试题

试题 试卷

logo

题型:阅读理解 题类:常考题 难易度:普通

安徽省淮北市第一中学2017-2018学年高二上学期英语12月月考试卷

阅读理解

    Max Vernon Mathews has been called the father of computer music. He created electronic tools so that people could use computers as musical instruments. He had a huge influence on the development of electronic music and how it is written, recorded and played.

    In 1957, Max Mathews wrote the first computer program that enabled a computer to create sound and play it back. At the time, he was working as an engineer at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. His computer program was called Music. It enabled a large IBM computer to play a seventeen-second piece of music that he had written.

    The computer was so slow that it would have taken an hour to play the piece of music in seventeen seconds. For that reason, Mathews moved the work to a tape player, which could be sped up to play the music at a normal speed. He later said that the sound quality of the music notes was not great, but the technical importance of the music was huge.

    The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke visited Bell Laboratories in the 1960s. He heard a computer “sing” the song "Daisy Bell" on devices and programs developed by Max Mathews andother engineers. Clarke noted this technology in his book “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which was later made into a movie.

    Mathews continued creating other versions of the Music program. He became interested in how computers could help musicians outside recording studios.

    Max Mathews had a long and productive career. He worked with composers like John Cage and Edgard Varese. He helped create a center for research in computer music in Paris. And he taught at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics in Stanford University in California.

    Mathews believed modern musicians were not making full use of the power of computer music. He said a violin always sounds like a violin, but with a computer, the way a violin sounds is unlimited. He said he did not want computer sounds to replace live music. But he said he hoped laptop computers would one day be considered serious instruments

(1)、How did the program Music work according to the passage?
A、It made sound and play it on a computer. B、It helped design a computer program. C、It could record a seventeen-second piece of music. D、It enabled a large IBM computer to work faster.
(2)、Mathews was likely to think that        .
A、the first piece of computer music was too short B、the first computer music was technically important. C、the IBM computer was fit for creating slow music D、the first piece of computer music wasn't music indeed
(3)、Which of the following is true?
A、Clarke helped develop computer music. B、Mathews became a character in a movie later on. C、Computer music was mentioned in Clarke's book. D、Clarke saw Mathews operate a singing computer.
(4)、It is implied in the last paragraph that      .
A、Mathew wanted computers to take the place of live music. B、a violin does make much better sounds than a computer C、laptops are more suitable to be used as serious musical instruments D、a computer can help improve sounds of traditional musical instruments
举一反三
阅读下列短文,从每题所给的A、B、C和D四个选项中,选出最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Chinese female scientist Tu Youyou won the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine on October 5 for her discoveries concerning a novel treatment against Malaria(疟疾). This is the first Nobel Prize given to a Chinese scientist for work carried out within China. Tu shared the prize with Irish-born William Campbell and Satoshi Omura of Japan, who were honored for their revolutionary anti-roundworm treatment. 84-year-old Tu is awarded this prize for her contribution to cutting the death rate of malaria, reducing patients' suffering and promoting mankind's health. Although she received several medical awards in the past, the 2015 Nobel Prize is definitely the most privilege reward that recognizes Tu's dedication and perseverance in discovering artemisinin(青蒿素), the key drug that battles malaria-friendly parasites(寄生虫). However, her route to the honor has been anything but traditional. She won the Nobel Prize for medicine, but she doesn't have a medical degree or a PhD. In China, she is even being called the “three-noes” winner: no medical degree, no doctorate, and she's never worked overseas. No wonder her success has stirred China's national pride and helped promote confidence of native Chinese scientists.

The fact that Tu has none of these three backgrounds reminds us that science should be more accessible to all. One can become a scientist no matter what kind of background he or she comes from, as long as one dives into scientific research. There have been discussions on people who really love science but are never able to achieve much during their whole life. Their contributions can never be ignored. They work so hard to prove the wrong way so that the future researchers will be closer to the right one.

As the first Chinese mainland Nobel Prize Winner of natural science award, Tu's record-breaking winning also serves as a reminder to those who are too eager for instant success. Science is never about instant success. Tu spent decades on scientific research before its value is officially acknowledged. There is no way to measure how much one devotes to science and compare it with how much reward he or she may get.

阅读理解

    Welcome to the pumpkin weigh-off at Half Moon Bay (半月湾), California. The event has always been very popular among most pumpkin growers. Thousands of people line up along the city's High Street and watch the proud pumpkin owners from across the country. Each pumpkin is carefully picked up by forklifts (叉式升降机) and placed on a digital weighing scale.

    Organizers are offering $30,000 in total prize money for a new record pumpkin entering Half Moon Bay. But in order to receive the “New Record Prize”, the grower will have to bring a pumpkin heavier than the 2,624-pound one grown by Mathias Willemijns in 2017. If the heaviest pumpkin in the contest is unable to surpass (超过) the record, its owner will receive $6 for every pound it weighs.

    When: Monday, October 9, 2018. Weighing will begin at 7 am and will end at 11 am. Growers will start lining the street as daylight breaks by 7 am.

