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09
级
2
下大学英语阅读理解练习题
根据文章内容，选择正确的答案。
错选、多选，少选或未选均无分。
Passage one
Early 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 needle.
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 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 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 was 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, you 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
forgotten 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 dreams are sometimes called “secret
messages to ourselves”.
ing to the passage, Elias
Howe was________.
【
C
】
A. the first
person we know of who solved problems in his sleep
B. much more hard-working than other
inventors
C. the first person to design
a sewing machine that really worked
problem Howe was trying to solve
was________.
【
A
】
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A. how to
prevent the thread from getting caught around the
needle
B. how to design a needle which
would not break
C. where to put the
needle
Edison is spoken of
because________.
【
B
】
A. he also tried to invent a sewing
machine
B. he got some of his ideas
from dreams
C. he was one of Howe’s
best fri
ends
are sometimes
called“secret messages to ourselves”
because___.
【
A
】
A. strange images are used to
communicate ideas
B. images which have
no meaning are used
C. we can never
understand the real meaning
Passage two
The
greatest recent changes have been in the lives of
women. During the
twentieth century
there was an unusual shortening of the time of a
woman’s 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 till 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. Usually a woman’s 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 women’s way of life has only
recently begun to have
its full effect
on women’ s economic position. Even a few years
ago mos
t 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 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 and 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.
are told that in an
average family about
1990________.
【
D
】
A. many
children died before they were five
B.
the youngest child would be fifteen
C.
seven of eight children lived to be more than five
D. four or five children died when they
were five
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6. When she
was over fifty, the late 19th century
mother________.
【
D
】
A. would expect
to work until she died
B. was usually
expected to take up paid employment
C.
would be healthy enough to take up paid employment
D. was unlikely to find a job even if
she is now likely
7. Many girls, the
passage says, are now likely to
________.
【
D
】
A. marry so
that they can get a job
B. leave school
as soon as they can
C. give up their
jobs for good after they are married
D.
continue working until they are going to have a
baby
8. According to the passage, it is
now quite usual for women to
________.
【
C
】
A. stay at home
after leaving school
B. marry men
younger than themselves
C. start
working again later in life
D. marry
while still at school
Passage three
Swimming
is
one
of
those
activities
that
can
be
learned
early
in
life.
Little
children can learn to
swim as soon as they walk. In fact, you need the
same skills in
walking as in swimming.
However, I believe that five is the best age to
learn. By five
or six, a child knows
fear
of water,
a very
important
thing to
know.
It's
wise to
be
afraid, to recognize true danger. Young
ones understand that the water can sometimes
be very dangerous.
To
really
benefit
from
swimming,
every
swimmer
should
learn,
as
soon
as
possible,
these four basic strokes; butterfly, backstroke,
breastroke, and crawl. I feel
that
one
of
these-the
breaststroke-is
different
from
the
others,
since
some
young
swimmers use this stroke naturally,
without any training.
In swimming there are certain rules
every swimmer should follow:
1.
Never
swim
alone!
No
matter
how
good
you
are
in
the
water,
don't
risk
drowning by swimming
alone. If you swim by yourself , with no life
guards or friends
with you, you may get
into trouble.
2. Don't go beyond your abilities. Most
swimmers know enough not to swim too
far from the bank or the beach, Showing
off by doing dangerous tricks is no good.
Swim safely and
you will continue to swim and alive.
3. Don't smoke. Swimming
depends on a healthy body; good lungs are part of
it.
4. Work at any activity that builds
muscles.
9. Little children can learn to swim as
soon as _____.
【
B
】
A. they can talk
B. they start walking
C. they have no fear of the water
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