同等学力英语阅读真题

阅读真题（一）

Passage One

The other day my son asked me if he could ride up to his elementary school on his bike and meet his friend. He wanted the both of them to ride back to our house so they could play video games and jump on the trampoline. I have to admit, part of me wanted to say no. We can go pick him up or his parents can bring him over here, I thought. But my son is eleven years old now. And after all, I do let him ride his bike to school. But I also drive my daughter to school and I can see him on the way, making sure he is getting there safely.

My husband thinks I am too overprotective. I don’t care to let my children walk anywhere without one of us going along. As you pull out of our neighborhood, there is a shopping center across the street. My son always asks if he can ride his bike or walk over to the drugstore by himself. But crossing that street is just too dangerous. The cars fly around the corner like they’re driving in a car race. What if he gets hit? What is some teenage bullies are hanging out in the parking lot?

I want so much to give my children the freedom that I enjoyed having when I was growing up but I hesitate to do so because there are dangers around every corner. Too many kidnaps, too many sex offenders. I went online and discovered there are 41 sex offenders in my area alone.

I honestly don’t think my mom worried about such things when her children were young. Growing up in the 1970s was indeed a different time. I never wore a helmet when I rode a bike. We were all over the neighborhood, on our bikes and on foot, coming home for dinner and then back out again until dark. We rode in the back of the truck, didn’t wear seatbelts. I walked to and from school every day…

1. What did the author feel reluctant to let her son do?

A. Meet his friend.

B. Play video games.

C. Jump on the trampoline.

D. Ride his bike on streets.

2. What does the author mean when she says “But my son is eleven years old now”?

A. He is old enough to be given some freedom now.

B. He is a bit too young to go out alone.

C. He has reached the legal age for ridding a bike.

D. He can’t protect himself from road hazards.

3. Given her husband’s attitude towards bringing up kids, he would most probably _____.

A. drive his son to school to ensure safety.

B. follow his son all the way to school and back

C. give his son more freedom in deciding what to do

D. ask the other boy’s parents to bring him over here

4. Which of the following is NOT considered by the author as a potential threat to kids?

A. Teenage bullies.

B. The drugstore.

C. Child abusers.

D. Cars racing by.

5. What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A. The social security back in the 1970s was no better than it is today.

B. Today’s children are more obedient to their parents.

C. Children today are more obedient to their parents.

D. Children in the 1970s enjoyed more freedom than those today.

6. What is the author’s main purpose in writing this passage?

A. To compare today’s social environment with that of the 1970s.

B. To show her concern over the increasing crime rate in her neighborhood.

C. To describe her hesitation as to how much freedom she should give her son.

D. To express her worries about both safety and security in her area.

参考答案：DACBDD

阅读真题（二）

Passage Two

About a century ago more people would not have appreciated the study of a foreign language as they do today. Gone are those days when patriotism towards one’s own language was a major obstacle to learning foreign languages, a time when most nations were trying to throw their alien rulers out of their countries in their freedom struggles.

Gone are those days when people were proud of their mother or father tongues and considered that their native languages alone will suffice the need to survive. Language skills today have become as important as other business and career skills like IT, vocational or professional skills. Thus learning a foreign language today has become essential for an individual whether it is for careers, growing a business, or even to make an impression.

All that one needs to possess these days is a drive to learn a foreign language and there are all kinds of institutes and courses that teach various foreign languages like French, German, Spanish, and Japanese. Today’s world economy has bridged the barriers of race, sex, color and religion and the world had become a smaller place. Today’s businesses also demand language skills to expand and grow in other countries. Tens and hundreds of businesses world wide are expanding and growing their business by promoting them in countries other than their countries of origin. The tremendous growth of the Internet has further increased the demand for language skills. In Canada an official rule also says that all commercial establishments must have their websites created both in English and French, the official languages of the country. Language can also ease race and border barriers. You are more welcome in an alien nation if you know the language of the people there and can converse in their tongue. People in these countries immediately respect you and think you care about their culture as much as they do because in any culture language is the key identity.

7. One of the reasons for not studying a foreign language in the past is _____.

A. it was too difficult

B. it was not allowed

C. it was seen as disloyalty

D. it was taught by foreign rulers

8. According to the article, which of the following is true?

A. People’s language skills are better than in the past.

B. Foreign language skills are of vital importance.

C. It’s easier nowadays to learn a foreign language.

D. People today are not proud of their native language.

9. What does “to make an impression” (Paragraph 1) probably mean?

A. To remember things.

B. To express ideas.

C. To show respect.

D. To be liked by others.

10. The world has become smaller because of _____.

A. business expansion

B. the growth of the Internet

C. a globalized economy

D. the learning of foreign languages

11. According to the article, the growth of the Internet requires_____.

A. more foreign language skills

B. more bilingual websites

C. better command of English

D. more commercial establishments

12. People in a foreign country will treat you with more respect if you speak their language because _____.

A. they think you love their country

B. they think you understand their culture

C. it’s easier for them to communicate with you

D. they believe you are a good language learner

参考答案CBDCAB

阅读真题（三）

Passage Three

You may have wondered why the supermarkets are all the same. It is not because the companies that them lack imagination. It is because they all aim at persuading people to buy things.

