大学英语阅读理解练习题及答案
河南高考-未来是湿的
09级2下大学英语阅读理解练习题
根据文章内容，选择正确的答案。错选、多选，少选或未选均无分。
Passage one
Early one morning, more
than a hundred years ago, an American inventor
called
Elias Howe finally fell asleep. He had
been working all night on the design of a
sewing machine but he had run into a very
difficult problem: It seemed impossible to
get
the thread to run smoothly around the needle.
Though he was tired, Howe slept badly. He
turned and turned. Then he had a
dream. He
dreamt that he had been caught by terrible savages
whose king wanted to
kill him and eat him
unless he could build a perfect sewing machine.
When he tried to
do so, Howe ran into the same
problem as before. The thread kept getting caught
around the needle.
The king flew into the
cage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe. They
came up
towards him with their spears raised.
But suddenly the inventor noticed something.
There was a hole in the tip of each spear. The
inventor awoke from the dream,
realizing that
he had just found the answer to the problem.
Instead of trying to get the
thread to run
around the needle, he should make it run through a
small hole in the
center of the needle. This
was the simple idea that finally made Howe design
and
build the first really practised sewing
machine.
Elias Howe was not the only one in
finding the answer to his problem in this
way.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric
light, said his best ideas came into
him in
dreams. So did the great physicist Albert
Einstein. Charlotte Bronte also drew
in her
dreams in writing Jane Eyre.
To know the value
of dreams, you have to understand what happens
when you are
asleep. Even then, a part of your
mind is still working. This unconscious(无意识的),
but still active part understands your
experiences and goes to work on the problems
you have had during the day. It stores all
sorts of information that you may have
forgotten or never have really noticed. It is
only when you fall asleep that this part of
the brain can send messages to the part you
use when you are awake. However, the
unconscious part acts in a special way. It
uses strange images which the conscious
part
may not understand at first. This is why dreams
are sometimes called “secret
messages to
ourselves”.
ing to the passage, Elias
Howe was________.【 C 】
A. the first person we
know of who solved problems in his sleep
B.
much more hard-working than other inventors
C.
the first person to design a sewing machine that
really worked
problem Howe was trying to
solve was________.【 A 】
A. how to
prevent the thread from getting caught around the
needle
B. how to design a needle which would
not break
C. where to put the needle
Edison is spoken of because________.【 B 】
A.
he also tried to invent a sewing machine
B. he
got some of his ideas from dreams
C. he was
one of Howe’s best friends
are sometimes
called“secret messages to ourselves” because___.【
A 】
A. strange images are used to communicate
ideas
B. images which have no meaning are used
C. we can never understand the real meaning
Passage two
The greatest recent
changes have been in the lives of women. During
the
twentieth century there was an unusual
shortening of the time of a woman’s life spent
in caring for children. A woman marrying at
the end of the 19th century would
probably
have been in her middle twenties, and would be
likely to have seven or eight
children, of
whom four or five lived till they were five years
old. By the time the
youngest was fifteen, the
mother would have been in her early fifties and
would
expect to live a further twenty years,
during which custom, chance and health made it
unusual for her to get paid work. Today women
marry younger and have fewer
children. Usually
a woman’s youngest child will be fifteen when she
is forty-five and
is likely to take paid work
until retirement at sixty. Even while she has the
care of
children ,her work is lightened by
household appliances（家用电器）and convenience
foods.
This important change in women’s
way of life has only recently begun to have
its full effect on women’ s economic position.
Even a few years ago most girls left
school at
the first opportunity and most of them took a
full-time job. However, when
they married,
they usually left work at once and never returned
to it. Today the
school-leaving age is
sixteen, many girls stay at school after that age
,and though
women tend to marry younger ,more
married women stay at work at least until shortly
before their first child is born. Many more
after wads, return to full or part-time work.
Such changes have led to a new relationship in
marriage, with both husband and wife
accepting
a greater share of the duties and satisfaction of
family life, and with both
husband and wife
sharing more equally in providing the money and
running the home,
according to the abilities
and interest of each of them.
are told
that in an average family about 1990________.【 D
】
A. many children died before they were five
B. the youngest child would be fifteen
C.
seven of eight children lived to be more than five
D. four or five children died when they were
five
6. When she was over fifty,
the late 19th century mother________.【 D 】
A. would expect to work until she died
B.
was usually expected to take up paid employment
C. would be healthy enough to take up paid
employment
D. was unlikely to find a job even
if she is now likely
7. Many girls, the
passage says, are now likely to ________.【 D 】
A. marry so that they can get a job
B.
leave school as soon as they can
C. give up
their jobs for good after they are married
D.
continue working until they are going to have a
baby
8. According to the passage, it is now
quite usual for women to ________.【 C 】
A.
stay at home after leaving school
B. marry men
younger than themselves
C. start working again
later in life
D. marry while still at school
Passage three
Swimming
is one of those activities that can be learned
early in life. Little
children can learn to
swim as soon as they walk. In fact, you need the
same skills in
walking as in swimming.
However, I believe that five is the best age to
learn. By five
or six, a child knows fear of
water, a very important thing to know. It's wise
to be
afraid, to recognize true danger. Young
ones understand that the water can sometimes
be very dangerous.
To really benefit from
swimming, every swimmer should learn, as soon as
possible, these four basic strokes; butterfly,
backstroke, breastroke, and crawl. I feel
that
one of these-the breaststroke-is different from
the others, since some young
swimmers use this
stroke naturally, without any training.
