2012高考二轮复习英语专题训练（江苏专用）专题2 阅读理解24

　　2012高考英语二轮复习专题限时训练（江苏专用）

　　专题2 阅读理解 24

　　（35分钟）

　　A

　　Best High School Band Plays Turner Field

　　The North Cobb High School Band routinely takes the field every Friday night during football season. The band plays at North Cobb football games.

　　This week, the band had to get ready a little earlier in the week. That’s because they played before the Atlanta Braves baseball game at Turner Field.

　　North Cobb won wsbtv.com’s Best High School Band Tournament (锦标赛) last season. The prize for winning was a chance to play on the field at Turner Field before a Major League Baseball game. Tuesday night, the band collected the prize.

　　“We were excited,” North Cobb High School Band drum major Madison Hall said. “Growing up in Atlanta, the Braves have always been such a famous figure in Atlanta, so we were really exited to have the opportunity to perform in front of a lot of people and in front of our community.”

　　The tournament featured 64 high school bands from across Georgia. Wsbtv.com users determined the top four bands through voting with the Atlanta Braves entertainment staff selecting the winner from the final four. They selected North Cobb.

　　“We have a number of great students at North Cobb,” director Greg Williams said.

　　“We’ve got the best parents in the world,” he said. “The kids are so amazing, they are really bright, talented, and they work hard. They do anything we ask them to do and I really think that’s a lot of keys to our success.”

　　Under the leadership of Williams and assistant band director Scott Pannell, the band made its way onto the outfield grass just as Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann was warming up.

　　“It was amazing,” said Pannell. “Just going out in the tunnel and going into the stadium. And just looking at the Braves players on the left and seeing them over by our kids, it’s just unbelievable.”

　　The Atlanta Braves have once again partnered with wsbtv.com to reward this year’s winner of the Best High School Band Tournament a chance to play at Turner Field.

　　1. What did the band do on Tuesday night?

　　A. They performed at a football game.

　　B. They won wsbtv.com’s tournament.

　　C. They played before a baseball game.

　　D. They got a sum of money as a reward.

　　2. The North High School Band turned out the best mainly due to ________.

　　A. the support of the school

　　B. the huge reward from wsbtv.com

　　C. the hard work of its members

　　D. the encouragement from McCann

　　3. We can infer from the passage that ________.

　　A. the North High School Band is the pride of the Braves

　　B. the competition between the school bands is very fierce

　　C. the Atlanta Braves have been admired all over the USA

　　D. only bright kids can be admitted to the North High School

　　B

　　Gateway Academy Pre-Sessional Courses

　　Our pre-sessional courses are ideal for students who have a conditional place at a British university, but who need to achieve a certain level of English in order to be accepted. The course aims to provide students with the English language and study skills that they need in order to be successful at university or another academic establishment. It is important to note that completion of the course does not guarantee students’ entrance into a university. It is necessary for students to show during the course that they have understood the information and skills that they have been taught, and can apply them to their work.

　　Pre-sessional students at Gateway Academy will benefit from:

　　● Small class sizes (no more than 10 students per class)

　　● Twenty three hours of tuition per week

　　● Individual support and tutorials

　　● Regular guest lecturers

　　● The use of the Academy’s study and recreational facilities, including the Language Library, the computer suite, and the academy’s sports facilities.

　　● A varied social programme including evening entertainments and weekend excursions to popular tourist attractions and cities such as Stonehenge, Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon.

　　The course offers an all-around approach to learning, and covers reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. During the course, students will receive instruction on important techniques such as summary-writing, analysing essay titles, organising writing, note-taking in lectures, giving seminars and making presentations. Students will gain experience in working both individually and in groups. As part of the course, all students will work towards a 5000-word project in their own field of study. Students will receive guidance from their tutors on how best to conduct research and write it up effectively. Students will also work towards a presentation on the same subject.

　　There is no final examination. The attendance, successful completion of assignments and participation in class will be taken into account. Students will be given a full report on their progress at the end of the course. Students need to be aware that the course involves a great deal of coursework, which will require students to manage their time effectively.

　　4. From the passage we can learn that ________.

　　A. the course is suitable for students of all levels

　　B. the course will ensure your success at university

　　C. you can’t go to university without taking the course

　　D. the course emphasizes the application of skills

　　5. Students who take the course will probably ________.

　　A. make an overall improvement in English

　　B. get chances to travel everywhere

　　C. teach themselves in their own field of study

　　D. take interest in making presantations

　　6. It is implied in the passage that ________.

　　A. students are evaluated continuously

　　B. students listen to guest lecturers every day

　　C. students are free to attend their courses

　　D. students should take part in sports activities

　　7. The passage is written in order to ________.

　　A. suggest ways to prepare for the course

　　B. help readers find right courses

　　C. introduce approaches to English study

　　D. attract readers to the course

　　C

　　Why can some people sleep through noises like a honking car or flushing toilet, while others are awakened by the lightest sound?

　　To find the answer, sleep researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital conducted an unusual study of 12 self-described deep sleepers. After tests confirmed that the healthy volunteers were solid sleepers, they took part in a three-night study in the university’s sleep laboratory. The participants spent the night in a big and comfortable room. But the room also included four speakers positioned near the top of the bed.

　　During the night, the deep sleepers were subjected to 14 different recorded sounds, like street traffic, toilets flushing, an ice machine dispensing and an airplane flying overhead. Next door, the researchers monitored their sleep patterns and brain waves.

　　As expected, all of the participants slept relatively well, but there were differences in how they responded to the noisy interruptions. Some of the sleepers didn’t wake up even when a sound was blasted at 70 decibels (分贝); others were awakened by sounds at 40 or 50 decibels.

