Almost every machine with moving parts has wheels, yet no one knows exactly when the first wheel was invented or what it was used for. We do know, however, that they existed over 5,500 years ago in ancient Asia.
The oldest known transport wheel was discovered in Slovenia. It is over 5,100 years old. Evidence suggests that wheels for transport didn’t become popular for a while, though. This could be because animals did a perfectly good job of carrying farming tools and humans around. But it could also be because of a difficult situation. While wheels need to roll on smooth surfaces, roads with smooth surfaces weren’t going to be constructed until there was plenty of demand for them. Eventually, road surfaces did become smoother, but this difficult situation appeared again a few centuries later. There had been no important changes in wheel and vehicle design before the arrival of modern road design.
In the mid-1700s, a Frenchman came up with a new design of road — a base layer (层) of large stones covered with a thin layer of smaller stones. A Scotsman improved on this design in the 1820s and a strong, lasting road surface became a reality. At around the same time, metal hubs (the central part of a wheel) came into being, followed by the pneumatic type (充气轮胎） in 1846.Alloy wheels were invented in 1967, sixty years after the appearance of tarmacked roads (柏油路). As wheel design took off, vehicles got faster and faster.
【小题1】What might explain why transport wheels didn’t become popular for some time?
| A．Few knew how to use transport wheels. |
| B．Humans carried farming tools just as well. |
| C．Animals were a good means of transport. |
| D．The existence of transport wheels was not known. |
| A．It was easier than wheel design. |
| B．It improved after big changes in vehicle design. |
| C．It was promoted by fast-moving vehicles. |
| D．It provided conditions for wheel design to develop. |
| A．By giving examples. | B．By making comparisons. |
| C．By following time order. | D．By making classifications. |
| A．The beginning of road design. |
| B．The development of transport wheels. |
| C．The history of public transport |
| D．The invention of fast-moving vehicles. |
【小题1】C
【小题2】D
【小题3】C
【小题4】B
解析试题分析：文章大意：本文介绍了车轮的发展历程。第一段是引入话题--车轮的发展。第二段说明车轮发展缓慢的原因；第三段以时间顺序说明车轮的发展历程。
【小题1】考查细节理解。根据第二段第二行“This could be because animals did a perfectly good job of carrying farming tools and humans around”可知，当时车轮没有流行起来的一种原因是动物充当了很好的交通工具。故选C。
【小题2】考查提取有效信息的能力。根据第二段第四行“While wheels need to roll on smooth surfaces, roads with smooth surfaces weren’t going to be constructed until there was plenty of demand for them.”可知，车轮需要在光滑平整的路面上行驶，而当时对平坦路面的需求并不高。排除A；根据第二段最后一句“There had been no important changes...”可知，B、C错误；故选D。
【小题3】考查段落大意。根据in the mid-1700s；in the 1820s；At around the same time；in 1846；in 1967；sixty years after等时间状语可知，最后一段是按照时间顺序来展开的。故选C。
【小题4】考查对文章大意的把握。文章开头点题，提出了世界上第一个车轮是何时发明的这个问题。第二段解释车轮没有很快流行起来的原因；最后一段介绍了随着道路的发展，车轮的不断改良。道路设计的发展只是一个促进车轮发展的因素，排除A；文章没有介绍公共交通；故选B。
考点：说明文类短文阅读
科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
When an ant dies, other ants take it out of the nest, often within an hour after its death. This behavior interests scientists and they wonder how ants know for sure—and so soon—that another ant is dead.
One scientist recently came up with a way to explain this ant behavior. Dong-Hwan Choe is a biologist, a scientist who studies animals and plants. He found that ants have a chemical on the outside of their bodies that signals to other ants, “I'm dead—take me away” when it is dead.
But there's a question to answer: As we know, if an ant is dead, it stops moving. But when an ant is sleeping or knocked unconscious, it is also not moving. However, other ants don't move the living ant out of the nest. How do they know this ant is not dead? Choe found that ants have another chemical on their bodies, which tells nearby ants something like, “Wait—I'm not dead yet” when it is not dead. Choe suspects that when an ant dies, the chemical that says, “Wait— I'm not dead yet” quickly goes away. When other ants detect the “dead” chemical without the “not dead yet” chemical, they move away the body.
