专四阅读理解训练题

1、text a the meridians of longitude are imaginary great circles drawn from pole to pole around the earth. by international agreement, the meridian of longitude passing through greenwich, england, is numbered zero. the earth is divided into 360 degrees, and the meridians are numbered east and west from

2、 greenwich. there are 180 degrees of longitude east of greenwich and 180 degrees in the westerly direction. new york has a longitude of 74 degrees west (74o w) which means that it lies on the 74th meridian west of greenwich. since the sun appears to travel around the earth in 24 hours, it will move

3、360/24 or 15 degrees in one hour. this reasoning can be used by navigators to determine their longitude. imagine that we have set sail from greenwich, england, after having set a very accurate clock, or chronometer, to the local greenwich time. as we travel westward toward new york, we notice that t

4、he sun is going “ slower ” than our chronometer. at the time that our timepiece reads 12 o clock, the sun has not quite reached the zenith. as a matter of fact, when our clock reads noon, what it really means is that it s noon in greenwich, england. our clock continues to tell us the time, not at ou

5、r present location, but at greenwich. let us wait until the sun is directly overhead (noon at our location) and then read the time on our clock. suppose it reads 1 o clock. this means that there is one hour s difference in time between our longitude and that of greenwich. as we mentioned earlier, th

6、is corresponds to exactly 15 degrees of longitude, so our longitude must be 15ow. the world is divided into 24 time zones, and each zone corresponds to 15 degrees of longitude. new york is approximately 5 time zones west of greenwich, so the time difference must be about 5 hours. by maintaining chro

7、nometers on greenwich time, ships can determine their longitude on any sunny day by merely noting the difference in hours between greenwich time and local sun time and multiplying this difference by 15 degrees. of course, longitude gives only half of the information needed to determine our precise l

8、ocation. we must also know our latitude, which tells us how far we are north or south of the equator. the equator is the zero line for the measurement of latitude. circles are drawn parallel to the equator to indicate other values of latitude. there are 90 degrees of south latitude. in the northern

9、hemisphere, there is a star called polaris almost directly over the north pole. this makes it possible to determine the latitude of a given point by setting our sextant to measure the angle between polaris, the north star, and the horizon. mathematicians tell us that this angle is equal to the latit

10、ude at the point in question. to get an idea of our location, therefore, we need to know local time, greenwich time, and the angle between polaris and the horizon. 1. the passage is mainly about _ a. the latitude b. the longitude c. how to know one s location on the earth surface d. how to determine

11、 local time 2. suppose it is 18:00 in greenwich, england , then the local time in new york is _ a. 18:00 b. around 13:00 c. around 23:00 d.17:00 3. “ chronometer” in para 2. refers to_ a. length measurement tool b weight measurement tool c. time measurement tool d. chronology 4. to get the precise l

12、ocation of a ship on the sea, the shipman must know_ a. the longitude of his place only b. the latitude of his position only c. the number degrees he lies east or west of greenwich d. both his latitude and longitude. 5.from the last paragraph, we know that _ a. to know local time and greenwich time

13、is to compute the number of latitude of the place b. to know the angle between polaris and the horizon is to compute the number of the longitude of the place c. we need to know local time, greenwich time and the angle between polaris and the horizon in order to compute the longitude and latitude of

14、the place d.we need to know local time,greenwich time and the angle between polaris and the horizon if we want to be a mathematician text b in a recent book entitled the psychic life of insects, professor bouvier says that we must be careful not to credit the little winged fellows with intelligence

15、when they behave in what seems like an intelligent manner. they may be only reacting. i would like to confront the professor with and instance of reasoning power on the part of an insect which cannot be explained away in any other manner. during the summer of 1899, while i was at work on my doctoral

16、 thesis, we kept a female wasp at our cottage. it was more like a child of our own. that was one of the ways we told the difference. it was still a young wasp when we got it (thirteen or fourteen years old) and for some time we could not get it to eat or drink, it was so shy. since it was a female w

17、e decided to call it miriam, but soon the children s nickname for it- “ pudge” -became a fixture, and “ pudge” it was from that time on. one evening i had been working late in my laboratory fooling around with some gin and other chemicals, and when leaving the room, i tripped over a nine of diamonds

18、 which someone had left lying on the floor and knocked over my card index which contained the names and addresses of all the larvae worth knowing in north america. the cards went everywhere. i was too tired to stop to pick them up that night, and went sobbing to bed, just as mad as i could be. as i

19、went, however, i noticed the wasp was flying about in circles over the scattered cards. “ maybe pudge will pick them up” , i said half laughingly to myself, never thinking for one moment that such should be the case. when i came down the next morning pudge was still asleep in her box, evidently tire

20、d out. and well she might have been. for there on the floor lay the cards scattered all about just as i had left them the night before. the faithful little insect had buzzed about all night trying to come to some decision about picking them up and arranging them in the boxes for me, and then had fig

21、ured out for herself that, as she knew practically nothing of larvae of any sort except wasp larvae, she would probably make more of a mess by rearranging them than if she had left them on the floor for me to fix. it was just too much for her to tackle and, discouraged, she went over and lay down in

22、 her box, where she cried herself to sleep. if this is not an answer to professor bouvier s statement, i do not know what is. 6. professor bouvier believes that insects_ a. do not have intelligence b. behave in an intelligent way c are capable of reasoning d. are more intelligent than we thought 7.