In the supermarket, it takes a while for the mind to get into a shopping mode. This is why the area immediately inside the entrance is known as the “decompression zone”. People need to slow down and look around, even if they are regulars. In sales terms this area is a bit of a loss, so it tends to be used more for promotion. Immediately inside the first thing shoppers may come to is the fresh fruit and vegetables section. For shoppers, this makes no sense. Fruit and Vegetables can be easily damaged, so they should be bought at the end, not the beginning, of a shopping trip. But what is at work here? It turns out that selecting good fresh food is a way to start shopping, and it makes people feel less guilty about reaching for the unhealthy stuff later on.

Shoppers already know that everyday items, like milk, are invariably placed toward the back of a store to provide more opportunities to tempt customers. But supermarkets know shoppers know this, so they use other tricks, like placing popular items halfway along a section so that people have to walk all along the aisle looking for them.

The idea is to boost “dwell time”: the length of time people spend in a store. Traditionally retailers measure “footfall”, as the number of people entering a store is known, but those numbers say nothing about where people go and how long they spend there. But nowadays, a piece of technology can fill the gap: the mobile phone. Path Intelligence, a British company tracked people’s phones at Gunwharf Quays, a large retail centre in Portsmouth- not by monitoring calls, but by plotting the positions of handsets as they transmit automatically to cellular networks. It found that when dwell time rose 1% sales rose 1.3%.

Such techniques are increasingly popular because of a deepening understanding about how shoppers make choices. People tell market researchers that they make rational decisions about what to buy, considering things like price, selection or convenience. But subconscious forces, involving emotion and memories, are clearly also at work.

13. In Paragraph 2, “decompression zone” is the area meant to _____.

A. offer shoppers a place to have a rest

B. prepare shoppers for the mood of buying

C. encourage shoppers to try new products

D. provide shoppers with discount information

14. Putting fruit-and-vegetable section near the entrance takes advantage of shoppers’_____

A. common sense

B. shopping habits

C. concerns with time

D. shopping psychology

15. Path Intelligence uses a technology to _____.

A. count how many people enter a store

B. measure how long people stay at a store

C. find out what people buy in a store

D. monitor what people say and do in a store

16. What happened at Gunwharf Quays showed that sales_____.

A. was in direct proportion to dwell time

B. was reversely linked to dwell time

C. was affected more by footfall than by dwell time

D. was affected more by dwell time than by football

17. The author argues that shoppers_____.

A. exert more influence on stores than they imagine

B. are more likely to make rational choices than they know

C. tend to make more emotional decisions than they think

D. have more control over what they buy than they assume

18. The best title for the passage is _____.

A. New T echnology Boosts Stores’ Sales

B. How Shoppers Make Choices in Stores

C. Rational and Irrational Ways of Shopping

D. The Science behind Stores’ Arrangements

参考答案BDBACD

阅读真题（四）

Passage Four

A very important world problem is the increasing number of people who actually inhabit this planet. The limited amount of land and land resources will soon be unable to support the huge population if it continues to grow at its present rate.

So why is this huge increase in population taking place? It is really due to the spread of the knowledge and practice of what is becoming known as “Death Control”. You have no doubt heard of the term” Birth Control”. ”Death Control” is something rather difficult. It recognizes the work of the doctors and scientists who now keep alive people who, not very long ago, would have died of a variety of then incurable diseases. Through a wide variety of technological innovations that include farming methods and the control of deadly diseases, we have found ways to reduce the rate at which we die. However, this success is the very cause of the greatest threat to mankind.

If we examine the amount of land available for this ever-increasing population, we begin to see the problem. If everyone on the planet had an equal share of land, we would each have about 50,000 square metres. This figure seems to be quite encouraging until we examine the amount of usable land we actually have. More than three-fifths of the world’s land cannot produce food.

Obviously, with so little land to support us, we should be taking great care not to reduce it further. But we are not! Instead, we are consuming its “capital”- its nonrenewable fossil fuels and other mineral deposits that took millions of years to form but which are now being destroyed in decades. We are also doing the same with other vital resources not usually thought of as being nonrenewable such as fertile soils, groundwater and the millions of other species that share the earth with us. It is a very common belief that the problems of the population explosion are caused mainly by poor people living in poor countries who do not know enough to limit their reproduction. This is not true. The actual number of people in an area is not as important as the effect they have on nature. Developing countries do have an effect on their environment, but it is the populations of richer countries that have a far greater impact on the earth as a whole.

19. According to the article, what contributes to the population increase?

A. Birth explosion.

B. Birth Control

C. Death Control.

D. Technological innovations.

20. The word “incurable” in Paragraph 2 means _____.

A. common

B. epidemic

C. untreatable

D. unknown

21. There isn’t enough land to support human beings because_____.

A. there are more seas than land in the world

B. most of the world’s land is unusable

C. the world’s land has already been taken up

D. the world’s land is not distributed equally

22. In Paragraph 4 the writer implies that fertile soils are _____.

A. limited

B. renewable

C. productive

D. nonrenewable

23. What does “to limit their reproduction” is the last paragraph mean?

A. To control death.

B. To produce less goods.

C. To increase production.

D. To practice birth control.

24. What do you think the writer is really concerned about?

A. Long life spans.

B. Population increase.

C. Overuse of resources.

D. The success of “Death Control”.

参考答案CCBDDC