There has been a large increase in the number of natural disasters over the past few years, and it is believed that global warming and climate change could cause even more disasters in thefuture. Some of the world’s leading cities are facing disasters like floods and heat waves.
London
London’s flood defences are getting older. Since 1982, the Thames Barrier(水闸)has protected the city from the threat (威胁)of flooding, but it was only designed to last until 2030 and close once every two or three years. About 31 years later the barrier now closes five or six times a year and according to Environment Agency predictions, by 2050 the barrier will be closed on almost every tide if the problem is not solved
There are 26 underground stations, 400 schools, 16 hospitals, an airport and 80 billion worth of property(财产）in London’s flood risk area, so large scale flooding would be disastrous.
Paris
Over a six week period in July and August 2003, more than 1 1,400—mainly elderly people—died in France from dehydration(脱水)and extremely high body temperature in a deadly heat wave. Heat waves of similar intensity(强度)are expected every seven years by 2050, so what can be done to make sure such a disaster does not happen again?
One solution is to have air-conditioners installed（安装）in elderly care homes. But this is considered a short-term solution, as the increase in demand for electricity also increases carbon emissions(排放).
In Paris the local authorities are encouraging architects to design new types of buildings such as the building “Flower Tower,” which uses a covering of bamboo to act as a natural air-conditioner.
Shanghai
Shanghai is the fastest growing city on Earth. It has a population of 18 million and is only 4 meters above sea level. Sea levels are predicted to rise by 20 cm within the next century.
About 250，000 people move to Shanghai every year in search of work, placing extra demands on energy consumption（消耗）. China depends heavily on coal—fired power stations, but these emissions increase temperatures and, in turn, warmer seas increase the risk of typhoons.
【小题1】What problem should be settled now in London?
| A．How to protect the city’s property |
| B．Where to build its flood defences |
| C．How to use the Thames Barrier to protect the city |
| D．How to improve the function of the old flood defences |
| A．Putting up new types of buildings with a covering of bamboo. |
| B．Having air-conditioners installed in elderly care homes. |
| C．Forbidding the city to build “Flower Tower”. |
| D．Encouraging architects to design new types of buildings. |
| A．increasing population and coal-fired power stations |
| B．rising sea levels and typhoons |
| C．extremely high temperature and rising sea levels |
| D．extra demands on energy consumption and typhoons |
| A．to tell us how to protect the big cities |
| B．to give advice on how to defend natural disasters |
| C．to explain what causes flood and heat waves |
| D．to warn us of the increasing natural disasters in big cities |
【小题1】D
【小题2】C
【小题3】B
【小题4】D
解析试题分析：在过去的几年里，自然灾害发生的次数逐渐增加，人们普遍认为全球变暖的气候变化会造成更多的自然灾害。一些世界级的大城市都在面临着洪水，热浪等灾害。比如在上海，由于能源消耗所引起的海水温度上升会使上海面临着台风的危险，而巴黎则受着高温热浪的影响。
【小题1】D推理判断题。文章第二段but it was only designed to last until 2030 and close once every two or three years. ….. by 2050 the barrier will be closed on almost every tide if the problem is not solved提到了伦敦防洪工事的老化，不能应对新出现的情况，由此判断D选项正确
【小题2】C根据文章第五段和第六段内容可知作为解决巴黎热浪灾害的方法，A、B、D选项内容均有涉及，而C选项内容文章没有提到，故答案选C。
【小题3】B细节理解题。根据文章倒数一、二段内容可知上海仅仅高于海平面4米，而在下个世纪海平面 要升高20厘米，而且能源消耗所导致的海水温度的上升，也会带来台风的危险，所以B选项正确。
【小题4】D推理判断题。作者在文章首段提到it is believed that global warming and climate change could cause even more disasters in thefuture.然后列举了伦敦、巴黎和上海几个大城市所面临的潜在的自然灾害问题，由此可知作者是想警告人们逐渐增加的自然灾害的危险，故答案选D。
考点：考查环境类短文阅读。
阅读快车系列答案科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Popeye the Sailor first became a popular cartoon in the 1930s. the sailor in that cartoon ate lots of spinach to make him strong. People watched him, and they began to buy and eat a lot more spinach. Popeye helped sell 33 percent more spinach than before! Spinach became a necessary part of many people’s diets. Even some children who hated the taste began to eat the vegetable.