To test his theory, Choe and his team put different chemicals on ants. When the scientists used the “I'm dead” chemical, other ants quickly moved the treated ant away. When the scientists used the “Wait—I'm not dead yet” chemical, other ants left the treated ant alone. Choe believes this behavior shows that the “not dead yet” chemical is stronger than the “dead” chemical when picked up by other ants. And that when an ant dies, the “not dead yet” chemical fades away. Other nearby ants then detect the remaining “dead” chemical and remove the body from the nest.
Understanding this behavior can help scientists figure out how to stop ants from invading new places and causing problems.
【小题1】What is the function of the first paragraph?
| A．Leading the following paragraphs. |
| B．Showing the main idea of the passage. |
| C．Introducing the background of the passage. |
| D．Giving a summary of the passage. |
| A．Living ants can also be taken away when they are not moving. |
| B．When an ant dies, it can tell others using a certain chemical. |
| C．A living ant can pretend to be dead using a special chemical. |
| D．Ants often use chemicals to communicate with each other. |
| A．Choe did this study in order to stop ants from invading new places. |
| B．Choe is a biologist who is only interested in animals, especially in ants. |
| C．Choe first came up with an idea to explain this ant behavior, and then did some tests to prove his theory. |
| D．Choe did the research on this ant behavior on his own. |
| A．experiments about how ants manage to keep their nests clean. |
| B．experiments about why ants have special chemicals on their bodies. |
| C．experiments about why ants can have this removal behavior |
| D．experiments about how to decide whether an ant is dead or not. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Unknown to most Facebook users, the social network actually offers a lot of privacy controls and security features which can help you lock your account, so you can speak freely. If it’s used properly, you’ll never have to worry about whether you will have to “friend” your boss or your mom. You can friend anyone you want while staying comfortable in the knowledge that not everyone gets to see everything you post.
The problem with carrying out these privacy options is that they’re just too confusing for most non-tech clever people to handle. And often, most people don’t want to bother to take the time to learn. To simplify the process, we’re offering one easy step you can take today to help make your Facebook experience safer, more secure, and more private.
Just make “Friend Lists”. Yes, it will take some time, especially if you’re connected to a couple of hundred friends already. But this step, while not the quickest, is fairly simple. And it will be one of the most useful things you can do on Facebook.
Friend lists, as the name suggests, are lists for classifying your friends into various groups. The nice thing about this feature is that once you set these lists up, you won’t have to do it again. We suggest that you put your work colleagues and professional acquaintances into a friend list named “Work”, personal friends you’re not very close with into a list called “Acquaintances”, and people you’re related to into a list called “Family”. Those three main categories will separate out the groups of “friends” who you may want to hide some information from.
To create a friend list, click on “Friends” at the top of the Facebook homepage. In the left-hand column, click “Friends” again under the “Lists” section. Now you’ll see a button at the top that says “Create New List”. Click it. In the pop-up that appears, you can name your list and pick members. If you’ve ever shared an application with your friends, the process of doing this will be very familiar.
When you’ve finished making lists, you’ll be able to use them when selecting who can see what (or who can’t!) when configuring (配置) the security settings described below.
【小题1】What function isn’t understood by most people on Facebook?
| A．Surfing the Internet. |
| B．Setting safety protection. |
| C．Sharing personal information. |
| D．Making foreign friends. |
| A．Its process of privacy-setting is too complex. |
| B．It displays everything people post. |
| C．It lacks privacy controls and security features. |
| D．Its post is designed for technical people. |
| A．We can avoid our bosses adding us as friends. |
| B．We can share applications with friends. |
| C．We can separate acquaintances from family. |
| D．We can hide different information from different friends. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Below is a selection from a popular science book.
If blood is red, why are veins (静脉) blue?
Actually, veins are not blue at all. They are more of a clear, yellowish color. Although blood looks red when it’s outside the body, when it’s sitting in a vein near the surface of the skin, it’s more of a dark reddish purple color. At the right depth, these blood-filled veins reflect less red light than the surrounding skin, making them look blue by comparison.
