When Hurricane Phailin hit India in late 2013, it became the largest storm to strike the subcontinent in over a decade. The storm affected more than 12 million people in India and neighboring countries, and damaged or destroyed many houses. However, good news is that cleverly-designed beach house created by architect Ray Huff can survive such strong winds and storm waves.
Located on the shore of an Indian island, Huff’s award-winning cube-shaped beach house was built to replace one smashed to pieces by Hurricane Phailin.
Huff pointed out that many houses built along shoreline were poorly constructed, and enforcement(执行) of building codes wasn’t strict. After Phailin’s attack, all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes. The new beach house should be able to stand a Category 3 hurricane with peak winds of 179 to 209 kilometers per hour.
At first sight, Huff's house looks anything but hurricane-proof. Its redwood shell makes it resemble “a large party lantern” at night, according to one observer. But looks can be misleading. The house’s wooden frame is reinforced(加固) with long steel rods to give it extra strength.
To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2.7 meters off the ground on pilings---long columns of wood anchored(固定) deep in the sand. Pilings might appear insecure, but they are strong enough to support the weight of the house. They also balance the house above storm waves. The pilings allow the waves to run under the house instead of running into it. “These swells of water come ashore at great speeds and cause most of the damage done to beach-front buildings,” said Huff.
Huff designed the wooden pilings to be partially hidden by the house’s ground-to-roof shell. “The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn’t look like it’s standing with its pant legs pulled up,” said Huff. In case of a storm wave, the shell should break apart and let the waves rush under the house, the architect explained.
【小题1】After Hurricane Phailin, new houses built along shore line are required_____.
| A．to be easily reinforced |
| B．to look smarter in design |
| C．to meet stricter building standards |
| D．to be designed in the shape of cubes |
| A．it is made of redwood |
| B．it is in the shape of a shell |
| C．it is strengthened by steel rods |
| D．it is built with wood and stones |
| A．support the weight of the house |
| B．allow the waves to run through the house |
| C．anchor stronger pilings deep in the sand |
| D．prevent water from rushing into the house |
| A．to give the house a better appearance |
| B．to strengthen the pilings of the house |
| C．to protect the wooden frame of the house |
| D．to slow down the speed of the swelling water |
【小题1】C
【小题2】C
【小题3】D
【小题4】A
解析试题分析: 本文讲述在2013年的飓风中建筑师Ray Huff造的房子经受考验，对他所建造的房子进行分析。
【小题1】C 细节理解题。根据第三段提到After Phailin’s attack, all new shoreline houses are required to meet stricter, better-enforced codes所有新的海岸线的房屋必须符合严格的，更好的强制执行的代码标准，所以选C项。
【小题2】C 细节理解题。根据第四段提到The house’s wooden frame is reinforced(加固) with long steel rods to give it extra strength.房子的木框架钢筋（加固）长钢筋给予额外的力量 所以选C项。
【小题3】D 细节理解题。根据第五段提到To further protect the house from hurricane damage, Huff raised it 2.7 meters off the ground on pilings---long columns of wood anchored(固定) deep in the sand.得出为了抵御飓风，所以选D项。
【小题4】A 细节理解题。根据最后一段提到The shell masks the pilings so that the house doesn’t look like it’s standing with its pant legs pulled up这个壳掩盖了桩，使房子看来不象站着，让房子看起来更好看，所以选A项。
考点：科普类阅读。
优学名师名题系列答案科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
LONDON—Here’s a new warning from health experts：Sitting is deadly.
Scientists are increasingly warning that sitting for long periods—even if you also exercise regularly—could be bad for your health.And it doesn’t matter where the sitting takes place—at the office，at school，in the car or before a computer or TV—just the overall number of hours it occurs.Several studies suggest people who spend most of their days sitting are more likely to be fat，have a heart attack or even die.
In an editorial published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine，Elin EkblomBak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences suggested that authorities rethink how they define physical activity to highlight the dangers of sitting.
While health officials have issued guidelines recommending minimum amounts of physical activity，they haven’t suggested people try to limit how much time they spend in a seated position.
“After four hours of sitting，the body starts to send harmful signals，”said EkblomBak.She explained that genes regulating(调节) the amount of glucose(葡萄糖) and fat in the body start to shut down.
