阅读主旨题专项练习

1

Britain’s oldest man made his first visit to London yesterday at the age of 110. Mr. John Evans had never found the time or the money to make the trip from his home near Swansea. But, when British Rail offered him an all-expenses-paid birthday trip to the capital, he just could not refuse.

Until yesterday he had never been far from home, except for one trip to Aberdeen. Mr. Evens, who spent 60 years working as a miner in South Wales, almost made the journey to London once before, at the turn of the century. “There was a trip to the White city but it was ten shillings (1shilling =1/20 pound) return from Swansea-too much I thought. All my money went to the family then,” he said.

During the nest two days Mr. Evens will be taken on a whistle-stop tour of London to see the sights. Top of his list is a visit to the Houses of Parliament.

The only arrangement he does not care for is the wheelchair provided to move him about if he gets tired. “I don’t like the chair business-people will so think I am getting old,”he said.

Hi secret for a long and healthy life has been well publicized—no alcohol, no cigarette and no anger. Before setting off from Swansea with his 76-year-old son, Amwel, he quipped, “I’m glad to see they’ve given me a return ticket.”

What might be the best title for this passage?

A. 100-year-old Tourist

B. Secret for Long and healthy life

C. Free Return Ticket

D. Sightseeing in London

2

BEING –set of by the April 1 Sino-us plane collision(相撞) and US official agreement of the biggest arms sale to Taiwan in decade (ten years) as well as remarks by US president Bush on Defending Taiwan, there have been increasing hacker attacks on websites of the two countries in the past weeks.

An American group of hackers (黑客) which calls itself Poison Box had begun ruining Chinese websites after the April1 spy plane incident, top Chinese portal https://www.360docs.net/doc/4c7471727.html, said.

The Chinese soon attacked back.

On April 2, Chinese hackers invaded two Government websites over the weekend, forcing the Department of labor and the Department of the Health and Human Services to shut down their sites for a short time.

The US Department of labor went off line for a few hours after a page in its website was

changed to display a picture of Wang Wei, the Chinese pilot who died in the collision.

The page was titled “China back!”and read, in English, “the whole country is so sorry for losing the best son of China ---Wang Wei forever. We will miss the end of the day.”

On May1, hackers exchanged bad remarks (脏话) in which the official White House website was defaced (毁容) by a huge amount of e-mail garbage. On May5, the White House website fell victim (受害者) to a denial (拒绝) of serviced attack that blocked access (通道) to the site for more than two hours.

The Computer Network and Information Security Management Office told web operators an average of 100 sites a day had seen “some more form of attack.”

The best title of the passage is _____.

A. Sino-US plane collision.

B. Sino-US Hackers Fighting Cyber () war

C. Cyber war continuing

D. Wang Wei, our best son

3

There were two interesting news items () in the paper a few years ago . One was about a man who received a bill from the telephone company for ￡999,999—for three month! The other was about a man who received ￡2,000 a month ---for doing nothing.

The connection between the two news items is simple: computer –the best invention of the 20th century. The telephone bill came from a computer which made a terrifying mistake that was only ￡23.36. The other item was not so amusing. A man walked into the unguarded computer room of a large packaged food company (袋装食品生产公司) and expertly programmed the computer (给计算机编程序) to pay him ￡2,000 a month for raw meat which he “supplied”to the company. Of course he never sent the meat, but he certainly received the money. The computer wrote out a bill, and even “signed”it. It was only a random (随便的) check that uncovered the trick. It could be happening in thousands of other companied all over the world.

Computers are not the magical workers that some people say they are. They make mistakes, they’re sometimes slower than human beings and they’re easily fooled. The US used to conscript (征兵) people with the help of a computer. The army sent out a card, which had to be filled in and sent back. It was easy to avoid being called up simply by spreading candle-waxon on the card. The computer couldn’t read the card and did nothing with it.

It’s in our everyday life that computers cause many problems. Let’s get back to using people instead of computers, before a mistake that we can’t put right.

The writer’s main idea is __________.

A we’d better use people instead of computers in our everyday life.

B we should not use computers because they always make mistakes

C computers are widely used in our everyday life

D if we want to work well, don’t use the computers.

4

During the early years of this century, wheat was seen as the very lifeblood of Western Canada. When the crops were good, the economy on city streets watched the yields and the price of wheat with almost as much felling as if they were growers. The marketing of wheat became an increasingly favorite topic of conversation.

