Ⅲ. 阅读（共两节，满分40分）

第一节　阅读理解（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）

阅读下面短文，掌握其大意，然后从41—55各题所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Although April did not bring us the rains we all hoped for, and although the Central Valley doesn’t generally experience the sound and lightning that can go with those rains, it’s still important for parents to be able to answer the youthful questions about thunder and lightning.

The reason these two wonders of nature are so difficult for many adults to explain to children is that they are not very well understood by adults themselves. For example, do you know that the lightning we see flashing down to the earth from a cloud is actually flashing up to a cloud from the earth? Our eyes trick us into thinking we see a downward motion when it’s actually the other way round. But then, if we believed only what we think and we see, we’d still insist that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.

Most lightning flashes take place inside a cloud, and only a relative few can be seen jumping between two clouds or between earth and a cloud. But, with about 2,000 thunderstorms taking place above the earth every minute of the day and night, there’s enough activity to produce about 100 lightning strikes on earth every second.

Parents can use thunder and lightning to help their children learn more about the world around them. When children understand that the light of lightning flashing reaches their eyes almost at the same moment, but the sound of the thunder takes about 5 seconds to travel just one mile, they can begin to time the interval(间隔) between the flash and the crash to learn how close they are to the actual spark(闪光).

1. According to the author, in the area of the Central Valley, ___________.

A. rains usually come without thunder and lightning

B. it is usually dry in April

C. children pay no attention to the two natural wonders

D. parents are not interested in thunder and lightning

2. We believe that lightning is a downward motion because ___________.

A. we were taught so by our parents from our childhood

B. we are taken in by our sense of vision

C. it is a common natural sight

D. it is a truth proved by science

3. What is TRUE about lightning according to the passage?

A. Only a small number of lightning flashes occur on earth.

B. Lightning travels 5 times faster than thunder.

C. Lightning flashes usually jump from one cloud to another.

D. There are far more lightning strikes occurring on earth than we can imagine.

4. The underlined word “activity” is most closely related to the word(s)___________.

A. “cloud”                                       B. “lightning strikes”        

C. “lightning flashes”                              D. “thunderstorms”

5. It can be concluded from the passage that____________.

A. we should not believe what we see or hear

B. things moving downward are more noticeable

C. people often have wrong ideas about ordinary phenomena (现象)

D. adults are not as good as children in observing certain natural phenomena

      

A new research has uncovered that culture is a determining factor when interpreting facial emotions．The study reveals that in cultures where emotional control is the standard，such as Japan，focus is placed on the eyes to interpret emotions．Whereas in cultures where emotion is openly expressed，such as the United States，the focus is on the mouth to interpret emotion．

“These findings go against the popular theory that the facial expressions of basic emotions can be universally recognized，”said University of Alberta researcher Dr．Takahiko Masuda．“A person's culture plays a very strong role in determining how they will read emotions and needs to be considered when interpreting facial expression．"

These cultural differences are even noticeable in computer emoticons (情感符号)，which are used to convey a writer’s emotions over email and text messaging．The Japanese emoticons for happiness and sadness vary in terms of how the eyes are drawn，while American emoticons vary with the direction of the mouth．In the United States the emoticons ：) and ：--) show a happy face，whereas the emoticons ：(  or ：--( show a sad face．However，Japanese tend to use the symbol (＾-＾) to indicate a happy face，and ( ；_；) to indicate a sad face．

“We think it is quite interesting and appropriate that a culture tends to mask its emotions． The Japanese would focus on a person's eyes when determining emotion，as eyes tend to be quite subtle (微妙的)，”said Masuda．“In the United States, where open emotion is quite common，it makes sense to focus on the mouth, which is the most expressive feature on a person's face．”

60．The text mainly tells us that______．

A. cultural differences are expressed in emotions

B. culture is the key to interpreting facial emotions

C. different emoticons are preferred in different cultures，

D．people from different cultures express emotions differently

61．If a Japanese wants to detect whether a smile is, true or false，he will probably______．

A. read the whole face                    B. focus on the mouth

C. look into the eyes                        D. judge by the voice

62．People used to believe that___________．

A．some facial expressions of emotions were too complex to be recognized

B．people in the world interpreted basic emotions in different ways

C．people could only recognize the facial expressions of basic emotions；

D．people all’ over the world understood basic emotions in the same way

63．The computer emoticons used by the Americans show that_____________．

A．they express their feelings openly

B．they tend to control their emotions

C．they are good at conveying their emotions

D．they use simpler emoticons to show their feelings

 

You can not see any object unless light from that object gets into your eyes. Some of the things you see give off light of their own. The sun, the stars, a lighted lamp are examples that can be seen by their own light. Such things are luminous. Most of the things you see are not giving off light of their own. They are simply reflecting light that falls on them from the sun or some other luminous bodies. The moon, for example, does not give off any light of its own. It is non-luminous. You see it because sunlight falls on it and some of it reflects in our direction. So moon light is only second hand sunlight.

