高二英语阅读理解强化训练附解析Day 38.docx

1、高二英语阅读理解强化训练附解析Day 38高二英语阅读理解强化训练附解析Day 38Passage 1Many Beijing residents go to great lengths to avoid breathing the citys smoggy air, especially when it reaches critical pollution levels, but one local firm decided that canning (灌装) and selling this poor quality air as a souvenir (纪念品) would be a g

2、reat idea. Believe it or not, he was right.After seeing a number of companies achieve commercial success by canning fresh air from countries like France, Canada or Australia and selling it in China, Dominic Johnson-Hill, a British-born citizen of Beijing and owner of the Plastered 8 souvenir shop, d

3、ecided to turn the idea on its head and sell canned Beijing air throughout China and abroad.“Id seen people going crazy to buy canned air from Canada and Australia, so I thought it was time to push business the other way,” the entrepreneur said. “Theyre perfect gifts! What else are you going to take

4、 home when you go home from Beijing? A roast duck? A Plastered T-shirt? These cans are light, portable, you can just imagine someones face when they unwrap (打开) it for Christmas.”The few mouth-fulls of Beijing air come in standard tin cans featuring a couple of city landmarks as well as a bitter des

5、cription of the contents: “a unique mix of nitrogen, oxygen and some other stuff”. The ironic (讽刺的) souvenirs cost 28 RMB (US $4) and are available at the Plastered 8 shop, as well as on its online shop. But if youre actually considering buying some, youd better ask shop in advance, as they are virt

6、ually flying off the shelves. Johnson-Hill said that his shop is selling hundreds of Beijing air cans every day.Personally, the well-sold can probably is an awakening for the public to be concerned about the living conditions. Yet one thing thats not particularly clear is whether the air is really c

7、ollected from Beijing, as the cans are labeled as “Made in Shenzhen”. Theres a big chance thats just a kind of Plastered 8 humor, as they also list “Choking Hazard” and “May have unidentified objects inside.” as warnings.Anyway, it is probably a unique way to make people realize the importance of pr

8、otecting the environment.1. What contributes to Dominics idea of canning and selling the poor quality air?A. Try to get used to it. B. Sell it all over the world.C. Can it as a souvenir. D. Try to push business the other way.2. How may one feel when receiving canned Beijing air for Christmas?A. Sati

9、sfied. B. Surprised.C. Frightened. D. Refreshed.3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word “stuff” in Paragraph 4？A. Liquids B. ObjectsC. Minerals D. Risks4. What do the underlined words in Paragraph 2 mean?A. Do something opposite. B. Give others a surprise.C. Make a big profit. D. P

10、ut forward a strange idea.5. What can we infer from the passage?A. The canned Beijing air may harm people who buy it.B. The Plastered 8 souvenir shop is famous for its humour.C. People should make efforts to protect the environment.D. Dominic Johnson-Hill likes the poor quality air in Beijing.Passag

11、e 2Could the device, smartphone or PC, which you are using affect the moral (道德的) decisions you make when using it? To test it, researchers presented multiple dilemmas to a sample set of 1,010 people. The participants were assigned a device at random.One case of the questions participants were asked

12、 is the classic “trolley (有轨电车) problem”: A runaway trolley is headed towards five people tied up on a set of train tracks. You can do nothing, resulting in the deaths of five people, or push a man off a bridge, which will stop the trolley. The practical response is to kill one man to save five live

13、s, which 33.5 percent of smartphone users chose, compared to 22.3 percent of PC users.“What we round in our study is that when people used a smartphone to view classic moral problems, they were more likely to make more unemotional, reasonable decisions when presented with a highly emotional dilemma,

14、” Dr Albert Barque-Duran, the lead author of the study, told City, University of London. “This could be due to the increased time pressure often present with smartphones and also the increased psychological distance which can occur when we use such devices compared to PCs.”As for why the researchers

15、 started this study, Dr Barque-Duran noted, “Due to the fact that our social lives, work and even shopping take place online, it is important to think about how the contexts where we typically face moral decisions and are asked to engage in moral behavior have changed, and the impact this could have

16、 on the hundreds of millions of people who use such devices daily. “Its clear that we need more research on how our devices affect our moral decision-making because were using screens at an ever increasing rate.”1. Why did the author mention the trolley problem?A. To introduce a difficult problem to

