题目内容

It was Thanksgiving morning. I was busy preparing the traditional Thanksgiving turkey when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw two small children in rags huddling together on the top step.

“Any old papers, lady?” asked one of them.

I was busy. I wanted to say “no” until I looked down at their feet. They were wearing thin little sandals (凉鞋), wet with heavy snow.

“Come in and I’ll make you a cup of hot cocoa.”

They walked over and sat down at the table. Their wet sandals left marks upon the floor. I saved them cocoa and bread to fight against the cold outside. Then I went back to the kitchen and started cooking.

The silence in the front room struck me. I looked in. The girl held the empty cup in her hands, looking at it. The boy asked in a flat voice, “Lady, are you rich?”

“Am I rich? Pity, no!”

I looked at my worn-out slipcovers (椅套). The girl put her cup back in its saucer (茶碟)carefully and said, “Your cups match your saucers.” They left after that, holding their papers against the wind. They had reminded me that I had so much for which to be grateful.

Plain blue china cups and saucers were only worth five pence. But they matched.

I tasted the potatoes and stirred the meat soup. Potatoes and brown meat soup, a roof over our heads, my man with a regular job, these matched, too.

I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy marks of little sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am.

1.The writer let the two children come in and served them well because ______.

A. she wanted to sell old papers to them

B. she wanted to give them some presents

C. she showed great pity and care on them

D. she wanted to show her thanks to them

2.The writer left the muddy marks of little sandals on the floor for a while to _______.

A. show that she was a kind-hearted lady

B. remind her she shouldn’t forget how rich she was

C. leave room for readers to think about what being rich is

D. call up her memories of the good old days

3.It can be inferred from the text that whether you are rich depends on _______.

A. how much money you have made

B. what attitude you have had toward life

C. the way you help others

D. your social relationship

 

.

1.C

2.B

3.B

【解析】

试题分析:本文介绍了在感恩节之夜,一对来要旧报纸的男孩和女孩给我带来的人生思考。

1.

2.2】推理题。根据文章最后一段I moved the chairs back from the fire and cleaned the living room. The muddy prints of small sandals were still wet upon my floor. Let them be for a while, I thought, just in case I should begin to forget how rich I am.说明我想让这样的脚印提醒我,故B正确。

3.

考点:考查人生百味类短文

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More than a century ago, the composer and bandleader John Philip Sousa warned that technology would destroy music, who said, “These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy … in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. Today you hear these terrible machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord (声带) left.”

Music has greatly changed in the past hundred years, which has been everywhere in our world: rivers of digital melody flow on the Internet or on disc; MP3 players with forty thousand songs can be put in a back pocket or a purse. Yet, for most of us, music is no longer something we do ourselves, or even watch other people do in front of us. It has become a radically virtual medium, an art without a face.

Ever since Edison invented the phonograph cylinder(留声机), people have been assessing what the medium of recording has done for and to the art of music. Sousa was a spokesman for the party of doom; in the opposite corner are the utopians(乌托邦), who argue that technology has not imprisoned music but liberated it. Before Edison came along, Beethoven’s symphonies could be heard only in select concert halls. Now the recordings carry the man from Bonn to the corners of the earth. Glenn Gould, after renouncing live performance in 1964, predicted that within the century the public concert would disappear into the electronic air.

Having discovered much of my favorite music through LPs and CDs, I am not about to join Sousa’s party. Modern urban environments are often so soulless or ugly that I’m grateful for the humanizing touch of electronic sound. But neither can I accept Gould’s slashing futurism. I want to be aware of technology’s effects, positive and negative. Fortunately, scholars and critics have been methodically exploring this terrain for many decades, trying to figure out exactly what happens when we listen to music with no musicians in the room.

1.The first paragraph is intended to .

A. defend an argument B. make a prediction

C. criticize an attitude D. summarized a viewpoint

2.The author’s attitude towards the recorded music may best be described as .

