高三英语限时阅读训练
A
London-Lazy students can now give up on work altogether as two Oxford University students have made scores of A-grade essays (论文) on the website for students to copy.
The essays are on the new website, “revise. it”
The website includes an “EssayLab” designed to make cheating (舞弊) as effective and effortless as possible.
Its homepage announces to surfers (网上冲浪者): “The revise. it EssayLab is a bank of hundreds of A-Level essays covering popular topics.”
“Next time you are asked to write an essay, why not see what we have on the subject-if you are in a lazy state of mind you can even use our guide to writing the essays and then just hand them in.”
Nick Rose and Jordan Mayo, both 19 and first from Manchester, spent much of their first year as students at the university setting up the website. There is no charge for downloading the essays.
“I have never been very good at essay writing,” Rose admitted. “We don’t see essay bank as a cheating way. It’s a surprising valuable resource. You can learn a lot by reading other people’s work on the subject.”
Among other tips, the website suggests inventing important speeches to give essays extra weight: “Popular people to quote (引用) are Douglass Hurd or Disraeli.”
Hurd was a foreign secretary in the 1980s and Disraeli was a 19th century prime minister.
Teachers are expressing their opinions by e-mail that they are angry about the website that “encourages students to cheat”, but students disagree.
According to Rose: “Exams are a fight. It’s us against them.”
1. It can be inferred from this passage that ______.
A. students who visit the website “revise. it” are all lazy
B. students in Oxford University are all lazy
C. websites in Oxford University are all set up by students
D. websites can provide people with different kinds of information
2. Nick Rose and Jordan Mayo set up their website for the purpose of ______.
A. helping students to cheat in exams B. helping students to improve their writing
C. making money to pay for their schooling D. making their teacher free
3. What Rose said at last suggests that in England ______.
A .it is difficult for students to pass their exams
B. it is difficult for teachers to finish their teaching
C. students are not satisfied with the education system
D. students are too lazy to learn anything
B
Fish have ears. Really. They’re quite small and have no opening to the outside world carrying sound through the body. For the past seven years, Simon Thorrold, a university professor, has been examining fish ears, small round ear bones called otoliths.
As fish grow, so do their otoliths. Each day, their otoliths gain a ring of calcium carbonate (碳酸钙). By looking through a microscope (显微镜) and counting these rings, Thorrold can determine the exact age of a young fish. As a fish gets older, its otoliths no longer get daily rings. Instead, they get yearly rings, which can also be counted, giving information about the fish’s age, just like the growth rings of a tree.
Ring counting is nothing new to fish scientists. But Thorold has turned to a new direction. They’re examining the chemical elements (元素) of each otolith ring.
The daily ring gives us the time, but chemistry tells us about the environment in which the fish swam on any given day. These elements tell us about the chemistry of the water that the fish was in. It also says something about water temperature, which determines how much of these elements will gather within each otolith ring.
Thorrold can tell, for example, if a fish spent time in the open ocean before entering the less salty water of coastal areas. He can basically tell where fish are spending their time at any given stage of history.
In the case of the Atlantic croaker, a popular saltwater food fish, Thorrold and his assistant have successfully followed the traveling of young fish from mid-ocean to the coast, a journey of many hundreds of miles.
This is important to managers in the fish industry, who know nearly nothing about the whereabouts of the young fish for most food fish in the ocean. Eager to learn about his technology, fish scientists are now lending Thorrold their ears.
