太原五中2014-2015学年度第一学期期中高二英语

第一部分 阅读理解（共两节，满分30分）

第一节 (共10小题；每小题2分，满分20分)

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C 和 D）中选出最佳选项，并将答案涂在答题卡上。

A

Charles Lyell, a great youth, had different ideas. He wrote a book about them called Principles of Geology. The earth, according to Lyell, was not only thousands of years old; it was millions of years old. As to the common belief that changes in the earth’s surface happen suddenly because of a single earthquake or flood, he said that this might happen once in a while, but usually these changes took place very slowly. He believed that the surface of the earth had been changing from the beginning of time. The changes, he said, were caused by the long-term action of the winds and seas, and by forces such as volcanoes breaking out under the earth’s surface. Once in a great while he thought, a mountain might appear for the first time after an earthquake. But usually mountains would experience a slow and steady rise.

A professor named Henslow was interested in Lyell’s ideas, but he did not actually believe them. Charles Darwin could not make up his mind about them. But they set him thinking along lines which would later change the beliefs of thoughtful people under the sun.

At the University of Cambridge, Charles Darwin studied just enough to pass the examination, and received his college degree in 1831. During this time, he had become more and more interested in geology. At the end of the school year, he went to North Wales with one of his teachers to examine the rock formations and to search for fossils. Fossils are the remains of ancient living things. They are usually fixed in rocks in the earth’s crust. Fossils may be of animals, such as fish, insects, birds, or humans. They may be of plants from tiny leaves to huge trees. When a living creature dies, it usually decays or is eaten by animals. However, if it sinks into a riverbed or is quickly covered by the blowing sands of a desert storm, the bones are kept up in the earth. Over many years the soft inner parts of a bone disappear, leaving the inside hollow. Water containing minerals enters into the hollow. Slowly the minerals harden and make the bone hard and heavy like bones over the time.

1. According to Charles Lyell, mountains came into existence ___________.

not because of volcanoes but because of seas

quickly instead of steadily

more on account of an earthquake than of winds

at quite a slow rate rather than all of a sudden

2. Charles Lyell probably holds the belief that the earth has been formed like today’s shape _____________.

A. from the very beginning of time

B. over a rather long course of time

C. just due to scores of big earthquakes

D. owing to a very long period of big flood

What is Darwin’s main purpose of going to North Wales ?

To collect dead animals and plants

To do research into the rock information

To make a research into fossils ever existing

To search for varieties of tiny or huge plants

Charles Darwin, unlike Professor Henslow, ___________.

turned Lyell’s ideas over before developing them later

thought about what people thought about the then world

did make up his mind not to accept Lyell’s ideas

failed to think of Lyell’s ideas as right

What’s your opinion about Charles Darwin’s study at college?

Excellent B. Undistinguished C. Diligent D. Disappointing

B

Over three million people are at risk from indoor air pollution because of the heating or cooking fuels. Most live in Africa, India and China. They use fuels like wood, crop waste, animal waste or coal. These fuels may be the least costly fuels. But they are also a major cause of health problems and death.

For more than thirty years, the Aprovecho Research Center has been designing cleaner, low-cost cooking stoves. Dean Still is the director of the group and he points out that every year more than one million and five hundred thousand people die from breathing smoke from solid fuels. “And half of the people use wood for cooking. These are the poorer people, and the richer people use oil and gas. It’s estimated that wood is running out more quickly than oil and gas. And so it’s very important for the poorer people to have very efficient stoves that protect their forests and their health,” he says.

Every year Aprovecho holds a “stove camp” at its testing station. Engineers, inventors and others come together to design and test different methods and materials for improving stoves. Over the years, the group has made stoves using mud, bricks, sheet metal, etc, most of which look like large, deep cooking pots and have an opening at the bottom for the fire and a place on top to put a pot.

In the late nineteen seventies, Aprovecho produced a popular stove called the Lorena. The Lorena was very good at reducing smoke and warming homes. But new tests years later found that it was not very efficient. The Lorena used twice as much wood as an open fire, and took much longer to heat food. Since then, Dean Still says they have experimented with countless other designs.