Many people thought that the iron in spinach made Popeye strong, but this is not true. Spinach does not have any more iron than any other green vegetable.
People only thought spinach had a lot of iron because the people who studied the food made a mistake. In the 1890s, a group of people studied what was inside vegetables. This group said that spinach had ten times more iron than it did. The group wrote the number wrong, and everyone accepted it.
Today, we know that the little iron in spinach cannot make a difference in how strong a person is. However, spinach does have something else which the body needs—folic acid.
It is interesting to point out that folic acid can help make a person strong. Maybe it was really the folic acid that made Popeye strong all along.
【小题1】A good title for this reading passage is______.
| A．Popeye the Sailor |
| B．The Truth About Spinach |
| C．A Mistake with Numbers |
| D．Folic Acid Makes You Strong |
| A．People liked folic acid. |
| B．They thought Popeye was funny. |
| C．Spinach had a lot of iron. |
| D．They thought spinach made them strong. |
| A．made Popeye strong |
| B．was a green vegetable |
| C．had less iron than other green vegetables |
| D．had more iron than other green vegetables |
| A．iron | B．spinach | C．folic acid | D．exercise |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Did anyone find the names of “Great Britain”, “the United Kingdom”, “England” and “the British commonwealth” which have the same meaning? Strictly speaking, these names all refer to something different. None of them are exactly the same as any of the others.
The British isles refer to the main islands and several thousand small ones as well, which you can see on the map. Great Britain, or Britain, refers to the larger of the two main islands. But the word “Britain” is often used as a short form for the United Kingdom or you call it the UK.
Now as for England, it refers simply to the largest of the three countries on the island of Great Britain. The United Kingdom is the name of the state and the official name of the country, which many people popularly refer to England.
Finally, the Britain commonwealth is the usual name for what is left of the British Empire (帝国). This change shows the weakening of British Empire and the rising of the national liberation movements throughout the world today.
【小题1】According to the passage, we know that _____________.
| A．Great Britain has the same meaning as Britain |
| B．all the names refer to England |
| C．the United Kingdom has the same meaning as Britain or England |
| D．all the names in the first paragraph have the same meaning |
| A．Britain, England and the UK |
| B．the two main islands and thousands of small ones |
| C．three countries and several islands |
| D．Great Britain or the United Kingdom |
| A．The country hasn’t an exact name. |
| B．Few people know its real name. |
| C．All the names have exact meaning. |
| D．Generally speaking,the names can all be used to stand for the country. |
| A．Edinburgh, England |
| B．Edinburgh, Scotland ,Great Britain |
| C．Scotland, Edinburgh, England |
| D．Great Britain, Scotland, Edinburgh |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Every electronic gadget (小玩意) needs good memory. A music player stores songs, albums and playlists. A computer holds schoolwork and programs and remembers how far a player has advanced in his or her favorite game. Mobile phones store names, numbers and hundreds of texts.
Now, scientists in California say they have come up with a way to turn a living cell into a memory device.
It can store only one tiny bit of information, but it’s a start. In the future, a cell-based gadget might travel through the body and record measurements. The benefit to human health could be big: the right tool, for example, might record the earliest signs of disease.
Doctors, scientists and other curious people want to know what is happening inside the body, even at levels that can’t be seen by the naked eye. So far, there is no device small enough to travel through the bloodstream.
If normal machines won’t do the trick, perhaps biology will. Scientists who work in the field of synthetic (合成的) biology are trying to find ways to turn living things into human tools. In the case of the new memory device, bioengineers from Stanford University used the genetic material inside living cells to record information.
This genetic material consists of DNA. Found in nearly every cell, DNA carries all of the information that keeps a living thing alive.
In the new experiment, the researchers turned DNA from bacteria(细菌) into a switch. They “flip (翻转)” a small section of DNA. Then, using the same procedure (过程) , the scientists flip the section again—returning it into its normal structure.
Using these DNA switches, “We can write and erase DNA in a living cell,” bioengineer, Jerome Bonnet, explained to Science News.
It might take years before his team or others identity whether a DNA-based memory device might be practical. Right now, it takes one hour to complete a flip. That is far too long to be useful. Plus, a flipped section has a very small little memory—less than what a computer uses to remember a single letter.
“This was an important proof that it was doable,” Bonnet told Science News. “Now we want to build a more complex system, something that other people can use.”