23、on the evening the author fell over, someone_ a. had moved his card his card index b. had been playing card games c. had knocked over his boxes containing cards d. had looked at his collection of diamonds 8. when he came to the laboratory the next morning, the author_ a. saw that his cards had alrea

24、dy been rearranged b. realized that the wasp had been trying to help c. found evidence of the wasp s intelligence d. found his index cards still scattered about the room 9. the author s account of his wasp s intelligence_ a. is imaginary b. is convincing c. firmly proves his point of view d. is valu

25、able for insect study 10. the purpose of this article is to _ a. oppose professor bourvier s point of view b. support porfessor bouvier with his own experience c. further discuss thether insects are intelligent d. illustrate the working theory behind the author s thesis text c he was a funny looking

26、 man with a cheerful face, good-natured and a great talker. he was described by his student, the great philosopher plato, as “ the best and most just and wisest man.” yet, this same man was condemned to death for his beliefs. the man was the greek philosopher, socrates, and he was condemned for not

27、believing in the recognized dogs and for corrupting young people. the second charge stemmed from his association with numerous young men who came to athens from all over the civilized world to study under him. socrates methods of teaching was to ask questions and , by pretending not to know the answ

28、ers, to press his students into thinking for themselves. his teachings had been unsurpassed in influence in all the great greek and roman schools of philosophy. yet, for all his fame and influence, socrates himself never wrote a word. socrates encouraged new idea and free thinking in the young, and

29、this was frightening to the conservative people. they wanted him silenced. yet, many were probably surprised that he accepted death so readily. socrates had the right to ask for a lesser penalty, and he probably could have won over enough of the people who had previously condemned him. but socrates,

30、 as a firm believer in law, reasoned that it was proper to submit to the death sentence. so, he calmly accepted his fate and drank a cup of poison hemlock in the presence of his grief-stricken friends and students. 11. in the first paragraph, the word “ yet” is used to introduce_ a. a contrast b. a

31、sequence c. an emphasis d. an example 12. socrates was condemned to death because he _ a. believed in law b. was a philosopher c. published outspoken philosophical articles d. advocated original opinions 13. the word “ unsurpassed ” in the third paragraph is closest in meaning to _ a. untold b. uneq

32、ualed c. unnoticed d. unexpected 14. by mentioning that socrates himself never wrote anything, the writer implies that _ a. it was surprising that socrates was so famous b. socrates was not learned as he is reputed to have been c. socrates used the work of his students in teaching d. the authorities

33、 refused to publish socrates work 15. socrates accepted the death penalty to show _ a. his belief in his students b. his contempt for conservatives c. his recognition of the legal system d. that he was not afraid of death text d senator john f.kerry s campaign yesterday seized on the pentagon s call

34、-up of thousands of former soldiers for duty in iraq and afghanistan to step up its charge that the bush administration s management of the military has left the army spread dangerously thin. the move demonstrated the kerry campaign s increasing willingness to engage bush on what had been the presid

35、ent s perceived strength, his handling of national security. kerry advisers contend that the call-up of the individual ready reserve is the result of a series of bad decisions and poor war planning by bush and his top advisers. his campaign released a “ fact sheet” and brought forward a retired air

36、force chief who campaigned for bush in 2000 to reinforce its claims. “ the troops are paying the price for arrogant mismanagement and poor planning at the civilian policy level,” retired air force chief of staff general merrilll “ tony”mcpeak, a kerry adviser, said in a conference call with reporter

37、s yesterday. “ the force we have in iraq today is part of what i call an in-between forcetoo small to solve the problem and too big to be supported by our force structure. ”the return to duty of 5,600 former military officers and enlisted personnel is the latest issue which the presumptive democrati

38、c presidential nominee has sought to use to draw distinctions between himself and bush in the area of national security. both candidates are trying to persuade voters that they are the best stewards of the nation s defense, and recent polls have shown the public s confidence in the president s handl

39、ing of the war in iraq is slipping. kerry has previously called for increasing the size the army by 40,000 to meet the demands of overseas deployments, a move that has been repeatedly rebuffed by the white house despite growing support in congress. the bush administration maintains that the call-up

40、of soldiers that are required to keep in touch with the army for as many as four years after leaving service does not mean the army isn t large enough. “i don t think the army s too small. we re using a manpower pool that s available to us” robert smiley, a senior army official who oversees training

41、, readiness, and mobilization, told reporters yesterday. “ this is good personnel management. this is a group of people we can use to fill vacancies. ”the troops, being culled from a total of 111,323 soldiers in the individual ready reserve, are needed to fill jobs as truck drivers, engineers, and military police, officials said. smiley said that more would probably be called in the future. ar