江苏高考英语阅读理解专项训练

阅读理解You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter ocean ecosystems every year. But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. He builds massive sculptures out of plastic garbage, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use plastic products.At the beginning of the year, the artist built a piece called “Strawpocalypse”, a pair of10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Made of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the sculpture made its first appearance at the Estella Place shopping center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.Just 9% of global plastic waste is recycled. Plastic straws are by no means the biggest source (来源) of plastic pollution, but they’ve recently come under fire because most people don’t need them to drink with and, because of their small size and weight, they cannot be recycled. Every straw that’s part of V on Wong’s artwork likely came from a drink that someone used for only a few minutes. Once the drink is gone, the straw will take centuries to disappear.In a piece from 2018, V on Wong wanted to illustrate (说明) a specific statistic: Every 60 seconds, a truckload’s worth of plastic enters the ocean. For this work, titled “Truckload of Plastic”, V on Wong and a group of volunteers collected more than 10,000 pieces of plastic, which were then tied together to look like they’d been dumped (倾倒) from a truck all at once.V on Wong hopes that his work will also help pressure big companies to reduce their plastic footprint.1．What are V on Wong’s artworks intended for?A．Beautifying the city he lives in.B．Introducing eco-friendly products. C．Drawing public attention to plastic waste.D．Reducing garbage on the beach.2．Why does the author discuss plastic straws in paragraph 3?A．To show the difficulty of their recycling.B．To explain why they are useful.C．To voice his views on modern art.D．To find a substitute for them.3．What effect would “Truckload of Plastic” have on viewers in paragraph 4?A．Calming.B．Shocking C．Refreshing D．Challenging. 4．What does the text mainly talk about?A．Artists’ opinions on Plastic safety.B．Media Interest in contemporary art.C．Responsibility demanded of big companies.D．Ocean plastics transformed into sculptures.At Christmas last year, Cathy Wood’s family home in Manchester was disturbingly quiet. Her daughters, 19 and 21, were revising for exams. She says she and her husband “hardly saw anything of them…I was a bit fed up.” Bored and frustrated, she bought a 45kg bunch of secondhand clothes, without knowing what she was going to do with it.Wood, a former teacher of English, has always loved clothes. At university, Wood hung out with the fashion students and sewed her own new romantic outfits. Wood, now 62, enjoyed shopping for vintage (老款) clothing and had even discussed getting a shop with a friend, but the rents put them off. A week or so after the bunch arrived, she booked a stall (货摊) at West Didsbury Makers Market.Standing at her first market stall was a wholly new experience though. “It was very different from teaching. You need just the right amount of contact with people.” Wood sold four pieces at her first market, which paid for the stall and left a small surplus (盈余). Now, she sometimes returns home with 30 empty coat hangers. But it was the contact with customers and fellow traders that she found most rewarding. “It’s a lovely environment. You chat and get to know each other. I really enjoyed it.” she says.Sometimes, in quiet moments on the stall, she takes out her mending and thinks of her mother and grandmother. “My grandmother taught art and crafts, and both she and my mother spent a lot of time with the sewing machine, teaching me to sew,” “What these clothes do is transport me back to different times when things were easier for me. They give me a pleasurable feeling. Nostalgia (怀旧) can be a good thing in that way.”After she stopped teaching, she “started to feel like a non person”, she says. The market stall “has given me status in my own mind to be part of the community, contributing something, to be somebody people talk to, somebody people smile at.”5．Why did Wood sell secondhand clothes?A．To keep her friend company.B．To pick up her sewing skills.C．To kill her boring retirement life.D．To pay her daughter’s schooling fees.6．What does Wood find most rewarding in her business?A．The profits earned from the business.B．The communication with other people.C．The competition with different traders.D．The environment of the market stall.7．What does the underlined word “They” in Para.5 refer to?A．Her grandmother and mother.B．Art and crafts.C．The secondhand clothes.D．The good old days.8．What does Wood say concerning her secondhand clothes business?A．It has made her a worthy person.B．It has improved her marketing skills.C．It has helped her to be a funny person.D．