Do you suppose Darwin, one of the greatest scientists of all time, really did foolish experiments? Or did he do experiments that were so simple and basic that other people just thought they were foolish?
Sometimes, people think they already know the answer to a question or the solution to a problem. Sometimes, they really do know an answer or a solution, but without thinking they are important.
Charles Darwin didn’t settle for(满足于)just thinking he knew something. And, he believed all things could be important however simple they seemed to be.
Suppose you drop sheets of paper that are of exactly the same size and shape. If you drop them at the same time in the same place, they will fall in the same way. Now make one of the sheets of paper into a tight little ball and let it drop along with the other sheets. What happens? You have done an experiment that is so simple that you might think it couldn’t be worth anything.
But this simple experiment is important. It explains part of our present-day understandings of physics, ideas that were worked out long ago by Galileo and Newton. And these understandings set aside some of ancient Greek physics.
Scientists sometimes stop to look at very simple things and to think very hard about them. Even the simplest idea, which we might think is foolish, can shake the foundations of science.
小题1: The passage tells us that Charles Darwin . | A．was a great English scientist | | B．always liked doing the experiments that others thought difficult | | C．thought even the simplest thing was important | | D．didn’t get well with others |
小题2: The underlined phrase “set aside” most probably means . | A．throw away | B．store up | | C．put to use | D．realize |
小题3: The author of the passage tries to . | A．convince us that Charles Darwin, Galileo and Newton are the greatest scientists in the world | | B．draw the conclusion that basic sciences are simple things | | C．prove that two sheets of paper, with the same size and shape, will fall at the same speed | | D．draw our attention to everyday happenings around us |
小题4:Which of the following is TRUE? | A．Darwin really did foolish experiments. | | B．According to some people Darwin did foolish experiments. | | C．It is believed by all the people that things could be important though they seemed to be simple. | | D．Galileo and Newton worked out ancient Greek physics. |
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小题1:C
小题2:A
小题3:D
小题4:B |
【文章大意】作者以达尔文为例, 告诉我们要留意身边的小事, 要善于探索。
小题1:选C。推理判断题。短文并没有说Charles Darwin是哪个国家的科学家, 可排除A; 由第一、二段可知别人认为Darwin的许多实验不值得做, 可把B排除; 文中没有论述Darwin与别人相处的事情, 可排除D。由“he believed all things could be important however simple they seemed to be. ”可推出答案C。
小题2:选A。词义猜测题。由上文可知作者认为做这个简单实验是重要的, 它解释了目前人们对于物理方面的理解。这些理解推翻了一些希腊古典物理学的观点。由此可推知set aside与throw away同义。
小题3:选D。主旨大意题。短文的最后一段点明最简单的事情都可能动摇科学的根基, 意在告诉读者要留意身边的每一件事, 哪怕它非常简单。
小题4:选B。细节理解题。短文第一段第二句“Or did he do experiments that were so simple and basic that other people just thought they were foolish? ”明确告诉我们, 有些人认为Darwin做了愚蠢的实验。 |
核心考点
试题【Do you suppose Darwin, one of the greatest scientists of all time, really did fo】；主要考察你对
题材分类等知识点的理解。
[详细]举一反三
One day I came home from school, changed my clothes and got ready for work. I worked at a local restaurant in town as a cashier and waiter.
I went to work feeling . And to make matters worse, I was busy that evening. It’s the same thing over and over again, with customers who complain about their food and where they are is too big or too small. Little things like that tend to a lot of us but we manage to deal with them.
Three elderly ladies walked in and sat by the windows. It happened to be the very near where I keep the dirty in the boxes. Trying to keep up with all the dirty tables, customers leaving and coming in and running all over the house, it was crazy. these elderly women were watching I was working to make sure every table was clean and ready for the next customers.
When they their meals, I took their plates back to the kitchen. They talked to me for a while about school, how I was doing, what I was in and what I planned to do in the future.
they were leaving, they walked past me and one of them said to me in a and gentle voice, “You are going places. ”And that was it. They left the and I had tears in my eyes, because they gave me to believe in myself. They my spirit from being down and gave me a to keep on working hard.
People used to tell me that I couldn’t have a career in until I had a degree. I’m now a co-anchor(联合主持人)of a student-produced television . And the best thing is: I’m only 17 years old and I am a senior in high school.
