Science has a lot of uses. It can uncover laws of nature, cure diseases, make bombs, and help bridges to stand up. Indeed science is so good at what it does that there’s always a temptation(誘惑) to drag it into problems where it may not be helpful. David Brooks, author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement, appears to be the latest in a long line of writers who have failed to go against the temptation.

Brooks gained fame for several books. His latest book The Social Animal, however, is more ambitious and serious than his earlier books. It is an attempt to deal with a set of weighty topics. The book focuses on big questions: What has science uncovered about human nature? What are the sources of character? And why are some people happy and successful while others aren’t?

To answer these questions, Brooks studies a wide range of disciplines（學(xué)科）. Considering this, you might expect the book to be a simple description of facts. But Brooks has formed his book in an unusual, and perhaps unfortunate way. Instead of introducing scientific theories, he tells a story, within which he tries to make his points, perhaps in order to keep the reader’s attention. So as Harold and Erica, the hero and heroine in his story, live through childhood, we hear about the science of child development and as they begin to date we hear about the theory of sexual attraction. Brooks carries this through to the death of one of his characters.

On the whole, Brooks’ story is acceptable if uninspired. As one would expect, his writing is mostly clear and, to be fair, some chapters stand out above the rest. I enjoyed, for instance, the chapter in which Harold discovers how to think on his own. While Harold and Erica are certainly not strong or memorable characters, the more serious problems with The Social Animal lie elsewhere. These problems partly involve Brooks’ attempt to translate his tale into science.

1.The author mentions the functions of science at the beginning of the passage to__________.

A. explain where science can be applied

B. show the value of Brooks’ new book

C. remind the reader of the importance of science

D. explain why many writers use science in their works

2.According to the author, which of the following could be a strength of the book?

A. Its strong basis.

B. Its clear writing.

C. Its convincing points.

D. Its memorable characters.

3.What is the author’s general attitude towards the book?

A. Contradictory. B. Supportive.

C . Cautious. D. Critical.

4.What is the author likely to write about after the last paragraph?

A. Death of the characters.

B. Brooks’ life experience.

C. Problems with the book.

D. Brooks’ translation skills.

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科目：高中英語 來源：2015屆河北唐山一中高二下學(xué)期期末英語試卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解

Now Hear This

What do former American president Bill Clinton and rock musician Pete Townshend have in common? Both men have hearing damage from exposure to loud music, and both now wear hearing aids as a consequence. As a teenager, Clinton played saxophone in a band. Townshend, who has the more severe hearing loss, was a guitarist for a band called the Who. He is one of the first rock musicians to call the public's attention to the problem of hearing loss from exposure to loud music.

Temporary hearing loss can happen after only 15 minutes of listening to loud music. One early warning sign is when your ears begin to feel warm while you listen to music at a rock concert or through headphones. One later is that an unusual sound or a ringing is sometimes produced in your head after the concert.

"What happens is that the hair cells in the inner ear are damaged, but they're not dead," says a physician and ear specialist Dr. Sam Levine. According to Dr. Levine, if you avoid further exposure to loud noise, it's possible to recondition the cells somewhat. However, he adds, "Eventually, over a long period of time, hair cells are permanently damaged." And this is no small problem.

What sound level is dangerous? According to Dr. Levine, regular exposure to noise above 85 decibels (分貝) is considered dangerous. The chart below offers a comparison of decibel levels to certain sounds. Here's another measurement you can use. If you're at a rock concert and the music is so loud that you have to shout to make yourself heard, you' re at risk for hearing loss. That's when wearing protective devices such as earplugs becomes critical.

The facts are pretty frightening. But are rock bands turning down the volume? Most aren't. "Rock music is supposed to be loud," says drummer Andrew Sather. "I wouldn't have it any other way. And neither would the real fans of rock. "

Continued exposure to loud music and the failure to wear earplugs can lead to deafness, according to Dr. Levine. He states, "There's no cure for hearing loss. Your ears are trying to tell you something. That ringing is the scream of your hair cells dying. Each time that happens, more and more damage is done. "

Levels of Common Noises

Normal conversation 50 — 65 dB

Food blender 88 dB

Jet plane flying above a person standing outside 103 dB

Rock band during a concert 110 — 140 dB

1.From Paragraph 1, we can learn that .

A. loud music is a major cause of hearing loss

B. famous people tend to have hearing problems

C. teenagers should stay away from school bands

D. the problem of hearing damage is widely known

2.In Paragraph 3, the underlined word "recondition" means .