It has made her community much richer.A robotic game of cat and mouse playing out in a lab provides a peek at future possibilities of robots carrying out search-and-rescue missions or wildlife surveys without much human guidance.The Tianjicat robot developed by researchers at Tsihgftua University in China uses abrain-inspired computing chip called TianjicX. The so-called neuromorphic(神经形态的) chip can run multiple artificial intelligence techniques at once in an energy-efficient manner. It is one example of experiments with neuromorphic systems that could allow small robots to make decisions using limited computing resources and power.The researchers challenged the Tianjicat robot to chase another robot that was set to move randomly in a room filled with obstacles. This required Tianjicat to track the mouse robot by using both visual recognition and sound detection, and to figure out the best path to chase down its pretend prey without crashing anything. The team says that the TianjicX chip reduced the amount of power required for the robot cat to make decisions during the chase by about half compared with an NVIDIA chip designed for AI computing.Performing a cat-and-mouse chase would be a step up in difficulty for most commercialised robots, which usually follow very predictable routines in warehouses or factories. Many robots that interact with more complex and unpredictable environments rely on remote control by human operators, or else must maintain wireless connections with distant data centres that have the computing power necessary for more intensive decision-making.Neuromorphic systems haven’t yet been commercialised in a big way, but their relatively low size, weight and power requirements could provide practical advantages.“For robotics, this is very important because it allows the system to operate for longer durations in hard-to-reach environments with greater autonomy.” says Jeffrey Krichmar at the University of California, Irvine.9．Why did researchers do the experiment in a room with obstacles?A．To apply visual recognition to Tianjicat.B．To explore the best path for Tianjicat.C．To test the integrated performance of Tianjicat chip.D．To reduce the amount of power for Tianjicat.10．What advantage does Tianjicat have over other commercialized robots?A．It follows predictable routines.B．It can operate without humans involved.C．It has access to distant data centers.D．It is used in warehouses and factories more often.11．Which of the following can best describe neuromorphic systems?A．User-friendly.B．Heavy to carry.C．Energy-consuming.D．Complex to operate. 12．What is the passage mainly about?A．Search-and-Rescue missions.B．Commercialized robots.C．NVIDIA chips for AI computing.D．A robot cat chasing a robot mouse.Working as a teenager has the obvious benefit of earning money to spend and save. However, working also allows teens to appreciate the value of money and what it means to earn a dollar.“Working teens learn an important money lesson about how much people earn per hour,” says Nashica McRath. She is a financial adviser with Edward Jones, an investment company.“Paying taxes and other experiences are lessons in maturity and how to navigate the world of becoming an adult.” she says.Whether high school students go to college or move straight into the working world, holding a job during high school can prepare them. It gives them real-life financial awareness and the ability to plan and manage money.“Work lets teens learn time management and practical job skills that can help them in their daily lives when they go to college and after college,” says Brenda M. Brown. She is the director of business development for College Aid Services.Ciara Smalls Glover, an associate professor at Georgia State University, agrees. She says teens with jobs also might discover new interests and talents. Their work in high school might lead to a career.“Typically, we expect adolescents to make decisions about their future careers when they get to college and select a major,” she says. “That can be a daunting task for some. Work or volunteer experiences can provide opportunities for students to better understand themselves.”“Having a part-time job in high school means time away from studies and school activities. If a teen doesn’t put important things first, something is going to suffer,” McRath says.Holding all of that together could become overwhelming for many high schoolers. Sports, socializing and other activities offer life lessons and experiences for young students, so each requires attention.“Too many work hours can compromise (危及) a teen’s energy and contribution to schoolwork,” Glover says. “But part-time work and grades are equally important. The teen years involve identity development, so time to explore self through social relationships also is important,” she says.13．What does Nashica McRath think of teens working?A．It’s a job skill.B．It’s worthwhile.C．It’s acceptable.D．It’s an investment.14．How does work help teenagers according to Ciara Smalls Glover?A．It determines their career.B．It inspires them to make decisions.C．It encourages them to go to college.D．It helps them understand their potentials.15．What does the underlined sentence in Paragraph 7 mean?A．Students should focus less on studies.B．Students should do more part-time jobs.C．Students should know their top priorities.D．Students should enter into society earlier.16．What advice do you think the author might give to teenagers?A．Adolescents should make their own decisions.B．School work should come first on your agenda.C．Find opportunities to better understand yourself.D．