4. What can we learn about fish ears from the text?
A. They are small soft rings. B. They are not seen from the outside.
C. They are opening only on food fish. D. They are not used to receive sound.
5. Why does the writer compare the fish to trees?
A. Trees gain a growth ring each day. B. trees also have otoliths.
C. Their growth rings are very small. D. They both have growth rings.
6. Why is it important to study the chemistry of otolith rings?
A. The elements of the otoliths can tell the history of the sea.
B. Chemical contents of otoliths can tell how fast fish can swim.
C. We can know more about fish and their living environment.
D. Scientists can know exactly how old a fish is.
7. How would you understand “fish scientists are now lending their ears”?
A. They are very interested in Thorrold’s research fingings.
B. They want to know where they can find fish.
C. They lend their fish for chemical studies.
D. They wonder if Thorrold can find growth rings from their ears.
C
My son and I were trying to sell the house we had repaired but in the barn(谷仓)there were bats(蝙蝠)and they would not leave. The barn was their home. They told us so in their own way. They hung there in the barn and seemed determined to stay for the season. Don't worry about it, Dad, " Patrick said. They keep down the mosquitoes(蚊子).”
Unfortunately they also kept the buyers away. when we had asked a person to sell the house for us he had refused to show it because of the bats. Bats are popular, "Patrick comforted me. They're ecological(生态学的)."Isn't there a machine you can buy that produces high-frequency sounds to keep bats away?” I don't know,” said Patrick. But I like bats, and whoever buys this house will probably like them too." “Probably?” I hated that word. How many bats are there ,anyway?" I counted about 90 last night," said Patrick. They were dropping out from under the edge of the roof." You mean there are more-outside?" They're everywhere, Dad. But look at it this way. When the cold weather comes, they’ll be off to Mexico. Maybe in the spring we can keep them out. Don't worry about it,” he said for the hundredth time. It's not a problem."
The bat expert I called was even more active than Patrick. I think you've got a large number there,” he said in wonder, I’ve been trying to attract bats to our house for 25 years A single bat eats up his weight in mosquitoes and black flies three times every night. You're a very lucky man.” I offered to share my luck with him. He could take them away. Bats have a remarkable homing instinct(本能),"he said. They'd fly straight back even if I transported them 100 miles. Once they have settled, you can't stop them from coming back." I was silent.
Finally we managed to rent “(出租)the house to a young family, who were also interested in buying it. What about the bats?" I said to Patrick.
Oh, they love the bats,” he said. No mosquitoes. No black flies. It's one of the things that attracted them." Do you think they will really buy the house? "Probably." Probably? Well,if they do ,I suppose I'll have to admit that I was wrong. "You mean you're going to eat your words?"
Yes, I am."
8. What was the problem the author had with his house?
A. Bats were living in the barn and wouldn't go away.
B. The author and his son couldn't sleep well because of the bats.
C. The author and his son might be able to stay for the season.
D. The house was still badly in need of repair.
9. What did Patrick suggest the author should do to stop the bats living in the barn?
A. He should buy a high-frequency machine.
B. He should move them one hundred miles away.
C. He should reduce the number of mosquitoes.
D. He should close the barn in the spring.
10. Why did the author fall silent when he talked with the bat specialist?
A. He felt sure about the situation.
B. He found out that it would be impossible to remove the bats.
C. He learned that he would be able to share his luck with the expert.
D. He liked the advice given by the expert.
11. What happened regarding the house in the end?
A. Some people agreed to rent the house.
B. The author failed to find anybody who wanted to live in the house.
C. The bat expert made the decision to buy the house.
D. The bats left the house for Mexico in the spring.
12. Why did the author think he might have to “eat his words”?
A. He felt sorry for the bats.
B. He might be mistaken about being unable to sell the house.
C. He realized he might be wrong about the bats' actions.
D. He was happy about selling the house.
D
We can offer you a place at one of the best universities in Britain. We’ll provide you with a choice of 150 first class courses developed especially to enable you to study in your own time, backed by the Open University’s own special study method-OU supported open learning.
We’ll give you the support of a personal teacher, and the chance to meet your fellow students. You can take one-off courses, diplomas (毕业证), a degree or a postgraduate degree(文凭). Subjects available include: computing, business management, technology, modern languages, social sciences, English law, arts, science, mathematics, education and health﹠social welfare.
