Andrew Ritchie, inventor of the Brompton folding bicycle, once said that perfect portable bike would be “l(fā)ike a magic carpet... You could fold it up and put it into your pocket or handbag". Then he paused: “But you'll always be limited by the size of the wheels. And so far no one has invented a folding wheel."
It was a rare --- indeed unique --- occasion when I was able to put Ritchie right. A 19th-century inventor, William Henry James Grout, did in fact design a folding wheel. His bike, predictably named the Grout Portable, had a frame(框架) that split into two and a larger wheel that could be separated into four pieces. All the bits fitted into Grout's Wonderful Bag, a leather case.
Grout's aim: to solve the problems of carrying a bike on a train. Now doesn't that sound familiar? Grout intended to find a way of making a bike small enough for train travel: his bike was a huge beast. And importantly, the design of early bicycles gave him an advantage: in Grout's day, tyres were solid, which made the business of splitting a wheel into four separate parts relatively simple. You couldn't do the same with a wheel fitted with a one-piece inflated tyre.
So, in a 21st-century context, is the idea of the folding wheel dead? It is not. A British design engineer, Duncan Fitzsimons , has developed a wheel that can be squashed(擠壓)into something like a slender ellipse(橢圓 ) . Throughout, the tyre remains inflated.
Will the young Fitzsimons's folding wheel make it into production? I haven’t the foggiest idea. But his inventiveness shows two things. First, people have been saying for more than a century that bike design has reached its limit, except for gradual advances. It’s as silly a concept now as it was 100 years ago: there's plenty still to go for. Second, it is in the field of folding bikes that we are seeing the most interesting inventions. You can buy a folding bike for less than £1,000 that can be knocked  down so small that can be carried on a plane -- minus wheels, of course --as hand baggage.
Folding wheels would make all manner of things possible. Have we yet got the magic carpet of Andrew Ritchie's imagination? No. But it's progress.
57. We can infer form Paragraph 1 that the Brompton folding bike____.
A. was portable                            B. had a folding wheel.
C. could be put in a pocket.                  D. looked like a magic carpet
58. We can learn from the text that the wheels of the Group Portable_______.
A. were difficult to separate.                         B. could be split into 6 pieces.
C. were fitted with solid tyres.               D. were hard to carry on a train.
59. We can learn from the text that Fitzsimons`s invention_______.
A. kept the tyres as whole piece.                    B. was made into production soon.
C. left little room for improvement.                D. changed our views on bag design.
60. Which of following would be best title for the text?
A. Three folding bike inventors.                    B. The making of a folding bike
C. Progress in folding bike design                 D. Ways of separating a bike wheel

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科目：高中英語 來源： 題型：閱讀理解

Andrew Ritchie, inventor of the Brompton folding bicycle, once said that the perfect portable bike would be “l(fā)ike a magic carpet…You could fold it up and put it into your pocket or handbag”. Then he paused: “But you’ll always be limited by the size of the wheels. And so far no one has invented a folding wheel.”

It was a rare — indeed unique — occasion when I was able to put Ritchie right. A 19th-century inventor, William Henry James Grout, did in fact design a folding wheel. His bike, predictably named the Grout Portable, had a frame that split into two and a larger wheel that could be separated into four pieces. All the bits fitted into Grout’s Wonderful Bag, a leather case.

Grout’s aim: to solve the problems of carrying a bike on a train. Now doesn’t that sound familiar? Grout intended to find a way of making a bike small enough for train travel: his bike was a huge beast. And importantly, the design of early bicycles gave him an advantage: in Grout’s day, tyres were solid, which made the business of splitting a wheel into four separate parts relatively simple. You couldn’t do the same with a wheel fitted with a one-piece inflated （充氣的） tyre.

So, in a 21st-century context, is the idea of the folding wheel dead? It is not. A British design engineer, Duncan Fitzsimons, has developed a wheel that can be squashed into something like a slender ellipse （橢圓）. Throughout, the tyre remains inflated.