Which works harder, your heart or your brain?
That kind of depends on whether you’re busy thinking or busy exercising. Your heart works up to three times harder during exercise, and shifts enough blood over a lifetime to fill a supertanker. But, in the long run, your brain probably tips it, because even when you’re sitting still your brain is using twice as much energy as your heart, and it takes four to five times as much blood to feed it.
Why do teeth fall out, and why don’t they grow back in grown-ups?
Baby (or “milk”) teeth do not last long; they fall out to make bigger room for bigger, stronger adult teeth later on. Adult teeth fall out when they become damaged, decayed and infected by bacteria. Once this second set of teeth has grown in, you’re done. When they’re gone, they are gone. This is because nature figures you’re set for life, and what controls regrowth of your teeth switches off.
Do old people shrink as they age?
Yes and no. Many people do get shorter as they age. But, when they do, it isn’t because they’re shrinking all over. They simply lose height as their spine (脊柱) becomes shorter and more curved due to disuse and the effect of gravity (重力). Many (but not all) men and women do lose height as they get older. Men lose an average of 3-4 cm in height as they age, while women may lose 5 cm or more. If you live to be 200 years old, would you keep shrinking till you were, like 60 cm tall, like a little boy again? No, because old people don’t really shrink! It is not that they are growing backwards—their legs, arms and backbones getting shorter. When they do get shorter, it’s because the spine has shortened a little. Or, more often, become more bent and curved.
Why does spinning make you dizzy (眩晕的)?
Because your brain gets confused between what you’re seeing and what you’re feeling. The brain senses that you’re spinning using special gravity-and-motion-sensing organs in your inner ear, which work together with your eyes to keep your vision balance stable. But when you suddenly stop spinning the system goes out of control, and your brain thinks you’re moving while you’re not!
Where do feelings and emotions come from?
Mostly from an ancient part of the brain called the limbic system. All mammals （哺乳动物）have this brain area — from mice to dogs, cats, and humans. So all mammals feel basic emotions like fear, pain and pleasure. But since human feelings also involve other, newer bits of the brain, we feel more complex emotions than any other animal on the planet.
If exercise wears you out, how can it be good for you?
Because our bodies adapt to everything we do to them. And as far as your body is concerned, it’s “use it, or lose it”! It’s not that exercise makes you healthy; it’s more that a lack of exercise leaves your body weak and easily affected by disease.
【小题1】What is the color of blood in a vein near the surface of the skin?
| A．Blue | B．Light yellow |
| C．Red | D．Dark reddish purple |
| A．Because their spine is in active use. |
| B．Because they are more easily affected by gravity. |
| C．Because they keep growing backwards. |
| D．Because their spine becomes more bent. |
| A．In the long run, our brain probably works harder than our heart |
| B．When our brain senses the spinning, we will feel dizzy. |
| C．The brains of the other mammals are as complex as those of humans. |
| D．Our feelings and emotions come from the most developed area in our brain. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
New research shows that overweight or even mildly obese people have a lower risk of early death than people considered to be normal weight.
Researchers examined the results of 97 studies. Most of the studies were less than 10 years old. They included almost three million adults from around the world, including the United States, Canada, China, Taiwan, Brazil, India and Mexico.
The researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics found that people who are considered overweight or slightly obese were five to six percent less likely to die from all causes than people of normal weight. People with higher obesity ratings, however, had almost a 30 percent greater risk of death compared to normal-weight individuals.
Katherine Flegal was the lead author of the study. She says she was not surprised that overweight people would not have a higher risk of death.
“Because we’d actually already read a lot of this literature and realized it was likely that mortality rates (死亡率) for overweight would be at least not higher than normal weight. I guess I was a little bit surprised that it was definitely lower. And I was also surprised that the lower rates of obesity also didn’t seem to differ from normal weight.”
But she says the difference in death rates appears to be small between normal-weight people and those who are overweight or mildly obese.
