to take extracurriculum (课外的) activities where they either
learn a musical instrument or ballet, or other classes that will give them a head start in life.The Chinese
believe that the more expensive an education is, the better it is, so parents often spend unreasonable
amount of money on education.Even poor couples buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best education they can give their children is
usually very cheap.Parents can see that their children"s skills vary; they will usually be skilled in some
areas while poor in others.What most parents fail to realize though, is that today"s children lack
selfrespect and selfconfidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiplechoice tests and
how to study effectively.They are not teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident,
happy and clever.
Parents can help achieve this by teaching their children practical skills like cooking, sewing and other
housework.
Teaching a child to cook will improve many of the skills that he will need later in life.Cooking
demands patience and time.It is an enjoyable but difficult experience.A good cook always tries to
improve his cooking, so he will learn to work hard and gradually finish his job successfully.The result, a
wellcooked dinner, will give a child a lot of satisfaction and confidence.
An old machine such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child as a toy may make him
curious and arouse his interest.If he will spend hours looking at it, and try to mend it, your child might
become an engineer when he grows up.Such activities do more than teach a child to read a book; but
rather they teach them to think, and to use their minds.This is much more important than learning by
reading a book.