【小题1】What is the aim of listing the electronic things in the first paragraph?
| A．To make the passage more fashionable. |
| B．To show how electronic things have memory. |
| C．To discuss things in detail. |
| D．To make the subject of the text more understandable. |
| A．To detect disease at the earliest point. |
| B．To help improve the memory. |
| C．To help people build a body. |
| D．To replace many electronic gadgets. |
| A．It has a very small memory. |
| B．It can function as a computer. |
| C．It has one letter in it. |
| D．It takes a day to complete it. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Today, the biggest killers stem as much from our lifestyles as from bacteria and viruses. One of the worst of these is heart disease, and specifically high blood pressure. It’s a slow, but efficient killer that robs many people of what should be the last 10, 20 or 30 years of their lives.
Scientists are claiming that they have now separated unusual ingredients in a rare seaweed discovered by fishermen off the coast of Korea that offer incredible health benefits—including the ability to restore blood pressure to normal levels.
Dr. Haengwoo Lee, a famous biochemist conducted a clinical study on these two ingredients. The first is Seanol, an extremely rare seaweed extract(浓缩物) from Ecklonia Cava that's proven to be 100 times more powerful than any land-based antioxidant(抗氧化剂). That's because it stays working in your body for 12 hours, compared to land-based antioxidants that work for 30 minutes. "Its secret is its make-up of special chemicals that are a huge 40% fat soluble( 可溶的)," Dr. Lee explains. "Unlike nearly all land-based antioxidants that are water soluble, Seanol's protective compounds can get into things like the fatty tissues of your brain and penetrate（渗透） all three layers of your cells, including the outside, the oil-based cell membranes（细胞膜）, and your DNA." Indeed, Seanol is so powerful, it's the only FDA-approved Ecklonia Cava marine-algae (海藻) extract in existence.
The second ingredient is Calamarine, a deep-sea omega-3 discovery that delivers 85% more DHA omega-3s to your heart, brain, joints, and eyes. It's known to reduce the problems from tiredness and poor memory, joint pain, mood swings and depression.
With that research in mind, Dr. Lee combined Seanol and Calamarine with a high dose of vitamin D to form Marine-D3, the newest supplement in the fight against age-related illnesses and high blood pressure.
Dr. Lee found that Calamarine delivers some of the greatest concentration of omega-3s known to science. Combined with Seanol's ability to reduce body inflammation(炎症), as well as help cells get the nutrients they need to thrive, stay healthy and protected, Marine-D3 is able to boost a body's entire well being.
The makers of Marine-D3 are so confident that you'll see fast dramatic results from this product, that if you aren't happy after two full months, simply return the unused portion and they'll buy it back. They'll even give you ten dollars extra just for giving it an honest try! That kind of faith, combined with Dr. Lee's exhaustive research, shows that Marine-D3 really is a one-of-a-kind product.
【小题1】From the first paragraph we can infer that ________.
| A．Our lifestyles result from the biggest killers |
| B．our lifestyles do less harm to our bodies than bacteria and viruses do. |
| C．High blood pressure left untreated may cause shorter life. |
| D．Heart disease is incurable. |
| A．Fishermen off the coast of Korea have isolated unusual ingredients. |
| B．Scientists have purified ingredients that can lower blood pressure to normal standard. |
| C．Scientists discovered a rare seaweed. |
| D．Scientists have imagined a medicine that treat blood pressure. |
| A．According to FDA , Seanol reaches the agreed standard. |
| B．Seanol can be fat soluble entirely. |
| C．Seanol is a common seaweed extract fromEcklonia Cava. |
| D．Seanol's protective compounds can get into all things like the fatty tissues of your brain. |
| A．pessimistic | B．indifferent | C．doubtful | D．Optimistic |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Getting kids to share their toys is a never-ending battle, and forcing them to do so never seems to help. New research suggests that allowing children to make a choice to sacrifice their own toys in order to share with someone else makes them share more in the future. The new findings are published in Psychological Science.
These experiments were conducted by psychological scientists, Nadia Chernyak and Tamar Kushnir of Cornell University. They found that sharing things with others when they are given a difficult choice leads children to think of themselves as people who like to share. It also makes them more likely to act in a pro-social （亲社会的）manner in the future.