Will the young Fitzsimons’s folding wheel make it into production? I haven’t the foggiest idea. But his inventiveness shows two things. First, people have been saying for more than a century that bike design has reached its limit, except for gradual advances. It’s as silly a concept now as it was 100 years ago: there’s plenty still to go for. Second, it is in the field of folding bikes that we are seeing the most interesting inventions. You can buy a folding bike for less than ??1,000 that can be knocked down so small that it can be carried on a plane — minus wheels, of course — as hand baggage.

Folding wheels would make all manner of things possible. Have we yet got the magic carpet of Andrew Ritchie’s imagination? No. But it’s progress.

We can infer from Paragraph 1 that the Brompton folding bike        .

A. was portable

B. had a folding wheel

C. could be put in a pocket

D. looked like a magic carpet

We can learn from the text that the wheels of the Grout Portable        .

A. were difficult to separate

B. could be split into 6 pieces

C. were fitted with solid tyres

D. were hard to carry on a train

We can learn from the text that Fitzsimons’s invention        .

A. kept the tyre as a whole piece

B. was made into production soon

C. left little room for improvement

D. changed our views on bag design

Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A. Three folding bike inventors

B. The making of a folding bike

C. Progress in folding bike design

D. Ways of separating a bike wheel

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科目：高中英語 來源：上海市十校2010屆高三下學(xué)期考前最后一次聯(lián)考英語試卷 題型：填空題

Section D

Directions：Read the following passage and answer the questions. Write the answers on the answer sheet.

In 1817 one of the most well-known hauntings in American history took place in the small town of Adams, Tennessee. Known as the Bell Witch, the strange activity that caused fear in the small farming community has remained unexplained for nearly 200 years. Like many stories, certain details of who or what the Bell Witch was vary from version to version. The prevailing account is that it was the ghost of a woman named Kate Batts, a mean old neighbour of John Bell. Batts believed Bell cheated her in a land purchase and on her deathbed she swore that she would haunt John Bell and his family.

News of the Bell Witch spread quickly. When word of the haunting reached Nashville, one of its most citizens, General Andrew Jackson, decided to gather a group of friends and go to Adams to investigate. The future president wanted to come face to face with the phenomenon and either expose it as a trick or send the spirit away. According to one account, Jackson and his men were traveling over a smooth section of road when suddenly the wagon stopped. The men pushed and pushed, but the wagon could not be moved. The wheels were even removed and inspected. The came the sound of a voice from the bushes saying, “I will see you tonight.” The astonished men could not find the source of the voice. The horses then unexpectedly started walking on their own and the wagon moved along again. Jackson indeed encountered the witch that night and left early the next morning, claiming he would rather fight the British than the Bell Witch！

The haunting of the Bell house continued for several years, ending with ghost’s final act of revenge. On the morning of December 19, he failed to awake at his regular time. When the family noticed he was sleeping unnaturally, they attempted to rouse him. They discovered Bell couldn’t be completely awakened. John’s son went to the medicine cupboard to get his father’s medicine and noticed it was gone but a strange small bottle was in its place. No one claimed to have replaced the medicine with the bottle. John Bell died on December 20 and “Kate” was quiet until after the funeral.

A few explanations of the Bell Witch phenomena have been offered over the years. One is that the haunting was a trick created by Richard Powell, the schoolteacher of Betsy Bell and Joshua Gardner, the boy with whom Betsy was in love. It seemed Powell was deeply in love with Betsy and would do anything to destroy her relationship with Gardner. Through a variety of tricks, and with the help of several friends, it is believed that Powell created all of the ghostly effects to scare Gardner away. In fact, Gardner eventually did break up with Betsy and left area and Powell did come out winner. In the end, he married Betsy Bell.

81.John Well’s mean old neighbor haunted them because ______.

______________________________________________________________________________

82.On Jackson’s way to investigate the ghost, the ghost ______ and later, Jackson encountered the witch and left early the next morning.

