Passage 2(2017届河南豫南九校高三下期质量考评)

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狗什么时候第一次成为"人类最好的朋友"和"世界上最喜爱的宠物

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Have you ever wondered when dogs first became "man’s best friend" and the world’s favourite pet? If you have then you’re not alone. When and where dogs first began living side-side with humans are questions that have stirred hot debate among scientists. There are a few hard facts that all agree on. These include that dogs were once wolves and they were the first animal to be domesticated(驯养) by humans. They came into lives some 15000 years ago, before the dawn of agriculture.

Beyond that, there is little agreement. The earliest bones found that are unquestionable dogs and not wolves date from 14,000 years ago. However, 30,000-year-old skulls have been discovered in France and Belgium that are not pure wolf and some scientists think could be dogs.

With such puzzling evidence, many scientists are now turning to DNA to find out when and where dogs were first domesticated. In one research project, tens of thousands of blood samples have been taken from street dogs around the world. The plan is to compare them with those of wolves. It’s even possible to analyse DNA from ancient bones. Tiny pieces of the 30,000-year-old skulls mentioned earlier are currently being studied, and another DNA study has already shown that ancient dogs preserved in the Alaskan ice-fields evolved from Asian wolves, not American ones.

Indeed, the ancient DNA may turn out to be more informative than the DNA of living dogs. Because dogs have accompanied humans around the world for thousands of years, their current distribution may tell us very little of their origins. This is why different groups of scientists believe that dogs variously originated in eastern Asia, Mongolia, Siberia, Europe or Africa.

But why were the animals domesticated in the first place? The most recent theory is that dogs domesticated themselves, initially living in and around our ancient villages to eat any food thrown out. Today, this is a way of life still shared by three -quarters of a billion unowned dogs worldwide.

1.Which is the only statement generally agreed on by scientists studying dogs?

A. They originally were used as farm animal

B. They evolved from wolves found in Europe

C. They helped the development of agriculture

D. They were the first animal to be kept as pets

2.Why does the writer first mention the 30,000-year-old animals skulls?

A. To show that dogs were much larger in the past

B. To prove that dogs developed from Asian wolves

C. To suggest that dogs may have evolved much earlier

D. To argue that dogs were first kept in France and Belgium

3.How did scientists determine the origins of the ancient dogs found in Alaska?

A. By examine the animals’ DNA

B. By analyzing the age of their bones

C. By studying the shape of their skulls

D. By comparing them with modern dogs

4.Why did dogs start living with humans?

A. Because they were attracted by food

B. Because they were trapped by humans

C. Because they couldn’t survive in the wild

D. Because they were trained to protect villages

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友谊是自私的

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9分钟

Cicero wrote that, "There is nothing more fatal to friendship than the greed of gain." Although a popular sentiment, it’s a deeply mistaken one.

Think about the friends you have. Try to make yourself aware of what you enjoy about those friends — that is, how they make your life better than it would otherwise be without them. You’ll probably come up with something like this: "Jack makes me laugh; I love his sense of humor." Or "Sue is really dedicated to her work, and well-organized. I really admire that. It inspires me to do the same." Or "Bill was really there for me when my mother died. I really like how supportive he can be."

You get the idea? And there’s no sin in this fact! The notion of "getting something out" of friends has been given a bad name, for two reasons. One reason is that the phrase is commonly associated with material gain, as in business, rather than psychological gain.

It is true, of course, that the gain you obtain from a friendship is not the same as the gain you obtain from, say, getting a paycheck at your job; or selling your stock for a million dollars. If you engaged in the excuse that you enjoyed a "friend" for his personal qualities, when in fact you want to know him only for contacts or for money, then you would be guilty of a fraud. But it’s fraud and excuse which are wrong; not getting something out of a relationship which is wrong.

The other reason people don’t like to associate friendship with self-interest is the widely held, though false, belief that self-interest is wrong. Yet it isn’t. The burden of proof should be on people who claim that self-interest is wrong to prove their point; yet nobody can. It’s something which is just assumed. It’s taken as an obvious truth, like "the sky is blue". Yet, unlike "the sky is blue" (for which there is overwhelming evidence), there is no evidence at all to support the notion that gaining something from a friendship is wrong. As I just illustrated, it’s a premise(假定) which is completely not consistent with simple observation of everyday life.

Try to imagine being friends with someone whom you don’t like: someone who is humorless; someone who is lazy and inefficient, and a liar; someone who shrugs and walks away when you mention your mother just passed away. Should we tolerate such qualities in others in the name of selflessness? If you answered "yes", most would be ready to put you into a mental hospital for insanity; or, at a minimum, refer you to a psychotherapist for "self-esteem issues". Yet, in the abstract, many of us persist in claiming (along with Cicero) that "greed" and gain are completely at odds with friendship. In truth, we all gain from friendship. If we didn’t, there would be no point in having friends in the first place.

1.Which of the following can best summarize the main idea of the passage?

A. A faithful friend is hard to find.

B. Without a friend, the world is a wilderness.

C. A hedge between keeps friendship green.

D. Friendship is selfish.

2.By the examples in Paragraph 2, the writer tries to convince us that .

A. friends will surely come to our help when we are in trouble

B. we like our friends because we get something out of them

C. we cannot have too many friends

D. without friends our life will be difficult

3.The underlined word "sin" in Paragraph 3 can be replaced by " ".

A. fault B. sense C. reason D. good

4.What makes people think getting something out of friends is wrong is that .

A. it has something to do with psychological gain

B. it is just an excuse

C. it contradicts simple observation of everyday life

D. it is linked to self-interest

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