Previous research has explained why rewarding children for sharing can backfire. Children come to think of themselves as people who don't like to share since they had to be rewarded for doing so. Because they don't view themselves as "sharers", they are less likely to share in the future.
Chernyak and Kushnir were interested in finding out whether freely chosen sacrifice might have the opposite effect on kids' willingness to share. To test this, the researchers introduced five-year-old children to Doggie, a sad puppet. Some of the children were given a difficult choice: Share a precious sticker（贴纸） with Doggie, or keep it for themselves. Other children were given an easy choice between sharing and putting the sticker away, while children in a third group were required by the researcher to share.
Later on, all the children were introduced to Ellie, another sad puppet. They were given the option of how many stickers to share (up to three). The kids who earlier made the difficult choice to help Doggie shared more stickers with Ellie. The children who were initially faced with an easy choice or who were required to give their sticker to Doggie, on the other hand, shared fewer stickers with Ellie. Therefore, children did not benefit from simply giving something up, but rather from willingly choosing to give something up of value.
“You might imagine that making difficult, costly choices is demanding for young children or even that once children share, they don’t feel the need to do so again,” Chernyak says. “But this wasn't the case: once children made a difficult decision to give up something for someone else, they were more generous, not less, later on.” Chernyak concludes.
【小题1】_______ helps children to share more in the future.
| A．Rewarding children for sharing |
| B．Forcing children to share |
| C．Allowing children to share precious things willingly |
| D．Allowing children to share what they don’t need |
| A．have an opposite effect | B．serve as a push |
| C．cause anger | D．avoid taking things back |
| A．they regret what they did | B．it’s not their own choice |
| C．Ellie is not as sad as Doggie | D．they like to share with a real person |
| A．parents will never find a way to get children to share toys |
| B．a gift should be given to make up for children’s sacrifice |
| C．children pretend to be generous when they are being observed |
| D．making difficult choices may influence sharing behavior |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Life on Mars could become a reality and it could happen in your lifetime.
A welcoming planet
Scientists say Earth’s neighbor Mars, a bright red planet about half Earth’s size, is the most likely to support human life. Mars even has frozen water on its surface.
Since the late 1990s, NASA has been exploring Mars using remote-controlled vehicles（装置）. Most recently Curiosity, a car-size vehicle, traveled through space on an unpiloted spacecraft(航天器) and landed on Mars in August 2012. Directed by NASA scientists , the vehicles move on the surface, taking pictures , collecting and analyzing soil, and looking for signs of life.
But what about human explorers? Plans are already in the works to send astronauts to Mars as soon as the mid-2030s.
_____________________________________
But before you start packing your bags, let’s consider the challenges. For starters, Mars is far away. Just getting there could take up to 10 months.
Scientists already know that time away from Earth’s gravity harms the human body. Bones and muscles get weaker. The body produces less blood. What damage would months and months of living in space do?
And then there is the matter of water, oxygen, food and fuel. Scientists will have to find solutions to these problems, or the first humans on Mars won’t survive very long in their new home.
Tiny Dangers
There’s another tinier risk. It’s so tiny that you can’t even see it: germs.
Some scientists believe that our germs could pollute the whole planet of Mars. Potentially killing Martian life before we have the chance to discover it. Worse, there is a small but terrifying chance that any microscopic life already there might be harmful to us .
Worse still, if any of those Martian germs(火星细菌) were brought back to Earth, the result could be disastrous. Animals, plants, and people could be wiped out.
Worth the $$$?
A more practical concern is the cost. The price could approach $ 1 trillion(万亿). How can we justify spending that much when so many problems—poverty, disease—could use the cash here on Earth?
【小题1】Which of the following is TRUE according to the “A welcoming planet” part?
| A．Mars is a little bigger than Earth. |
| B．There are flowing rivers on Mars. |
| C．People haven’t been to Mars so far. |
| D．Scientists have discovered signs of life on Mars. |
| A．Living in space. | B．Limited resources. |
| C．Extreme conditions. | D．Interesting challenges. |
| A．there is no serious danger |
| B．people won’t be in any danger |
| C．it’s difficult for people to realize the danger |
| D．the danger may be caused by very small things |
| A．Martian germs may be different from those on Earth. |
| B．Martian germs may be brought back to Earth. |
| C．People may carry germs to Mars. |
| D．There may be germs on Mars. |
| A．People | B．History | C．Science | D．Business |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
About ten men in every hundred suffer from color blindness in some way. Women are luckier; only about one in two hundred is affected in this matter. Perhaps, after all, it is safer to be driven by a woman!