In
swimming there are certain rules every swimmer
should follow:
1. Never swim alone! No
matter how good you are in the water, don't risk
drowning by swimming alone. If you swim by
yourself , with no life guards or friends
with
you, you may get into trouble.
2. Don't go
beyond your abilities. Most swimmers know enough
not to swim too
far from the bank or the
beach, Showing off by doing dangerous tricks is no
good.
Swim safely and you will continue to
swim and alive.
3. Don't smoke. Swimming
depends on a healthy body; good lungs are part of
it.
4. Work at any activity that builds
muscles.
9. Little children can learn
to swim as soon as _____.【 B 】
A. they can
talk
B. they start walking
C. they have
no fear of the water
D. they are five or
six years old
10. The author believes that
fear of water is_____.【 B 】
A. stupid B.
sensible C. dangerous D. not smart
11. The
stroke that some young swimmers use first
is_____.【 A 】
A. Picture (1) B. Picture (2) C.
Picture (3) D. Picture (4)
12. According to
the passage, you should not swim alone
because_____.【 D 】
A. the water is too cold B.
your parents would not be happy
C. something
in the water might attack D. you might drown
Passage four
Americans spend their
free time in various ways.
America is a
country of sports—of hunting, fishing and
swimming, and of team
sports like baseball and
football. Millions of Americans watch their
favorite sports on
television. They also like
to play in community orchestras(管弦乐队),make their
own
films or recordings, go camping ,visit
museums, attend lectures, travel, garden, read,
and join in hundreds of other activities. The
people also enjoy building things for their
homes, sewing their own clothes, even making
their own photographs. They do these
things
for fun as well as for economy.
But as much
as Americans enjoy their free time, the country is
at the same time
acountry. More than 25
million adults continue their education,
chiefly by going to school in the evening,
during their own free time, at their own
expense. Added to the time spent on personal
activities, Americans a1so devote a
great
amount of their time to the varied needs of their
communities. Many hospitals,
schools,
libraries, museums, parks, community centers, and
organizations that assist
the poor depend on
the many hours citizens devote to these
activities, often without
any pay. Why do they
do it?
There are several answers. The idea
of cooperating and sharing responsibility
with
one another for the benefit of all is as old as
the country itself.
When the country was
first founded in 1776,it was necessary for the
settlers to
work together to live. They had
crossed dangerous seas and risked all they had in
their
struggle for political and religious
freedom. There remains among many Americans a
distrust of central government. People still
prefer to do things themselves within their
communities, rather than give the government
more control.
Sometimes people offer their
time because they wish to accomplish something
for which no money is paid, to do something
that will be of benefit to the entire
community. It is true that some people use
their leisure because they are truly
interested in the work; or they are learning
from the experience.
No matter what the reason
is, hundreds of thousands of so called leisure
hours
are put into hard, unpaid work on one or
another community need.
13. This
passage is mainly about ________ . 【 B 】
A. why America is a country of sports
B. how
Americans spend their free time
C. why America is a
14. The writer mentions
the foundation of the country in order to indicate
________.【 C 】
A. the early history of
America
B. the American people's
determination to live
C. the reason for
Americans' willingness to cooperate and share
responsibility
of the following best
explains the meaning of the underlined word
“leisure【 C 】
A. work time B. energy C.
spare time
can we infer from the text【 A 】
A. The first settlers left their hometown
for political and religious reasons.
B. Many
Americans don′t trust the central government.
C. American people enjoy building things for their
homes just for fun.
Passage five
Personal computers and the Internet give
people new choices about how to spend
their
time.
Some may use this freedom to share less
time with certain friends or family
members,
but new technology will also let them stay in
closer touch with those they
care most about.
I know this from personal experience.
E-mail
makes it easy to work at home, which is where I
now spend most
weekends and evenings. My
working hours aren’t necessarily much shorter than
they
once were but I spend fewer of them at
the office. This lets me share more time with
my young daughter than I might have if she’d
been born before electronic mail
became such a
practical tool.
The Internet also makes it
easy to share thoughts with a group of friends.
Say
you do something fun see a great movie
perhaps-and there are four or five friends
who
might want to hear about it. If you call each one,
you may tire of telling the story.
With
E-mail, you just write one note about your
experience, at your convenience,
and address
it to all the friends you think might be
interested. They can read your
message when
they have time, and read only as much as they want
to. They can reply
at their convenience, and
you can read what they have to say at your
convenience.
E-mail is also an inexpensive way
stay in close touch with people who live far away.
More than a few parents use E-mail to keep in
touch, even daily touch, with their
children
off at college.
We just have to keep in mind
that computers and the Internet offer another way
of staying in touch. They don’t take the place
of any of the old ways.
17. The purpose
of this passage is to ________.【 C 】
A.
explain how to use the Internet
B. describe
the writer’s joy of keeping up with the latest
technology
C. tell the merits(价值) and
usefulness of the Internet
D. introduce the
reader to basic knowledge about personal computers
and the Internet
18. The use of
E-mail has made it possible for the writer to
________.【 B 】
A. spend less time working
B. have more free time with his child
C.
work at home on weekends
D. work at a speed
comfortable to him
19. According to the
writer, E-mail has an obvious advantage over the
telephone
because the former helps one
________.【 A 】
A. reach a group of people at
one time conveniently
B. keep one’s
communication as personal as possible
C. pass
on much more information than the later
D. get
in touch with one’s friends faster than the later
20. The best title for this passage is
________.【 D 】
A. Computer: New Technological
Advances
B. Internet: New Tool to Maintain
Good Friendship
C. Computers Have Made Life
Easier
D. Internet: a Convenient Tool for
Communication