高考英语阅读理解练习(16)(含解析)

2014高考英语阅读理解练习（16）及答案（解析）

[2013·山东卷]

George Gershwin, born in 18, was one of America's greatest composers. He published his first song when he was eighteen years old. During the next twenty years he wrote more than five hundred songs.

Many of Gershwin's songs were first written for musical plays performed in theatres in New York City. These plays were a popular form of entertainment in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of his songs have remained popular as ever. Over the years they have been sung and played in every possible way — from jazz to country.

In the 1920s there was a debate in the United States about jazz music. Could jazz, some people asked, be considered serious music? In 1924 jazz musician and orchestra leader Paul Whiteman decided to organize a special concert to show that jazz was serious music. Gershwin agreed to compose something for the concert before he realized he had just a few weeks to do it. And in that short time, he composed a piece for piano and orchestra which he called Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin himself played the piano at the concert. The audience were thrilled when they heard his music. It made him world－famous and showed that jazz music could be both serious and popular.

In 1928, Gershwin went to Paris. He applied to study composition (作曲)with the well－known musician Nadia Boulanger, but she rejected him. She was afraid that

classical study would ruin his jazz－influenced style. While there, Gershwin wrote An American in Paris. When it was first performed, critics (评论家)were divided over the music. Some called it happy and full of life, to others it was silly and boring. But it quickly became popular in Europe and the United States. It still remains one of his most famous works.

George Gershwin died in 1937, just days after doctors learned he had brain cancer. He was only thirty－nine years old. Newspapers all over the world reported his death on their front pages. People mourned the loss of the man and all the music he might have still written.

61．Many of Gershwin's musical works were ________．

A．written about New Yorkers

B．composed for Paul Whiteman

C．played mainly in the countryside

D．performed in various ways

62．What do we know about the concert organized by Whiteman?

A．It attracted more people to theatres.

B．It proved jazz could be serious music.

C．It made Gershwin leader of the orchestra.

D．It caused a debate among jazz musicians.

63．What did Gershwin do during his stay in Paris?

A．He created one of his best works.

B．He studied with Nadia Boulanger.

C．He argued with French critics.

D．He changed his music style.

．What do we learn from the last paragraph?

A．Many of Gershwin's works were lost.

B．The death of Gershwin was widely reported.

C．A concert was held in memory of Gershwin.

D．Brain cancer research started after Gershwin's death.

65．Which of the following best describes Gershwin?

A．Talented and productive.

B．Serious and boring.

C．Popular and unhappy.

D．Friendly and honest.

【要点综述】 这是一篇人物传记。文章主要讲述了美国著名作曲家乔治·格什温的生平以及他在音乐方面的巨大贡献。

61．D 考查细节理解。从第二段的“Over the years they have been sung and played in every possible way—from jazz to country.”可知，乔治·格什温的音乐作品是以各种形式演唱或演奏的。故选D。

62．B 考查推理判断。根据第三段的“Gershwin himself played the piano at the concert. The audience were thrilled when they heard his music. It made him world－famous and showed that jazz music could be both serious and popular.”可知，这个音乐会充分证明爵士音乐流行的同时，也可以庄重、严肃。

63．A 考查细节理解。从第四段的第二句可知B项不正确；从第四段的“When it was first performed, critics were divided over the music.”可知，不是格什温与评论家争辩，故C项不正确；没有提到他音乐风格的改变，故D项不正确；从第四段的最后一句“It still remains one of his most famous works.”可知A项是正确的。

．B 考查推理判断。从最后一段的“Newspapers all over the world reported his

death on their front pages.”可知，世界各地的报纸对格什温的去世进行了广泛的报道。故选B。

65．A 考查推理判断。从全文看乔治·格什温创作了很多的音乐，其演奏的形式多样化，并得到观众赞赏，这体现了他是一位很有才华，且多产的作曲家。故选A。

(2011·合肥第二次质检，D)

You are busy filling out the application form for a position you really need；let's assume you once actually completed a couple of years of college work or even that you completed your degree. Isn't it tempting to lie just a little, to claim on the form that your diploma (文凭) represents a Harvard degree? Or that you finished an extra couple of years back at State University?