A. not to be seen

B. to fill with sound

C. to become larger in size

D. to make good again

3.The purpose of the chart at the end of the article is to show .

A. a list of harmful sounds

B. the effect of rock concerts

C. the noise levels of familiar sounds

D. relationship between daily activities and hearing loss

4.Which of the following statements will Dr. Sam Levine probably agree?

A. When your ears feel warm, your hair cells are dead.

B. Drummer Andrew Sather gives good advice.

C. Many are taking the risk of losing hearing.

D. Doctors know how to cure hearing loss.

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科目：高中英語 來源：2016屆江西余江第一中學(xué)高三上模擬2英語試卷（解析版） 題型：短文改錯(cuò)

短文改錯(cuò) (共10分;每小題1分,滿分10分)

假定英語課上老師要求同桌之間交換修改作文，請(qǐng)你修改你同桌寫的以下短文。短文中共有10處錯(cuò)誤，每句中最多有兩處。錯(cuò)誤涉及一個(gè)單詞的增加、刪除或修改。

增加：在缺詞處加一個(gè)漏字符號(hào)(∧), 并在此符號(hào)下面寫出該加的詞。

刪除：把多余的詞用斜線（＼）劃掉。

修改： 在錯(cuò)的詞下劃一橫線, 并在該詞下面寫出修改后的詞。

注意：1、每處錯(cuò)誤及其修改均僅限一詞；

2、只允許修改10處, 多者(從第11處起) 不計(jì)分。

About one year before, we got a lovely cat named Dexter. He enjoys watching my elderly neighbor in her garden. Although he won’t let her to touch him, he always keeps an eye on her.

One afternoon I heard Dexter calling strange. When I reached the door to check on him, his calling stops, so I headed back to kitchen. Just as I did, his calling started again. I stepped outside to find Dexter sit next to my elderly neighbor who had fallen. He didn’t have the strength to get up and shout for help. Dexter didn’t leave her sides until help arrived. With Dexter, she might not have been found in time.

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科目：高中英語 來源：2016屆海南文昌中學(xué)高三上學(xué)期期末英語試卷（解析版） 題型：書面表達(dá)

書面表達(dá)

目前，中國(guó)已經(jīng)進(jìn)入汽車社會(huì)，越來越多的汽車正走進(jìn)尋常百姓家。但是有些駕駛員的素質(zhì)令人擔(dān)憂，他們的所作所為嚴(yán)重危害了自己和他人的安全。這種現(xiàn)象與社會(huì)的發(fā)展極不協(xié)調(diào)。請(qǐng)你以李華的身份，結(jié)合下列幾點(diǎn)寫一封倡議書，倡議所有駕駛員做“中國(guó)好司機(jī)”。

主要內(nèi)容包括：

1. 簡(jiǎn)單描述以上現(xiàn)象；

2. 你的建議：

1）嚴(yán)格遵守交通規(guī)則；

2) 不隔窗拋物；

3) 禮讓他人,不闖紅燈。

注意：1. 詞數(shù)100左右

2. 可以適當(dāng)增加細(xì)節(jié)，以使行文連貫；

3. 開頭和結(jié)尾已給出，不計(jì)入總詞數(shù)。

參考詞匯：規(guī)則 regulations 讓路give way to ; 闖紅燈run the red light

Dear drivers,

At present, more and more cars have entered the homes of ordinary people.

Sincerely yours,

Li Hua

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科目：高中英語 來源：2015-2016學(xué)年四川雙流中學(xué)高二上學(xué)期入學(xué)考英語試卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解

More than 2.25 billion cups of coffee are drunk throughout the world each day, and it's likely that many taste bitter. Now, a new study suggests that coffee fans can make their drink sweeter by changing the color of their cups.

Researchers from Oxford set out to prove whether the claim that coffee drunk from a white cup tastes biter was true. They used 36 volunteers and three different colored cups---blue, white and transparent glass--- to examine the claim.

In one experiment, the white cup increased the intensity (濃度) of the coffee taste relative to the transparent cup. Then, in a second experiment, coffee drunk from the white cup was found to taste less sweet when compared to the other colored cups, while the blue cup made the coffee taste the sweetest.

The scientists believe that the color brown may be associated with bitterness, and coffee in a white cup appears the brownest. “Our study clearly shows that the color of a cup does influence our sense of the coffee taste,” leading author Dr George Doorn, wrote in an article for The Conversation. “The effect of the color of the cup on the taste of the coffee reported here suggests that cafe owners should carefully consider the color of their cups,” he said. “The potential effects may spell the difference between a one-time purchase and a return customer.” Actually, the idea that color can change the food and drink taste came out many years ago. A study published last year reported that red, strawberry-flavored cake served on a white plate was rated as 10 percent sweeter than the same food presented on a black plate.

