【英语】河南省许昌县第一高级中学2015-2016学年高二下学期第一次月考试题

1 许昌县一高高二英语第一次月考英语试题 命题人：李根生 第I卷 第一部分：阅读理解（共两节，满分40分） 第一节：（共15小题；每小题2分，满分40分） 阅读下列短文，从每小题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项。 A Snowflakes seem like white stars falling from the sky. But they don’t always look white. Sometimes they appear to have other colors. Some are red, yellow, or black. There have been snowflakes of almost every shape. Think how it would seem to have these coming all around you. Wouldn’t they look pretty? Black snow came down in France one year. Another year gray snow fell in Japan. It was found that such snow was mixed with ashes. This made it seem dark. Red snow has come down in other countries. When this happened, it was mixed with red dust. That is why it looked different. Most snow looks like white, but it is really the color of ice. It is ice that comes from snow clouds. Each snowflake begins with a small drop of water. More water forms around this drop. The way the water freeze gives the snowflake its shape. No two snowflakes are of ever just the same size or shape. All start out flat and have six sides. Some snowflakes are broken when they hit the ground, others melt as they fall. When the air is cold and dry, the falling snowflakes are small and hard. If the air is wet and warm, the snowflakes are big and soft. Would you be surprised to see snowflakes as big as your head falling from the sky? It happened once in our country. It could occur again. 1. Snowflakes are _________ according to the writer. A. white stars. B. always white. C. of similar shapes D. pretty 2. According to the passage, if the snowflakes are hard and small, the weather should be _________. A. cold and wet. B. cold and dry. C. wet and warm. D. dry and wet. 3. We can infer from the last paragraph that very large snowflakes _________. 2

A. occur regularly. B. will occur regularly C. occur once a year. D. don’t often occur. 4. Which of the following statements is true? A. Color snowflakes look so because they are mixed with dust of different colors. B. All snowflakes look white, and it is the color of the ice. C. Probably there are two snowflakes of the same size and shape. D. Most snowflakes are made from water and dust. B When I lived in Spain, some Spanish friends of mine decided to visit England by car. Before they left, they asked me for advice about how to find accommodation. I suggested that they should stay at “bed and breakfast” houses, because this kind of accommodation gives a foreign visitor a good chance to speak English with the family. My friends listened to my advice, but they came back with some funny stories. “We didn’t stay at bed and breakfast houses,” they said, “because we found that most families were on holiday.” I thought this was strange. Finally I understood what had happened. My friends spoke little English, and they thought “VACANCIES” meant “holidays”, because the Spanish word for “holidays” is said “vacaciones”. So they did not go to house where the sign outside said “VACANCIES”, which in English means there are free rooms. Then my friends went to houses where the sign said “NO VACANCIES”, because they thought this meant people who owned the house were not away on holiday. But they found that these houses were all full. As a result, they stayed at hotels. We laughed about this and about mistakes my friends made in reading other signs. In Spanish, the word “DIVERSION” means “fun”. In English, it means that workmen are repairing the road, and that you must take a different road. When my friends saw the word “DIVERSION” on a road sign, they thought they were going to have fun. Instead, the road ended in a large hole. English people have problems too when they learn foreign languages. Once in Paris when someone offered me some more coffee, I said “Thank you” in French, I meant that I would like some more, however to my surprise the coffee pot was taken away! Later I found out that “Thank you” in French means “No, Thank you”. 5. The author’s Spanish friends wanted advice about _______. 3

A. some funny English stories B. finding places to stay in England C. driving their car on English roads D. going to England by car 6. The author suggested that they stay at “bed and breakfast” because _______. A. it would be convenient for them to have dinners and live B. it would be much cheaper than staying in hotels C. they would be able to practice their English in the house D. there would be no problem about finding accommodation there 7. “NO VACANCIES” in English means _______. A. no free rooms B. free rooms C. not away on holiday D. they don’t live 8. If you see road sign that says “Diversion” in England, you will _______. A. take the road and you will be excited B. have a lot of fun and enjoy yourself C. find that the road is blocked by crowds of people D. have to take a different road C Even if trees cannot walk, they are still on the move. In parts of the Arctic, entire forests are moving northward. Across the Arctic, temperatures are rising faster than anywhere else in the world. As that happens, the tree line that marks where forests stop and the treeless tundra （冻土地带）starts has been shifting northward. Trees growing along the tree line must protect themselves from the cold wind. To do this, plants tend to grow horizontal （水平的）branches low to the ground. The energy it takes for trees to grow this way means they don't have enough energy to make seeds. But as Earth's climate has been warming, trees no longer have to just grow horizontally. Many can instead grow up toward the sky. This takes less energy. And with all the leftover energy. these trees have started producing more seeds. This happens especially in places where the white spruce （白云杉）grows. White spruce, which is a North American tree, is quite able to produce a lot of seeds, which can move long distances in the wind. When wind-blown seeds end up on the tundra beyond the tree line, they eventually can sprout （发芽） new trees. This explains how a forest can move. Of course, the process would work only if the tundra were warm enough. But in recent years, the