第二部分 阅读理解(共两节，满分30分)

第一节篇章阅读(共10小题;每小题2分，满分20分)

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该题涂黑。

A

Albert Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. He was a quiet child who spent much of his time alone. He was slow to talk and had difficulty learning to read. When Albert was five years old, his father gave him a compass. The child was filled with wonder when he discovered that the compass needle always pointed in the same direction — to the north. He asked his father and his uncle what caused the needle to move.

Albert did not like school. The German schools of that time were not pleasant. Students could not ask questions. Albert said he felt as if he were in prison.

In 1905, Albert Einstein published some important papers in a German scientific magazine. They included one of the most important scientific documents in history. It explained what came to be called his “Special Theory of Relativity”. Ten years later, he expanded it to a “General Theory of Relativity”.

In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was given to him not for his theories of relativity, but for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Albert Einstein left Germany when Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. He moved to the United States to continue his research. Einstein became a citizen of the United States in 1940.

Einstein was a famous man, but yowould not have known that by looking at him. His white hair was long and wild. He wore old clothes. He showed an inner joy when he was playing his violin or talking about his work. Students and friends said he had a way of explaining difficult ideas using images that were easy to understand.

Einstein spent the last twenty-five years of his life working on what he called a “unified field theory”. He hoped to find a common mathematical statement that could tie together all the different parts of physics. He did not succeed.

Albert Einstein died in 1955 at the age of seventy-six.

21. What can we learn about Albert Einstein in his childhood according to the passage?

A. He was quite clever and smart. B. He was curious about new things.

C. He hated talking with others. D. He was good at inventing things.

22. What’s the right order of the following events about Albert Einstein?

a. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

b. He became a citizen of the United States.

c. He left Germany for the United States.

d. He put forward his “General Theory of Relativity”.

e. He worked on a “unified field theory”.

A. d, e, a, c, b B. a, b, d, e, c C. d, c, b, a, e D. d, a, c, b, e

23. What’s the best title of the passage?

A. The discoveries of Albert Einstein.

B. Albert Einstein and his theories.

C. The life story of Albert Einstein.

D. How Albert Einstein won success.

B

In its early history, Chicago had floods frequently, especially in the spring, making the streets so muddy that people, horses, and carts got stuck. An old joke that was popular at the time went something like this: A man is stuck up to his waist in a muddy Chicago street. Asked if he needs help, he replies, “No, thanks. I’ve got a good horse under me.”

The city planners decided to build an underground drainage system, but there simply wasn’t enough difference between the height of the ground level and the water level. The only two options were to lower the Chicago River or raise the city.

An engineer named Ellis Chesbrough convinced the city that it had no choice but to build the pipes above ground and then cover them with dirt. This raised the level of the city’s streets by as much as 12 feet.

This of course created a new problem: dirt practically buried the first floors of every building in Chicago. Building owners were faced with a choice: either change the first floors of their buildings into basements, and the second stories into main floors, or hoist the entire buildings to meet the new street level. Small wood-frame buildings could be lifted fairly easily. But what about large, heavy structures like the Tremont Hotel, which was a six-story brick building?

Some people like to say that every problem has a solution. But in Chicago’s early history, every engineering solution seemed to create a new problem. Now that Chicago’s waste water was draining efficiently into the Chicago River, the city’s next step was to clean the polluted river.

24. The author mentions the joke to show _______.

A. horses were fairly useful in Chicago

B. the Chicago people were very humorous

C. Chicago was very dangerous in the spring

D. Chicago’s streets were extremely muddy

25. The underlined word “hoist” in Paragraph 4 means “_______”.

A. lift B. change C. repair D. decorate