4.The main idea of this passage is ________.

A.when the Internet came into being　　　　　　　　　 B.how Tim Berbers-Lee formed W3C

C.why computers develop so rapidly　　　　　　　　　 D.how the World Wide Web started

E

Reducing the use of cars during rush traffic hours will make the environment more livable.Unfortunately,our present living and working environments encourage the use of cars.But,the car is taking us down the road in lower-quality air.The exhaust(废气) from cars:

-damaging the earth’s protective ozone layer and helping to cause the global warming;

-causes as much as 50% of the smog-producing compounds and chemical rain in our atmosphere;

-causes 60% of the carbon monoxide in our atmosphere.

When you consider that the average person breathes in 9 000 quarts of air a day,you realize how important clean air is to human being.

The government has spent billions of dollars to control car pollution.Yet,some big cities are still in violation(侵害) of public health standards that protect people from breathing poisonous air.The health care costs related to unclean air are huge.

The traditional way of cleaning up what comes out of tailpipes has not done the job of getting rid of automobile emissions(散发物).Yet today’s cars produces far less pollution than models from the 1960’s.But there are now almost 51 million more cars on the road than there were in 1960,and drivers are traveling many more miles.As a result,cars are still the single largest source of city pollution today.

If we are going to achieve clean air,we need to discourage car use by individuals,especially during rush driving hours.

At the same time we reduce car use,we must also improve our public transportation system.If going to and from work by public transportation was convenient and cheap,people would use the system instead of using cars to drive to work.

Yes,it will cost money to improve our public transportation system.But we now spend billions each year in controlling car emissions without much success.Giving some of that money to public transportation would be a small price to pay for cleanest air.

Unless we do something to reduce car use and get people to use public transportation,our love affair with the car will be the death of our environment.

3.What is the article mainly about?

A.The life of Dave Thomas.

B.The dream of Dave Thomas.

C.The schooling of Dave Thomas.

D.The growth of Dave Thomas’ business.

D

Tim Berners-Lee is the man who wrote the software programme that led to the foundation of the World Wide Web. Britain played an important part in developing the first generation of computers. The parents of Tim Berners-Lee both worked on one of the earliest commercial computers and talked about their work at home. As a child he would build models of computers from packaging materials. After graduating from Oxford University he went on to the real thing. In the 1980s scientists were already communicating using a primitive version(原始版本) of e-mail. While working at a laboratory in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a programme, which let him store these messages. This gave him another idea:write a programme that will let academics(学术界人士) from across the world share information on a single place. In 1990 he wrote the HTTP(服务程序所用的协议) and HTML(超文本链接标示语言) programmes which formed the basis of the World Wide Web.

The next year his programmes were placed on to the Internet. Everyone was welcome to use them and improve them if they could. Programmers used his codes to work with different operating　 systems. New things like web browers and search engines were developed. Between 1991 and 1994 the number of web pages rose from 10 to 100 000.

In 1994 Tim Berners-Lee formed the newly formed World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C. More than 200 leading companies and laboratories are represented by W3C. Together they make sure that everyone can share equally on the web. “The web can help people to understand the way that others live and love. It helps us understand the humanity of people,” he says.

2.Which of the following is the best title of the passage?

A.Two Strangers and a Wedding　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B.A Wedding Based on Love

C.A Short-Lived Marriage　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 D.A Well-Matched Couple

C

Since 1989, Dave Thomas, who died at age 69, was one of the most recognizable faces on TV. He appeared in more than 800 commercials (商业广告) for the hamburger chain named for his daughter. “As long as it works,” he said in 1991, “I’ll continue to do those commercials.”

Even though he was successful, Thomas remained troubled by his childhood. “He still won’t let anyone see his feet, which are out of shape because he never had proper-fitting shoes.” Wendy said in 1993. Born to a single mother, he was adopted (收养) as a baby by Rex and Auleva Thomas of Kalamazoo in Michigan. After Auleva died when he was 5, Thomas spent years on the road as Rex traveled around seeking construction work. “He fed me,” Thomas said,“and if I got out of line, he’d beat me.”