| 小题1: | | A．tired | B．excited | C．up | D．down |
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| 小题2: | | A．dealing | B．helping | C．talking | D．meeting |
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| 小题3: | | A．sat | B．seated | C．laid | D．dressed |
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| 小题4: | | A．attract | B．avoid | C．adjust | D．annoy |
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| 小题5: | | A．employees | B．customers | | C．bosses | D．employers |
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| 小题6: | | A．table | B．box | C．spot | D．kitchen |
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| 小题7: | | A．dishes | B．rooms | C．clothes | D．chairs |
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| 小题8: | | A．men | B．women | C．waiters | D．bosses |
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| 小题9: | | A．And | B．Otherwise | | C．But | D．So |
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| 小题11: | | A．finished | B．completed | C．ordered | D．got |
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| 小题12: | | A．place | B．grade | C．mark | D．position |
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| 小题13: | | A．Before | B．While | C．As | D．After |
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| 小题14: | | A．confident | B．loud | C．low | D．pleasant |
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| 小题15: | | A．kitchen | B．house | C．restaurant | D．table |
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| 小题16: | | A．ability | B．courage | | C．imagination | D．time |
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| 小题17: | | A．put down | B．picked up | | C．took over | D．pointed out |
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| 小题18: | | A．cause | B．reason | | C．present | D．permission |
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| 小题19: | | A．television | B．government | | C．school | D．restaurant |
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| 小题20: | | A．company | B．station | | C．show | D．advertisement |
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According to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, we might all be braggarts(大话王) in this competitive society addicted to social networking.
Take a close look at your socialnetworking sites. Do you like to post photos of yourself in restaurants to show others what an exciting life you have? Or do you like to write about how happily in love you are? Or perhaps you are of the subtle type who constantly complain about jobs but really just want to impress others with your important position.
According to the results of a series of experiments conducted by Harvard University neuroscientists(神经科学家), the reward areas of our brain——the same areas that respond to “primary rewards” such as food ——are activated when we talk about ourselves. We devote between 30 to 40 percent of our conversation time to doing just that. Unfortunately, Bernstein says, some people can"t tell the difference between sharing positive information that others might actually want to know and direct bragging. She suggests that bragging involves comparison, whether stated or implied.
“We are expected to be perfect all the time. The result is that more and more people are carefully managing their online images”. says Elizabeth Bernstein, a columnist with the Wall Street Journal.
But the issue is not limited to the Internet. In a fiercely competitive job market we must sell ourselves on multiple platforms and show that we are better than others. In fact, we have become so accustomed to bragging that we don"t even realize we are doing it, says Bernstein. This is harmful to our relationships and puts people off.
Bernstein talked to some experts who said that people brag for all sorts of reasons: to appear worthy of attention; to prove to ourselves we are doing fine and that people who said we would fail are wrong; or simply because we"re excited when good things happen to us.
“Feel sorry for them, because they"re doing this unconscious, destructive thing that won"t help them in the long run，” said Professor Simian Valier, a research psychologist at Washington University.
小题1:The underlined word “subtle” in Para.2 is closest in meaning to “________”．| A．hidden | B．apparent | | C．outstanding | D．simple |
小题2:Which of the following is one of the features of braggarts?| A．They control conversation and only talk about themselves. | | B．They know well how to share positive information. | | C．They selfpromote to stand out in their career. | | D．They don"t pay much attention to their online image. |
小题3:What can we infer from the passage?| A．Braggarts make a good first impression but the effect decreases over time. | | B．People who like bragging know what they are doing. | | C．Braggarts always adopt comparison directly to show they are excellent. | | D．They care much about the feelings of others when talking. |
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I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a box car in a goods yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I can dimly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(大灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn"t been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise. I don"t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Life, I believe, asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. In spite of the fact the adjustment is never easy, I had my parents and teachers to help. The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. If I hadn"t been able to do that, I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was laughing at me and I was hurt. “I can"t use this.” I said. “Take it with you，” he urged me, “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball.
All my life I have set ahead of me a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something that I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.
小题1:We can learn from the beginning of the passage that ________.| A．the author lost his sight because of a car crash | | B．the author wouldn"t love life if the calamity didn"t happen | | C．the calamity made the author appreciate what he had | | D．the calamity strengthened the author"s desire to see |
小题2:What"s the most difficult thing for the author?| A．How to adjust himself to reality | | B．Building up assurance that he can find his place in life | | C．Learning to manage his life alone | | D．To find a special work that suits the author |
小题3:For the author, the baseball and encouragement offered by the man ________.| A．hurt the author"s feeling | | B．made the author puzzled | | C．directly led to the change of the author"s career | | D．inspired the author |
小题4:According to the passage, the author ________.| A．set goals for himself but only invited failure most of the time | | B．thought that nothing was impossible for him | | C．was discouraged from trying something out of reach for fear of failure | | D．suggested not trying something beyond one"s ability at the beginning |
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It is a true story behind a wellknown piece of art.
In a village near Nuremberg lived a family with eighteen children. Merely to keep food on the table, the father worked eighteen hours a day. Despite their ___ condition, two of the children had a dream to seek their talent for ____ but they knew well their father would never be able to send ____ of them to Nuremberg to study at the Academy.
The two boys finally worked out an agreement. They would toss (扔) a coin. The ____ would work in the nearby mines to support his brother. Albrecht ____ the toss and went off to Nuremberg. Albert went into the dangerous mines and, for the next four years, financed his brother, ____ work at the academy was almost a(n ) ____ success. Albecht"s woodcut and oils were much ____ than those of his professors and he soon was earning considerable fees ____ his works.