　　The researchers discovered that the difference in a sleeper’s reaction to noise could be predicted by the level of brain activity called “sleep spindles’’. A sleep spindle is a burst of high-frequency brain activity coming from deep inside the brain during sleep. The source of the spindles is the thalamus, a part of the brain that sends sensory information to the rest of the cortex (皮层).

　　Before the study, the Massachusetts researchers theorized (推理) that the spindles are the brain’s way of preventing sensory information from passing through the thalamus and waking the rest of the brain during sleep. They found that the sleepers who experienced the most sleep spindles during the night were also the soundest sleepers and were least likely to be awakened by noise.

　　Scientists already know that most people become lighter sleepers with age, most likely because older people experience less “slow wave sleep’’, which is the deepest stage of sleep. People also produce fewer sleep spindles as they age. But even when controlling for the stage of sleep a person was in, the number of sleep spindles still predicted their risk for awakening because of noise.

　　More research is needed, but the findings suggest that a better understanding of sleep spindles could lead to new behavioral or drug therapies for people with sleep disorders. For instance, future studies may try to determine whether diet, exercise or other behaviors may influence the number of sleep spindles a person produces during the night.

　　8. Some participants can sleep well through loud noises mainly because ________.

　　A. their brains don’t respond to outside noises

　　B. their brains react differently to noises

　　C. they adapt to the environment quickly

　　D. they don’t pay attention to the monitors

　　9. Scientists believe that the key to affecting deep sleep is ______.

　　A. sleep spindles

　　B. stages of sleep

　　C. sleep disorders

　　D. sensory information

　　10. It can be learned from the passage that ________.

　　A. the older a deep sleeper becomes, the lighter his sleep must be

　　B. the more “slow wave sleep” one experiences, the deeper sleep one has

　　C. the more frequently a sleeper’s brain works, the less information it sends

　　D. the deeper sleep people have, the more likely they will be awakened by noise

　　11. From the passage we can predict ________.

　　A. more factors in influencing sleep spindles may be discovered

　　B. more solid sleepers will take part in relative experiments

　　C. sleep spindles will be applied to changing one’s behaviors

　　D. deep sleepers will probably enjoy a more healthy life

　　D

　　Ray’s wedding had gone off smoothly. Everyone seemed to have had a good time. A few people had too good a time; they went home with designated (指派的) drivers. All evening, the gift table remained unguarded. Who would steal anything, Ray thought. He had never heard of such a thing happening at a wedding. But his best friend Aaron said there was a first time for everything. He strolled out regularly from the inside festivities (庆祝) to check on the gift table, making sure no one suspicious was hanging around it.

　　Ray and Julia went on a 3-week honeymoon to Italy right after the wedding. When they got back, they opened all the gifts and sent out thankyou notes. But there was one problem. A married couple that used to be good friends had apparently given nothing. This surprised Julia, because Walt and Mary said they were thrilled to be invited. And, they actually seemed to have had a great time at the wedding. Frankly, Ray didn’t even care if they hadn’t given a gift. He just needed to know whether to send a thank-you note. Ray called Aaron. Aaron said maybe Walt had left an envelope on the gift table like Aaron had. “Yes, but we got your envelope with the cash inside,” Ray said.

　　“Maybe my envelope looked too thin, and some thief thought Walt’s envelope looked nice and fat.”

　　Aaron asked Ray if he had looked everywhere for Walt’s gift. Had he called up the wedding site to see if anything had been left behind? Ray said that he had looked everywhere and made a lot of calls that were fruitless.

　　Ray didn’t know what to do. If he sent Walt and Mary a thank-you note for a gift they hadn’t given, they would be insulted. If he didn’t send them a thank-you note for a gift they had given, they would get angry.

　　“What would you do?” Ray asked. Aaron said he would call Walt up and tell him the problem.

　　“You can’t go wrong with simply being honest,” Aaron said.

　　“Oh, yes, you can,” Ray contradicted him. “Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.” But he thought about it, and finally decided that Aaron was right. He called Walt and told him the problem. Walt said that yes, he had given an envelope. In fact, the envelope contained $500 cash.

　　“$500?!” Ray asked. “That’s a lot of cash, Walt!” Walt admitted that it was, but he had gotten a fat raise early that year and Ray’s was the only wedding he’d been to in quite a while. Ray thanked him very much, and apologized sincerely for someone stealing Walt’s generous gift. Walt told him that it was “only money”.

　　When Ray told Aaron about Walt’s gift, Aaron laughed. “The only thief at the wedding was Walt! I quit playing cards with him last year because I caught him cheating. And it was only a $10 pot! I’m sure I told you about that.”

　　“Yes, you did tell me,” Ray said. But, of course, he had to send Walt a thank-you note anyway.

　　12. Which of the following is true according to the passage?

　　A. Nobody checked on the gift table all evening.

　　B. Walt had surely gotten a fat raise early that year.

　　C. Stealing had never happened at a wedding.

　　D. Aaron looked on honesty as the best policy.

　　13. The underlined word “insulted” in Paragraph 5 probably means ________.

　　A. deeply impressed

　　B. badly hurt

　　C. much discouraged D. greatly moved

　　14. What kind of person is Ray?

　　A. Considerate and polite.

　　B. Faithful and experienced.

　　C. Outgoing and determined.

　　D. Friendly and optimistic.

　　15. Which of the following might be the best title for the passage?

　　A. A Wedding Party

　　B. The Theft at the Wedding

　　C. The Wedding Gift

　　D. A Secret at the Wedding

　　CCBDA

　　ADBAB

　　ADBAC