江苏省泰州市姜堰区2016届高三上学期期中考试 英语 Word版含答案

53. A. simplify B. understand C. beat D. discover 54. A. nurses B. waiters C. teachers D. cleaners 55. A. explaining B. requiring C. displaying D. learning 第三部分：阅读理解（共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分）

请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。详细解析可加飚记英语微信公共号（biaojienglish)

A

My 18-month-old son, Adam, called from the front door. “Look, Mama! Doggie!” I dropped what I was doing and stuck my head out of the door. Brandy, our next-door neighbor’s 11-year-old dog, was over again. “Go away!” I shouted.

Brandy’s owner had died about a month earlier. The woman’s family had emptied the house and stuck a “For Sale” sign in the front yard, but the family had left old Brandy behind. For weeks, she’d been wandering around the neighborhood.

It wasn’t that I disliked dogs or anything like that. I just didn’t think about them very much. I never had a dog growing up and had never thought to get one.

Brandy went away and I stayed outside with Adam. Then the phone rang. I went inside to take the call. When I came back, Adam was gone. I searched the yard, front and back, then the basketball court and public pool. No trace of him. I was so nervous that I ran home and called the police, then my husband.

Police searched the neighborhood. Suddenly I heard another sound: a dog barking. “It’s coming from the woods.” one of my neighbors said. We followed the barking to a wooded cliff. There we found my son, and he was just inches away from the edges of the cliff, fast asleep.

Brandy was beside him, leaning against him to keep him away from the edge. When I picked Adam up, Brandy sank down on her side, breathing quickly. She must have been holding Adam there for hours!

I thanked the police and brought Adam and Brandy back to our house. She hesitated a moment on our doorstep, no doubt remembering the time I’d driven her away.

“Come on, girl.” I said. “This is your home now.” Brandy stepped in, and once she saw she was really welcome, she relaxed and lay down on the floor just inside the door. She’d done a great thing, and I wondered if she knew it. She’d certainly touched me in a way that no animal ever had.

What a pity a dog like Brandy had been left behind! 56. What did the woman do when she first saw Brandy? A. She drove her away. B. She gave her some food. C. She took her home. D. She said thank you to her. 57. How were they able to be aware that the woman’s son was near the cliff? A. By searching the neighborhood. B. By hearing her son’s crying. C. By following a dog’s footsteps. D. By hearing a dog barking.

B

Thousands of taxi drivers in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, reportedly blocked streets with their vehicles on Sunday in protest against unlicensed vehicles using taxi-hiring apps (打车软件) and apps-based car rental companies providing passenger services, including high-end cars. Although the drivers also complained about the withdrawal of the fuel subsidy(补贴) by the government, their main complaint was the loss of business because of the rising number of Internet-based car services companies.

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On Wednesday, news reports came that Beijing transport authorities will take measures to stop the illegal “taxi business” of private cars through the newly rising Internet apps, following the footsteps of Shenyang and Nanjing.

It is not yet clear how the Shenyang city government will handle the issue and whether it will declare the services offered by market leaders such as Didi Dache, a taxi-hiring app provider backed by Tencent Holdings, and Kuaidi Dache illegal. But Shanghai transport regulators have set a rule, by banning Didi Zhuanche, or car services offered by Didi Dache in December.

Such regulations will cause a setback to the car-hiring companies and investors that are waiting to cash in on the potentially booming business. Just last month, Didi Dache got $700 million in funding from global investors, including Singapore state investment company Temasek Holdings, Russian investment company DST Global and Tencent. Besides, the market is uncertain that Kuaidi Dache is about to finalize its latest round of funding after getting $800 million from global investors.

Regulatory uncertainties, however, could cast a shadow on the future of the Internet-based car-hiring services, which have become popular in most of China’s big cities. To be fair, these companies’ business model is anything but bad. For example, Didi Zhuanche works side by side with established car rental companies to provide high-end car service mainly for businesspeople through the Internet and mobile phone apps.

Every link in this business model chain has legal companies and services. Therefore, it is hard to define it as illegal and ban it.

58. Why did taxi drivers in Shenyang block the streets with their vehicles? A. Because they wanted the authority to increase their driving allowances. B. Because they wanted to be taught how to use the taxi-hiring apps.

C. Because they wanted to appeal to passengers not to hire the private cars. D. Because they wanted to make their main complaints known to the authority. 59. The author’s attitude to banning internet car-hiring service is __________. A. positive B. negative C. neutral D. unclear 60. We can learn from the passage that __________. A. Shenyang forbade apps-based car rental companies B. Shanghai is the second city banning Didi Zhuanche

C. it is not difficult to picture the apps-based car rental companies illegal

D. some international investment companies have strong faith in the future of apps-based car rental companies

C

Engineers should embrace(接受) the arts, Sir John O’Reilly, a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, argued in a lecture.

About 59% of engineering companies in the IET’s 2014 survey feared skill shortages could threaten business.

“There is nothing as creative as engineering,” Sir John told the reporter. He says science, technology, engineering and mathematics—often known as “Stem” subjects, are vital for a modern knowledge economy. But there is a massive shortfall in the number of recruits(招聘)— with a recent study by the Royal Academy of Engineering saying the UK needs to increase by as much as 50% the number of Stem

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graduates it produces.