When you look at a book, it sends to your eyes some of the light which falls on it, and you see the book. If light could be kept out from where you are so that there would be no light for the book to reflect, then you could not see the book even with your eyes wide open.

Light travels so fast that the time in which it travels from the book you are reading to your eyes is so short as if there were no time at all. Light reaches us from the moon, which is about 380 000 kilometers away, in only a little more than a second.

1.You can see the book because_______.

A．your eyes are close to it	B．it reflects some of the sunlight
C．it has light of its own	D．your eyesight can get to it

2.The underlined word “luminous” means_______.

A．visible

B．all colors

C．giving off light

D．sunlight

3.________ have light of their own.

A．The sun and the moon	B．The stars and the earth
C．The sun and the stars	D．The moon and the earth

4.Which of the following is true?

A．All the things you can see give off light.

B．Light from the book is much shorter than that from the moon.

C．The moment you open your eyes the light from the book travels to your eyes.

D．Light travels so fast that there is no time for you to read.

 

 

第三部分  阅读理解(共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分)

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项A、B、C和D中，选出最佳选项。

Tears are nature’s way of making us feel more comfortable. When our eyes are made uncomfortable by some small pieces of pollution, or when we are cutting onions, or when we are exhausted and “red-eyes” from over work and late hours, tears form in our eyes to clean and refresh them.

Tears are also a sign of strong emotion. We cry when we are sad and we cry when we are happy.

And tears seem to be uniquely human. We know that animals also experience emotion--fear, pleasure, loneliness, but they do not shed (流) tears.

Biologically speaking, tears are actually drops of saline fluid, which is a little bit salty, produced by a gland (腺) in the body. Because salt is an important component, tears may actually constitute the most conclusive evidence that the human animal is the end product of a long evolutionary process that began in the sea.

And it is clear that, in addition to the emotional benefits, the shedding of tears has a specific biological function as well. Through tears, we can eliminate from our body certain chemicals which build up in response to stress and create a chemical imbalance in the body. Crying actually makes us feel better by correcting that imbalance and making us feel good again. And thus the emotional and the biological functions of tears merge (合并) into one and make us even more “human” than we would otherwise be.

1. According to the passage, human beings may have originated in

A. the sea         B. the salt              C. chemicals            D. animals

2. Which of the following is NOT a function of tears?

A. Biological.      B. Emotional.           C. Political.             D. Chemical.

3 According to the article, which of the following is unique to humans?

A. The feeling of loneliness.                 B. The state of feeling good.

C. The ability to shed tears.                D. The feeling of fear.

4. The underlined word "eliminate" probably means

A. add             B. produce              C. replace               D. remove

 

Now let us look at how we read. When we read a printed text, our eyes move across a page in short, jerky movement. We recognize words usually when our eyes are still when they fixate. Each time they fixate, we see a group of words. This is known as the recognition span or the visual span. The length of time in which the eyes stop ---the duration of the fixation ----varies considerably from person to person. It also varies within any one person according to his purpose in reading and his familiarity with the text. Furthermore, it can be affected by such factors as lighting and tiredness.

Unfortunately, in the past, many reading improvement courses have concentrated too much on how our eyes move across the printed page. As a result of this misleading emphasis on the purely visual aspects of reading, numerous exercises have been devised to train the eyes to see more words at one fixation. For instance, in some exercises, words are flashed on to a screen for, say, a tenth or a twentieth of a second. One of the exercises has required students to fix their eyes on some central point, taking in the words on either side. Such word patterns are often constructed in the shape of rather steep pyramids so the reader takes in more and more words at each successive fixation. All these exercises are very clever, but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently. Reading requires the ability to understand the relationship between words. Consequently, for these reasons, many experts have now begun to question the usefulness of eye training, especially since any approach which trains a person to read isolated words and phrases would seem unlikely to help him in reading a continuous text.

1.The time of the recognition span can be affected by the following facts except ________ .

A. the length of a group of words.

B. lighting and tiredness.

C. one’s familiarity with the text.

D. one’s purpose in reading.

2.The author may believe that reading ______.

A. demands an deeply-participating mind.

B. demands more mind than eyes.

C. requires a reader to take in more words at each fixation.

D. requires a reader to see words more quickly.

3.What does the author mean by saying “but it’s one thing to improve a person’s ability to see words and quite another thing to improve his ability to read a text efficiently.” in the second paragraph?

A. The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve an efficient reading.

B. The reading exercises mentioned has done a great job to improve one’s ability to see words.

C. The ability to see words is not needed when an efficient reading is conducted.

D. The reading exercises mentioned can’t help to improve both the ability to see or comprehend words.

4.Which of the following is NOT true?

A. The emphasis on the purely visual aspects is misleading.

B. The eye training will help readers in reading a continuous text.

C. The visual span is a word or a group of words we see each time.

D. Many experts began to question the efficiency of eye training.

5.The tune of the author in writing this article is ________.

　　A. pessimistic  B. optimistic   C. critical  D. neutral