1.The passage is mainly about _____.

A. the popularity of sweet coffee.

B. an experiment made in Oxford.

C. the effect of cup color on coffee's taste

D. useful tips on how to make coffee.

2. In which cup will coffee taste the sweetest?

A. A white cup. B. A blue cup.

C. A transparent cup D. A brown cup

3. Café owners should consider their cups' color in order to ______.

A. reduce the daily expenses

B. show their taste in coffee

C. appeal to more customers

D. make their café different.

4.We learn from the passage that_____.

A. coffee in a white cup tastes sweeter than that in a transparent glass

B. over 2 billion cups of sweet coffee are drunk worldwide each year.

C. Dr. George Doorn wrote an article about making conversations.

D. the idea that color could affect the taste of drink is not new.

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科目：高中英語 來源：2015-2016學(xué)年湖北沙中學(xué)高二下第一次半月考英語試卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解

Scientists at Harvard University have recycled a kidney(‘腎)-in a rat. The researchers removed a kidney from a dead rat. Later, the renewed kidney was put into a living rat. It wasn't perfect. It did, however, show signs of working like a kidney should.

"It's really beautiful work," Edward Ross, a kidney researcher at the University of Florida in Gainesville, told Science News. He didn't work on the new study.

Kidneys are bean-shaped and act like guards in the body. They clean the blood by removing waste and extra water. Every day, an adult's kidneys filter(過濾) enough blood to fill a bathtub half full. Along the way, they produce eight cups of urine(尿) from that waste and water. When a person's kidneys fail, all of that waste stays in the body. Such patients can quickly become very sick and die, unless they are regularly connected to a machine that filters their blood.

At any given time, about 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a replacement kidney. But healthy donated kidneys are difficult to get. Either a living person must donate one, or a kidney must be removed from someone who just died and earlier had agreed to the donation. In either case, people receiving new kidneys face the risk that their bodies will reject the donated ones.

But there may be another option. Researchers use knowledge of living things to grow or improve tissue that can aid human health. Harald Ott's team at Harvard started with a "used" kidney.

Scientists added kidney cells from rats and blood vessel cells from people to the matrix（母體）. These cells attached themselves and began to multiply. Before long, they formed new kidney tissue.

The scientists placed this renewed kidney into another rat. There it produced a small amount of urine. This experiment shows that the lab-grown kidney can do at least some of the work performed by a healthy kidney.

The results are a promising first step toward helping people with serious kidney problems. "This is still very early, but they've come a long way," Ross said.

1.What can we infer from Paragraph l?

A. Biology is a new and helpful science.

B. It's hard to put the rebuilt kidney into the rat.

C. Kidneys are very important to our life.

D. A used kidney may be recycled for new life.

2.What does Paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A. The relationship between kidneys and health.

B. The difficulty of curing serious kidney diseases.

C. The function and importance of kidneys.

D. The methods of curing kidneys diseases.

3.For what purpose does the author use the figure 100,000 in Paragraph 4?

A. To stress used kidneys are hard to get.

B. To show the great need for healthy kidneys.

C. To explain many American people get kidney diseases.

D. To call on people to donate kidneys.

4.Which of the following is true according to the text?

A. The scientists are satisfied with the result of the experiment.

B. Ross is a kidney expert who is involved in the experiment.

C. The function of the renewed kidney is the same as a healthy kidney.

D. The renewed kidney produced a great deal of urine.

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科目：高中英語 來源：2015-2016學(xué)年遼寧大連第二十高級(jí)中學(xué)高二上學(xué)期期末英語試卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解

Margaret, married with two small children, has been working for the last seven years as a night cleaner, cleaning offices in a big building．

She got trained as a nurse, but had to give it up when her elder child became seriously ill．“I would have liked to go back to it , but the shifts(工作班次)are all wrong for me, as I have to be home to get the children up and off to school．”

So she works as a cleaner instead, from 9 p．m．till 6 a．m．five nights a week for just ￡ 90, before tax and insurance．“It’s better than it was last year, but I still think that people who work ‘unsocial hours’ should get a bit extra．”

The hours she’s chosen to work mean that she sees plenty of the children, but very little of her husband．However, she doesn’t think that puts any pressure on their relationship．

