第二十五讲 阅读简答(一)
(1)(10 min.)
(湖南师大附中2017届高三第二次月考)
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 twentyfour 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, “I have a problem here. I am weak and doing the best I can. ” And everyone understood. Several times, I saw drivers who wanted to pass. They couldn't get around 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)
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2. What reaction did other drivers have when the author drove very slowly at first? (No more than 5 words)
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3. Why did other drivers behave differently when the author put on the car flashlights? (No more than 8 words)
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4. What does the author advise us to do at last? (No more than 8 words)
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(2)(10 min.)
(衡阳市八中2017届高考模拟)
My school goes all the way from classes for fiveyearolds to classes for 18yearolds. One day, my teacher told me about Clare. “I have a girl in my year 3 class. Her name is Clare and she reminds me so much of you. She seems a little lost in class. Do you think you could have a chat with her？” Of course I was very glad to do this.
Clare turned out to be a pale little girl, slim and small for her age. After talking to the 8yearold for a while, we discovered that we both enjoyed reading and writing short stories.
I started visiting the junior school as often as I could during morning break to read aloud some of the books to Clare. After a while, other girls started coming to listen too. Some days I didn't read and instead just talked to Clare. We talked about her friends, school work, books we'd read and things we'd done. I told her about the work I was doing sometimes and she always surprised me so much with her great intelligence. We talked about general interesting things they don't teach in school at her age.
I still go to see Clare as often as I can. There are days when I get so excited about Clare, about how brilliant she is and how far she'll go in life. I'm excited about how much she understands about the world. Being with her and talking to her excites me to no end.
I just wanted to share that excitement with you and to encourage everyone to help somebody in their life who could use a little bit of support.
1. Why did the teacher ask the author to talk with Clare? (No more than 8 words)
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2. What did the author and Clare both like doing？(No more than 6 words)
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3. What was the author's purpose by writing the text? (No more than 7 words)
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4. How did the author and Clare get along with each other？(No more than 3 words)
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(3)(10 min.)
(2011年湖南省教育考试院调研考试)
A political scientist from Indiana University whose work exploring how people come together to preserve their collective resources may provide important clues in the fight against climate change has become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for economics.
Elinor Ostrom, 76, shares 2009 Nobel Prize with fellow American academic Oliver Williamson, 77. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced to the world the pair had been chosen to win the 40th prize in economic sciences.
For Ostrom, the award came, as a “big surprise”. To rise to the peak of her area of learning has been a big journey, as she has had to struggle against her own weaknesses and the barriers of the system. At school in Los Angeles, she suffered from stuttering(口吃). She also faced the barriers common to most women of her generation entering the sciences — she was discouraged from taking a PhD when she applied for graduate school.
Her field of study has been striking for how crossdisciplinary it is. Early on she gained a reputation for bringing economics, political science and sociology together.
What interests her is how common property can be managed successfully through groups in society. The findings of her research have been striking, as the Nobel committee pointed out, because they have challenged the traditional assumption that common property is poorly managed unless it is either controlled by government or privatized. She has shown how different individuals can band together and form collectives that protect the resources at hand.
“A lot of people are waiting for more international cooperation to solve global warming.” Ostrom said, “It is important that there is international agreement, but we can be taking steps at family level, community level, civil and national level…There are many steps that can be taken. That will not solve it on their own but continuously will make a big difference.”
1. How did Ostrom feel when she got the prize?
(No more than 3 words)
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2. What does “crossdisciplinary” mean according to the passage?
(No more than 9 words)
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3. Why was Ostrom advised not to take a PhD when she applied for graduate school?
(No more than 9 words)
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4. Why was Ostrom awarded the Nobel Prize for economics?
(No more than 16 words)
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(4)(10 min.)
“Humans aren't alone in suffering failing memory with age，” said US and European scientists, who found aging affects honeybees' ability to find their way home. Researchers at Arizona University and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences say the bees' learning behavior, critical to leading them home as the hive(蜂巢)moves from location to location, becomes worse with age, PhysOrg. com first reported Tuesday.
Bees are excellent navigators(领航员), able to return to their home through changing landscapes after visits to flowers far removed from their nests, but the study also shows that aging weakens the bees' ability to erase memories of a former hive site after the colony has settled in a new home, researchers say. Old bees with symptoms of aging tended to return to the former nest site, despite finding it uninhabited and unusable, the study found. But the phenomenon was not universal, the researchers said.
“Although many old bees fail in learning tasks, we also discovered that a few still perform with excellence，” Daniel Munch, a senior life sciences researcher in Norway, says.
The scientists say their findings offer a new means to model and understand the variability found in brain function between individuals, as some individuals' memories remain undamaged while others' learning behavior becomes worse with age.
1. Where were the findings first reported? (No more than 8 words)
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2. What intention do the aged bees have? (No more than 10 words)
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3. What effect do the findings of the experiment bring? (No more than 12 words)
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4. What's the main idea of the passage? (No more than 6 words)
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