    Where: I.D.E.S. Grounds, 735 Main Street, Half Moon Bay, California.

    Prize Money:

    New Record Pumpkin: $30,000 (in total)

    1st Place: $6 per pound

    2nd Place: $2,000

    3rd Place: $1,500

    4th Place: $1,000

    5th~10th Place: $500 each

    11th~20th Place: $100 each

    Special Prizes: $500 for the most beautiful pumpkin, judged by the audience (color, shape and size).

    The top five pumpkins will be on display for the thousands of visitors to Half Moon Bay's famous Art and Pumpkin Festival that will take place on October 14-15, 2018.

阅读理解

    People with bigger brains tend to score higher on standardized tests of intelligence, according to new study findings.

    However, the study author Dr. Michael A.McDaniel of the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond emphasized that these findings represent a general trend, and people with small heads should not automatically believe they are less intelligent. For instance, Albert Einstein's brain was "not particularly large", McDaniel noted." There's some relationship between brain size and intelligence on the average, but there's plenty of room for exceptions," he said.

    Interest in the relationship between brain size and intelligence grew in the1830s, when German anatomist(解剖学家) Frederich Tiedmann wrote that he believed there was "an unquestionable connection between the size of the brain and the mental energy displayed by the individual man". Since that statement, scientists have conducted numerous studies to determine if Tiedmann's assertion was correct. Most studies have looked into the link between head size and intelligence. More recently, however, researchers have published additional studies on brain size and intelligence, measured using MRI scan(核磁共振成像扫描).

    For his study, McDaniel analyzed more than 20 studies that looked into the relationship between brain size and intelligence in a total of 1,530 people. The studies showed that on the average, people with larger brain volume tended to be more intelligent. The relationship between brain volume and intelligence was stronger in women than men, and in adults than in children. McDaniel notes in the journal Intelligence.

    McDaniel is not sure why the relationship was stronger for adults and women. "Other research has shown that women, on the average, tend to have smaller brains than men, but score just as well—if not higher—in tests of intelligence," he said.

    McDaniel insisted that the relationship between brain size and intelligence is not a "perfect" one. "One can certainly find lots of examples of smaller-sized people who are highly intelligent," he said, "But, on the average, the relationship holds."

阅读理解

    Give yourself a test. Which way is the wind blowing? How many kinds of wildflowers can be seen from your front door? If your awareness is as sharp as it could be, you'll have no trouble answering these questions.

    Most of us observed much more as children than we do as adults. A child's day is filled with fascination, newness and wonder. Curiosity gave us all a natural awareness. But distinctions that were sharp to us as children become unclear; we are numb(麻木的)to new stimulation(刺激), new ideas. Relearning the art of seeing the world around us is quite simple, although it takes practice and requires breaking some bad habits.

    The first step in awakening senses is to stop predicting what we are going to see and feel before it occurs. This blocks awareness. One chilly night when I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains with some students, I mentioned that we were going to cross a mountain stream. The students began complaining about how cold it would be. We reached the stream, and they unwillingly walked ahead. They were almost knee-deep when they realized it was a hot spring. Later they all admitted they'd felt cold water at first.

    Another block to awareness is the obsession(痴迷) many of us have with naming things. I saw bird watchers who spotted a bird, immediately looked it up in field guides, and said, a "ruby-crowned kinglet" and checked it off. They no longer paid attention to the bird and never learned what it was doing.

    The pressures of "time" and "destination" are further blocks to awareness. I encountered many hikers who were headed to a distant camp-ground with just enough time to get there before dark. It seldom occurred to them to wander a bit, to take a moment to see what's around them. I asked them what they'd seen. "Oh, a few birds," they said. They seemed bent on their destinations.

    Nature seems to unfold to people who watch and wait. Next time you take a walk, no matter where it is, take in all the sights, sounds and sensations. Wander in this frame of mind and you will open a new dimension to your life.

 完形填空

Volunteering has been a way of life for me for the past five years since I was fifteen.

In 2020 I1 with a newly founded social enterprise, which conducted cooking lessons for visually impaired (视障) trainee2 . I absolutely loved it as it involved meaningful 3 with people and I was fully4 throughout the entire time I was there. This was unlike some other types of volunteering, which may involve mostly behind-the-scenes work that can get5 after a while.

We called ourselves "sighted assistants" and each of us was6 with a visually impaired trainee chef. As a volunteer, I would walk with the trainee to the Enabling Village7 , and then ensure their 8 as they learned to cook a new dish. This included helping them9 the position of the sink, ensuring proper use of electrical appliances,10 boiling and hot objects, as well as being careful with knives among other things.

Being there with them made me truly11 appreciate how difficult life can be when you are partially sighted or completely blind. Every tiny task12 requires massive effort. There are so many people with visual impairments, I realized13 . While medicine still does not have the power to cure all of these conditions, we are never short of ways to empower these individuals by making life14 easier and 15 more meaningful for them.

返回首页

试题篮