Moving out on his own at 15, Thomas worked, first as a waiter, in many restaurants. But he had something much better in mind, “I thought if I owned a restaurant,” he said,“I could eat for free.” A 1956 meeting with Harland Sanders led Thomas to a career as the manager of a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant that made him a millionaire in 1968.

In 1969, after breaking with Sanders, Thomas started the first Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, in Columbus, Ohio, which set itself apart by serving made-to-order burgers. With 6 000 restaurants worldwide, the chain now makes ＄6 billion a year in sales.

Although troubled by his own experience with adoption, Thomas, married since 1954 to Lorraine, 66, and with four grown kids besides Wendy, felt it could offer a future for other children. He started the Dave Thomas Foundation (基金会) for Adoption in 1992.In 1993, Thomas, who had left school at 15, graduated from Coconut Greek High School in Florida. He even took Lorraine to the graduation dance party. The kids voted him Most Likely to Succeed.

“The Dave you saw on TV was the real Dave,”says friend Pat Williams “He wasn’t a great actor or a great speaker. He was just Joe Everybody.”

1.The passage is mainly about ________.

A.the biological system of a living organism

B.the inventors of sandwich and hamburger

C.the development of human cells

D.the changes of a language

B

The wedding took place in a Birmingham hotel. The bride and her father arrived in a new black American sports car. Her father looked nervous and uncomfortable in front of the cameras. The bride wore a silk wedding dress. She smiled nervously at the waiting photographers and went to a room on the first floor where she met her future husband for the very first time.

Carla Germaine and Greg Cordell were the winners of a radio station’s competition. The aim of the competition was to find two strangers prepared to many without having met each other. Miss Germaine, 23, is a model. Mr. Cordell, 27, is a TV salesman. They were among the two hundred people who entered for a peculiar“experiment” organized by BMRB radio in Birmingham, England. Greg and Carla were among eight finalists who were interviewed live on radio. They took a lie detector(测谎仪) test and the station also spoke to their friends and family about their personalities. The competition judges included an astrologer(占星家) who declared that they were suited.

The couple celebrated their wedding with a wedding breakfast and a party for 100 guests in the evening, but not everyone shared their joy. Miss Germaine’s mother looked anxious throughout the wedding and Mr. Cordell’s parents are reported to be less than delighted.

Organizations, including the marriage guidance service Relate, have criticized the marriage. As one person put it, “We have enough problems getting young people to take marriage seriously without this. Marriage should always be about love.”

The couple are now on a Caribbean honeymoon followed by journalists. Their other prizes include a year’s free use of a wonderful apartment in the centre of Birmingham, and a car. But will it last?

5.重视题干中的关键词汇：main idea,the best title,the writer mainly wants to tell (or:show)…

●歼灭难点训练

A

Human language is a living thing.Each language has its own biological system,which makes it different from all other language.This system must constantly adjust to a new environment and new situation to survive and flourish.

When we think of human language this way,it is an easy step to see the words of a language as being like the cells of a living organism-they are constantly forming and dying and splitting into parts as time changes and the language adapts.

There are several specific processes by which new words are formed.Some words come into the language which sound like what they refer to.Words like buzz and ding-dong are good examples of this process.

Still another way in which new words are formed is to use the name of a person or a place closely associated with that word’s meaning.The words sandwich and hamburger are examples of this word-formation process.The Earl of sandwich,an English aristocrat(贵族),was so fond of gambling at cards that he hated to be interrupted by the necessity of eating.He thus invented a new way of eating while he continued his game at the gambling table.This quick and convenient dish is what we now call a sandwich-a piece of meat between two slices of bread.The hamburger became the best-known sandwich in the world after it was invented by a citizen of Hamburg in Germany.

As long as a language is alive,its cells will continue to change,forming new words and getting rid of the ones that no longer have any use.

4.注意观察，找准贯穿上下文的关键词汇。

3.重视重要情节、人物及事物特征。

2.归纳文章的段落大意。把握文章总体。

1.通读全文，重视首段，注意每段第一句话(尤其是论述性或说明性文章)。

1.There are many famous museums throughout the world where people can enjoy art.Washington D.C.,the US,has the National Gallery of Art;Paris has the Louver,London,the British Museum.Florida International University(FIU) in Miami,the US also shows art for visitors to see.And it does so without a building,or even a wall for its drawings and paintings.