When the young ____ returned home, the family held a festive dinner. Albrecht rose to toast to his beloved brother, “Now, Albert, it is your ____ to seek your dream and l will support you”．
All heads turned to the far end of the table, where Albert sat, tears streaming down his pale face, while he ____ and repeated, “No...no.” Finally, Albert rose and ____ the tears from his cheeks. He said softly, “I ____ go to Nuremberg, brother. It is too late for me. Look what four years in the mines have done to my hands! The bones in every finger have been smashed at least once, and I cannot even hold a glass to ____ your toast.”
Today, Albrecht"s masterful works ____ in every great museum in the world, but chances are great ____ you, like most people, are familiar with only one of them. Albrecht drew his brother"s abused hands with palms together and the ____ stretched skyward. He called it simply “Hands”， but the entire world almost immediately opened their hearts to his great masterpiece and ____ his tribute (敬意) of love “The Praying Hands”．
Next time you see that touching creation, take a second look. Let it be your reminder, if you still need one, that no one ever makes it ____！
| 小题1: | | A．hopeful | B．lucky | | C．disappointed | D．hopeless |
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| 小题2: | | A．music | B．art | | C．mining | D．farming |
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| 小题3: | | A．all | B．both | | C．each | D．either |
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| 小题4: | | A．painter | B．loser | | C．winner | D．failure |
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| 小题7: | | A．random | B．immediate | | C．attractive | D．ordinary |
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| 小题8: | | A．smaller | B．worse | | C．faster | D．better |
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| 小题10: | | A．miner | B．worker | | C．artist | D．professor |
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| 小题11: | | A．luck | B．turn | | C．move | D．moment |
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| 小题12: | | A．sobbed | B．nodded | | C．smiled | D．laughed |
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| 小题13: | | A．recovered | B．swept | | C．wiped | D．handed |
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| 小题14: | | A．can"t | B．shouldn"t | | C．can | D．should |
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| 小题15: | | A．hold | B．return | | C．move | D．turn |
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| 小题16: | | A．hang | B．represent | | C．present | D．visit |
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| 小题18: | | A．figures | B．hands | | C．fingers | D．arms |
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| 小题19: | | A．said | B．loved | | C．renamed | D．called |
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| 小题20: | | A．yet | B．out | | C．alone | D．before |
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For a long time I saw happiness as a huge banner (旗帜) across the finish line of a long race.I felt that only when I____certain things could I finally be happy in my life.Most of the time I felt like a tortoise believing that being slow and____would win the race.At other times I would___like a rabbit trying different side roads at a dangerous ____hoping to reach that banner a little faster.____，I began to see that no matter how long I raced towards it，the banner was never any____.I finally decided to____and take a break.It was then that I saw my____sitting beside me.
It had been with me as I____hard to support my family，as I played with my children and heard their____and even when I was ____with my wife at my side looking after me.It had been with me as I raced towards that stupid banner.I just didn’t have the____to see it.
There is an old Chinese proverb that says，“Tension is who you think you should be.___is who you are.”Perhaps we all should stop our race towards the____life we think we should have and ____the life we have now.Happiness will never be found under some banner far away.It will be found____your own heart，soul and mind.It will be found when you____that others love you just as you do.
Don’t be a tortoise or a rabbit when it comes to your happiness.Be a playful puppy and carry your stick of____with you everywhere you go.____yourself out of the race and realize that when it comes to love and happiness，you are____there.
| 小题1: | | A．forgot | B．missed | | C．overcame | D．accomplished |
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| 小题2: | | A．safe | B．steady | | C．calm | D．quiet |
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| 小题3: | | A．act | B．run | | C．jump | D．walk |
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| 小题4: | | A．place | B．height | | C．speed | D．time |
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| 小题5: | | A．Generally | B．Gradually | | C．Fortunately | D．Firstly |
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| 小题6: | | A．clearer | B．lower | | C．closer | D．smaller |
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| 小题7: | | A．settle in | B．start off | | C．stop by | D．sit down |
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| 小题8: | | A．happiness | B．goal | | C．success | D．friendship |
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| 小题9: | | A．studied | B．fought | | C．exercised | D．worked |
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| 小题10: | | A．laughter | B．complaints | | C．stories | D．breathing |
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| 小题11: | | A．lonely | B．tired | | C．sick | D．hungry |
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| 小题12: | | A．courage | B．chance | | C．wisdom | D．strength |
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| 小题13: | | A．Stress | B．Relaxation | | C．Failure | D．Pain |
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| 小题14: | | A．real | B．perfect | | C．common | D．ordinary |
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| 小题15: | | A．enjoy | B．change | | C．improve | D．create |
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| 小题17: | | A．realize | B．believe | | C．hope | D．admit |
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| 小题18: | | A．sorrow | B．responsibility | | C．fortune | D．joy |
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| 小题19: | | A．Carry | B．Make | | C．Push | D．Take |
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| 小题20: | | A．never | B．still | | C．already | D．ever |
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