______________________________________________________________________________

83.How did the haunting eventually end？

______________________________________________________________________________

84.What was one explanation for the haunting given in the reading？

______________________________________________________________________________

 

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科目：高中英語 來源：2010-2011學(xué)年重慶市高三上學(xué)期1月月考英語卷 題型：閱讀理解

China is casting such a huge shadow on the United States that many Americans are struggling to learn Chinese in order to maintain their competitive edge, "Interest in learning Chinese among American youth and their parents has grown dramatically in the past five years," said Vivien Stewart at the Asia Society, a US group trying to bridge the gap between Americans and people of Asia and the Pacific．

China, the world's most popular nation, is critical to the United States because it is a leading trader, consumer and investor- Its political influence is also rising across the globe．It has replaced the United States as the world's largest consumer and become the second largest economy in the world after the superpower status and its telling effects politically, economically and culturally are driving the interest to learn the language, experts say．

From kindergartens to high schools, studies by the Asia Society show, there is a "rapid rise" in interest among pupils to study the Chinese language．

Even though the US State Department has stressed the Chinese language "critical " to national prosperity and security, the "current infrastructure （基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施）to support recruitment （招生） of students and teachers as well as the growth of high quality programs is -badly inadequate," an Asia Society study says．The Society has set a target of having at least 5% of American high school students learning Chinese by 2015．"Millions of Chinese are learning English, but only 24,000 Americans are learning Chinese," said Andrew Corcoran of the San Francisco - based Chinese American International School．

The most popular languages after English in the United States at present are Spanish and French.

1.The passage mainly tells the readers that _____,

       A．China is getting under a shadow from USA

       B．American competitive edge is shaking

       C．Americans object to learning Chinese

       D．Chinese appeals to more Americans         

2.Based on the context, what does the underlined word "inadequate" （in Paragraph 5） mean?

 A．leading                  B．interesting             

       C．disappointing            D．promising                  

3.According to the text which of the following is TRUE?    

       A．Culture can have an effect on exciting persons'    

       B．USA has got the high quality current        

       C．Chinese ranks 4th on the American Language        

       D．Politics decides language studying    

4.What might be the most suitable title for this passage?   

       A, US Government Requires its People to Learn Chinese        

       B．Chinese Gains its Popularity with Most Americans     

       C．China's Economy Helps to Spread its Language                 

       D．Americans Show Interest Learning Chinese 

 

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科目：高中英語 來源：2010-2011學(xué)年重慶市高三上學(xué)期1月月考英語卷 題型：閱讀理解

A father sat at his desk poring over his monthly bills when his young son rushed in and announced, "Dad, because this is your birthday and you're 40 years old, I'm going to give you 40 kisses, one for each year!" When the boy started making good on his word, the father cried out suddenly, "Oh, Andrew, don't do it now; I'm too busy!"

The youngster immediately fell silent as tears welled up in his big blue eyes．Apologicaliy the father said, "You can finish later．"

The boy said nothing but quietly walked away, disappointment written over his face．That evening the father said, "Come and finish the kisses now, Andrew!" But the boy didn't respond．

Unfortunately, a few days later after this incident, the boy had an accident and was drowned．His heartbroken father wrote．．．

"If only I could tell him how much I regret my thoughtless words, and could be sure that he knows how much my heart is aching．"

Love is not only giving．Any loving act must be warmly accepted or it will be taken as rejection and can leave a scar．If we are too busy to give and receive love, we are too busy! Nothing is more important than responding with love to the cry for love from those who are near and precious to us, because there may be no chance at all as in the case of the little boy．

1.What does the underlined phrase "poring over" mean?

       A．looking in on                       B．looking out for

       C．looking through                     D．looking around

2.The boy is going to give his father 40 kisses because ______．

       A．his father is very busy

       B．this is the boy' birthday

       C．the boy wants to play with his father

       D．this is his father' birthday and he's 40 years old

3.What happened to the youngster later?

       A．His heart was broken．            B．．He died unexpectedly．

       C．He ran away from home．        D．He fell silent all the time．

4.Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

       A．A Love Story                    B．Love Your Son

       C．A Father and a Son                D．Love is a Two-way Street

 

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科目：高中英語 來源：2010-2011學(xué)年廣西河池高中高三上學(xué)期第六次月考英語卷 題型：單項(xiàng)填空

---- What do you think of Andrew?

---- There are some things that are not easy to ______ and his coldness is one.

A．put aside

B．think of

C．come to terms with

D．get along with

 

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