There are different forms of color blindness. In some cases a man may not be able to see deep red. He may think that red, orange and yellow are all shadows of green. Sometimes a person cannot tell the difference between blue and green. In rare cases an unlucky man may see everything in shades of green － a strange world indeed.
Color blindness in human beings is a strange thing to explain. In a single eye there are millions of very small things called “cones”. These help us to see in a bright light and to tell difference between colors. There are also millions of “rods”, but these are used for seeing when it is near dark. They show us shape but no color.
Some insects have favorite colors. Mosquitoes prefer blue to yellow. A red light will not attract insects, but a blue lamp will. In a similar way human beings also have favorite colors. Yet we are lucky. With the aid of the cones in our eyes we can see many beautiful colors by day, and with the aid of the rods we can see shapes at night. One day we may even learn more about the invisible colors around us.
【小题1】The passage is mainly about _____________.
| A．color and its surprising effects. |
| B．women being luckier than men |
| C．danger caused by color blindness |
| D．color blindness |
| A．tell different shapes | B．see in a weak light |
| C．kill mosquitoes | D．tell orange from yellow |
| A．Women are more careful. |
| B．There are fewer color-blind women |
| C．Women are fonder of driving than men. |
| D．Women are weaker but quicker in thinking. |
| A．Not all of them have the same problem in recognizing color. |
| B．None of them can see deep red. |
| C．None of them can tell the difference between blue and green. |
| D．All of them see everything in shades of green. |
| A．red light | B．yellow light | C．blue light | D．green light |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
A regular drop in the sun’s radiation(辐射) can cause unusually cold winters in parts of North America and Europe, scientists say, a finding that could improve long-range forecasts and help countries prepare for snowstorms.
Scientists have known for a long time that the sun has an 11-year cycle during which radiation measured by sunspots on the surface reaches a peak then falls. But explaining a clear connection to weather is harder.
“Our research confirms the observed connection between solar change and regional winter climate,” lead author Sarah Ineson of the UK Met Office told the reporters in an email. The study was published in the magazine Nature Geoscience on Monday.
The researchers found that the reducing of ultraviolet(UV，紫外线) radiation from the sun can affect high-altitude wind patterns in the Northern Hemisphere(半球), causing cold winters.
“While UV levels won’t tell us what the day-to-day weather will do, they show us the bright future of improved forecasts for winter conditions for months and even years ahead. These forecasts play an important role in long-term possibility planning,” Ineson, a climate scientist, said.
Ineson and colleagues from Imperial College London and the University of Oxford used satellite data that more accurately(精确的) measures UV radiation from the sun and found a much greater change than previously thought.
They found that in years of low activity, unusually cold air forms high in the atmosphere over the tropics. This causes a redistribution(重新分配) of heat in the atmosphere, making easterly winds that bring freezing weather and snowstorms to northern Europe and the United States and milder weather to Canada and the Mediterranean.
When solar UV radiation is stronger, the opposite occurs.
More study was needed, though. A key uncertainty in the experiment lay in the satellite data used, because it covers only a few years. “So questions remain concerning both accuracy(精确) and also applicability to other solar cycles,” she said.
【小题1】The new finding claims cold winters in the North Hemisphere can be caused by ______.
| A．a sharp rise in the amount of sunspots |
| B．a drop in the sun’s UV radiation |
| C．a complex computer model simulation |
| D．a clear link between the sun and the earth |
| A．UV radiation can affect high-altitude wind patterns |
| B．there’s a clear connection between the sun’s activity and weather |
| C．the sun’s radiation reaches a peak every eleven years |
| D．they can predict day-to-day weather conditions from UV levels |
| A．Canada and the Mediterranean will have milder weather. |
| B．The whole Northern Hemisphere will suffer from extreme winter days. |
| C．Freezing cold weather will appear in northern Europe. |
| D．Burning hot weather will appear in the United States. |
| A．researchers have analyzed the data collected in eleven years |
| B．long-term weather conditions can be accurately predicted depending on UV levels |
| C．the research doesn’t seem correct and true enough due to limited satellite data used |
| D．climate scientists have just begun their research in severe weather forecast |
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