More and more people are turning to an utter deception (欺骗)like this to land their first job or to move ahead in their careers. For personnel officers, like most Americans, value degress from famous schools. A job applicant may have a good education anyway, but he or she assumes that chances of being hired are better with a diploma from a well­known university. Registrars(学籍管理员)at most well­known colleges say that they deal with dishonest claims like these at the rate of about one per week.

Personnel officers do check up on degrees listed on application forms. It turns out that when an applicant is lying, most colleges are unwilling to accuse the applicant directly. One Ivy League school refers to them as “special cases”. One

well­known West Coast school, in perhaps the most delicate phrase of all, says these claims are made by “no such people”．

To avoid complete lies，some job seekers claim that they “attended” or “were associated with”a college or university. After careful checking, a personnel officer may discover that “attending” means being dismissed after one semester. It may be that “being associated with” a college means that the job seeker visited his younger brother for a football weekend. One school that keeps records of false claims says that the practice dates back at least to the turn of the century—that's when they began keeping records, anyhow.

If you don't want to lie or even stretch the truth, there are companies that will sell you a fake diploma. One company, with offices in New York and on the West Coast, will put your name on a diploma from any number of nonexistent colleges. The price begins at around twenty dollars for a diploma from “Smoot State University”. The prices increase rapidly for a degree from the “University of Purdue”. As there is no Smoot State and the real school in Indiana is properly called Purdue University, the prices seem rather high for one sheet of paper.

因为人事部门的们更看重名校学历，因此人们常常为谋求一份好工作和职位而造假。

13．The writer mainly wants to tell us that ________.

A. college degrees can now be purchased easily

B. nowadays it is very hard for people to find jobs

C. lying about college degrees is becoming a widespread problem

D. employers are no longer interested in applicants' actual performances

答案：C。主旨大意题。总览文章可知C项为本文主旨。

14．As used in the first line of the second paragraph，the word “utter” means ________.

A. thorough B. careful

C. imcomplete D. spoken

答案：A。词义猜测题。由第二段第一句中的关键词deception(欺骗)及其后的解释 “学历造假”，再结合文章主旨可推出A项正确。thorough彻底的。

15．Once finding applicants with false diplomas, most colleges would ________.

A. keep the records of them B. drive them out of college

C. avoid direct conflicts with them D. accuse them of such behaviors

答案：C。推理判断题。由第三段中的“...most colleges are unwilling to accuse the applicant directly”．和下面给出的例子可推断出C项正确。

16．We can learn from the passage that ________.

A. US employers value their job applicants with a degree from top universities

B. University of Purdue and Purdue University are the same school

C. people with fake diplomas can get their first jobs in US easily

D. people pay the same price for a fake diploma from different universities

答案：A。事实细节题。由第二段第二句“For personnel officers, like most Americans, value degrees from famous schools.”可知A项正确。由尾段可知B、D错误；C项在文

中没有信息支持。

(2011·成都三诊，D)

Habits are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly，setting our brains on auto­pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting creatures，”William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever­changing 21st century，even the word“habit”carries a negative meaning.

So it seems contradictory to talk about habits in the same context as innovation(创新)．But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits ，we create parallel paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new，innovative tracks.

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact，the more new things we try, the more creative we become.

But don't bother trying to kill off old habits；once those ruts of procedure are worn into the brain，they're there to stay. Instead，the new habits we deliberately press into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads.

“The first thing needed for innovation is attraction to wonder，” says Dawna Markova, author of The Open Mind. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide’ ，just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider’. ”She adds, however，that“to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities.”

“All of us work through problems in ways of which we're unaware，” she says. Researchers in the late 1960s discovered that humans are born with the ability to approach challenges in four primary ways: analytically, procedurally, collaboratively (合作地) and innovatively. At the end of adolescence，however, the brain shuts down half of that ability, preserving only those ways of thought that have seemed most valuable during the first decade or so of life.

The current emphasis on standardized testing highlights analysis and procedure, meaning that few of us use our innovative and collaborative ways of thought. “This breaks the major rule in the American belief system—that anyone can do anything, ” explains M. J. Ryan, author of the 2006 book This Year I Will...and Ms.

Markova's business partner. “That's a lie that we have preserved，and it fosters commonness. Knowing what you're good at and doing even more of it creates excellence. ”This is where developing new habits comes in.

