2020届高三英语专项练习专题二：阅读理解说明类专练
第I卷（选择题）（每题2分，共30分）
一．阅读理解
A（考点17较易）
    In the United States, it is important to be on time , or punctual , for an appointment , a class, a meeting, etc. However, this may not be true in all countries. An American professor discovered the difference while teaching a class in a Brazilian(巴西的) university. The two-hour class was scheduled to begin at 10 A.M. and end at 12. On the first day , when the professor arrived on time, no one was in the classroom. Many students came after 10:30 A.M. Two students came after 11 A.M. Although all the students greeted the professor as they arrived, few apologized(道歉)for their lateness.Were these students being rude? He decided to study the students’ behavior.
    The professor talked to American and Brazilian students about lateness in both an informal
and a formal situation:at a lunch with a friend and in a university class, respectively.He gave them an example and asked them how they would react, If they had a lunch appointment with a friend,the average American student defined lateness as 19 minutes after the agreed time. On the other hand, the average Brazilian student felt the friend was late after 33 minutes.
    In an American university, students are expected to arrive at the appointed hour.In contrast, in Brazil,neither the teacher nor the students always arrive at the appointed hour.Classes not only begin at the scheduled time in the United States,but also end at the scheduled time.In the Brazilian class, only a few students left the class at 12:00;many remained past 12:30 to discuss the class and ask more questions.While arriving late may not be very important in Brazil , neither is staying late.
1.The word‘punctual’ most probably means________.考点17 易
A.leaving soon after class            Bing early
C.arriving a few minutes late            D.being on time
2.Why did the professor study the Brazilian students’ behavior?考点17 易
A.He felt puzzled at the students’ being late.
B.He felt angry at the students' rudeness.
C.He wanted to make the students come on time later.
D.He wanted to collect data for one of his studies.
3.It can be inferred from the professor’s study of lateness in the informal situation that __________.考点17 易
A.American students will become impatient if their friend is five minutes late
B.neither Brazilian nor American students like being late in social gatherings
C.being late in one culture may not be considered so rude in another culture
D.Brazilian students will not come thirty-three minutes after the agreed time
4.What is the main idea of this passage?考点17 易
A.It is important to be on time for class in the United States.
B.The importance of being on time differs among cultures.
C.People learn the importance of time only from their own culture.
D.Students being late for class should explain the reason to their teacher.
B（考点17中难）
Languages have been coming and going for thousands of years, but in recent times there has been less coming and a lot more going. When the world was still populated by hunter-gatherers, small, tightly knit (联系) groups developed their own patterns of speech independent of each other. Some language experts believe that 10,000 years ago, when the world had just five to ten million people, they spoke perhaps 12,000 languages between them.
Soon afterwards, many of those people started settling down to become farmers, and their languages too became more settled and fewer in number. In recent centuries, trade, industrialisation, the development of the nation-state and the spread of universal compulsory education, especially globalisation and better communications in the past few decades, all have caused many languages to disappear, and dominant languages such as English, Spanish and Chinese are increasingly taking over.
At present, the world has about 6,800 languages. The distribution of these languages is hu
gely uneven. The general rule is that mild zones have relatively few languages, often spoken by many people, while hot, wet zones have lots, often spoken by small numbers. Europe has only around 200 languages; the Americas about 1,000; Africa 2,400; and Asia and the Pacific perhaps 3,200, of which Papua New Guinea alone accounts for well over 800. The median number (中位数) of speakers is mere 6,000, which means that half the world's languages are spoken by fewer people than that.
Already well over 400 of the total of 6,800 languages are close to extinction (消亡), with only a few elderly speakers left. Pick, at random, Busuu in Cameroon (eight remaining speakers), Chiapaneco in Mexico (150), Lipan Apache in the United States (two or three) or Wadjigu in Australia (one, with a question-mark): none of these seems to have much chance of survival.
5.What can we infer about languages in hunter-gatherer times?考点17 易
A.They developed very fast.
B.They were large in number.
s.b.poloC.They had similar patterns.
D.They were closely connected.
6.Which of the following best explains "dominant" underlined in paragraph 2?考点17 易
Aplex.        B.advanced.        C.powerful.        D.modern.
7.What is the main idea of the text?
A.New languages will be created.考点17 易
B.People's lifestyles are reflected in languages.
C.Human development results in fewer languages.
D.Geography determines language evolution.
C（考点17中难）
Australia,the last continent,was discovered by ships belonging to some European nations in the seventeenth century, these nations were less interested in changing it into a colony(殖民地)than in exploring(勘探)it.As in the early history of the United States,it was the English who set up the settlements(新拓展地 ) in Australia.This history and the geography of these two British colonies have some other things in common as well.
Australia and the United States are about the same in size,and their western lands are both not rich in soil.It was the eastern coast of Australia and America that the English first settled, and both colonies soon began to develop towards the west.However,this westward movement took place more because the English were searching for better land than because the population was increasing.Settlements of the western part of both countries developed quickly after gold was discovered in America in 1849and in Australia two years later.
Although the development of these two countries has a lot in common,these are some striking differences as well.The United States gained its independence from England by revolution while Australia won its independence without having to go to war.Australia, unlike the United States,was firstly turned into a colony by English prisoners and its economic development was in wheat growing and sheep raising.By 1922,for example, Australia had fifteen times more sheep than it had people,or almost half as many sheep as the people there in the United States.Yet,in spite of these and other main differences, Australia and the United States have more in common with each other than either one has
with most of the rest of the world.