A. dissatisfied B. defensive C. optimistic D. objective

3.The underlined word “terrain” in the last paragraph most nearly means .

A. region B. subject C. land D. distinction

4.The primary purpose of the passage is to .

A. explain different attitudes of scholars and critics

B. defend the view of one group from the criticism of another

C. advocate an unexpected solution to a pressing problem

D. present the key issues in an ongoing debate

 

Most people know precious gemstones (宝石) by their appearances. An emerald flashes deep green, a ruby seems to hold a red fire inside, and a diamond shines like a star. It’s more difficult to tell where the gem was mined, since a diamond from Australia or Arkansas may appear the same to one from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, recently, a team of scientists has found a way to identify a gemstone’s origin.

Beneath the surface of a gemstone, on the tiny level of atoms and molecules, lie clues to its origin. At this year’s meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis, Catherine McManus reported on a technique that uses lasers to clarify these clues and identify a stone’s homeland. McManus directs scientific research at Materialytics, in Killeen, Texas. The company is developing the technique. “With enough data, we could identify which country, which mining place, even the individual mine a gemstone comes from,” McManus told Science News.

Some gemstones, including many diamonds, come from war-torn countries. Sales of those “blood minerals” may encourage violent civil wars where innocent people are injured or killed. In an effort to reduce the trade in blood minerals, the U.S. government passed law in July 2010 that requires companies that sell gemstones to determine the origins of their stones.

To figure out where gemstones come from, McManus and her team focus a powerful laser on a small sample of the gemstone. The technique is called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. Just as heat can turn ice into water or water into steam, energy from the laser changes the state of matter of the stone. The laser changes a miniscule part of the gemstone into plasma, a gas state of matter in which tiny particles called electrons separate from atoms.

The plasma, which is superhot, produces a light pattern. (The science of analyzing this kind of light pattern is called spectroscopy.) Different elements produce different patterns, but McManus and her team say that gemstones from the same area produce similar patterns. Materialytics has already collected patterns from thousands of gemstones, including more than 200 from diamonds. They can compare the light pattern from an unknown gemstone to patterns they do know and look for a match. The light pattern acts like a signature, telling the researchers the origin of the gemstone.

In a small test, the laser technique correctly identified the origins of 95 out of every 100 diamonds. For gemstones like emeralds and rubies, the technique proved successful for 98 out of every 100 stones. The scientists need to collect and analyze more samples, including those from war-torn countries, before the tool is ready for commercial use.

Scientists like Barbara Dutrow, a mineralogist from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, find the technique exciting. “This is a basic new tool that could provide a better fingerprint of a material from a particular locality,” she told Science News.

1.We learn from Paragraph 1 that __________________.

A. an emerald and a ruby are names of diamonds.

B. it’s not difficult to tell where the gem was mined.

C. appearances help to identify the origin of gemstones.

D. diamonds from different places may appear the same.

2.Why did the U.S. government pass law that requires companies selling gemstones to determine the origins of their stones?

A. To look for more gemstones.

B. To encourage violent civil wars.

C. To reduce the trade in blood minerals.

D. To develop the economy.

3.Which of the following facts most probably helps McManus and her team in identifying the origin of stones?

A. Heat can turn ice into water or water into steam.

B. Gemstones from the same area produce similar light patterns.

C. Laser can changes a miniscule part of the gemstone into plasma.

D. Materialytics has already collected patterns from thousands of gemstones.

4.From the last two paragraphs, what can be inferred about the laser technique?

A. It is ready for commercial use.

B. People can use the new tool to find more gemstones.

C. It can significantly reduce the gemstones trade in blood minerals.

D. It will bring about a revolutionary change in identifying the origin of minerals.

5.The author wrote this passage mainly to ________.

A. tell us how to identify the origin of diamonds.

B. introduce a laser technique in identifying a stone’s origin

C. prove identifying the origin of gemstones are difficult

D. attract our attention to reducing trade in blood minerals

 

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