Her work isn’t physically very hard, but it’s not exactly pleasant, either．“I do get angry with people who leave their offices like a place for raising pigs．If they realized people like me have to do it, perhaps they’d be a bit more careful．”

The fact that she’s working all night doesn’t worry Margaret at all．Unlike some dark buildings at night, the building where she works is fully lit, and the women work in groups of three．“Since I’ve got to be here, I try to enjoy myself－and I usually do, together with the other girls．We all have a good laugh, so the time never drags．”

Another challenge Margaret has to face is the reaction of other people when she tells them what she does for a living．“They think you’re a cleaner because you don’t know how to read and write,” said Margaret．“I used to think what my parents would say if they knew what I’d been doing, but I don’t think that way any more．I don’t dislike the work though I can’t say I’m mad about it．”

1.Margaret quit her job as a nurse because ______

A．she wanted to earn more money to support her family

B．she had suffered a lot of mental pressure

C．she needed the right time to look after her children

D．she felt tired of taking care of patients

2.Margaret gets angry with people who work in the office because ______

A．they never clean their offices

B．they look down upon cleaners

C．they never do their work carefully

D．they always make a mess in their offices

3.When at work, Margaret feels ______

A．light-hearted because of her fellow workers

B．happy because the building is fully lit

C．tired because of the heavy workload

D．bored because time passes slowly

4.The underlined part in the last paragraph implies that Margaret’s parents would _____ ．

A．help care for her children

B．regret what they had said

C．show sympathy for her

D．feel disappointed with her

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科目：高中英語 來源：2016屆湖北武漢華中師大第一附中高三上學(xué)期期中英語試卷（解析版） 題型：閱讀理解

In 2012, the Tower of London welcomed two new inhabitants: a pair of ravens(烏鴉) named Jubilee and Grip． Their arrival celebrated the bicentenary(二百周年) of Charles Dickens’s birth． This Grip was the third of the Tower ravens to be named after the novelist’s own pet bird．One of his predecessors（前輩） was resident during World War Two; he and his mate Mabel were the only ravens to survive a bombing attack on the Tower．

Dickens’s Grip, who had an impressive vocabulary, appears as a character in the author’s fifth novel, Barnaby Rudge． On 28 January 1841, Dickens wrote to his friend George Cattermole: “my notion is to have [Barnaby] always in company with a pet raven, who is immeasurably more knowing than himself． To this end I have been studying my bird, and think I could make a very distinctive character of him．”

Unfortunately, just a few weeks after Dickens wrote that letter, Grip died, probably as a result of having stolen and eaten paint some months earlier． The bird had developed a strange habit – tearing sections off painted surfaces (including the family's carriage) and even drinking a quantity of white paint out of a tin． Dickens mourned his loss and wrote a humorous letter to his friend, the illustrator Daniel Maclise, about the raven’s death．

He related how, when Grip began to show signs of sickness, the vet was called and “administered a powerful dose of castor(蓖麻) oil”． Initially this seemed to have a positive effect and the author was thrilled to see Grip restored to his usual personality when he bit the coachman (who was used to the raven and took it in good humor)． The following morning, Grip was able to eat “some warm porridge”, but his recovery was short lived．

As Dickens wrote to Maclise, “On the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly upset, but soon recovered, walking twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, exclaimed ‘Hello old girl’ (his favorite expression) and died．He behaved throughout with a decent manner, which cannot be too much admired．The children seem rather glad of it． He bit their ankles． But that was play．”

1.Which of the following is right about Dickens’s pet Grip?

A． he liked painting a lot．

B． he could speak English fluently．

C． he was quite ill before his death．

D． he and Mabel survived a bombing attack．

2.Why did Dickens study his bird Grip?

A． Because the bird was very strange looking．

B． Because Dickens liked the bird immeasurably．

C． Because Barnaby needs a companion who was always with him．

D． Because Dickens wanted to base one character of his novel on him．

3.What caused the death of Dickens’s Grip?

A． His old age．

B． His strange diet．

C． The killing of the coachman．

D． His bad habit of biting people．

4.Which of the following can be the best title of the passage?

A． A bird in a novel．

B． The writer’s bird．

C． The death of a bird．

D． Dickens and his bird

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科目：高中英語 來源：2015-2016學(xué)年北京懷柔區(qū)高一上學(xué)期期末考試英語試卷（解析版） 題型：單項(xiàng)填空

How ________ you say that you really understand the whole story if you have covered only part of the article?

A. may B. must C. need D. can

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