Balance part-time work and academic activities.The arrival of spring has seemingly unchangeable results-lengthening days, blossoming plants and a great increase in bees’ activity. But new research finds that many species of birds are nesting and laying eggs nearly a month earlier than they did a century ago.These species, including bluejays, yellow warblers and field sparrows, are now laying their first eggs 25 days earlier, on average, than they were 100 years ago, the research has found. The heating of the atmosphere, due to the burning of fossil fuels, is seemingly changing a process that long appeared unshakeable.The study, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, drew upon records of birds’ eggs gathered during a period, from about 1880 to 1920, when people could rampantly (猖獗的) collect them from nests without punishment. These records, largely consisting of boxes of eggs with hand-written labels describing the type of bird and when the eggs were collected, were compared with modern nesting data checked by researchers, who used mirrors mounted on long poles to observe high-up nests.A model built by the researchers revealed that birds moving their nesting dates forward has been closely correlated with rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, a leading driver of rising global temperatures.Birds choose when to nest in line with other developments in spring, such as the budding (发芽) of plants and the increase in insect numbers. These interactions of nature are being unpickedby climate change — in the US bears are emerging from hibernation earlier and cherry, peach, pear, apple and plum trees are blossoming weeks earlier than they once did. In the UK, plants flowered a full month earlier between 1987 and 2019 than they did before 1986, recent research found.“If you’re a bird and you nest earlier, you put yourself at risk of these cold snaps (寒流) that can still arrive in spring, which then affects the plants and insects,” said Bates. “That then impacts the reproductive success of the birds. Springs are becoming more volatile (反复无常) and that is taking its toll.”17．What might be responsible for the birds’ earlier nest and laying eggs?A．Lengthening spring days.B．Global warming.C．Blossoming plants.D．The increase in bees’ activity.18．How did the researchers get their finding?A．By referring to previous researches.B．By monitoring birds’ behaviour.C．By investigating birds’ habitats.D．By comparing data from different periods.19．Why are bears and plants mentioned in Para.6?A．To explain a rule.B．To clarify a concept.C．To prove a statement.D．To make a prediction.20．What does the underlined phrase “taking its toll” in the last paragraph mean? A．Upsetting balance of nature.B．Shaping landscape.C．Receiving attention.D．Causing loss.When some people hear self-discipline, they think that it’s boring. They equate a disciplined life to feelings of entrapment. Allow me to tell you a story.On a hot sunny day, Bertha is buzzing by her hive with some other bees, just relaxing and having a good time. Suddenly a bear starts to approach her hive for some honey and bee eggs. To save her hive, Bertha stings the bear. But its skin is so thick that once she tries to pull her sting out she dismembers(肢解) herself and dies.The sad part is that Bertha has no choice. Through years of evolution she has developed abiological reaction to dangers—to sting threats. If she had known she would die, she might have flown away and saved her own life.Bees are prisoners of their own biology, but humans can override their biology throughself-discipline.Most people have long-term desires for lasting relationships, meaningful careers or healthy bodies but are constantly tempted by short term pleasures, such as junk food or video games. Deep down they really want the life that comes in the long term. Yet they keep giving in to short-term pleasures.The only difference is self-discipline. Luckily, humans have the ability to practiceself-discipline. It gives us the freedom to achieve what we truly want in life and allow us to break free of the biological or societal cages around us. But it’s not that simple.Companies are aware of our natural, biological reactions and use this against us by using supernormal stimuli. An example is junk food. Our ancestors were wired to seek out and enjoy fat and salty food because it was so rare at the time. But now companies have genetically engineered food to include more fats and salts than ever before in order to make us desire it even more.Social media and the Internet as a whole is another form of supernormal stimuli. Humans are biologically wired to seek out novelty. For our ancestors novelty could lead to more knowledge about the world, which could lead to more wisdom that helped us thrive as a species. It has its usefulness. However, the Internet has been designed to take advantage of this desire for novelty by showing you more novelty than you can ever dream of. Every page links out more pages. And every video to a video with even more novelty. Videogames do the same thing.On the plus side, however, you and I are not like the bee, because we are not cased by our own biology. With self-discipline, we can live the life we truly want. We have the choice to be free.21．Why is the story of Bertha mentioned in paragraph two?A．To illustrate what evolution is.B．To arouse readers’ sympathy for Bertha.C．To draw readers’ attention to self-discipline.D．To offer a perfect example of self-discipline.22．What does the underlined word “stimuli” in paragraph seven most probably mean?A．Something that encourages certain reactions.B．Something that is unhealthy for people to eat.C．Something that does good to our mental health.D．Something that discourages people from taking action.23．What is the author’s attitude towards social media and the Internet?A．Approving.B．Objective.C．Critical.D．Cautious. 24．What makes the author think humans are lucky compared with bees?A．Humans’ blessing of an advanced biological system.B．Humans’ desires to live an ideal life.C．Humans’ eagerness to overcome inborn disadvantages.D．