Delivering this year’s Mountbatten Lecture at the Royal Institution, Sir John argued that engineers should recognise the role of the arts in their work—among other benefits; this could attract more people into the profession. The lecture, Full Steam Ahead for Growth, advocated a wider adoption—Steam, or science, technology, engineering, arts and maths. Engineers should embrace the arts as being key to creativity and an important component of innovation(创新), important to creating new products and boosting future competitiveness, he argued. “Engineering and technology is an increasingly diverse and creative field,” said Sir John.

Some university engineering departments already cooperated with art schools to develop understanding, he told the reporter. In particular he mentioned Cranfield University’s Centre for Creative Competitive Design and Imperial College’s work with the Royal College of Art. The two sets of people could work well together and more emphasis on the creative side of engineering could improve the success of products, he said.

“Aesthetics(美学) is part of it,” he told the reporter, adding that Apple’s iPod was not the first digital media player, nor the only one that worked—but it came to dominate the market “because it was nice to have”.

Sir John said he was not suggesting universities started requiring A-level art from engineering applicants—the key subjects for admission would continue to be maths and the sciences. But an emphasis on creative skills would help “broaden the pool and attract more people in”. 61. According to a recent study by the Royal Academy __________. A. skill shortages could threaten business

B. engineering graduates are not as creative as expected C. there are not enough arts graduates produced in the UK.

D. the UK needs more graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics 62. According to the lecture Full Steam Ahead for Growth, __________. A. engineers should cooperate with arts majors

B. accepting the arts could attract more people into engineering

C. engineers should realize arts play the most important part in their work D. engineering and technology is as diverse and creative as before

63. By giving the example of Apple’s iPod, Sir John intends to __________. A. stress the importance of arts B. stress the importance of marketing

C. stress the importance of communication

D. stress the importance of science and technology 64. What is the passage mainly about?

A. Lack of creativity makes it difficult for the engineering major to find a satisfactory job.

B. The key subjects for engineering majors remain to be maths and the sciences rather than arts.

C. University engineering departments should cooperate with art schools to improve the success of products.

D. Engineering needs to emphasize its creative side to encourage more young people to choose it as a career.

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D

One day one of my self-proclaimed(自称的) Month of Gratitude, my five-year-old son woke up “bored” at 5:15 a.m., I spied a speeding ticket in my wife’s purse, and our water heater spluttered to its death as I was getting into the shower. Ordinarily, I would have started complaining and the day would have been off to an ugly start. But this day was different. How cute my child’s dimples (酒窝) are. How fetching my wife’s taste for adventure. Only 29 days to go.

Just a week earlier, as I struggled with the feeling that I’d been put on this earth to load and unload the dishwasher, I’d decided it was time to end my reflexive complaining. But it wasn’t simply the little things that were annoying me. All of a sudden, my friends were dealing with bad news—cancer diagnoses, divorce, job loss. Shouldn’t I be celebrating my relative good fortune?

I’d heard about the feel-good benefits of a gratitude attitude. Hoping for tips, I called professor Emmons, who pioneered research on the benefits of positive thinking. Emmons quoted new studies that indicated that even pretending to be thankful raises levels of the chemicals associated with pleasure and contentment. He recommended keeping a log of everything I’m grateful for in a given week or month.

I followed his suggestions, but my first attempts at keeping a gratitude list were pretty weak: coffee, naps, caffeine in general. As my list grew, I found more uplift: freshly picked blueberries; the Beatles’ White Album; that I’m not bald.

By day three, I was on a tear, thanking every grocery bagger and parent on the playground like I’d just won an Oscar and hanging Post-it notes to remind myself of the next day’s thank-you targets: the mailman, my son’s math teacher. But soon, the full-on approach started to burn me out.

Researchers call it the Pledge of Allegiance(效忠誓言) effect. “If you overdo gratitude, it loses its meaning or, worse, becomes a chore,” professor Emmons told me when I mentioned my low spirits. Be selective, he advised, and focus on thanking the unsung heroes in your life.

Then professor Emmons suggested a “gratitude visit.” Think of a person who has made a major difference in your life and whom you’ve never properly thanked. Compose a detailed letter to him or her that expresses your appreciation in concrete terms, then read it aloud, face-to-face.

I immediately flashed on Miss Riggi, my eighth-grade English teacher. She was the first one to open my eyes to Hemingway, Faulkner, and other literary giants. To this day, I am guided by her advice (“Never be boring”). I booked plane tickets to my hometown, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Miss Riggi was shorter than I remember, though unmistakable with her still long, black hair and bright, intelligent eyes. After a slightly awkward hug and small talk, we settled in. I took a deep breath and read.

“I want to thank you in person for the impact you’ve had on my life,” I began. “Nearly 30 years ago, you introduced my eighth-grade class to the wonders of the written word. Your passion for stories and characters and your enthusiasm for words made me realize there was a world out there that made sense to me.” And whether it was Miss Riggi’s enormous smile when I finished the letter, or the way she held it close as we said goodbye, my feeling of peace and joy remained long after I returned home.

Since then, I have written several more gratitude letters, and my wife and I both summon our “training” when we feel saddened by life. The unpleasant matters are still there, but appreciation, I’ve learned, has an echo—and it’s loud enough to drown out the complaints in a low tone of one man emptying the dishwasher.

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