Even for people who exercise，spending long periods of time sitting at a desk is still harmful.Tim Armstrong，a physical activity expert at the World Health Organization，said people who exercise every day—but still spend a lot of time sitting—might get more benefit if that exercise was spread across the day，rather than in a single bout(一回)．
Still，in a study published in 2009 that tracked more than 17,000 Canadians for about a dozen years，researchers found people who sat more had a higher death risk，whether or not they exercised.
“We don’t have enough evidence yet to say how much sitting is bad，” said Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge，who led the Canadian study.“But it seems the more you can get up and interrupt this sedentary behavior，the better.”
Figures from a U．S. survey in 20032004 found Americans spend more than half their time sitting，from working at their desks to sitting in cars.
Experts said more research is needed to figure out just how much sitting is dangerous，and what might be possible to offset those effects.
“People should keep exercising because that has a lot of benefits，” EkblomBak said.“But when they’re in the office，they should try to interrupt sitting as often as possible，” she said.
【小题1】What is the best title for the text?
| A．Not Sitting Too Much While Working |
| B．How to Avoid Sitting Too Much |
| C．Sitting Too Much Could Be Deadly |
| D．More and More People Sit Too Much |
| A．the more time you spend in exercising in a single bout(一回)，the healthier you will be |
| B．those who often sit too much are sure to grow fat or suffer from a heart attack |
| C．regular exercise is effective to get rid of the side effects of sitting too much |
| D．you had better not sit for more than four hours in a single bout |
| A．It results in a higher death risk. |
| B．It increases glucose and fat in the body. |
| C．It makes a person unable to exercise long enough in a day. |
| D．It causes the gene to fail to balance the glucose and fat in the body. |
| A．improve | B．avoid |
| C．ignore | D．achieve |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Air pollution is one of the hottest topics at present because poor air quality is an important factor in both the incidence and cause of respiratory(呼吸道) diseases.
Zhong Nanshan, a deputy to the NPC and a member of the CAE, said recently when the concentration of PM2.5 rises by 10 micrograms per cubic meter, hospitalization may rise by as much as 3.1 percent. Meanwhile, when the concentration of PM2.5 rises from 25 mgs per cubic meter to 200, the average daily death rate may rise to 11 percent.
Zhi Xiuyi, a leading expert in lung cancer treatment and also vice-president of the CATS, said medical authorities used to focus on tobacco control as a primary means of preventing lung cancer. "But in fact, air pollution is no less harmful than smoking and our research team released a report earlier this year showing that the cancer rate in Beijing is closely related to industrialization," he said.
The report, conducted by the Beijing Institute of Cancer Research, shows that the number of cancer patients in China has increased markedly during the past ten years. Chaoyang District, the city's main area of industrialization, has the highest incidence of cancer, almost double that of Yanqing, an area on the outskirts of the city. About four out of 1000 Chaoyang residents have some form of the disease, with lung cancer at the top of the list.
"The risk of having cancer largely depends on the length of exposure and the concentration of noxious gases(有毒气体的浓度)," said Zhi. In response to the doubt whether seven years' exposure to poor air quality will almost result in cancer, Zhi said the time scale was taken from research overseas that suggested the rate of incidence generally peaked in the seventh year of exposure to a heavily polluted environment.
【小题1】 What is the passage mainly about?
| A．Medical researches on environment. |
| B．The disadvantages in big cities. |
| C．The only reason for the lung cancer. |
| D．Poor air quality contributing to lung cancer. |
| A．Compared with smoking, air pollution is more harmful. |
| B．Air pollution is as harmful as smoking. |
| C．It is very important to prevent people from smoking. |
| D．People realize the importance of keeping healthy. |
| A．16000 | B．12000 | C．8000 | D．7500 |
| A．Industrialization has its weakness as well as strengths. |
| B．The average death rate rises with different ages and places. |
| C．The air in Beijing is much more polluted than that in the other cities. |
| D．The more heavily-polluted air you breathe in, the sooner you’ll have cancer. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
What makes humans smarter than other animals? We’ve got a bigger brain, of course. But when it comes to brains, is bigger always better?
Traditionally, scientists have thought that humans’ superior intelligence derived(源于)mostly from the fact that our brains are three times bigger than those of our nearest living relatives, chimpanzees. People even used to believe that because men have slightly larger brains than women that men are smarter.