Humans’ ability to practice self-discipline.It has happened to us all: sitting on the sofa, toying with the idea of sending an old friend an unexpected text, but worrying that a message out of the blue may seem unusual or just unwelcome.However, research suggests such fears are unfounded, with those on the receiving end often far more grateful than the sender may expect.Dr Peggy Liu, the lead author of the research said the team began their research because they felt a lot of people were losing touch with each other. “We wondered why that might be,” she said.Liu and her colleagues conducted a series of experiments, based on hypothetical (虚构的) and real-life plots, involving more than 5,900 participants. In one experiment, 54 participants wrote a note to a fellow college student they hadn’t been in touch for a while. This note was emailed to the latter by the researchers, who asked both the writer and recipient to indicate how much they felt the message was appreciated.The results show that on average senders rated recipients’ (接收者) appreciation at 5.57 on a seven-point scale, while the recipients themselves rated their appreciation at 6.17. The team said this and other experiments revealed that people receiving messages appreciate them significantly more than the sender tends to expect.But Liu said questions remained. “While we show that people typically underestimate how much others appreciate being reached out to, it remains an outstanding question how we canactually motivate people to reach out to others more,” she said. “That’s what we’re going to do next.”Stephen Reicher, a professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews, said the results made sense. “If the pandemic (疫情爆发) has taught us anything, it is that we have a pandemic of loneliness causing massive harm and we need to address it urgently as a matter of public health,” “Feeling connected to others has consistently been shown to be good for our physical and mental health. Such connections can be remarkably effective in everything from protecting against depression to recovery from heart attacks,” he said, adding that simply feeling part of a group was equally effective.25．What does Liu’s research want to find out?A．How people are overcoming fears of contacting friends.B．Why people are getting disconnected with each other.C．When people can send texts to rebuild an old friendship.D．Whether people should send friends an unexpected text.26．What aspect of the research does Para.4 mainly talk about?A．Its design.B．Its impact.C．Its process.D．Its theory. 27．What will the researchers do next?A．Find ways to connect people.B．Increase trust between people.C．Shape people’s perception of friends.D．Call on people to appreciate friendship.28．What message does Stephen Reicher want to convey?A．The pandemic is to blame for mental illness.B．Reaching out to others is beneficial to health.C．Joining a group is preferable to getting connected.D．The authorities should address loneliness urgently.Carpenter is the lead author of a paper in Nature Reviews Psychology that examined more than 100 years of research on learning.“The benefits of spacing and retrieval practice have been confirmed over and over in studiesin labs, classrooms, workplaces, but the reason why we’re presenting this research is that these two techniques haven’t fully caught on. If they were employed all the time, we’d see big increases in learning,” said Carpenter.In the paper, Carpenter and her co-authors describe spacing as a strategy to learn in small amounts over time. It’s the opposite of cramming (塞满) the night before an exam. In one study, medical students who received repeated surgery training over three weeks performed better and faster on tests 2 weeks and 1 year later compared to medical students who had the same training all on one day.Carpenter says there isn’t a universal rule about how much time to schedule between practice sessions. But research shows returning to the material after forgetting some—but not all—of the content is effective.Retrieval practice is a strategy that involves recalling what was learned previously. It can take many forms, including flash cards, practice tests and open-ended writing prompts, and helps learners recognize what they do and don’t know. The paper’s authors emphasize that people who check their responses for errors or get feedback right away learn even better. More than 200 studies show people generally maintain more information for longer periods of time with retrieval practice compared to strategies that do not involve retrieval (e.g., re-reading a textbook.) The authors argue people who combine spacing and retrieval practice have the best chance of remembering information.“Forgetting is a very natural thing; you can’t stop forgetting even if you try, but you can slow down forgetting by using retrieval practice and spacing,” said Carpenter.Carpenter says she uses digital tools (e.g., online practice quizzes, clicker questions) to incorporate retrieval practice and spacing into her university courses, but there are other ways to bring these strategies into the classroom.29．Why do the author and his group present this research?A．Because people don’t accept the two techniques.B．Because the two techniques haven’t popularized.C．Because people have much difficulty in learning.D．Because the two techniques are taking little effect.30．How does Carpenter prove spacing is superior to cramming?A．By studying some cases.B．By receiving some training.C．By applying some rules.D．By scheduling some time.31．What can retrieval practice help people to get?A．Self assessment.B．Wide recognition.C．Positive response.D．General strategies.32．What might Carpenter talk about in the following paragraphs?A．The benefits of spacing and retrieval practice.B．