高二英语-2014-2015学年高二下学期期中考试英语试题

safety limits.

D. A large number of people worldwide are exposed to air pollution.

C

Before the Industrial Revolution, only a small percentage of the world’s population was literate (有文化的). Literacy rates increased throughout the 19 century, as people started moving from the countryside to towns and cities for the job opportunities opening up in the newly industrialized societies. Many of these new jobs, especially the higher paying ones, required the ability to read and write. With the rise of universal education in almost all countries around the world, literacy rates have steadily gone up over the past hundred years.

But basic literacy is no longer enough. For years now, routine human tasks, that is, those tasks that can well be described by a set of rules, have been taken over by technology substitution (代替) and automation (自动化). Many blue-collar manufacturing activities in assembly plants have fallen into this category. So have an increasing number of white-collar information-based activities, including record keeping and many kinds of administrative tasks.

Not surprisingly, our knowledge-based digital economy requires better educated workers with specific skills requirements. For example, we are surrounded by smart machines ---cars, music players, TVs, video recorders, smart phones, PCs, the Internet, e-mail, the Webs, e-commerce sites and on and on and on. They have become essential tools at work and at home. Digital literacy, the ability to deal with the complicated machines all around and use them effectively to help us address complex problems, has become a very important skill.

In general, people who are comfortable dealing with complexity are better able to handle more demanding, higher paying jobs. In our complex world, unpredicted situations often arise that we have not come across before and thus require good problem solving skills. Similar cognitive (认知) skills are necessary to help us evaluate the options involved in making complex decisions.

A 2011 study by the McKinsey Global Institute projects a continuous demand for workers with at least a post-secondary education to meet the demands of business.

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According to McKinsey, employers are already having trouble filling positions requiring technical skills. Many workers will not necessarily have the skills needed for the jobs that are likely to most be in demand.

Moreover, as we look into the future, digital technologies will continue to be applied to activities requiring cognitive capabilities and problem solving intelligence that not long ago were viewed as the exclusive domain (独占的领域) of humans. As a result, we will need to continually upgrade our skills in order to keep up with our increasingly smart machines and fast changing job requirements. 61. Why is advanced literacy necessary?

A. Because there are more human tasks which can be described by a set of rules. B. Because there are blue-collar manufacturing activities. C. Because more routine human tasks have been taken over.

D. Because more record keeping and many kinds of administrative tasks appear. 62. Which of the following best describes what our digital economy needs? A. Smart machines---cars, music players, TVs, the Internet, and so on. B. Workers with good education and specific requirements. C. Complicated machines all round. D. Essential tools at work and at home.

63. From paragraph 5, we can learn that McKinsey agrees that ___. A. employers find it difficult to find skilled workers B. employees have difficulty filling in the forms. C. workers surely have the skills needed for the jobs D. all skills are in demand in the future

64. Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. Jobs and lifelong learning B. The development of digital technologies C. Fast changing attitudes D. World’s literacy rates

D

Charles Dickens was one of the most beloved storytellers in the English language. His novels made him famous in his own time, and continue as classics in ours. Dickens began his literary career with almost no formal education. He was born

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in Landport, on Feb. 7, 1812, the second of eight children. When he was 12, his father was sent to debtor’s prison. Dickens was forced to quit school and work in a London blacking factory. He would rework that terrible experience into his fiction for the rest of his life.

“He was a social reformer,” says actor Simon Callow, author of a new biography called Charles Dickens and the Great Theater of the World. “He knew what poverty was. He knew what it was to be rejected, to be cast aside, to live in squalor (悲惨).”

And so Dickens wrote with great sympathy for the suffering of innocent and vulnerable (易受攻击的) children—characters like David Copperfield, Little Dorrit and the orphan, Oliver Twist:

With his slice of bread in his hand, and his little brown parish cop on his head, Oliver was now led away from the wretched home, where one kind word or look never lighted the gloom of his infant (幼儿) days. Yet he burst into an agony of childish grief as the cottage gate closed after him. Wretched as were the little companions in misery he was now leaving behind him, they were the only friends he had ever had. His first book Sketches by Boz came out in 1836. With the appearance of Oliver Twist in London periodicals in 1837, the 25-year-old Dickens became the most popular

writer in England. But his first love was theater, and he considered becoming an actor.

“When he was actually writing, he became his characters,” says Peter Ackroyd, author of Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion. “He would get up from his desk, go over to the mirror and mouth the words—do the expressions, grimaces (鬼脸), whatever, and then laugh, chuckle to himself, then go back to his desk and write it down.”

Dickens created 989 named characters, which increased his popularity. Every one of his major works has been adapted for either stage or screen. A Christmas Carol inspired more than a dozen films, from Alistair Sims’ Scrooge in 1951 to Jim Carrey’s voicing of the same character in Disney’s 2009, 3-D animated film.

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The original 1843 manuscript (手稿) of A Christmas Carol is on display at the Morgan Library. Dickens wrote everything by hand, in tiny script, with a quill pen. Remarkably, the manuscript is both the first and the final draft, says Kiely, the curator. You can see where Dickens has changed the name of the first chapter from “Old Marley’s Ghost” to “Marley’s Ghost”. Further down the page, he has canceled an entire section.

“He realizes he’s not writing a novel, and he only has a very short time in which to write this,” Kiely explains. “He’s got to keep it tight, in order for it to be published in time for Christmas.”

Dickens wrote all the time. He traveled with a portable inkwell and a supply of quill pens. He was working on his last novel, Our Mutual Friend, en route from France to London when the train he was on crashed.

Dickens died five years later in 1870, after a stroke at age 58. As a comic talent and a social reformer, Dickens’ achievement was extraordinary, says novelist T. C. Boyle, who earned a doctorate in Victorian literature.

“He achieved what any great artist achieves—a body of work that has entertained and delighted and instructed people down through the ages. That’s what we all hope for, ” says Boyle.

But Dickens’ greatest fiction was his own character, says Callow, the biographer: “People think of him as a cheerful man?but he was increasingly suffering from depression and a sense of hopelessness. And that’s worth knowing. I think it’s always good to know that great creative individuals have their struggle, their drama.”

65. What can probably be reflected in Dickens’ works?

A. His love for his family. B. His childhood sufferings. C. His desire for formal education. D. His reason to choose literary career.

66. The author quotes Dickens’ description of Oliver Twist mainly to show____. A. that Dickens was full of pity for poor children B. that Dickens knew well about poor children

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