1、阅读理解。阅读下列短文, 从给的四个选项 (A、B、C和D) 中, 选出最佳选项。The first Europeans came to America in 1492 with Christopher Columbus. Since that time people have come to America from all over the world, from Europe, Africa, and Asia, and they have brought their music with them. This mixing of people and music has created
2、 American music.Music is a very important part of our lives. Music is for dancing, drinking, eating, loving, and thinking. Some songs remind us of our childhood or youth.Others remind of the people they love. Many important occasions, like weddings and funerals have special music. Every nation has a
3、 national song like the American “The StarSpangled Banner”. In the US high schools and colleges have school songs too.Music is a part of the history of America. It expresses the problems and feelings of its people. As the years pass, the music grows and changes.Modern science has also changed music.
4、 Inventions like records, radios, movies, electric instruments, tape recorders, and videos have changed the way we play and listen to music. They have helped to make music an important form of international communication.American music, from the earliest folk songs to modern “pop”， is known around t
5、he world. Music is one of Americas most important exports. It brings the people of the world together. Even when people cannot understand the same language, they can share the same music. Many people learn and practise English by singing song. Understanding American music can help you understand Ame
6、rican people, their history and culture.So, as the song says, “put a dime (10 cents)in the juke box (自动点唱机), baby. Lets listen to the music！”1The article mainly tells us about _.Ahow American music developedBwhen American music developedCwhat American music isDwhy American music is so popular答案：A全文主
7、要讲述了美国音乐的发展历程及现状，故A项最佳。2From the text we know that _.AAmerican music has spread all over the worldBAmerican music began in the 1550sCAmerican music is specialDAmerican music has changed modern science in the US 答案：A文章倒数第二段第一句“American music.most important exports.”可知美国音乐已被全世界的人知晓。音乐是美国最重要的出口产品。 3The
8、 sixth paragraph probably means that _. AAmerican music is very popularBAmerican music is known to people all over the worldCAmerican music can help us understand American people, history and cultureDAmerican music is important in our lives答案：C文章倒数第二段最后一句话“Many people learn and. help you understand
9、American people, their history and culture.”可知美国音乐帮助我们了解美国人、美国历史和美国文化。4American music is _.Afor dancing, drinking, eating, loving and thinkingBa mixture of people and music from all over the worldCan important form of international communicationDa part of the history of the world答案：B由文章第一段可知世界各地的人们移
10、民到美国并带去了他们的音乐。这些音乐混合起来构成了美国音乐。 5Which of the following statements is true?AOnly modern American music is worldfamous.BIf people dont understand the same language, they dont understand the same music.CMany people learn English by enjoying American songs. DIf you want to understand American history an
11、d culture you must understand American music.答案：C由文章第六段可知人们可以通过欣赏美国歌曲来学习英语，故C项最佳。同样由此段可判断B，D项是错误的。【2014高考英语广东省华侨中学四模】DA team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrat
12、ed systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.“Its extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual com
13、ponents (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those com
14、ponents are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually
15、 has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything its connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and m
16、anufactured.While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to tak
17、e off, land and fly around,” he said.Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific que
18、stions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”41. The robotic fly project has been cond
19、ucted _. A. just by accidentB. within a decadeC. just by a professorD. for more than ten years42. The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that _. A. they had no model in their mindB. they did not have sufficient time C. they had no ready-made componentsD. they
20、could not assemble the components43. It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly _. A. consists of a flight device and a control system B. can just fly in limited areas at the present time C. can collect information from many sources D. has been put into wide application44. Which
21、 of the following can be learned from the passage? A. The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects. B. Animals are not allowed in biological experiments. C. There used to be few ways to study how insects fly. D. Woods design can replace animals in some experiments.45. Which of the following
22、might be the best title of the passage? A. Father of Robotic FlyB. Inspiration from Engineering Science C. Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life InsectD. Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study【参考答案】41-45. DCBDC【2014高考英语四川省凉山州一模试题】E When I was a boy, my father told me that he could do anything he wanted to.