17、 readers.B. To introduce the aim of carrying out the study.C. To show an example of the questions in the study.D. To show the difficulty in dealing with dilemmas.2. How do the smartphone users of the study behave in dealing with emotional dilemmas?A. Calmly. B. Cruelly.C. Carelessly. D. Enthusiastic

18、ally.3. Dr Albert believes that compared with PCs, smartphones .A. help people bear more pressureB. help people make decisions quicklyC. make people feel more mentally distantD. make people stay happier to solve problems4. What does the last paragraph mainly talk about?A. The importance of smartphon

19、es. B. The significance of the study.C. How to make moral decisions. D. What affects peoples daily life.Passage 3It would be all too easy to say that Facebooks market meltdown is coming to an end. After all, Mark Zuckerbergs social network burned as much as 50 billion of shareholders wealth in just

20、a couple months. To put that in context, since its debut(初次登台) on NASDAQ in May, Facebook has lost value nearly equal to Yahoo, AOL, Zynga, Yelp, Pandora, OpenTable, Groupon, LinkedIn, and Angies List combined, plus that of the bulk of the publicly traded newspaper industry. As shocking as this utte

21、r failure may be to the nearly 1 billion faithful Facebook users around the world, its no surprise to anyone who read the initial public offering (IPO) prospectus. Worse still, all the crises that emerged when the company debuted-overpriced shares, poor corporate governance, huge challenges to the c

22、ore business, and a damaged brand-remain today. Facebook looks like a prime example of what Wall Street calls a falling knife-that is, one that can cost investors their fingers if they try to catch it. Start with the valuation(估值). To justify a stock price close to the lower end of the projected ran

23、ge in the IPO, say $ 28 a share, Facebooks future growth would have needed to match that of Google seven years earlier. That would have required increasing revenue by some 80 percent annually and maintaining high profit margins all the while. Thats not happening. In the first half of 2012, Facebook

24、reported revenue of $ 2. 24 billion, up 38 percent from the same period in 2011. At the same time, the companys costs surged to $ 2. 6 billion in the six-month periodThis so-so performance reflects the Achilles heel of Facebooks business model, which the company clearly stated in a list of risk fact

25、ors associated with its IPO:it hasnt yet figured out how to advertise effectively on mobile devices, The number of Facebook users accessing the site on their phones surged by 67 percent to 543 million in the last quarter, or more than half its customer base. Numbers are only part of the problem. The

26、 mounting pile of failure creates a negative feedback loop that threatens Facebooks future in other ways. Indeed, the more Facebooks disappointment in the market is catalogued, the worse Facebooks image becomes. Not only does that threaten to rub off on users, its bad for recruitment and retention o

27、f talented hackers, who are the lifeblood of Zuckerbergs creation. Yet the brilliant CEO can ignore the sadness and complaints of his shareholders thanks to the super- voting stock he holds. This arrangement also was fully disclosed at the time of the offering. Its a pity so few investors apparently

28、 bothered to do their homework. 1. What can be inferred about Facebook from the first paragraph_?A. Its market meltdown has been easily halted. B. It has increased trade with the newspaper industry. C. Its shareholders have invested 50 billion in a social network. D. It has encountered utter failure

29、 since its stock debut. 2. The crises Facebook is facing_A. have been disclosed in the IPO prospectusB. have existed for a long timeC. are the universal risks Wall Street confrontsD. disappoint its faithful users3. To make its stock price reasonable, Facebook has to_A. narrow the IPO price rangeB. k

30、eep enormously profitableC. cooperate with GoogleD. invest additional 4. It can be inferred from the context that the Achilles heel refers to_A. potential risk B. problem unsolvedC. indisputable factD. deadly weakness5. What effect will Facebooks failure in the market have_?A. The companys innovatio

31、n strength will be damaged. B. Talented hackers will take down the website. C. The CEO will hold the super-voting stock. D. Its users benefits will be threatened. Passage 4Yes, Ill be ready at nine in the morning. Goodbye, dear, and thanks again. It had not been an easy telephone call for Mrs. Robso

32、n to make. Her daughter had been very kind, of course, and had immediately agreed to pick her up and drive her to the station, but Mrs. Robson hated to admit that she needed help. Since her husband had died ten years before, she had prided herself on her independence. She had continued to live in their little house, alone. On the evening, however, she was standing at her living-room window, staring out at the SOLD notice in the small front garden.