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题型:阅读理解 题类:真题 难易度:普通

2014年高考英语真题试卷(陕西卷)

阅读理解

    When I told my father that I was moving to Des Moines, Iowa, he told me about the only time he had been there. It was in the 1930s, when he was an editor of the literary magazine of Southern Methodist University(SMU)in Dallas, Texas. He also worked as a professor at SMU, and there was a girl student in his class who suffered from a serious back disease. She couldn't afford the operation because her family was poor.

    Her mother ran a boardinghouse in Galveston, a seaside town near Houston, Texas. She was cleaning out the attic(阁楼)one day when she came across an old dusty manuscript(手稿). On its top page were the words, “By O. Henry”. It was a nice story, and she sent it to her daughter at SMU, who showed it to my father. My father had never read the story before, but it sounded like O. Henry, and he knew that O. Henry had once lived in Houston. So it was possible that the famous author had gone to the beach and stayed in the Galveston boardinghouse, and had written the story there and left the manuscript behind by accident. My father visited an O. Henry expert at Columbia University in New York, whoauthenticatedthe story as O. Henry's.

My father then set out to sell it. Eventfully, he found himself in Des Moines, meeting with Gardner Cowles, a top editor at the Des Moines Register. Cowles loves the story and bought it on the spot. My father took the money to the girl. It was just enough for her to have the operation she so desperately needed.

My father never told me what the O. Henry story was about. But I doubt that it could have been better than his own story.

(1)、Who found the O. Henry's manuscript?
A、The girl's mother. B、The author's father. C、The girl. D、The author.
(2)、Which of the following might explain the fact that the manuscript was found in the  attic?
A、O. Henry once worked in Houston. B、O. Henry once stayed in Galveston. C、O. Henry once moved to Des Moines. D、O. Henry once taught at SMU.
(3)、The underlined word “authenticated” in Paragraph 2 probably means ______.
A、named B、treated C、proved D、described
(4)、According to the text, why did the author's father go to Des Moines?
A、To sell the O. Henry story. B、To meet the author himself. C、To talk with the O. Henry expert. D、To give money to the girl.
举一反三
阅读下面短文,掌握其大意,然后从1~20各题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中,选出最佳选项。

    Dad is a reserved man of few words but is always strict. What's more, he is quite different from others in ideas and 1: beating or bringing to account his son in the presence of neighbors as he strongly believes in such a2: a dutiful son is the 3 of the rod, which is deeply impressed in his mind from his father. So I was emotionally upset and 4 in spite of just a 10-year-old kid, who thought, “I was randomly beaten, so I would bring blows on other smaller kids”. And Dad would deal me a heavier 5the next time.

    It 6 that I completely lost control of this blow and found it impossible for me to 7 on my lessons as I came to blows with other kids all day long . Everything went from bad to worse for me so much 8 I couldn't write out the English alphabet, 9 could I do arithmetic (算术). 10, I was sent into a reformatory school(劳教所) where I stayed guilty for two and a half years. This time Dad shed bitter tears , saying, “Son, it is not that I don't love you but that I should not have been so angry at your failure to 11 my expectations!”

    Retiring from the army, he gave me 10,000 US dollars for a trip around the world. 12 getting back from this trip, he said to me, “Book knowledge is 13 valuable but he who travels far and wide should know better at the time of your life. I guess you are now fully prepared to get started for work.” At 26, I started up Runhua Machinery Co., Ltd., which was later poorly 14 and went bankrupt(破产); it was not long 15I started to engage in a dye-stuff plant which happened to be blown up. At all these, my father only gave me such words, “I will congratulate you on your god-given setbacks and failures, which will help you make 16 mistakes in life.”

    The Ph.D. graduation ceremony was grandly started and my parents were 17 invited to 18. Dad didn't say a single word 19 me but cried bitterly again this time, and at this very moment, my mind was in a state of 20 emotions and I stood on the stage with warm tears in my eyes.

根据短文理解,选择正确答案。

    Jeanne Calment, a French woman, became a record breaker on 17 October, 1995, when at the age of 120 years and 238 days, she became the longest-lived human being on record. A Japanese man died in 1986 at the age of 120 years and 237 days.

    Jeanne Calment lives in a small old people's home in the south of France; her husband, her only child and her grandson have all died. She is nearly blind and deaf and is always in a wheelchair, but her doctor describes her as being more like a 90-year-old woman in good health than someone of 120. She still has a lively sense of humor. When asked on her 120th birthday what she expected of the future, she replied: A very short one. She also remarked that she thought the good Lord had forgotten all about her.

         So what is the key to a long life? According to some doctors, diet, exercise and no smoking are the three important factors. Jeanne Calment has followed two of the tips. She has always eaten a healthy diet, and she used to do exercise every day until she broke her leg at the age of 115. However, until recently she drank two glasses of strong red wine a day, and she does smoke (now only a little). Besides, Jeanne Calment might have got very good genes from her parents. Her father lived to the age of 94 and her mother to 86.