FIU has opened what it says is the first computer art museum in the United States.You don’t have to visit the University to see the art.You just need a computer linked to a telephone.

You can call the telephone number of a university computer and connect your own computer to it.All of the art is stored in the school computer.It is computer art,produced electronically by artists on their own computers.In only a few minutes,your computer can receive and copy all the pictures and drawings.

Robert Shostak is director of the new computer museum.He says he started the museum because computer artists had no place to show their work.

A computer artist could record his pictures electronically and send the records,or floppy discs,to others to see on their computers.He could also put his pictures on paper,of course.But to print good pictures on paper,the computer artist needed an expensive laser printer.

Robert Shostak says the electronic museum is mainly for art or computer students in schools and universities.Many of the pictures in the museum are made by the students.Mr. Shostak said the FIU museum will make computer art more fun for computer artists because more people can see it.He says artists enjoy their work much more if they have an audience.And the great number of home computers in America could mean a huge audience for his electronic museum.

Question:The main purpose of this text is to give information about ________.

A.famous museums throughout the world

B.an electronic art museum in Miami,U.S.A.

C.art exhibitions in Florida International University

D.latest development in computer art

命题意图：本题主要考查学生的归纳概括能力。

错解分析：本题错选C、D两项的学生较多，原因是只抓住了文章中的只言片语，而忽视了前两段文字在文中的作用及贯穿文章始终的museum一词。

解题方法与技巧：(1)通读全文，抓住每段文字的主旨大意，尤其是文章的前两段。第一段作者告诉我们全世界有许多著名的艺术博物馆；第二段主要讲Florida International University新开的电脑艺术博物馆。随后各段就这家博物馆的领导者及博物馆的运作做了说明。(2)运用排除法，将较具干扰性的C、D两项排除掉。C项错误在于art exhibitions;D项中只讲电脑艺术的最新发展，与文章的前两段无法相符，也没有呼应贯穿文章始终的“art museum”。

答案：B

2002

In 1901,H.G. Wells,an English writer,wrote a book describing a trip to the moon.When the explorers(探险者) landed on the moon,they discovered that the moon was full of underground cities.They expressed their surprise to the “moon people” they met.In turn,the “moon people” expressed their surprise.“Why,”they asked,“are you traveling to outer space when you don’t even use your inner space?”

H.G. Wells could only imagine travel to the moon.In 1969,human beings really did land on the moon.People today know that there are no underground cities on the moon.However,the question that the “moon people” asked is still an interesting one.A growing number of scientists are seriously thinking about it.

Underground systems are already in place.Many cities have underground car parks.In some cities,such as Tokyo,Seoul and Montreal,there are large underground shopping areas.The “Chunnel”,a tunnel(隧道) connecting England and France is now complete.

But what about underground cities?Japan’s Taisei Corporation is designing a network of underground systems,called “Alice Cities”.The designers imagine using surface space for public parks and using underground space for flats,offices,shopping,and so on.A solar dome(太阳能穹顶) would cover the whole city.

Supporters of underground development say that building down rather than building up is a good way to use the earth’s space.The surface,they say,can be used for farms,parks,gardens,and wildernes.H.G.Wells’ “moon people” would agree.Would you?

Question:What would be the best title for the text?

A.Alice Cities-cities of the future.　　　　　　　　　　　　　 B.Space travel with H.G. Wells.

C.Enjoy living underground.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 D.Building down,not up.

命题意图：本题旨在考查学生的归纳概括能力，是一道主旨大意题。

错解分析：此题学生容易错选B项，原因是没有通览全篇，只抓住了文章的后半部分，尤其是第四段。

解题方法与技巧：(1)通览全文，抓首段大意。(2)文章开篇叙述了H.G. Wells在其科幻小说中的“月球人”询问月球探险者：“为什么地球人不利用地球内部空间而到地球外部空间旅行呢？”；接着下一段讲述越来越多的科学家正在认真思考这一问题；随后两段叙述underground systems的利用及日本underground cities的设计；然后再根据文章最后一段首句：“Supporters of underground development say that building down rather than building up is a good way to use the earth’s space”，可判断出此题答案。

答案：D

●锦囊妙计