23、 Dad said thathe wanted to be the first to develop color prints in our city, and so he did. When I was 16, Dad looked closely at the violin I played and announced that he wanted tomake one. He read about violin making, and then became a violinmaker at the age of 43. Hebought the tools and materials,
24、 opened a small store and set Mom up as the shopkeeper, while heworked at a local company. He retired from the company 17 years later and continued to makeviolins and other instruments Dad often guessed why the Stradivarius violins sound so beautiful. Some experts claimed thatit was the unique varni
25、sh（油漆）that gave those instruments their beautiful sound. Dad娜ed thatchemists could analyze the varnish-if that were the answer. One of Dads friends asked him oncewhich kind of wood was used to make violins. When Dad explained that the top was made ofspruce（云杉），his friend said that he had an old piec
26、e of spruce Dad might be interested in. He worked for the next 12 months making a violin from the wood that his friend had givenhim. It proved to be a superior violin and it would become Dads masterpiece. He was convincedthat the secret of the Stradivarius sound was in the wood itself. Later, the in
27、strument was stolenDads spirit was broken by the robbery, and he stopped making instruments. But he kept themusic shop until he was 80 years old, selling guitars and violins. My father has been gone for 14 years now. The violin has been missing for more than 25years. Somewhere a musician is playing
28、a late 20th century violin with an excellent tone. Theowner today may never understand why this ordinary -looking violin sounds so much like aStradivarius47. The author mentions his fathers developing color prints to A. show that his fathers real interest was not in making violins B. prove that his
29、father could do anything he wanted to C. give an example proving that his father was an inventor D. describe the real thing that made the author believe his father48. What did the authors father think about Stradivarius violins? A. The varnish was different from the others. B. The way of making them
30、 was special. C. The wood of the violins was special. D. They could only be analyzed by chemists49. How long did the authors father live after the violin was stolen? About years A. 11 B. 14 C. 25 D. 8050. After the robbery, his fathers reflection shows he A. liked the violin very much B. lost intere
31、st in instruments C. didnt want to become famous D. didnt trust people any more after that【参考答案】46、D 4750、BCAAPassage 4 Development of a widely accepted chronology for the arrival of humans has been equally difficult, and it was only with the development of optically stimulated luminescence dating t
32、hat a human presence in Australia was confirmed at 53,000 to 60,000 years ago. Older dates for a human presence in Australia have now been shown to be erroneous . The importance of Australia as a separate natural laboratory in which to test extinction theories lies in the fact that humans arrived th
33、ere much earlier than they arrived in the other continental areas (the Americas and northern Eurasia) that experienced substantial megafaunal extinction. What Miller et al. have shown is that the extinction of Genyornis occurred simultaneously across southeastern Australia (indeed probably right acr
34、oss the continent) about 50,000 years ago. This is very close to the presently accepted time of arrival of humans in Australia. It was also a period of modest climate change, well before the dramatic climatic fluctuations of the terminal Pleistocene. The data of Miller et al., therefore, support tho
35、se who see human hunting rather than climate as causing the extinction of the megafauna. Genyornis was a ponderous bird, around 80 to 100 kg in weight, about twice as heavy as the living emu and cassowary. It was an inhabitant of Australias inland plains and some coastal regions, but its legs were r
36、elatively short and thick, suggestion that it was a slower runner than the emu. Proponents of humancaused extinction suggest that it is just such characteristics that made the megafauna vulnerable to human hunting. A new school of thought has recently established itself in the extinction debate. It
