湖北省高考英语二轮复习专题限时训练 24史地自然型阅读理解(2)

2012高考英语二轮复习专题限时训练

专题限时训练(二十四) [史地自然型阅读理解(二)]

(限时：25分钟)

(一)

Weather changes when the temperature and the amount of water in the atmosphere change. We can see and feel water coming from the atmosphere when we have rain. But the water must somehow get back to the atmosphere. Meteorologists call this the water cycle.

There are many stages in the water cycle. Rain falls when water vapour in clouds condenses (凝结). Drops of water form and fall to the ground. The water soaks into the ground and feeds streams and rivers. A lot of rain falls into the sea. The heat of the sun evaporates some of the water in the ground and in the rivers，lakes，and the sea. It changes the liquid water into water vapour. The vapour rises onto the air. Water vapour is normally invisible. On a very damp or humid day，however，you can sometimes see water vapour rising from a puddle (水坑) or pond in a mist (薄雾) above the water. Water vapour also gets into the air from living things. Trees and other plants take in water through their roots and give off water vapour from their leaves. People and land animal drink water and breathe out water vapour. In all these ways the water returns to the air. There it gathers to form clouds and condenses to form rain. The rain falls to earth，and the cycle starts again. It continues even if snow or hail (冰雹) fall instead because both eventually melt to form water. The amount of water vapour in the air depends on the temperature. The air is more moist (潮湿) in the tropics (热带) than in the cold polar regions.

( )1. What is the main idea of the passage? A．Water cycle. B．Water vapour.

C．How rain forms. D．Water，vapour，rain.

( )2. How many ways of the water returning to the air are discussed in the text?

A．Two. B．Three. C．Four. D．Five.

( )3. Whether water vapour can be seen or not depends on ________. A．how much water is evaporated B．how good your eyes are

C．in which way water is evaporated D．climate or weather

( )4. From the passage we get to know________.

A．there is more water vapour in the air in the tropics than in cold polar regions B．there is more water vapour in the air in cold polar regions than in the tropics C．it gets more rain in the tropics than in cold polar regions because there is less vapour

D．the amount of water vapour in the air depends on how often it rains

(二)

The word conservation has a thrifty meaning. To conserve is to save and protect, to leave what we ourselves enjoy in such good conditions that others may also share the enjoyment. Our forefathers had no idea that human population would increase faster than the supplies of raw materials; most of them, even until very recently, had the foolish idea that the treasures were “limitless” and “inexhaustible”. Most of the citizens of earlier generations knew little or nothing about the complicated and delicate system that runs all through nature, which means that, as in a living body, an unhealthy condition of one part will sooner or later be harmful to all the others.

Fifty years ago, nature study was not part of the school work; scientific forestry was new idea; wood was still cheap because it could be brought in any quantity from distant woodlands; soil destruction and river floods were not national problems; nobody had yet studied long-term climatic cycles in relation to proper land use; even the word “conservation” had nothing of the meaning that it has for us today.

For the sake of ourselves and those who will come after us, we must now set about correcting the mistakes of our forefathers. Conservation should be made a part of everybody’s daily life. To know about the water table in the ground is just as important to us as knowledge of the basic match formulas. We need to know why all watersheds(上游集水区) need the protection of plant life and why the running current of streams and rivers must be made to yield their full benefit to the soil before they finally escape to the sea. We need to be taught the duty of planting trees as

well as of cutting them. We need to know the importance of the big, grown tree, because_living_space_for_most_of_man’s_fellow_creatures_on_this_planet_is_figured_not_only_in_square_measure_of_surface_but_also_in_cubic_volume_above_the_earth. In a word, it should be our goal to restore as much of the original beauty of nature as we can.

( )1.The author’s attitude towards the use of natural resources is ________. A．positive

B．uninterested

D．critical

C．optimistic

( )2.According to the author, the greatest mistake of our forefathers was that ________.

A．they had no idea about scientific forestry

B．they had little or no sense of environmental protection C．they were not aware of the significance of nature study D．they had no idea of how to make good use of raw materials

( )3.To avoid repeating the mistakes of our forefathers, the author suggests that ________.

A．we plant more trees

B．natural science be taught to everybody C．environmental education be given to everybody D．we return to nature

( )4.How can you understand the underlined sentence in the last paragraph? A．Our living space on the earth is getting smaller and smaller. B．Our living space should be measured in cubic volume. C．We need to take some measures to protect space.

D．We must preserve good living conditions for both birds and animals.

(三)

Environmentalists said our planet was doomed to die. Now one man says they are wrong.

“Everyone knows the planet is in bad shape”， thundered a magazine article last year. Species(物种)are being driven to die out at record rates, and the rivers are so poisonous that fish are floating on the surface, dead.

But there’s a growing belief that what everyone takes for granted is wrong: things are actually getting better. A new book is about to overturn our most basic assumptions about the world’s environment. Rivers, seas, rain and the atmosphere

are all getting cleaner. The total amount of forests in the world is not declining.

The Skeptical Environmentalist by Bjorn Lomborg, professor of statistics at the

University of Aarhus in Denmark, is an attack on the misleading claims of environmental groups, and the “bad news” culture that makes people believe everything is getting worse.

Now the attacks are increasingly coming from left-wing environmentalists such as Lomborg, a former member of Greenpeace. The accusation is that, although the environment is improving, green groups—with profits of hundreds of millions of pounds a year — are using scare tactics (谋略)to gain donations. Lomborg’s book doesn’t deny global warming—probably the biggest environmental threat—but destroys almost every other environmental claim with many official statistics.

The Worldwatch Institute claims that “deforestation has been accelerating over the last 30 years”. But Lomborg says that is simply rubbish. Since the dawn of agriculture the world has lost about 20 per cent of its forest cover, but in recent decades the forest area’s depleting has come to a stop. According to UN figures, the area of forests has remained almost steady, at about 30 per cent of total land area, since the 1940s. Forests in countries such as the US, UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years. Despite all the warnings the Amazon rainforest has only shrunk(缩小) by about 15 per cent.

Nor are all our species dying out. Some campaigners claim that 50 per cent of all species will have died out within 50 years. But other studies show only 0.08 per cent of species are dying out each year. Conservation efforts have been successful. Whales are no longer threatened and the bald eagle is off the endangered list.

Environmental groups claim that many of the improvements are the results of the success of their campaigns. Stephen Tindale, director of Greenpeace UK, said：“There are important examples, such as acid rain and ozone, where things weren’t as bad as predicted, and that’s because behaviour changed. ”

( )1.In his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, what is Lomborg’s main argument?

A．Our planet is in bad shape.

B．The world’s environment is improving.

C．The total amount of forests in the world is not declining. D．Conservation efforts have been successful.