大学英语阅读理解练习题及答案文档格式.doc

1、Passage oneEarly one morning, more than a hundred years ago, an American inventor called Elias Howe finally fell asleep. He had been working all night on the design of a sewing machine but he had run into a very difficult problem: It seemed impossible to get the thread to run smoothly around the nee

2、dle.Though he was tired, Howe slept badly. He turned and turned. Then he had a dream. He dreamt that he had been caught by terrible savages whose king wanted to kill him and eat him unless he could build a perfect sewing machine. When he tried to do so, Howe ran into the same problem as before. The

3、thread kept getting caught around the needle.The king flew into the cage and ordered his soldiers to kill Howe. They came up towards him with their spears raised. But suddenly the inventor noticed something. There was a hole in the tip of each spear. The inventor awoke from the dream, realizing that

4、 he had just found the answer to the problem. Instead of trying to get the thread to run around the needle, he should make it run through a small hole in the center of the needle. This was the simple idea that finally made Howe design and build the first really practised sewing machine.Elias Howe wa

5、s not the only one in finding the answer to his problem in this way.Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric light, said his best ideas came into him in dreams. So did the great physicist Albert Einstein. Charlotte Bronte also drew in her dreams in writing Jane Eyre.To know the value of dreams, y

6、ou have to understand what happens when you are asleep. Even then, a part of your mind is still working. This unconscious（无意识的）, but still active part understands your experiences and goes to work on the problems you have had during the day. It stores all sorts of information that you may have forgo

7、tten or never have really noticed. It is only when you fall asleep that this part of the brain can send messages to the part you use when you are awake. However, the unconscious part acts in a special way. It uses strange images which the conscious part may not understand at first. This is why dream

8、s are sometimes called “secret messages to ourselves”.1.According to the passage, Elias Howe was_.【 C 】A. the first person we know of who solved problems in his sleepB. much more hard-working than other inventorsC. the first person to design a sewing machine that really worked2.The problem Howe was

9、trying to solve was_.【 A 】A. how to prevent the thread from getting caught around the needleB. how to design a needle which would not breakC. where to put the needle3.Thomas Edison is spoken of because_.【 B 】A. he also tried to invent a sewing machineB. he got some of his ideas from dreamsC. he was

10、one of Howes best friends4.Dreams are sometimes called“secret messages to ourselves” because_.【 A 】A. strange images are used to communicate ideasB. images which have no meaning are usedC. we can never understand the real meaningPassage twoThe greatest recent changes have been in the lives of women.

11、 During the twentieth century there was an unusual shortening of the time of a womans life spent in caring for children. A woman marrying at the end of the 19th century would probably have been in her middle twenties, and would be likely to have seven or eight children, of whom four or five lived ti

12、ll they were five years old. By the time the youngest was fifteen, the mother would have been in her early fifties and would expect to live a further twenty years, during which custom, chance and health made it unusual for her to get paid work. Today women marry younger and have fewer children. Usua

13、lly a womans youngest child will be fifteen when she is forty-five and is likely to take paid work until retirement at sixty. Even while she has the care of children ,her work is lightened by household appliances（家用电器）and convenience foods.This important change in womens way of life has only recentl

14、y begun to have its full effect on women s economic position. Even a few years ago most girls left school at the first opportunity and most of them took a full-time job. However, when they married, they usually left work at once and never returned to it. Today the school-leaving age is sixteen, many

15、 girls stay at school after that age ,and though women tend to marry younger ,more married women stay at work at least until shortly before their first child is born. Many more after wads, return to full or part-time work. Such changes have led to a new relationship in marriage, with both husband an

16、d wife accepting a greater share of the duties and satisfaction of family life, and with both husband and wife sharing more equally in providing the money and running the home, according to the abilities and interest of each of them.5.We are told that in an average family about 1990_.【 D 】A. many children died before they were fiveB. t