War set the stage for the most dramatic events in marketing the western crop. For years, farmers mistrusted speculative grain selling as carried on through the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. Wheat prices were generally low in the autumn, but farmers could not wait for markets to improve. It had happened too often that they sold their wheat soon after harvest when farm debts were coming due, only to see prices rising and speculators getting rich. On various occasions, producer groups asked for farmer controls, but governments had no wish to become involved, at least not until wartime wheat prices threatened to run wild.

Anxious to check inflation and rising living costs, the federal government appointed a board of grain supervisors to handle deliveries from the crops of 1917 and 1918. Grain Exchange trading was suspended, and farmers sold at prices fixed by the board. To handle the crop of 1919, the government appointed the first Canadian Wheat Board, with full authority to buy, sell and set prices.

What is the main purpose of the passage?

A To explain how wheat is marketed today

B To justify suspension of trading on the Grain Exchange.

C To describe the origins of the Canadian Wheat Board.

D To argue for further reforms on the Canadian Wheat Board

5

April 27 is Take Our Daughters to Work Day in Britain. Started at first in the United States and brought to Britain in 1994, Take Our Daughter to Work Day has become a special day for girls between 11 and 15. On that day thousands of girls take a day off school and go together with one of their parents to their work places. The purpose of this day is to broaden girls’horizons(视野) and raise their self-confidence.

For many years people have thought that boy can do better than girls in society. But actually, “Girls can be whatever they want to be just like boys, whether it is a pilot , a nurse or a chief executive (主管),”says the chairman of the Our Sons and Daughters Charitable Trust, an organization which supported the activity of the Day. “Now the girls have a close look at what

their parents are doing and this may help them to be more self-confident when they are faced with a choice of work.”

Schools and many companied support the activity, too. Palmers Green High School for girls, in north London, has made the day a necessary of careers education.

Zarina Bart,15, from Palmers Green, went with her mother Gwen to her lawyer’s office on this year’s Take Our Daughters to Work Day. “I learned how to fill in a legal aid form and I read details of a case. Then I went to see the actual trail,”she said.

Zarina found it interesting to see her mother at work. “It’s really strange seeing Mum at work-running around, getting serious and telling people what to do.”She has always liked this idea of going into law and thinks it likely that she will follow in h er mother’s footsteps. Having a chance to see how her mother works has given hr more self-confidence.

Experts believe that girls with higher self-confidence aim higher and are more likely to be successful in life. Parents have more important effect on the confidence of teenage girls. If parents believe in their daughter and show examples both at work as well as at home for them, this will give a lot of help to girls. Take Our Daughters to Work Day is surely a step in the right direction.

The writer’s purpose in writing this text is to _________

A introduce to us a special day for girls

B broaden girls’view and raise their confidence

C show us that girls can do as well as boys

D tell how the special day for girls came into being

6

To swim the English Channel takes at least nine hours. It’s hard work and it makes you short of breath. To fly over the channel takes only twenty minutes as long as you’re not held up at the airport, but it’s an expensive way to travel. You can travel by hovercraft(气垫船) if you don’t mind the noise and that takes forty minutes. Otherwise, you can go by boat, if you remember sea-sickness pills. All these means of transport (运输) have their problems, and the weary (厌烦的) traveler often dreams of being able to drive to France in his own car. “Not possible, you say. Well, wait a minute people are once again considering the idea of a Channel tunnel or bridge.”This time , the great London Council(议会) is looking into the possibility of building a channel link straight to London. A bridge would cost far more a tunnel, but you would be able to go by rail or by car on a bridge, whereas (然而) a tunnel would provide a rail link only.

Why is this idea being discussed again? Is Britain realizing the need for links with Europe as a result of joining EEC(欧共体)? Well, perhaps. The main reason , though, is that a tunnel or bridge would reach the twenty square kilometers of London’s discussed stimulate(刺激) trade and revitalise (使…..具有活力) the port, and would ,make London a main trading center in Europe. With a link over the channel, you could buy your fish and chips in England and be able to eat them

in France while they are still warm!

The main idea of the passage is ______

A how to develop the trade of London

B crossing the Channel is difficult

C how to get to Europe more conveniently

D what to do in the development of traveling

7

Believe it or not, optical illusion(错觉) can cut highway crashes(撞毁). Japan is a case in point. It has reduced automobile crashes on some roads by nearly 75 percent using a simple optical illusion. Bent strips, called cheverons (人字形), painted on the roads make drivers think that they are faster than they really are, and thus drivers slow down.

Now the American Automobile Association Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington D.C. is planning to repeat Japan’s success. Starting next year, the foundation will paint cheverons and other patterns of strips on selected roads around the country to test how well the patterns reduce highway crashes.