This, however, is not the truth. Scientists at University College London in the UK have found that brain organization, and not brain size, is the key to the superiority of human intelligence, reported Live Science.
Through millions of years of evolution, our ancestors were constantly pushed to get smarter so that they could meet the demands of new environments. However, holding this growing intelligence in increasingly large brains was not the best choice because bigger brains require more energy to power. “This is when reorganization may come into play, ”said Christophe Soligo, a member of the London research team.
In the study, scientists looked at the brains of 17 species of primates(灵长目动物), including monkeys, apes and humans. They found that in the process of evolution, brains didn’t keep growing as a whole. Certain regions of the brain grew prior to others in response to species’ needs, and in this way they could make the best use of their limited brain space.
For example, when early humans were struggling to survive, the brain region in charge of using tools and finding food grew in size more than other regions. But in modern times, the prefrontal cortex(前额皮质)—the region in charge of social cognition(认知), moral judgments and goal-directed planning—grew more than the rest of the brain.
Think of the brain as a room. If a big room is poorly organized, it doesn’t necessarily store more stuff than a smaller one.
Paul Manger, professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, explains this principle using the example of whales. He told Scientific American: “Whales have big brains, absolutely. But if you look at the actual structure of the brain, it’s not very complex. Brain size only matters if the rest of the brain is organized properly. ”
【小题1】It has recently been found that humans are smarter than the other animals mainly because .
| A．they are a species of primates |
| B．they have much larger brains |
| C．their brain structure is more complex |
| D．they were constantly pushed to get smarter |
| A．the brain kept growing in size to adapt to new environments |
| B．most regions of the brain didn’t change |
| C．the prefrontal cortex grew more than the rest of the brain |
| D．humans’ brains became increasingly simple so that humans could survive |
| A．Gender makes a difference in intelligence. |
| B．The size of the brain has nothing to do with intelligence. |
| C．Species whose brain is organized properly tend to be smarter. |
| D．Larger brains are usually organized better than smaller ones. |
| A．by presenting research data |
| B．by giving examples |
| C．by making a comparison |
| D．by analyzing cause and effect |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
People in several American states may be surprised to see cars on city streets without a driver. Experimental driverless vehicles now are legal in Florida, Nevada and California. They are pointing the way to a future that is not far down the road. The high-tech company Google has a number of self-driving cars, which had covered 480,000 kilometers by August. Volvo is among the companies doing road tests and says it plans to sell driverless cars by 2020.
In September, California Governor Jerry Brown signed an act to allow autonomous vehicles on the roads of his state. " Today we're looking at science fiction becoming tomorrow's reality-the driverless car. " The technology for these cars includes cameras, radar and motion sensors. The systems have been improved through competitions sponsored by the U. S. government agency DARPA. Engineer Richard Mason of the Rand Corporation helped design driverless vehicles for DARPA challenge races.
Cars have become much more fuel-efficient, and new electronic features are' making Hondas safer, said Angie Nucci of Honda America. " A camera on the passenger-side mirror actually engaged on your guiding screen so you can safely change lanes. " Other safety features include warning systems on the front and the sides of the cars. These systems help drivers , but don't replace them. Curator Leslie Kendall of the Petersen Automotive Museum said autonomous cars will make the high ways safer．
"By taking out drivers, you also remove most risks of an accident," Kendall said. He said consumers, however, may be unwilling to lose control. "It may take them time to come to realize that the technology is indeed reliable, but it will have to prove itself first. "
Mason said the technology already works and the biggest challenge now is getting down the cost for driverless vehicles from hundreds of thousands of dollars to something more affordable. He said this will happen as the technology is improved.
【小题1】What can we learn from Paragraph l?
A. Driverless vehicles are now legal in the whole USA.
B. Volvo will be the first to sell driverless cars.
C. Driverless cars are pointing us' a faraway future.
D. Google's self-driving cars have covered a long distance.
【小题2】We learn that Governor of California Jerry Brown_________.
| A．helped design self-driving cars. |
| B．supports self-driving cars on roads. |
| C．considers self-driving cars science fiction. |
| D．improved the self-driving car systems. |
| A．They can help people drive more safely. |
| B．They can take the place of drivers now. |
| C．They can make cars run without fuel. |
| D．They can help cars run much faster. |
| A．They are not allowed to run on the road. |
| B．Their technical problems remain to be solved. |
| C．They are now too expensive for consumers. |
| D．They are more dangerous for people on the street. |
| A．The benefits of the self-driving cars. |
| B．The biggest challenge of the self-driving cars. |
| C．Safer or more dangerous-self-driving cars. |
| D．Self-driving cars-science fiction future is near. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
The weather predictions for Asia in 2050 read like a story from a doomsday movie.
