前哲流风 日新其格 澧县一中2012届高三英语二轮复习阅读简答 编者： 审定：
Starting from 1935, almost every US economic indicator took off on a road of stable growth. By 1939, the country’s GDP had grown to 204. 9 billion dollars from 7.42 billion dollars in 1933. The number of unemployed workers fell to 8 million.
In the same way, the Shanghai World Expo is also expected to showcase the new trends and developments in the global economy and build confidence in the world’s economic future. The fair, as is indicated by its theme “Better City, Better Life ‖ will showcase the direction of future development for mankind, prompting countries to seek the common goal of sustainable development. A green economy is widely expected to become the new growth engine of the world. More than 189 countries and 57 international organizations have gathered in Shanghai to put on a grand spectacle (n.壮观的场面)displaying mankind’s greatest achievements in economy, science, technology and culture. Let’s hope that during the Shanghai Expo, confidence for the world’s economy will be restored, and mankind will find the key to a brighter future.
1．What is the situation of the world economy? (No more than 5 words)
2．Why do countries like Chile insist on attending the Shanghai Expo?（No more than 8 words）
3．Why does the author give the 1933 Chicago World Expo as an example? (No more than 8 words) 4．What is the main idea of the passage? (No more than 10 words)
Passage 8
In the animal kingdom, weakness can bring about aggression in other animals. This sometimes happens with humans also. But I have found that my weakness brings out the kindness in people. I see it every day when people hold doors for me, pour cream into my coffee, or help me to put on my coat. And I have discovered that it makes them happy.
From my wheelchair experience, I see the best in people, but sometimes I feel sad because those who appear independent miss the kindness in others I see daily. They don't get to see this soft side of others. Often, we try every way possible to avoid showing our weakness, which includes a lot of pretending. But only when we stop pretending we're brave or strong do we allow people to show the kindness that's in them.
Last month, when I was driving home on a busy highway, I began to feel unwell and drove more slowly than usual. People behind me began to speed, horn or even shout at me. At the moment I decided to do something I had never done in twenty-four years of driving. I put on the car flashlights and drove on at a really low speed.
No more angry shouts and no more horns!
When I put on my flashlights, I was saying to other drivers, \
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前哲流风 日新其格 澧县一中2012届高三英语二轮复习阅读简答 编者： 审定：
best I can.\me because of the stream of passing traffic. But instead of getting impatient and angry, they waited, knowing the driver in front of them was in some way weak.
Sometimes situations call for us to act strong and brave even when we don't feel that way. But those are few and far between. More often, it would be better if we don't pretend we feel strong when we feel weak or pretend that we are brave when we are scared.
1. How do people feel when they offer their help? (No more than 2 words)
_______________________________________________________________________ ________ 2. What reaction did other drivers have when the author drove very slowly at first? (No more than 5 words) _______________________________________________________________________ ________ 3. Why did other drivers behave differently when the author put on the car flashlights? (No more than 8 words) __________________________________________________________________________ __ ___ 4. What does the author advise as to do at last? (No more than 8 words)
___________________________________________________________________________ ____
Passage 9
World Reading Day was set up by the UNESCO in 1995 to encourage people, especially teenagers, to discover the pleasure of reading. It is also the day to honor great writers, for example, William Shakespeare, born or dead on that day.
Many countries celebrated World Reading Day. Take the UK as an example, on that day, millions of schoolchildren can buy book of special price, a much lower price than usual, in any bookstore. It has been done every year since 1998. World Reading Day 2010 in the UK will take place on Thursady 4 th March. Please note that this date applies to the UK and Ireland only. The initiative is so well established in schools there that they want to make sure that the Day happens in term time to really make the most of this opportunity to celebrate books and reading. Most other countries hold World Reading Day on 23rd April every year.
World Reading Day is also celebrated in China. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, an avid reader, does lots of reading every day though he is very busy. On World Reading Day 2009 he encouraged citizens to do more reading. Wen suggested that young people should spend more time reading. ―Books cannot change the world, but people can change the world by changing themselves through reading.‖
Reading can benefit people in many ways. Reading helps us to follow the latest developments of science and technology. Reading gives us information about other cultures and places of the world. Reading is also one of the
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前哲流风 日新其格 澧县一中2012届高三英语二轮复习阅读简答 编者： 审定：
most important ways to learn a foreign language like English. ―Reading makes a full man‖ (Bacon, 1597). Books, magazines, newspapers and other kinds of reading materials can help us to know more about the out side world and perfect us. Therefore, it is necessary for us to spend time on reading every day.
1. For what purpose was World Reading Day set up?(No more than 15 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________ 2. What kind of person is an avid reader?(No more than 8 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________ 3. What good does reading do to people?(List two benefits)(No more than 12 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________ 4. What does the passage mainly talk about?(No more than 5 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________
Passage10
Almost everybody in America will spend a part of his or her life behind a shopping cart（购物手推车）. They will, in a lifetime, push the chrome-plated contraptions many miles. But few will know—or even think to ask—who it was that invented them.