Aprovecho has partnered with a stove manufacturer (制造商) in China. The company is making Aprovecho’s stoves. They are said to use forty percent to fifty percent less wood than an open fire, and produce fifty percent to seventy-five percent less smoke. A company is selling them through its website for less than ten dollars. Dean Still says that more than one hundred thousand have been sold so far.

What’s your opinion about the purpose of the first paragraph?

A. To lay the foundations of introducing cooking stoves.

B. To show the fact of many people’s suffering from air pollution.

C. To let readers know the poverty of some developing countries.

D. To introduce cheap fuels available to poor people.

7. What do Dean Still’s words imply?

A. The forests will disappear from the earth

B. The poor should be forbidden to cut down the forests

C. It’s urgent to change the present situation of using fuels

D. Using fuels such as gas and oil cannot cause deaths

8. People hold the stove camp every year in order to ______.

A. encourage people to find new fuels

B. test different methods for improving stoves

C. find new ways of designing beautiful stoves

D. celebrate the invention of the best efficient cooking equipment

9. What’s your assessment on the popular stove called the Lorena?

A. Energy-saving. B. Very compact.

C. Smokeless. D. Less efficient.

10. The best title of the text is ___________.

A. How to make full use of fuels?

B. Breathing easier: the art of stove making

C. Health problems related to cooking fuels

D. Environmental improvement needs everybody’s effort

第二节（共5小题；每小题2分，满分10分）

根据短文内容，从短文后的七个选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项。并将答案涂在答题卡上。选项中有两项为多余选项。

It is well known that the Frenchmen are romantic, the Italians are fashionable and the Germans are serious. Are these just stereotypes or is there really such a thing as national character? And if there is, can it affect how a nation succeed or fail?

The answer is YES, at least one group of people is certain that it can. A recent survey of the top 500 entrepreneurs (企业家) in the UK found that 70% felt that their efforts were not appreciated by the British public. Britain is hostile (敌意的) to success, they said. It has a culture of jealousy(嫉妒). 11 Jealousy is sometimes known as the “green-eyed monster” and the UK is its home.

Recently scientists at Warwich University in the UK tested this idea. They gathered a group of people together and gave each an imaginary amount of money. 12 Those given a little were given the chance to destroy the large amount of money given to others – but at the cost of losing their own. Two thirds of the people tested agreed to do this.

13 But there is also opposite evidence. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently reported that the UK is now the world’s fourth largest economy. That is not bad for people who are supposed to hate success. People in the UK also work longer hours than anyone else in Europe. So the British people are not lazy, either.

“It is not really success that the British dislike,” says Carey Cooper, a professor of management at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. “It’s people using their success in a way that seems proud or unfair or which separates them from their roots.”

14 They set out to do things in their way. They work long hours. By their own efforts they become millionaires. 15 It hardly seems worth following their example. If they were more friendly, people would like them more. And more people want to be like them.

A. The one who owns most money in the end is the winner.

B. This seems to prove that the entrepreneurs were right to complain.

C. It is not true that British people are born jealous of others’ success.

D. As a result, the survey said, entrepreneurs were “unloved, unwanted and misunderstood.”

E. But instead of being happy they complain that nobody loves them.

F. Perhaps it is the entrepreneurs who are the problem.

G. Some were given a little, others a great deal.

第二部分 完形填空（本题分A、B两篇，共40小题，满分30分。注意：第一篇，每小题1分，计20分；第二篇，每小题0.5分，计10分，）

阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项（A, B, C 和D）中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并将答案涂在答题卡上。

A

My first job was in what they call the city center．The 16 was large, dark and old 17 the physics lecture room was on the second floor． 18 , it wasn’t a lecture room at all, it was an ordinary room, but it had “LECTURE ROOM” on the 19 ．The students were sixteen or seventeen years old, 20 several years younger than me． 21 , some of them looked and acted 22 older than me sometimes．

The room was directly 23 the street, and had the window looking out over the street and many houses．One day, I was 24 some work on the blackboard when I heard a sudden change in the noise behind me．There was a man standing in the room with 25 an apple in his hand．He looked 26 ．

“Who threw this?” he asked, looking round the class．