Many experts and green groups fear they will come true unless there is a united global effort to hold back greenhouse gas outpouring. In the decades to come, Asia---home to more than half the world’s 63 billion people-will change from one climate extreme to another, with tired farmers battling droughts, floods, disease, food shortages and rising sea levels.
“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Steve Sawyer, climate policy adviser with Greenpeace in Amsterdam. Global warming and changes of weather patterns are already occurring and there is more than enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to drive climate change for decades to come.
Already, changes are being felt in Asia but worse is likely to come, Sawyer and top climate bodies say, and could lead to mass migration and widespread human disasters. According to predictions, icebergs will melt faster, some Pacific and Indian Ocean islands will have to evacuate(疏散) or build sea defenses, storms will become more intense and insect and water-borne diseases will move into new areas as the world warms.
All this comes with rising populations and demand for food, water and other resources. Experts say environmental worsening such as deforestation and pollution will probably enlarge the results of climate change.
In what could be a sign of the future, Japan was hit by a record of 10 typhoons and tropical storms this year, while two-thirds of Bangladesh, parts of Nepal and large areas of northeastern India were flooded, affecting 50 million people, destroying livelihoods and making tens of thousands ill.
The year before, a winter cold struck and a summer heat wave killed more than 2,000 people in India.
【小题1】This passage is mainly about .
| A．what kind of weather we like best |
| B．the weather predictions for Asia in the future and the reasons |
| C．how to improve our environment |
| D．that the world will not be suitable for us to live in |
| A．food shortages | B．droughts | C．wars | D．floods |
| A．happiness | B．sadness | C．peace | D．excitement |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Chinese parents are very generous when it comes to educating their children. Not caring about the money, parents often send their children to the best schools or even abroad to England, the United States or Australia. They also want their children to take extra-course activities where they will 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 will spend an unreasonable amount of money on education. Even poor couples will buy a computer for their son or daughter.
However, what most parents fail to see is that the best early education they can give their children is usually very cheap.
Parents can see that their children’s skills vary, skilled in some areas while poor in others. What most parents fail to realize, though, is that today’s children lack self-respect and self-confidence.
The problem is that parents are only educating their children on how to take multiple-choice tests and how to study well, but parents are not teaching them the most important skills they need to be confident, happy and clever.
Parents can achieve this by teaching practical skills like cooking, sewing and doing 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. His result, a well-cooked dinner, will give him much satisfaction and a lot of self-confidence.
Some old machines, such as a broken radio or TV set that you give your child to play with will make him curious and arouse his interest. He will spend hours looking at them,tying to fix them ,your child might become an engineer when he grows up. These activities are not only teaching a child to read a book, but rather to think, to use his mind. And that is more important.
【小题1】Parents in China according to this passage .
| A．are too strict with their children |
| B．are too rich to educate their children |
| C．have some problems in educating their children correctly |
| D．have no problems in educating their children strictly |
| A．the parents’ ideas of educating their children |
| B．the education system of the school |
| C．children’s skills in cooking at home |
| D．children’s hobbies in the classroom |
| A．learn how to serve their parents |
| B．learn how to become strong and fat |
| C．get a lot from it and prepare themselves for the future |
| D．make their parents believe that they are clever |
| A．broken radios and television sets are useful |
| B．one’s interest and curiosity may be useful for his later life |
| C．an engineer must fix many broken radios |
| D．a good student should spend much time repairing radios |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
(2013·高考浙江卷，C)The baby monkey is much more developed at birth than the human baby.Almost from the moment it is born，the baby monkey can move around and hold tightly to its mother.During the first few days of its life the baby will approach and hold onto almost any large，warm，and soft object in its environment，particularly if that object also gives it milk.After a week or so，however，the baby monkey begins to avoid newcomers and focuses its attentions on“mother”—the real mother or the mothersubstitute(母亲替代物)．
During the first two weeks of its life warmth is perhaps the most important psychological(心理的)thing that a monkey mother has to give to its baby.The Harlows，a couple who are both psychologists，discovered this fact by offering baby monkeys a choice of two types of mothersubstitutes—one covered with cloth and one made of bare wire.If the two artificial mothers were both the same temperature，the little monkeys always preferred the cloth mother.However，if the wire model was heated，while the cloth model was cool，for the first two weeks after birth the baby monkeys picked the warm wire mothersubstitutes as their favorites.Thereafter they switched and spent most of their time on the more comfortable cloth mother.