    A local lawyer bought her house when she was 80 under an agreement that he would pay her some money every year until her death. It must have seemed a good move at the time, but so far the lawyer has paid her at least three times the value of the house. Every year on her birthday, Jeanne Calment sends him a card saying: Sorry, I'm still alive!

阅读理解

    Those accustomed to browsing (浏览) through thousands of books in large bookstores may find Japan's Morioka Shoten a little strange. That's because this tiny bookstore that is located in Ginza, Tokyo sells only a single book at a time.

    Opened in May 2015, Morioka Shoten is the brainchild (脑力劳动成果;发明;主意) of Yoshiyuki Morioka. He began his career as a bookstore clerk in Tokyo's Kanda district before branching out into opening his own store. It was here while organizing book reading and signing that he realized that customers usually came into the store with one title in mind. Morioka began to wonder if a store could exist by selling multiple copies of just one single book. In November 2014, he partnered Masamichi Toyama to establish a unique bookstore with the philosophy of "a single room with a single book".

    The selections that are picked by Morioka change weekly and vary widely to attract customers with different interests. Recent choices include The True Deceiver, an award-winning Swedish novel by Tove Jansson, Hans Andersen's fairy tales, and a collection of Karl Blossfeldt's photography of plants. Morioka has also selected books written by a famous Japanese author Mimei Ogawa.

    To highlight his only offering, Morioka often uses clever tricks. For example, when selling a book about flowers, the storekeeper decorates his shop with the ones that have been mentioned in the book. He also encourages authors to hold talks and discussions so they can connect with customers. Morioka says his goal is to let customers experience being inside a book, not just a bookstore.

    Risky as the idea might seem, things appear to be going well. The storekeeper says he has sold over 2,100 books. Things can get better given that his bookstore is becoming increasingly popular not just among the locals but also visitors from other countries.

The passage is followed by several questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the one that fits best according to the information given in the passage you have just read.

    In a career that lasted more than half a century, Tom Wolfe wrote fiction and nonfiction best-sellers including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities. Along the way, he created a new type of journalism and coined phrases that became part of the American vocabulary.

    Wolfe began working as a newspaper reporter, first for The Washington Post, then the New York Herald Tribune. He developed a literary style in nonfiction that became known as the "New Journalism." "I've always agreed on a theoretical level that the techniques for fiction and nonfiction are interchangeable," he said. "The things that work in nonfiction would work in fiction, and vice versa."

    "When Tom Wolfe's voice broke into the world of nonfiction, it was a time when a lot of writers, and a lot of artists in general, were turning inwards," says Lev Grossman, book critic for Time magazine. "Wolfe didn't do that. Wolfe turned outwards. He was a guy who was interested in other people." Wolfe was interested in how they thought, how they did things and how the things they did affected the world around them.

    In 1979, Wolfe published The Right Stuff, an account of the military test pilots who became America's first astronauts. Four years later, the book was adapted as a feature film. "The Right Stuff was the book for me," says Grossman. "It reminded me, in case I'd forgotten, that the world is an incredible place."

    In The Right Stuff, Wolfe popularized the phrase "pushing the envelope." In a New York magazine article, Wolfe described the 1970s as "The 'Me' Decade." Grossman says these phrases became part of the American idiom because they were accurate.

    "He was an enormously forceful observer, and he was not afraid of making strong claims about what was happening in reality," Grossman says. "He did it well and people heard him. And they repeated what he said because he was right." All those words started a revolution in nonfiction that is still going on.

阅读理解

    Little Women is the best-known work of author Louisa May Alcott. Published after the end of the Civil War, the book is about the lives of the author and her sisters. Although it was her most successful work, it was not her first.

    Alcott began writing at the age of 20, when she published her poem “Sunlight”. Throughout her early career, she wrote many poems and short stories for magazines. At the age of 22, she began to write fairy tales, romantic thrillers, and other novels, mostly to earn money. At a time when few opportunities were open to women, Alcott supported women's right to work. With her small income, she had long provided for her family.

    When the Civil War broke out, Alcott, at the age of 30, joined the war effort to fight against slavery. She had originally wished to serve as a soldier. However, women were not allowed in battle at that time. As a result, she became a Civil War nurse. Alcott's work as a nurse served as a milestone (里程碑) in her writing career.

    In December of 1862, she left New England to work in the Union Hotel Hospital in Washington, DC. There were few supplies, and doctors performed operations without painkillers. The conditions for patients and doctors were terrible. Within a few weeks, Alcott herself became so ill that she nearly died. She returned home and recovered slowly over a period of months.

    As soon as her health improved, Alcott started a new project. The letters she had sent home became the basis of a newspaper series about her experience as a Civil War nurse. She wrote about her tasks, the wounded soldiers she looked after, and the difficulties they faced. The series, Hospital Sketches, was a success, which received praise from readers and critics (批评) at the same time. Although her best-known work was yet to come, the success of Hospital Sketches marked the achievement of her dream to become a popular author.

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