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题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:困难

湖南省长沙市第一中学2017-2018学年高二上学期英语期中考试试卷

阅读理解

    What do butterflies have in common with the human spirit? Meet Maggie, a middle-aged wife and mother who was about to find out.

    Maggie wasn't rich like a millionaire or poor in a manner of being homeless. She was living an average comfortable life. It was made even better when a baby girl came her way. She and her husband made sure their daughter had her needs met and they were still able to take a yearly vacation by the beach.

    Maggie was a partner in her husband's business. They both had a different set of duties and everything was in balance. One day a severe blow came to her husband's business, and over a three-year period the business dropped out of sight. Her husband had to totally reinvent himself and was eager to start a new business. She was happy for him and supported him fully, but still the money was not coming in.

    Maggie began to feel guilty that she wasn't contributing with any kind of income. She began job-hunting and found filling out applications somewhat difficult, especially the part asking for job references. She was self-employed with her husband for almost 20 years, which seemed to mean nothing as she was never called for an interview.

    When she was job-hunting her mom became more ill than she had been and ended up in the hospital for a week. Once Maggie's mom returned home she became her mom's helper one day a week. She did everything that her mother was not able to do any more. Of course her mom would pay her for her lime and labor but she still felt she needed to find another source of income.

    One of the first applications she had filled out finally came through. She passed the interview and was told she was exactly what they were looking for. Although it was only part-time it was exactly what she wanted. It was important for her to be home when her daughter arrived home from school.

    Within a few weeks, though, she received an e-mail saying that the company had changed the job into a full-time position so that she was not qualified. Maggie felt betrayed and felt she had been lied to. That evening she was alone at home. She welcomed the aloneness and wanted to put herself in the bathtub to kill the lonely time.

    As she knew she would, Maggie began to cry, softly at first just from the sharp pain of being rejected. Three long years of struggle had finally overwhelmed her.

    When she was able to cry no more, she became worn out and gave up. It was at that moment that a silent idea came to her: why not offer elderly people home care assistance? Using another talent for computers she printed off some flyers and cards and distributed them to her church, grocery stores and even placed a small ad in the newspaper. Within a week she had procured two new customers. Now, even though she's not a CEO of a major company she feels happy and productive again.

    Before a butterfly can come out of its chrysalis (茧) it has to go through a lot of struggling. Each time it pushes out to escape, acids are being removed from its wings. If someone were to come along and break the chrysalis open for it then the butterfly would die from those acids. Actually the struggle is necessary for the butterfly to survive. Then in the stillness, when the struggle is over, the butterfly can come out and share its beauty with the world.

    We as humans are not any different.

(1)、What made Maggie feel guilty?
A、That she couldn't afford her husband's vacation. B、That her husband's business failed because of her. C、That she had no means of helping support the family. D、That she prevented her husband from realizing his dream.
(2)、When Maggie was job-hunting, she realized that       .
A、she had rich work experience B、everything would be okay pretty soon C、there were few positions suitable for her D、she shouldn't have worked for her husband
(3)、How did Maggie react hearing that the job had become a full-time position?
A、She considered it unacceptable. B、She knew she was qualified for it. C、She became very angry with herself. D、She was so sad that she wanted to kill herself.
(4)、What does the underlined word “procured” in Paragraph 9 mean?
A、Recovered. B、Supported. C、Interviewed. D、Obtained.
(5)、What does the passage mainly want to tell us?
A、We should always have faith in ourselves. B、Sadness, fear and anger are part of our life. C、It's important to prepare for the unexpected. D、Sometimes we must struggle for a better life.
举一反三
阅读理解

    The forest in Senegal, a country in western Africa, is full of the chimps' usual noises. Suddenly dogs bark. Larger male chimps drop from the trees to face the threat while the others climb to safety. Then the dogs' young human masters appear.

One mother chimp with a tiny baby tries to run. The dogs attack and separate them. The two teenage boys quickly catch the baby chimp. But they don't act out of sympathy — they save the baby so they can sell it.

    After the teenagers return to their hometown, they visit a man who is said to be very interested in chimps. When they ask the man, Johnny Kante, if he wants to buy the baby, he replies, “That's not what we do.” Kante is a member of a scientific team. Although Kante is angry with the teens for capturing the chimp, he hides his anger and persuades them to take him to the baby chimp.

    Unsure of what to do next upon seeing the chimp, Kante calls Jill Pruetz, the head of the chimp research team. “I'm really worried,” says Pruetz, doubtful that the mother is still alive. But knowing that wild chimps sometimes adopt orphans(孤儿), Kante and pruetz decide they must try to return the baby chimp to its wild community.

    Kante pays another visit to the teenagers. After he explains how much trouble they are in, because chimps are an endangered species, he requests they should give him the frightened baby without payment. They agree. Kante takes the baby chimp to his home and feeds her milk from a bottle whenever she cries.

    The next morning, Pruetz and Kante leave the baby with another team member and begin their search for the wild chimps. Pruetz quickly finds the group in the woods. She recognizes the female that is without her child.

    Pruetz is so excited that she runs the entire mile back to bring the baby chimp to the tree where the chimps are hanging out. The researchers place the baby on the ground near the tree and back away. Almost immediately, a male chimp drops to the ground and stares at the baby curiously. He carries her back to where the mother is waiting.