本文论述了创新思维与有意识培养新习惯之间的关系。

17．Brain researchers have discovered that ________.

A. the forming of new habits can be guided

B. the development of habits can be predicted

C. the regulation of old habits can be transformed

D. the track of new habits can be created unconsciously

答案：A。事实细节题。由第三段首句“Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits.”可知A项正确。

18．The underlined word “ruts” in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to ________.

A. zones B. connections

C. situations D. tracks

答案：D。词义猜测题。由画线词所在的第四段中的信息词pathway(路，径)和road(路，道路)可推测出D项正确。track路，路径，轨迹。

19．Which of the following statements most probably agrees with Dawna Markova's view?

A. Decision makes no sense in choices.

B. Curiosity makes creative minds active.

C. Creative ideas are born of a relaxing mind.

D. Formation of innovation comes from fantastic ideas.

答案：B。推理判断题。由第五段首句和尾句尤其是“The first thing needed for innovation is attraction to wonder(创新的第一要素是好奇)”可推断出B项正确。

20．The purpose of the author writing this article is to persuade us ________.

A. to give up our traditional habits deliberately

B. to create and develop new habits consciously

C. to resist the application of standardized testing

D. to believe that old habits conflict with new habits

答案：B。主旨大意题。总览文章可知，作者认为创新和新习惯的养成在很多方面是相通的，从而试图说服我们去有意识地创新和培养新习惯。

[2013·北京卷]

Tail Spin

Two dolphins race around in a big pool in the Ocean Park. The smaller dolphin, Grace, shows off a few of her tricks, turning around and waving hello to the crowd. The most amazing thing about her, however, is that she's even swimming at all. She doesn't have a tail.

Grace lost her tail as a baby when she got caught up in a fish trap.When the dolphin arrived at the Ocean Park in December 2005, she was fighting for her life. “Is she going to make it？” Her trainer, Abbey Stone, feared the worst. Grace did make it—but her tail didn't. She ended up losing her flukes and the lower part of her peduncle.

Over the past six years, she has learned to swim without her tail. Dolphins swim by moving their flukes and peduncle up and down. Grace taught herself to move another way—like a fish! She pushes herself forward through the water by moving her peduncle from side to side.

The movements put harmful pressure on Grace's backbone. So a company offered to create a man－made tail for her. The tail had to be strong enough to stay on Grace as she swam but soft enough that it wouldn't hurt her.

The first time Grace wore the artificial tail, she soon shook it off and let it sink to the bottom of the pool. Now, she is still learning to use the tail. Some days she wears it for an hour at a time, others not at all. “The new tail isn't necessary for her to feel comfortable，” says Stone, “but it helps to keep that range of motion(动作) and build muscles(肌肉)．”

Now, the dolphin is about to get an even happier ending. This month, Grace will star in Dolphin Tale, a film that focuses on her rescue and recovery. Her progress has inspired more than just a new movie. Many people travel from near and far to meet her. Seeing Grace swim with her man－made tail gives people so much courage.

60．When Grace first arrived at the Ocean Park, her trainer worried about her ________.

A. physical build

B. potential ability

C. chance of survival

D. adaptation to the surroundings

61．A man－made tail is created for Grace to ________．

A. let her recover faster

B. make her comfortable

C. adjust her way of swimming

D. help her perform better tricks

62．The story of Grace inspires people to ________．

A. stick to their dreams

B. treat animals friendly

C. treasure what they have

D. face difficulties bravely

【要点综述】 这是一篇关于海豚的故事，讲述的是一只断尾的海豚。它的尾巴在一次事故中丧失。在训导员的训练下，它克服了困难，学会了使用假尾巴，像其他海豚一样在水中遨游。它还成了一部电影中的明星，它的勇气感动了人们。

60．C 细节理解题。根据文章第二段“fighting for her life”可知，它在为活下去而挣扎，所以选C。

61．C 细节理解题。根据第三段末和第四段，可知它改变的游动方式给它带来了有害的压力，所以一家公司才给它装了条假尾巴。故选C。

62．D 推理判断题。本文的目的就是通过描写一个断了尾巴的海豚勇敢地活下去的故事，来鼓励人们勇敢地面对困难。所以选D。