Sylvan N. Goldman invented the shopping cart in 1937. At that time he was in the supermarket business. Every day he would see shoppers lugging（吃力地携带） groceries around in baskets they had to carry.
One day Goldman suddenly had the idea of putting baskets on wheels. The wheeled baskets would make shopping much easier for his customers, and would help to attract more business.
On June 4, 1937, Goldman’s first carts were ready for use in his market. He was terribly excited on the morning of that day as customers began arriving. He couldn’t wait to see them using his invention.
But Goldman was disappointed. Most shoppers gave the carts a long look, but hardly anybody would give them a try.
After a while, Goldman decided to ask customers why they weren’t using his carts. ―Don’t you think this arm is strong enough to carry a shopping basket?‖ one shopper replied.
But Goldman wasn’t beaten yet. He knew his carts would be a great success if only he could persuade people to give them a try. To this end, Goldman hired a group of people to push carts around his market and pretend they were shopping! Seeing this, the real customers gradually began copying the phony（假冒的） customers.
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前哲流风 日新其格 澧县一中2012届高三英语二轮复习阅读简答 编者： 审定：
As Goldman had hoped, the carts were soon attracting larger and larger numbers of customers to his market. But not only did more people come—those who came bought more. With larger, easier-to-handle baskets, customers unconsciously bought a greater number of items than before.
Today’s shopping carts are five times larger than Goldman’s original model. Perhaps that’s one reason Americans today spend more than five times as much money on food each year as they did before 1937—before the coming of the shopping cart.
1. What do the underlined words “chrome-plate contraptions” in Paragraph 1 refer to?（No more than 3 words） ____________________________________________________________________ _________ 2. What was the purpose of Goldman’s invention? （No more than 8 words）
_____________________________________________________________________ ________ 3. Why was Goldman disappointed at first? （No more than 8 words）
_____________________________________________________________________ ________ 4. Why did Goldman hire people to push carts around his market? （No more than 10 words） ________________________________________________________________________ _____
Passage 11
Solar energy for your home is coming. It can help you as a single home owner. It can help the whole country as well. Whether or not solar energy can save your money depends on many things. Where you live is one factor. The type of home you have is another. Things like insulation present energy coasts, and the type of system you buy are added factors.
Using solar energy can help save our precious fuel. As you know, our supplies of oil and gas are very limited. There is just not enough on hand to meet all our future energy needs. And when Mother Nature says that’s all, the only way we can delay hearing those words is by starting to save energy now and by using other sources, like the sun.
We won’t have to worry about the suns running out of energy for another several billion years or so. Besides begin an endless source of energy, the use of the sun has other advantages as well. The sun doesn’t offer as many problems as other energy sources. For example, fossil fuel plants add to already high pollution levels. With solar energy, we will still need sources of energy, but we won’t need as much. That means we can cut down on our pollution problems.
With all these good points, why don’t we use more solar power? There are many reasons for this. The biggest reason is money. Until now, it was just not practical for a home owner to put in a solar unit. There were cheaper sources of energy. All that is changing now. Solar coats are starting to equal the costs of oil and electricity. Experts say that gas, oil and electricity prices will continue to rise. The demand for electricity is increasing rapidly. But new
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前哲流风 日新其格 澧县一中2012届高三英语二轮复习阅读简答 编者： 审定：
power plants will use more gas, oil or coal. Already in some places the supply of electricity is being rationed. Solar energy is now in its infancy. It could soon grow to become a major part of our nation’s energy supply. 1.What can solar energy help us to do ?(No more than 8 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________ 2.How long will the sun run for ?( No more than 8 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________ 3.Why won’t we need so much sources of energy with solar energy? (No more than 8 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________ 4. What’s the article mainly about? (No more than 10 words)
____________________________________________________________ ____________
Passage 12
The story happened in my childhood when I was living with my stepmother. She worked all day so I was responsible for looking after my younger half-brother. During that time in our life, my dad wasn’t present much,
but I didn’t mind, because my stepmother took good care of my little brother and me. I loved her and always wished she could spend more time with us but she worked Monday through Saturday.
At that time my little brother was about four years old and he missed her so much all the time. One day, he cried, saying he wanted his ―Mummy‖. So I locked the house and carried him on my back to find his mummy. My stepmother worked very far away. After about an hour’s walk, my little brother got tired and fell asleep . Then I looked down and saw he’d lost a shoe while sleeping. I took him from my back and put him down. I knew we had to find that shoe because my step-mom wouldn’t be able to afford new shoes for him, but it would take too long to do it while carrying my brother. So I told him to stay where he was and I would run and find the shoe and come back. A man overheard me and stopped me right before I walked off. He asked me, ―You’re leaving your brother here to go to find the shoe? What if he isn’t here when you return？‖ I didn’t know how to answer that question. So he said, ―People are always more important than things. It’s okay if you can’t find the shoe, but it isn’t okay to lose your brother over a shoe.‖
He asked where we were headed and I told him the fact. I remember him looking at me and smiling when I told him what I was doing. He took both my brother and me and put us in a taxi and sent us to our destination. 1. Why did the writer get along well with his stepmother? (No more than 13 words)
_____________________________________________________________________ __________
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