    Pruetz still can't believe how fortunate they were to have reunited the mother and child. “Surprising is the only word I can think of,” she says.

根据短文内容,选择最佳答案,并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

阅读理解

    This day marks the rising of a new food startup, the first company to be financed entirely by the crowd, and of it every business thus relies on thousands of customers to grow. Lisa, 25, its main founder and CEO, believes it will be a path that will become increasingly popular, and ultimately will produce more thriving(繁荣的)businesses from the scratch.

    “In the food industry, no venture capital (VC, 风险投资) will even look at you until you've hit a million in sales. As a fresh hand in business, unless you're independently wealthy, you will likely need to raise some money before then,” Lisa complained. So few businesses approached VC firms at the beginning. It was no exception with her. Thus, she turned to a new financing tool at hand, crowdfunding, to raise money from the crowd who'd like to take a bet on her company.

    But for a company, it didn't make sense to seek investments when all they had was an idea and a few months of consumer testing data. The food market is extremely competitive. No investor would put money behind a totally unproven new super food product founded by a bunch of twenty-somethings. “But we had a story. And crowds love stories.” Lisa said delightedly. So she put together an online crowdfunding campaign, explaining how she began working with this amazingly nutritious plant in the Peace Corps and then started selling it in the U.S. to support the poor in the West Africa.

    On the online platform where they were to raise the money, a friend convinced them to change their goal from $20,000 to $50,000. Lisa stayed up all night worrying they wouldn't hit it. But they reached $24,000 in 24 hours and ended their funding with $53,000. Seeing the number, Lisa said, “Thank you! To my crowd and for your belief!”

阅读理解

    One day, Mr. Arnold was teaching a lesson, and things were going as normally as ever. He was explaining the story of human being to his pupils. He told them that, in the beginning, men were nomads (游牧); they never stayed in the same place for very long. Instead, they would travel about, here and there, in search of food, wherever it was to be found. And when the food ran out, they would move off somewhere else.

    He taught them about the invention of farming and keeping animals. This was an important discovery, because by learning to cultivate (耕作) the land, and care for animals, mankind would always have food steadily. It also meant that people could remain living in one place, and this made it easier to set about tasks that would take a long while to finish, like building towns, cities, and all that were in them. All the children were listening attracted by this story, until Lucy jumped up:

    “And if that was so important and improved everything so much, why are we nomads all over again, Mr. Arnold?”

    Mr. Arnold didn't know what to say. Lucy was a very clever girl. He knew that she lived with her parents in a house, so she must know that her family were not nomads; so what did she mean?

    “We have all become nomads again,” continued Lucy, “The other day, outside the city, they were cutting the forest down. A while ago a fisherman told me how they fish. It's the same with everyone: when there's no more forest left the foresters go elsewhere, and when the fish run out the fishermen move on. That's what the nomads did, isn't it?

    The teacher nodded, thoughtfully. Really, Lucy was right. Mankind had turned into nomads. Instead of looking after the land in a way that we could be sure it would keep supplying our needs, we kept developing it until the land was bare. And then off we would go to the next place! The class spent the rest of the afternoon talking about what they could do to show how to be more civilized (文明的).

    The next day everyone attended class wearing a green T-shirt, with a message that said “I am not a nomad!”

    And, from then on, they set about showing that indeed they were not. Every time they knew they needed something, they made sure that they would get it using care and control. If they needed wood or paper, they would make sure that they got the recycled kind. They ordered their fish from fish farms, making sure that the fish they received were not too young and too small. They only used animals that were well cared for, and brought up on farms.

    And so, from their little town, those children managed to give up being nomads again, just as prehistoric men had done, so many thousands of years ago.

阅读理解

    Qing-Feng Steamed Dumpling Shop. Daniang Dumpling. McDonald's. What do these companies have in common?

    Well, besides all being fast food chains, their logos are all red. And it's not a coincidence. Color is one of the many that companies use to connect with customers. And if fast food wasn't hard enough, those red logos might make it even harder to ignore.

    The average human can see ten million colors, but red is special. It's one of the first colors our ancient ancestors thought important enough to name. Early human languages were uncolorful. There were words for “black” and “white” and “red” but not much else.

    As a result, we have a deeper connection to red than any other color and we react to it in certain ways that actually play to fast food companies' advantage. For starters, researchers have found that red can cause a sense of urgency. On top of that, it also has an ability to whet (刺激) our appetites. And when you pair those two together, you've got the perfect recipe to attract hungry customers who want food, fast.

    So the red logo isn't just a welcoming sign. It's a seduction (诱惑) for your brain. Now, it's unclear why red makes us feel this way. But perhaps it has something to do with where the word comes from. Many ancient languages first named red from their word for “blood”. But red's bloody beginning has transformed. During medieval times, for example, red was worn by royals as a status symbol. And today, brides in many parts of India are married in red dress.

    In fact, red is one of the few colors today that cultures all over the world view positively. And it's no wonder companies attach so much importance to their logos. After all, we're a visual species. Despite having five senses, 80% of the information our brains process on a daily basis comes from our eyes. And according to marketing company WebPageFX, nearly 85% of consumers say the main reason they choose one product over the other is color.

    Just think what McDonald's would look like in blue, green, or pink! It's just not the same, right?

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