Whether you want to study to improve your jobs or for your own personal interest, there’s almost certainly a course for you. If you haven’t studied for a while, we’ll help you get started. No previous training or degrees are required, you just need a lively power of learning and a willingness to learn. It’s real value for money and you can pay by monthly payments.
Open University course materials are of the highest quality and come in a variety of forms, including video and audio tapes as well as texts. The OU leads the world in its use of new technology for learning. A number of courses provide source material on CD Rom. What else can the Open University offer you? The best way to find out is to use the coupon below or phone us today.
13. This is an advertisement of ___________.
A. inquiring (调查) English learning B. setting Open University
C. selling books D. attracting students
14. As a student of the Open University, you don’t need to ________.
A. buy any course materials B. have lessons all the time at the university
C. choose which course to learn D. pay any money for your study
15. The Open University can supply you with _________.
A. a course for training you English B. a classroom and a library for study
C. different kinds of free instructions D. different jobs to choose from
16. We can learn from the text that ________.
A. OU courses are popular in Britain
B. money for learning must be paid off at one time
C. we can’t telephone the university during the night
D. people can’t be employed without finishing OU courses
E
Taxes, Taxes and More Taxes
Americans often say that there are only two things a person can be sure of in life; death and taxes. Americans do not have a corner on the “death” market, but many people feel that the United States leads the world with the worst taxes.
Taxes consist of the money which people pay to support their government. There are generally three levels of government in the United States: federal (联邦), state, and city; therefore, there are three types of taxes.
Salaried people who earn more than a few thousand dollars must pay a certain percentage of their salaries to the federal government. The percentage varies (变化不同) form person to person. It depends on their salaries. The federal government has a graduated income tax, that is, the percentage of the tax (14 to 70 percent) increases as a person’s income increases. With the high cost of taxes people are not very happy on April 15, when the federal taxes are due.
The second tax is for the state government: New York, California, North Dakota, or any of the other forty-seven states. Some states have an income tax similar to that of the federal government. Of course, the percentage for the state tax is lower. Other states have a sales tax, which is a percentage charged to any item(项目) which you buy in that state. For example, a person might want to buy a packet of cigarettes for twenty -five cents. If there is a sales tax of eight percent in that state, then the cost of the cigarettes is twenty -seven cents. This figure includes the sales tax. Some states use income tax in addition to sales tax to raise their revenues (收入) . The state tax laws are diverse (多样) and confusing (混淆).
The third tax is for the city. This tax comes in two forms: property tax (people who own a home have to pay taxes on it) and excise (国产) tax, which is charged on cars in a city. The cities use these funds (资金) for education, police and fire departments, public works and municipal (市政内) buildings.
Since Americans pay such high taxes, they often feel that they are working one day each week just to pay their taxes. People always complain about taxes. They often protest that the government uses their tax dollars in the wrong way. They say that it spends too much on useless and impractical programs. Although Americans have different views on many issues (问题) , they tend to agree on one subject: taxes are too high.
17. How do you understand the sentence “Americans do not have a corner on the ‘death’ market”?
A. It means that Americans, just like all other people, must die.
B. It means that Americans do not have a secret place to keep from death in their life.
C. It means that Americans are not good at doing business in the death market.
D. It means that there is no such place as a death market in the U. S.
18. Why should the American people usually pay three types of taxes?
A. There are three levels of government -federal, state and city -to support the United States.
B. There are three kinds of taxes to pay, They are graduated income tax, sales tax and property tax.
C. They earn different salaries: high, middle, and low
D. Tax laws in different states are different.
19. What does the title “Taxes, Taxes, and More Taxes” imply?
A. Americans are not satisfied with the three types of taxes.
B. The three levels of government do not use the taxes in a right way.
C. Americans complain that taxes are too high.
D. Americans’ taxes are diverse and confusing.
Answers: 1~5 DBCBD 6~10C AADB 11~15 ABDBC 16~19 AAAA