The study has raised new questions about “body mass index,”（体重指数） or BMI. This is a measurement of body fat as a ratio（比率） of height to weight. In recent years, many public health experts have promoted body mass index as a way to predict the risk of health problems. Bu t a person's BMI can be misleading in some cases.
Steven Heymsfield ,the executive director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, says people can be physically fit and in good health, but might weigh more because they are more muscular.
Still, Dr. Heymsfield says people should not think gaining extra weight is OK just because of the new findings. He says being at a healthy weight lowers the risk for heart disease and diabetes（糖尿病）.
【小题1】According to the new findings, the researchers found that __________ .
| A．People with high obesity have a lower risk of early death than people with low obesity |
| B．People with overweight have a greater risk of early death than people of normal weight. |
| C．People with mild obesity are less likely to die than people of normal weight. |
| D．People with obesity live much longer than people of normal weight. |
| A．works like novels and poems |
| B．books and articles on a particular subject |
| C．printed material |
| D．magazines and newspapers |
| A．BMI is commonly used to measure body fat as a ratio of height to weight. |
| B．Not all people with a little higher BMI are fat . |
| C．Many public health experts encourage more people to use BMI as a way to predict the risk of health problem |
| D．Because of the ne w findings, people should think about gaining extra weight. |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
The Healthy Habits Survey (调查) shows that only about one third of American seniors have correct habits. Here are some findings and expert advice.
1. How many times did you brush your teeth yesterday?
Finding: A full 33% of seniors brush their teeth only once a day.
Step: Remove the 300 types of bacteria in your mouth each morning with a battery-operated toothbrush. Brush gently for 2 minutes, at least twice a day.
2. How many times did you wash your hands or bathe yesterday?
Finding: Seniors, on average, bathe fewer than 3 days a week. And nearly 30%wash their hands only 4 times a day-half of the number doctors recommend.
Step: We touch our faces around 3,000 times a day-often inviting germs (病菌) to enter our mouth, nose, and eyes. Use toilet paper to avoid touching the door handle. And, most important, wash your hands often with hot running water and soap for 20 seconds.
3. How often do you think about fighting germs?
Finding: Seniors are not fighting germs as well as they should.
Step: Be aware of germs. Do you know it is not your toilet but your kitchen sponge (海绵) that can carry more germs than anything else? To kill these germs, keep your sponge in the microwave for 10 seconds.
【小题1】What is found out about American seniors?
| A．Most of them have good habits. |
| B．Nearly 30%of them bathe three days a week. |
| C．All of them are fighting germs better than expected. |
| D．About one third of them brush their teeth only once a day |
| A．twice a day | B．three times a day |
| C．four times a day | D．eight times a day |
| A．We should keep from touching our faces. |
| B．There are less than 300 types of bacteria in the mouth. |
| C．A kitchen sponge can carry more germs than a toilet. |
| D．We should wash our hands before touching a door handle. |
| A．a guide book | B．a popular magazine |
| C．a book review | D．an official document |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant time in front of the television have been devised in the UK.
The shoes — named Square Eyes — contain an electronic pressure sensor and a tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmitter passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day’s efforts.
The design was inspired by a desire to fight against the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final year design project at Brunel University in London, UK. “We looked at current issues and childhood overweight really stood out,” she says. “And I wanted to tackle that with my design.”
Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.
Swan calculated how exercise should translate to television time using the recommended daily amounts of both. Health experts suggest that a child take 12,000 steps each day and watch no more than two hours of television. So, every 100 steps recorded by the Square Eyes shoes equals precisely one minute of TV time.
Existing pedometers （计步器） normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can be easily tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to cheat. “It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort,” she says. “That was one of my main design considerations.”