Why is cloth preferable to bare wire？Something that the Harlows called contact(接触)comfort seems to be the answer，and a most powerful influence it is.Baby monkeys spend much of their time rubbing against their mothers’ skins，putting themselves in as close contact with the parent as they can.Whenever the young animal is frightened，disturbed，or annoyed，it typically rushes to its mother and rubs itself against her body.Wire doesn’t “rub” as well as does soft cloth.Prolonged(长时间的)“contact comfort” with a cloth mother appears to give the babies confidence and is much more rewarding to them than is either warmth or milk.
According to the Harlows，the basic quality of a baby’s love for its mother is trust.If the baby is put into an unfamiliar playroom without its mother，the baby ignores the toys no matter how interesting they might be.It screams in terror and curls up into a furry little ball.If its cloth mother is now introduced into the playroom，the baby rushes to it and holds onto it for dear life.After a few minutes of contact comfort，it obviously begins to feel more secure.It then climbs down from the mothersubstitute and begins to explore the toys，but often rushes back for a deep embrace(拥抱)as if to make sure that its mother is still there and that all is well.Bit by bit its fears of the new environment are gone and it spends more and more time playing with the toys and less and less time holding onto its “mother”．
【小题1】Psychologically，what does the baby monkey desire most during the first two weeks of its life?
| A．Warmth. | B．Milk. |
| C．Contact. | D．Trust. |
| A．larger in size |
| B．closer to them |
| C．less frightening and less disturbing |
| D．more comfortable to rub against |
| A．Attention. | B．Softness. |
| C．Confidence. | D．Interest. |
| A．it frequently rushes back for a deep embrace when exploring the toys |
| B．it spends more time screaming to get rewards |
| C．it is less attracted to the toys though they are interesting |
| D．it cares less about whether its mother is still around |
| A．give the reasons for the experiment |
| B．present the findings of the experiment |
| C．introduce the method of the experiment |
| D．describe the process of the experiment |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Everyone has got two personalities-the one that is shown to the world and the other that is secret and real. You don’t show your secret personality when you’re awake because you can control your behavior, but when you’re asleep, your sleeping position shows the real you. In a normal night, of course, people frequently change their positions. The important position is the one that you go to sleep in.
If you go to sleep on your back, you’re a very open person. You normally trust people and you are easily influenced by fashion or new ideas. You don’t like to displease people. So you never express your real feelings. You’re quite shy and you aren’t quite sure of yourself.
If you sleep on your stomach, you are a rather secretive person. You worry a lot and you’re always easily upset. You always stick to your own opinions or judgment, but you don’t raise your hopes too much. You usually live for today not tomorrow. This means that you enjoy having a good time.
If you sleep curled up, you are probably a very nervous person. You have a low opinion of yourself and so you’re often defensive. You’re shy and you don’t normally like meeting people. You prefer to be on your own. You’re easily hurt.
If you sleep on your side, you have usually got a well—balanced personality. You know your strengths and weakness. You’re usually careful. You believe in yourself. You sometimes feel anxious, but you don’t often get sad. You always insist on what you think even if it makes people rather angry.
【小题1】According to the passage, a person, who is not willing to change his mind and hard to deal with, probably sleeps .
| A．on his side | B．on his back | C．curled up | D．on his stomach |
| A．do things personally. | B．stay alone |
| C．keep things secret | D．trust others easily |
| A．The people sleeping on their stomachs and those sleeping on his backs. |
| B．The people sleeping on their sides and those sleeping curled up. |
| C．The people sleeping on their backs and those sleeping on their sides. |
| D．The people sleeping curled up and those sleeping on their stomach. |
| A．one’s sleeping position has something to do with one’s character. |
| B．everyone has got both real and secret personalities. |
| C．the position in which one goes to sleep is the most important one. |
| D．when awake, one does not show one’s secret personality. |
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