37、advocates the idea that a combination of human impact and climate change was responsible for the extinction of the worlds megafauna. The new Genyornis data also weaken that argument, for the following reason. Fifty thousand years ago, Australia was experiencing mild cooling; 11,000 to 12,000 years a
38、go, the Americas were experiencing rapid warming. These disparate climatic conditions, all coincident with megafaunal extinction, suggest that whatever was happening with climate, it was bad for the big animals. Under these conditions, the hybrid model becomes indistinguishable from the humancaused
39、extinction model for the influence of climate becomes extremely weak, and only the arrival of humans is important in predicting extinction. 66. The last word “megafauna” in Paragraph 2 most probably means A birds. B plants. C big animals. D small animals. 67. Genyornis was vulnerable to human huntin
40、g because it was A a delicacy. B very weak. C very small in size. D clumsy. 68. How many models have been put forward for the extinction of Genyoris? A One. B Two. C Three. D Four. 69. That Australia experienced mild cooling and the Americas rapid warming suggests that A the climatic conditions were
41、 unfit for Genyornis to live. B Genyornis were highly adaptable to different climatic conditions. C The two climatic conditions were both bad for Genyornis. D The climatic conditions had nothing to do with the extinction of Genyoris. 70. The selection is mainly about A the debate over the time of th
42、e human presence in Australia. B the relationship between the human presence and magafaunal extinction. C the relationship between human activities and climatic changes. D the debate over factors causing megafaunal extinction.Passage 466. 【正确答案】 C big animals. 【本题考点】 词语释义题。 【试题精解】 考生如果有一定的构词法知识一眼就可看
43、出该题的答案。 “mega”在英文中指 “big”；fauna指 “animals” ，显然C 为正确答案。考生如果没有这方面的知识，也可以利用上下文来判断。作者在提到megafauna后紧接着提到了Genyornis,在第三段开始对其进行了描述： “Genyornis was a ponderous bird, around 80 to 100kg in weight, about twice as heavy as the living emu and cassowary.” 足见其大。 【考点出处】 第二段末句，但对该词的推断却应联系上下文。67. 【正确答案】 D clumsy. 【本
44、题考点】 细节判断题。 【试题精解】 第三段中指出 “it is such characteristics that made the megafauna vulnerable to human hunting” “such characteristics” 指的是其 “heavy, short and thick”, 即 “clumsy”。 【考点出处】 根据第三段第二句可知它的腿短而粗，跑得慢，D 项clumsy“笨拙的”与句意一致。68. 【正确答案】 C Three. 【本题考点】 细节判断题。 【试题精解】 文中共提到了三种：（1）Human hunting;（2）Climate;（
45、3）Human impact and climate change。 【考点出处】 第二、三、四段中。69. 【正确答案】 D The climatic conditions had nothing to do with the extinction of Genyoris. 【本题考点】 推理暗示题。 【试题精解】 澳大利亚经历了 “mild cooling”, 美洲经历了 “rapid warming”, 而两个地方都出现了Genyornis的灭绝，说明气候对其灭绝并未产生什么影响。在文中最后一段作者也指出 “the influence of climate becomes extreme
46、ly weak, and only the arrival of humans is important in predicting extinction.” 【考点出处】 第二段和第四段。70. 【正确答案】 D the debate over factors causing megafaunal extinction. 【本题考点】 主旨大意题。 【试题精解】 本文重点介绍了造成“magafaunal extinction”的三种原因，所以D 为正确答案。 【考点出处】 考察对全文的理解能力，实际上从第三题的做答中我们就可得出解答该题的部分相关信息。核心词汇 1.chronologyn.年
47、代学 2.luminescencen.发光 3.erroneousa.错误的 同义 false, incorrect, inexact 4.megafaunan.巨型动物 5.fluctuationn.变化 同义 oscillation, rolling 6.ponderousa.笨重的 同义 heavy, weighty, massive, bulky 7.cassowaryn.食火鸡全文精译 澳洲古代巨鸟灭绝探因 要创建人类是何时到来的、且为人们所广为接受的年代表同样也是困难的。并且只有在光学模拟发光测定年代的方法发展起来后，人们才确定53，000年到60，000年前澳洲有了人类，现在已证
48、明更久远的年代是错误的。 之所以把澳洲称为试验种族灭绝理论的天然实验室，其重要性在于（lie in）：人类到达这儿的年代要远远先于到达经历过巨型动物灭亡的其他大陆（如欧洲和欧亚大陆北部）的年代。Miller等人向我们说明，“巨鸟”于50，000年前在澳洲南部同时灭绝，这和人们普遍接受的人类到达澳洲大陆的时间相当接近。这也是气候温和的时期，随后很久才发生了更新世晚期灭绝性的气候剧变。Miller的资料支撑了认为人类捕猎而非气候变化是巨兽灭绝的原因的观点。 “巨鸟”是远古时期一种巨型鸟类，重约80到100公斤，是鸸鹋和食火鸡的两倍重。它是澳洲内陆和沿海地区的动物，但它的腿相对短而粗，证明它不如鸸鹋
49、跑得快。坚持人类导致这种鸟灭绝的人说，它们的这种特性使它们很容易受到（be vulnerable to .）捕杀。 在这一“灭绝争论”中，新的学派又建立了。他们赞成人类及气候因素结合导致（be responsible for .）了世界范围巨型动物的灭绝的观点。新的巨鸟资料也削弱了这种争论，原因如下：50，000年前，澳洲气候逐渐变冷；11，000到12，000年前，美洲气温迅速上升。这些完全相异的气候条件正好与巨鸟灭绝时期相吻合（be coincident with）。这说明，无论气候怎样变化，巨型动物还是难逃厄运。在这种情况下（under these conditions），这种结合两种说法的观点就变得与人类导致其灭绝的观点难以区别了。因为在他们看来，气候影响是那么微弱，只有人类的到来才预示了巨型动物的灭绝。