Potential ways used to slow down forgetting.C．Arguments about what to do to stop forgetting.D．Other university courses worth remembering.Most of you are probably familiar with the various stories of searching alien life, but have you heard about the scientist who was responsible for detecting the first traces of intelligent life lurking (潜伏) throughout our galaxy? This is Frank Drake’s story.At the age of 8, his father one day told Drake there are other worlds in space. He had no idea that such a thing was a possibility—he thought Earth was it. It was a medieval (过时的) attitude. So he wondered, what are they like? Are the people the same as us? Do they look the same way we do? What’s their planet like? And of course, at that time, there was no way that those questions could be answered in the slightest.Later on, when he was in college, he chose the elementary astronomy course. While he was taking that course, he went to the campus observatory, and one of the things he observed was the planet Jupiter. Even through a small telescope, it was just very clear that it was another world. It was not a picture in a book or something. And that converted him.Frank Drake is mostly known for developing the Drake equation (方程式), which is a mathematical equation that was developed to estimate the number of detectable alien civilizations residing in the Milky Way. Drake equation takes many things into consideration from the rate of star formation, the fraction (小部分) of stars that have planets, the number of habitable planets circling each star, the fraction of planets that remain habitable long enough for life to evolve all the way up to the number of civilizations that are capable of developing technology.People always say that the search for alien life has failed. “You’ve been searching for 60years, and you haven’t found anything. So doesn’t that say that intelligent life is very rare?” But that’s wrong, because the amount of searching that we’ve done has hardly touched the number of possibilities that are out there—that is, stars and radio frequencies and channels and all of that. We’ve only covered a tiny, tiny fraction of all the possibilities.33．What does the author try to do in the first paragraph?A．Share some stories about alien life.B．Lead in the topic of the whole text.C．Introduce his research experiences.D．Question the existence of alien life.34．How did Drake feel when first told about other worlds in space?A．Anxious.B．Satisfied.C．Puzzled.D．Curious. 35．What might cause Drake to choose the elementary astronomy course in college?A．The observation of Jupiter.B．The advice from his father.C．A picture in a science book.D．His great interest in alien life.36．Which of the following views may the author agree with?A．The intelligent life in space is rather rare.B．Drake equation was used to detect aliens.C．The search for aliens deserves continuing.D．People carried out a wrong search for aliens.Paul O’Sullivan lounged around his Baltimore apartment one evening in 2014,feeling bored. So, like many others, he logged on to Facebook to find out just how many others on the social network shared his name. Moments later, dozens of name twins from around the world filled his screen. On a whim, he decided to send friend requests to them all.Many of his fellow Paul O’Sullivans ignored him, but a few felt too curious to pass up his invitation. As Baltimore Paul scrolled through the other Paul O’Sullivans’ profiles, he noticed something four of them had in common: They were all musicians. Like Baltimore Paul, Rotterdam Paul sang and played guitar. Another Paul in Manchester, England, played bass. And Paul fromPennsylvania was a drummer. Baltimore Paul had an idea. Wouldn’t it be funny, he asked the other musical Pauls, if they formed a band called The Paul O’Sullivans? Yes, they all agreed, Starting a band across multiple time zones proved to be tricky. Shaky Wi-Fi and other technical difficulties meant they were often out of sync. And being even half a second off from one another wrecked their sound. To fix this, they created a sort of musical assembly line. Baltimore Paul and Rotterdam Paul wrote and recorded a basic track, then e-mailed it to Manchester Paul.“I listen to the song over a few days,” says Manchester Paul, to get a feel for what bass arrangement seems most appropriate.“ Once he recorded a bass track, he e-mailed it back to Baltimore Paul, who then built it into the main song. Later, Pennsylvania Paul added the drumbeat. Round and round the track went, with each member adding on his own layer until they achieved the sound they want.The Paul O’Sullivan Band released its first original song, “Namesake”, in March2016, which was about long-distance relationships. And when COVID-19 slowly shutdown the world, the Pauls didn’t miss a beat. After all, the band had already got the hang of remote work. They used their time during the pandemic to record their first EP.Titled Internet Famous: A Retrospective, it was released last April.“What are the odds,” says Baltimore Paul, “that a random Facebook request would lead not only to new music but to lasting friendships as well?” “Some things are just meant to be.”37．How can the four Paul O’Sullivans be distinguished?A．By the musical instruments they play.B．By their e-mail addresses.C．By the musical styles they like.D．By the place they come from.38．What does “this” refer to in paragraph three?A．The inaccessibility of Wi-Fi.B．The existence of technical barriers.C．Their being in different time zones.D．Their lack of experience.39．What can we infer from the underlined sentence in paragraph five?。