Excessive speed plays a major role in as much a one fifth of all fatal(致命) traffic accidents, according to the foundation. To help reduce those accidents, the foundation. To help reduce those accidents, the foundation will carry its tests in areas where speed-related hazards(危险) are the greatest –curves(弯), exit slopes, traffic circles, and bridges.

Some studies suggest that straight, horizontal bars(水平障碍物)painted across roads can initially(最初) cut the average speed of drivers in half. However, traffic often returns to full speed within months as drivers become used to seeing the painted bars.

Cheverons, scientists say, not only give drivers the impression that they are driving faster than they really are, but also make a lane(车道) appear to be narrower. The result is a longer lasting reduction in highway speed and the number of traffic accidents.

The passage mainly discusses ________.

A a new way of highway speed control

B a new pattern for painting highways

C a new way to training drivers

D a new type of optical illusion

8

RALOALTO, California—“Switching off the television may help prevent children from getting fatter—even if they do not change their diet or increase the amount they exercise,”US

researchers said last week.

A study of 192 third and forth grades, generally aged eight and nine, found that children who cut the number of hours spent watching television gained nearly two pounds (0.91kg) less over a one-year period than those who did not change their television diet.

“The findings are important because they show that weight loss can only be the result of a reduction in television view and not any other activity,”said Thomas Robison, a pediatrician at Stanford University.

In the study, presented this week to the Pediatric Academic Societies’annual meeting in San Francisco, the researchers persuaded about 100 of the students to reduce their television viewing by one-quarter to one third.

Children watching fewer hours of television showed a pretty smaller increase in waist size and had less body fat than other students who continued their took part in any extra exercise.

“One explanation for the weight loss could be the children unstuck to the television may simply have been moving around more and burning off calories,”Robinson said.

“Another reason might be due to eating fewer meals in front of the television. Some studies have suggested that eating in front of the TV encourages people to eat more,”Robison said.

The author tried to tell us in the first two paragraphs that _____

A children will get fatter if they eat too much

B Children will get thinner if they eat less

C children will get fatter if they spend less time watching TV

D children will get fatter if they spend more time watching TV

9

During the summer you should be even more careful than usual of the foods you prepare. Foods spoil faster in hot weather than in cold weather. When you are shopping, purchase frozen and refrigerated foods, don’t make long stops on your way home because frozen foods could become soft or warm. Using insulated (密封的) bags helps keep food cold until you arrive home. Mild or milk products should be refrigerated immediately. When camping or picnicking or at any time when refrigeration isn’t available, use special dry foods. Above all , if a food doesn’t seem to be normal in odor(气味) or appearance, discard (抛弃) it immediately. Don’t taste it.

What is the main idea of the passage?

A How to store frozen and refrigerated foods

B How to keep food from spoiling (变坏) during the summer?

C How to select fresh food?

D How to prepare summer food

10

A new era(纪元) is upon us. Call it what you will: the service economy, the information age, the knowledge society. It all translates to be a basic change in the way we work. Already we are there now. The percentage of people who earn their living by making things has fallen fortunately in the Western World. Today the major of jobs in America, Europe and Japan (two thirds or more in many of these countries) are in the service industry, and the number in on the rise. More women are in the workforce than ever before. There are more part-time jobs. More people are self-employed. But the wildness of the economic change can’t be measured by numbers alone, because it also is giving rise to a radical(根本的、彻底的) new way of thinking about the nature of work itself. Long-held views about jobs and careers, the skills to succeed, even the relation between individuals and employers—all these are being challenged.

We have only to look behind us to get some sense of what may lie ahead. No one looking ahead 20 years possible could have foreseen the ways in which a single invention, the chip(芯片), would change our world thanks to its use in personal computers, digital biotechnology(数码生物技术), artificial (人工的) intelligence or even some still unimagined technology could produce a similar wave of unexpected changes. But one thing is certain: information and knowledge will become even more important ,and the people who have it , whether they work in manufacturing (制造业) or services, will have the advantage and produce the wealth. Computer knowledge will become as basic a requirement as the ability to read and write. The ability to solve problems by using information instead of performing regular work will be valued above all else. If you look forward 10 years, information services will be predominant(占优势). It will be the way you do your job.

Which of the following can be the vest title of the passage?

A. Computer and Knowledge Society.

B. Service Industry in the Modern Society

C. Characteristics of the new Era

D. Fast Development of Information Technology

Key: 1.A 2. B 3. A 4. C 5. A

6. C

7. A

8. D

9. B 10. C