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题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:普通

高中英语外研(2019)版必修二Unit 2 Let′s celebrate单元自测卷

阅读理解

Thanksgiving Day is special holiday in the United States and Canada. Families and friends gather to eat and give thanks for their blessing.

Thanksgiving Day is really a harvest festival. This is why it is celebrated in late fall, after the crops are in. But one of the first thanksgivings in America had nothing to do with a good harvest. On December 4, 1619, the Pilgrims (清教徒) from England landed near what is now Charles City, Virginia. They knelt down and thanked God for their safe journey across the Atlantic.

The first New England Thanksgiving did celebrate a rich harvest. The Pilgrims landed at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. They had a difficult time and the first winter was cruel. Many of the Pilgrims died. But the next year, they had a good harvest. So Governor Bradford declared a three­day feast. The Pilgrims invited Indian friends to join them for their special feast. Everyone brought food.

In time, other colonies (殖民地) began to celebrate a day of thanksgiving. But it took years before there was a national Thanksgiving Day. During the Civil War, Sarah Josepha Hale persuaded Abraham Lincoln to do something about it. He proclaimed (宣布) the last Thursday of November 1863 as a day of thanksgiving. Today, Americans celebrate this happy harvest festival on the fourth Thursday in November. Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving Day in much the same way as their American neighbours. But the Canadian Thanksgiving Day falls on the second Monday in October.

(1)、Thanksgiving Day is celebrated ________.
A、in spring B、in summer C、in winter D、in autumn
(2)、We can infer from the passage that New England must be ________.
A、in the USA  B、in Great Britain C、in Canada D、on some island off the Atlantic
(3)、Which of the following is NOT TRUE?
A、Thanksgiving Day used to be a holiday to celebrate a good harvest. B、Abraham Lincoln was not the first to decide on the thanksgiving celebration. C、Thanksgiving Day is celebrated to express the American and Indian people's thanks to God. D、There's little difference between the American way and the Canadian way to celebrate Thanksgiving.
(4)、The passage mainly tells us ________.
A、how Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the USA B、that Thanksgiving Day is in fact a harvest holiday C、how Thanksgiving Day came into being and the different ways it is celebrated D、how the way to celebrate Thanksgiving Day changed with the time and places
举一反三
阅读理解

    Beliefs form a big part of our lives. Successful people have always believed that they can be and will be successful in their lives, such as Michael Phelps. Many of us have seen Michael Phelps win 8 gold medals in a single Olympic Games. That has created a history for himself. Many people have admired his success and the first reaction in their mind will be, “Wow, how I wish I could be like him!” Have you ever wondered what brought him success?

    In fact, anyone can achieve what they have wanted to achieve. It is about beliefs. Everyone is a born winner. It is this belief that drives an individual to be successful in his or her own field. All successful individuals have strong beliefs and it is one of the bases for their success. If we start to believe in ourselves, the things that we can achieve will definitely give us a pleasant surprise.

    Other than having a strong belief, it is the attitude that drives the individual to create their own history. The devotion towards themselves and the drive must also be present. Imagine having a strong belief in oneself and having a poor attitude towards life. Then how would that individual turn out to be? One's attitude comprises the drive, the devotion and the desire to achieve his goals. If one has strong beliefs about the goals that he can achieve and he displays good attitudes towards them, it would be no surprise to anyone that he will be able to achieve his goals.

    Start believing in yourself and you will achieve your goals and with the right positive attitude, you will definitely be able to create the miracle that you have always dreamt of.

阅读理解

    Six million people visit Grand Canyon in the US every year. For the purpose of helping project Grand Canyon for your fellow visitors and future generations, please follow the guidelines below.

    Camping

    To protect the park, camping is allowed only within permitted campgrounds. Permits are required for overnight camping at the North Rim. Advance booking can be received by mail. Please write: Information Center, P.O. Box 129, Grand Canyon, AZ 86023.

    Fires

    Because of the extreme fire danger, campfires are not allowed except at Mather and Desert View campgrounds. Collection of firewood is not allowed either.

    Hiking(远足)

    Please stay on permitted paths. Otherwise you may destroy desert plants. Pack out what you pack in, so you leave no signs of your visit. It is important to keep in mind that you are in a national park where wildlife exists.

    Weather

    The weather at Grand Canyon can change very quickly. With so much rock, lightning(闪电) causes a particular danger during sudden summer storms These storms also frequently bring floods inside valleys, a danger to hikers. Watch the skies and check daily weather reports.

    Wildlife

    Do not feed park wildlife. There have been a few cases at Grand Canyon National Park where deer(鹿) were purposely shot because there are plastic bags that left them sick and weak. Hungry deer car be danger and have kicked and bitten visitors at Grand Canyon. Some other animals will also beg and bite. For your own safety and the well-being of the animals, please do not feed wildlife, no matter how gentle they may appear.

阅读理解

    The writings of Shakespeare are today little read by young people in Britain. His young readership is limited to those who choose to study literature at university.

    Shakespeare's work, together with most other classics, is seen as remote, and written in a 400­year­old version of English that is about as inviting as toothache.

    Still, in Britain schools, it is compulsory to study the bard(诗人), and when something is made compulsory, usually the result is boredom, resentment(憎恨) or both.

    This was my experience of the classics at school. But when I reached my late teenage years, I had a change of heart. Like every other young person since the dawn of time, the world confused me. I wanted answers, so I turned to books to find them.

    I went on to take a PhD in literature and have taught it in Britain and China. I have never regretted it. There is something in literature that people want, even if they don't read books. You see this in the popularity of TV and movie adaptations of great works, the recent film version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice being a case in point. These popular adaptations may help increase people's interest in the classics.

    Reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet may perhaps lead to a reading of Shakespeare's actual play. If that is the case, then I welcome the trend. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it is the same thing. Shakespeare is a poet. His greatness is in his language. Reading someone else's rewriting of his work is like peeling a banana, throwing away the fruit, and eating the skin. Take on the original. It really is worth the effort.

阅读理解

    One early morning, I went into the living room to find my mother reading a thick book called Best Loved Poems to Read Again and Again. My interest was aroused only by the fact that the word "Poems" appeared in big, hot pink letters.

    "Is it good?" I asked her. "Yeah," she answered. "There's one I really like and you'll like it, too." I leaned forward." 'Patty Poem,'" she read the title. Who is Patty? I wondered. The poem began:

    She never puts her toys away,

    Just leaves them scattered (散乱的)where they lay,...

    The poem was just three short sections. The final one came quickly:

    When she grows and gathers(稳重的)poise,

    I'll miss her harum-scarum(莽撞的) noise,

    And look in vain for scattered(徒劳地)toys.

    And I'll be sad.

    A terrible sorrow washed over me. Whoever Patty was, she was a mean girl. Then, the shock.

    "It's you, honey," My mother said sadly.

    To my mother, the poem conveyed a parent's affection when her child grows up and leaves. To me, the "she" in the poem was horror. It was my mama who would be sad. It was so terrible. I burst out crying.

    "What's wrong?" my mother asked.

    "Oh Mama," I cried. "I don't want to grow up ever!"

She smiled. "Honey, it's okay. You're not growing up anytime soon. And when you do, I'll still love you, okay?"

    I calmed down. But I could not help thinking about that silly poem. After several years, I read the poem again and was confused. It all fit so well together, like a simple puzzle easy to understand, yet it was still beautiful. I was now attracted by the idea of poetry, words that had the power to make or break a person's world.

    I have since fallen in love with other poems, but "Patty Poem" remains my poem. After all, "Patty Poem" gave me my love for poetry.

阅读理解

    Nisha Pradhan is worried. The recent college graduate just turns 21 and plans to live on her own. But she's afraid she won't be able to stay safe. That's because she isn't able to smell.

    Back home, her family do her smelling for her. She's moved in with them for now, but she's looking for a place of her own. “Now that I'm searching for ways or place to live as an independent person, I find that the sense of smell is important to how we live our lives,” Pradhan says.

    She says when she was a child she liked to eat and ate a lot. But there came a point where she lost interest in food.

    “One of the first things that people notice whenever they have a smell problem is that food doesn't taste right any more,” says Beverly Cowart, a researcher. That's because eating and smell go hand in hand. How food tastes often rely on what we smell. “When you lose your sense of smell, your whole sense of food flavors changed and reduced,” Cowart says, “You can still taste the basic tastes. What you're missing are the small distinctions.”

    “When I go out to eat I have often found that food is very tasteless to me. I never feel full,” she says. “I think a lot of us today like to pretend to be food lovers and we all like to talk about 'Oh, I think this could use a little bit more flavor,' or ‘I think this has a hint of meat,' I can't really participate in those conversations,” she says.

    Pradam thinks her smell loss also may have affected her memory. Pradhan may be on to something, according to biologist Paul Moore. “When smell signals come in, you feel about them first. And then you think about it and then the memory is laid down. So without the feel part, the thinking about its part doesn't come. And that means no new smell memory gets created.”

阅读理解

Gottfried Wilhelm von Liebniz was a philosopher and mathematician in search of a model. In the late 1600s Leibniz decided there was a need for a new, purer arithmetic than our common decimal (十进制) system. He got his inspiration from the 5000-year-old book that is at the heart of Chinese philosophy: the I-Ching, or Book of Changes.

This ancient text was such an influence on Liebniz that he titled his article on the new arithmetic "Explanation of a new arithmetic and the ancient Chinese figure of Fu X". Fu Xi was the legendary first author of the I-Ching. The arithmetic that Liebniz described was binary (二进制) code, which is used in almost every modern computer, from iPhones to China's own Tihane-2 supercomputer.

To figure out what Liebniz learned in the I-Ching, we need to understand something that most of us have taken for granted. When we listen to an MP3, look at a digital photo or watch the latest TV drama, we are experiencing a digital representation of reality. That representation is basically just a string of binary signals that are commonly known as 1s and 0s. What Liebniz's gained from the book was that even the most complex reality could be represented in the binary form as 1s and 0s.

In the philosophy of the I-Ching, reality is not entirely real. It is something more like a dream. This dream of reality arises from the binaries of Yin and Yang, as they play out countless combinations, practically everything in the universe. It's not surprising then, from the l-Ching's perspective, that anything in the dream of reality can be represented in a string of 1s and 0s, processed by a computer.

The I-Ching was far more ambitious than the current practical applications of binary code. It is claimed that the I-Ching represents nothing less than the basic situation of human life itself. As a system for predicting the future, the I-Ching might disappoint, but as a way of questioning your own unconscious mind, it can be remarkably useful.

The I-Ching's teachings also contain warnings about our digital revolution. Binary code, powered by modern computers, has an amazing capacity to represent reality. However, the ancient authors of the I-Ching might have understood its potential-and its dangers-even better than we now do.

So when scientific thinkers ask whether computers can create "virtual realities" or "artificial intelligence", they are missing the point. Of course, we can create ever deeper and more complex layers of the dream of reality. The real question is, can we wake up from the dream we're in already?

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