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题型:阅读理解 题类:真题 难易度:普通

2015年高考英语真题试卷(安徽卷)

阅读理解

    There are an extremely large number of ants worldwide. Each individual (个体的) ant hardly weigh anything, but put together they weigh roughly the same as all of mankind. They also live nearly everywhere, except on frozen mountain tops and around the poles. For animals their size, ants have been astonishingly successful, largely due to their wonderful social behavior.

    In colonies (群体) that range in size from a few hundred to tens of millions, they organize their lives with a clear division of labor. Even more amazing is how they achieve this level of organization. Where we use sound and sight to communicate, ants depend primarily on pheromone (外激素), chemicals sent out by individuals and smelled or tasted by fellow members of their colony. When an ant finds food, it produces a pheromone that will lead others straight to where the food is. When an individual ant comes under attack or is dying, it sends out an alarm pheromone to warn the colony to prepare for a conflict as a defense unit.

    In fact, when it comes to the art of war, ants have no equal. They are completely fearless and will readily take on a creature much larger than themselves, attacking in large groups and overcoming their target. Such is their devotion to the common good of the colony that not only soldier ants but also worker ants will sacrifice their lives to help defeat an enemy.

    Behaving in this selfless and devoted manner, these little creatures have survived on Earth, for more than 140 million years, far longer than dinosaurs. Because they think as one, they have a collective (集体的) intelligence greater than you would expect from its individual parts.

(1)、We can learn from the passage that ants are ____________.
A、not willing to share food B、not found around the poles C、more successful than all other animals D、too many to achieve any level of organization
(2)、Ants can use pheromones for______.
A、escape B、communication C、warning enemies D、arranging labor
(3)、What does the underlined expression "take on" in Paragraph 3 mean?
A、Accept. B、Employ. C、Play with. D、Fight against.
(4)、Which of the following contributes most to the survival of ants?
A、Their behavior. B、Their size. C、Their number. D、Their weight
举一反三
阅读短文,从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中,选出最佳选项。

     Stephen Hawking is perhaps the world's most famous living physicist. To the public, he's best known as an author of bestsellers such as The Universe in a Nutshell and A Brief History of Time, which have brought an appreciation of theoretical (理论上的)  physics to millions. He is regarded as having one of the brightest minds on the planet. But outstanding astrophysicist (天体物理学家) Stephen Hawking has admitted that he did not learn to read until he was eight years old.

    In a public lecture at the Royal Albert Hall, Professor Hawking also admitted that he was not active in studying while at Oxford University, where he studied physics, and that only the news that he might die young from motor neurone (运动神经元) disease made him focus on his work.

    Professor Hawking said, “My sister Philippa could read by the age of 4 but then she was brighter than me.” He said that he was common at school and was never further than halfway up his class. “My classwork was very untidy, and my handwriting was very bad in the teachers' eyes,” he said. “But my classmates gave me the name Einstein, so probably they saw signs of something better.”

    But he said that it was when doctors told him that he probably only had a few years to live at the age of 21 that he began to focus on his work, which resulted in some of his early achievements. He said, “When you are faced with the possibility of an early death, it makes you realize that life is worth living and there are lots of things you want to do.” Hawking serves as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where he continues to contribute to both high-level physics and the popular understanding of our universe.

阅读理解

    Oh, the places you'll go!

    When it comes to habitat, human beings are creatures of habit. It has been known for a long time that, whether his habitat is a village, a city or, for real globe-trotters (周游世界者), the planet itself, an individual person generally visits the same places regularly. The details, though, have been surprisingly obscure. Now, thanks to an analysis of data collected from 40,000 smartphone users around the world, a new property of humanity's locomotive (移动的) habits has been revealed.

    It turns out that someone's "location capacity", the number of places which he or she visits regularly, remains constant over periods of months and years. What constitutes a "place" depends on what distance between two places makes them separate. But analyzing movement patterns helps illuminate the distinction and the researchers found that the average location capacity was 25. If a new location does make its way into the set of places an individual tends to visit, an old one drops out in response. People do not, in other words, gather places like collector cards. Rather, they cycle through them. Their geographical behavior is limited and predictable, not fancy-free.

    The study demonstrating this, just published in Nature Human Behavior, does not offer any explanation for the limited location capacity it measures. But a statistical analysis carried out by the authors shows that it cannot be explained solely by constraints on time. Some other factor is at work. One of the researchers draws an analogy. He suggests that people's cognitive capacity limits the number of places they can visit routinely, just as it limits the number of other people an individual can routinely socialize with. That socialization figure, about 150 for most people, is known as the Dunbar number, after its discoverer, Robin Dunbar.

    Lehmann says his group is now in search of similar data from other primates (灵长目动物), in an attempt to work out where human patterns of mobility have their roots. For those, though, they will have to rely on old-fashioned methods of zoological observation unless they can work out a way to get chimpanzees to carry smartphones.

阅读理解

    Grandparents Answer a Call

    As a third-generation native of Brownsville, Texas, Mildred Garza never planned to move away. Even when her daughter and son asked her to move to San Antonio to help with their children, she politely refused. Only after a year of friendly discussion did Ms. Garza finally say yes. That was four years ago. Today all three generations regard the move as a success, giving them a closer relationship than they would have had in separate cities.

    No statistics show the number of grandparents like Garza who are moving closer to adult children and grandchildren. Yet there is evidence (证据) suggesting that the trend (趋势) is growing. Even President Obama's mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, has agreed to leave Chicago and move into the White House to help care for her granddaughters. According to a study by grandparents.com, 83 percent of the people said Mrs. Robinson's decision will influence grandparents in the American family. Two-thirds believe more families will follow the example of Obama's family.

    “In the 1960s we were all a little wild and couldn't get away from home far enough or fast enough to prove we could do it on our own,” says Christine Crosby, publisher of Grand, a magazine for grandparents. “We now realize how important family is and how important it is to be near them, especially when you're raising children.”

    Moving is not for everyone. Almost every grandparent wants to be with his or her grandchildren and is willing to make sacrifices (牺牲), but sometimes it is wiser to say no and visit frequently instead. Having your grandchildren far away is hard, especially knowing your adult child is struggling, but giving up the life you know may be harder.

阅读理解

    When the weather's hot, do you enjoy a glass of Brad's Drink while watching your TV made by Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, and surfing the web using a search engine called BackRub? No? Neither do I. That's because all these companies have changed their names.

    Brad's Drink is now Pepsi. The mouthful that was Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering has become, simply, Sony. And BackRub is now known as Google. Though I must admit, the idea of a back massage does sound good right now!

    Joking aside, choosing the right name for your start-up is a serious matter. Think of the case of a small Canadian company called Research in Motion, who in 1998 had just developed a high-tech mobile phone that could send emails.

    They were torn between names like MegaMail and ProMail. Then they sought the help of consulting firm Lexicon, who specialize in brand names. They had other ideas. They brainstormed words connected to enjoyment and freshness. Someone said.

    Lexicon's boss added two capital letters, and there you have it: BlackBerry was born. Since then it has sold over 33 million handsets to customers around the world. Would it have sold as well if it was called MegaMail? Who knows?

    Recently, BlackBerry sales have been overtaken by Android phones and Apple's iPhone. Lexicon's founder David Placek is a big fan of simple brand names like those Apple chooses: the iPhone. They l0ok a household word and by putting one letter in front of it, it ends up being game changing.

    So, for all you entrepreneurs(企业家)out there, make sure you allow time to develop a catchy and memorable name. Think about what makes your company different. What's your USP (独特的销售主张)? Maybe you can reflect that in your name.

    What about you? What would you call a company if you had one?

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