【小题1】According to Swan, the purpose of her design project is to ________.
| A．keep a record of the steps of the wearer |
| B．deal with overweight among teenagers |
| C．enable children to resist the temptation of TV |
| D．prevent children from being tricked by TV programs |
| A．They regulate a child’s evening TV viewing time. |
| B．They determine a child’s daily pocket money. |
| C．They have raised the hot issue of overweight. |
| D．They contain information of the receiver. |
| A．The exact number of steps to be taken. |
| B．The precise number of hours spent on TV. |
| C．The proper amount of daily exercise and TV time. |
| D．The way of changing steps into TV watching time. |
| A．makes it difficult for lazy teenagers to cheat |
| B．counts the wearer’s steps through shaking |
| C．records the sudden movement of the wearer |
| D．sends teenagers’ health data to the receiver |
| A．Smart Shoes Decide on Television Time |
| B．Smart Shoes Guarantee More Exercise |
| C．Smart Shoes Measure Time of Exercise |
| D．Smart Shoes Stop Childhood Overweight |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Scientists around the world have been studying the warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean known as El Nino （厄尔尼诺）. The appearance of El Nino is known to affect the weather around the world. Scientists still do not completely understand it. Yet they now find they can use it to tell about the future in different areas of the world.
One example is the work of two scientists at Columbia University in New York, Mark Cane and Gordon Eshel. A scientist of Zimbabwe（津巴布韦）, Roger Buckland worked with them. They have found that when El Nino appears, Zimbabwe has little or no rain. This means corn crops in Zimbabwe are poor. The last El Nino was in 1991 to 1993. That was when southeastern Africa suffered a serious lack of rain.
The scientists wrote about their recent work in the publication（出版物）Nature. Their computer program can tell when an El Nino will develop up to a year before it does. They suggest that this could provide an effective early warning system for southern Africa, and could prevent many people from starving.
【小题1】El Nino is known as ___.
| A．the changing of the weather in southern Africa |
| B．the warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean |
| C．the weather which brings drought（旱灾）to Africa |
| D．the weather phenomenon（现象）that brings heavy rains to Africa |
| A．they can provide a kind of early warning to the place that will suffer from drought |
| B．they can tell why Zimbabwe has little or no rain |
| C．they can do some research work in this field. |
| D．they can put all this information into their computers. |
| A．Scientists come to understand how El Nino appears. |
| B．Three scientists from the USA work on this subject. |
| C．Southern Africa suffered a serious drought and many people died from hunger. |
| D．El Nino has something to do with Zimbabwe’s poor crops. |
| A．The computer is used in this research work. |
| B．Scientists know when an El Nino appears by means of the computer program. |
| C．The scientists published their results of the research work. |
| D．Nature is the name of the article written recently by the scientists. |
| A．Appearance of El Nino is Predictable（可预测的） |
| B．Drought in Zimbabwe |
| C．Early Warning System |
| D．Weather in Africa |
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科目：高中英语 来源： 题型：阅读理解
Perhaps the most famous theory, the study of body movement, was suggested by Professor Ray Birdwhistell. He believes that physical appearance is often culturally programmed. In other words, we learn our looks ---- we are not born with them. A baby has generally informed face features. A baby, according to Birdwhistell, learns where to set the eyebrows by looking at those around-family and friends. This helps explain why the people of some areas of the United States look so much alike, new Englanders or Southerners have certain common face features that cannot be explained by genetics(遗传学). The exact shape of the mouth is not set at birth, it is learned after. In fact, the final mouth shape is not formed until well after new teeth are set. For many, this can be well into grown-ups. A husband and wife together for a long time often come to look alike. We learn our looks from those around us. This is perhaps why in a single country area people smile more than those in other areas. In the United States, for example, the South is the part of the country where the people smile most frequently. In New England they smile less, and in the western part of New York State still less. Many southerners find cities such as New York cold and unfriendly, partly because people on Madison Avenue smile less than people on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, Georgia. People in largely populated areas also smile and greet each other in public less than people in small towns do.
【小题1】Ray Birdwhistell believes that physical appearance ____.
| A．has little to do with culture |
| B．has much to do with culture |
| C．is ever changing |
| D．is different from place to place |
| A．before birth |
| B．as soon as one’s teeth are newly set |
| C．sometime after new teeth are set |
| D．around 15 years old |
| A．how much he or she laughs |
| B．how he or she raises his or her eyebrows |
| C．what he or she likes best |
| D．the way he or she talks |
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