高考英语阅读理解练习

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　Many people believe Henry Ford invented the automobile (汽车). But Henry Ford did not start to build his first car until 1896. That was eleven years after two Germans developed the world's first automobile. Many people believe Henry Ford invented the production line that moved a car's parts to the worker, instead of making the worker move to the parts. That is not true, either. Many factory owners used methods of this kind before Ford. What Henry Ford did was to use other people's ideas and make them better. And he made the whole factory a moving production line.

　　In the early days of the automobile, almost every car maker raced his cars. It was the best way of gaining public notice. Henry Ford decided to build a racing car. Ford's most famous race was his first one. It was also the last race in which he drove the car himself.

　　The race was in 1901, at a field near Detroit. All of the most famous cars had entered, but only two were left: the Winton and Ford's. The Winton was famous for its speed. Most people thought the race was over before it began.

　　The Winton took an early lead. But halfway through the race, it began to lose power. Ford started to gain. And near the end of the race, he took the lead. Ford won the race and defeated the Winton. His name appeared in newspapers and he became well??known all over the ...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was one of the most private women in the world, yet when she went to work as an editor in the last two decades of her life, she revealed (展现) herself as she did nowhere else.

　　After the death of her second husband, Greek shipping magnate (巨头) Aristotle Onassis, Jacqueline's close friend and former White House social secretary Letitia Baldrige made a suggestion that she consider a career(职业) in publishing.After consideration, Jacqueline accepted it.Perhaps she hoped to find there some ideas about how to live her own life.She became not less but more interested in reading.For the last 20 years of her life, Jacqueline worked as a publisher's editor，first at Viking, then at Doubleday, pursuing (追求) a late??life career longer than her two marriages combined. During her time in publishing, she was responsible for managing and editing more than 100 successfully marketed books. Among the first books were In the Russian Style and Inventive Paris Clothes.She also succeeded in persuading TV hosts Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell to transform their popular television conversations into a book, The Power of Myth.The book went on to become an international

　　best??seller.She dealt, too, with Michael Jackson as he prepared his autobiography (自传)，Moonwalk.

　　Jacqueline may have been hired for her n...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　人物传记类

　　Arthur Miller (1915—2005) is universally recognized as one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century. Miller's father had moved to the USA from Austria??Hungary, drawn like

　　so many others by the “Great American Dream”. However, he experienced severe financial hardship when his family business was ruined in the Great Depression of the early 1930s.

　　Miller's most famous play, Death of a Salesman, is a powerful attack on the American system, with its aggressive way of doing business and its insistence on money and social status as indicators of worth. In Willy Loman, the hero of the play, we see a man who has got into trouble with this system. Willy is “burnt out” and in the cruel world of business there is no room for sentiment: if he can't do the work, then he is no good to his employer, the

　　Wagner Company, and he must go. Willy is painfully aware of this, and at a loss as to what to do with his lack of success. He refuses to face the fact that he has failed and kills himself in the end.

　　When it was first staged in 1949, the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards.

　　Miller died of heart failure at his ho...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　Since 1984, Philadelphia has been cleaning up its act. One by one, graffiti??covered walls are being changed into outdoor art. So far, more than 1,800 murals (壁画) have been painted.Philadelphia now has more murals than any other American city.

　　The walls that were once ugly with graffiti (涂鸦) are now covered with beautiful pictures of historical heroes and modern art, thanks to the Mural Arts Program (MAP). Its work makes schools and public places attractive, and its citizens very proud. The program began as part of Philadelphia's Anti??Graffiti Network. Jane Golden is the MAP's artistic director. “When people ask me what our program is about，” she says, “I answer them with one word: hope”. Each year, the MAP offers youth art programs and workshops. Some one??time graffiti writers even help paint MAP murals.

　　The MAP's work, says Golden, is all about developing a sense of community (社区). When a neighborhood requests a mural, the MAP works with the people there to develop a message. Some messages have been “Safe Streets”， “Love and Care”， and “Peace Walk”.

　　The MAP receives up to 50 requests for murals each week. Last year, the workers painted 140 murals.

　　“The making of a mural enters people's collective memory as an extraordinary, pleasant moment in neighborhood history.” says Golden, who began as a mural...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　Cassandra Feeley finds it hard to manage on her husband's income. So this year she did something more than a hobby: She planted vegetables in her yard. For her first garden, Ms. Feeley has put in 15 tomato plants, and five rows of a variety of vegetables. The family's old farm house has become a chicken house, its residents arriving next month. Last year, Ms. Rita Gartin kept a small garden. This year she has made it much larger because, she said, “The cost of everything is going up and I was looking to lose a few pounds, too; so it's a win??win situation all around.”

　　They are among the growing number of Americans who, driven by higher living costs and a falling economy (经济), have taken up vegetable gardening for the first time. Others have increased the size of their existing gardens. Seed companies and garden shops say that not since the 1970s has there been such an increase in interest in growing food at home. Now many gardens across the country have been sold out for several months. In Austin, Tex., some of the gardens have a three??year waiting list.

　　George C. Ball Jr., owner of a company, said sales of vegetable seeds and plants are up by 40% over last year, double the average growth of the last five years. Mr. Ball argues that some of the reasons have been building for the last few years. The big one is the strik...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　While small may be beautiful, tall is just plain uncomfortable it seems, particularly when it comes to staying in hotels and eating in restaurants.

　　The Tall Persons Club Great Britain (TPCGB), which was formed six months ago to campaign for the needs of the tall, has turned its attention to hotels and restaurants. Beds that are too small，shower heads that are too low, and restaurant tables with hardly any leg??room all make life difficult for those of above average height, it says.

　　But it is not just the extra??tall whose needs are not being met. The average height of the population has been increasing yet the standard size of beds, doorways, and chairs has remained unchanged.

　　“The bedding industry says a bed should be six inches larger than the person using it, so even a king??size bed at 6′6″ (6 feet and 6 inches) is falling short for 25% of men, while the standard 6′3″ bed caters for less than half of the male population，” said TPCGB president Phil Heinricy，“Seven??foot beds would work fine.”

　　Similarly, restaurant tables can cause no end of problems. Small tables, which mean the long??legged have to sit a foot or so away from them, are enough to make tall customers go elsewhere.

　　Some have already taken note, however. At Queens Moat Houses' Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh, 6′6″ beds are now put in a...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　社会文化类

　　When milk arrived on the doorstep

　　When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5??year??old boy, I couldn't take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

　　Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note -“Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery”-and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically appear.

　　All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn't freeze. And I remember Mr.Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

　　There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to...

　　留学群高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　Think about the different ways that people use the wind.You can use it to fly a kite or to sail a boat.Wind is one of our cleanest and richest power sources (来源), as well as one of the oldest.Evidence shows that windmills (风车) began to be used in ancient Iran back in the seventh century BC.They were first introduced to Europe during the 1100s, when armies returned from the Middle East with knowledge of using wind power.

　　For many centuries, people used windmills to grind (磨碎) wheat into flour or pump water from deep underground.When electricity was discovered in the late 1800s, people living in remote areas began to use them to produce electricity.This allowed them to have electric lights and

　　radio.However, by the 1940s when electricity was available to people in almost all areas of the United States, windmills were rarely used.

　　During the 1970s, people started becoming concerned about the pollution that is created when coal and gas are burned to produce

　　electricity.People also realized that the supply of coal and gas would not last forever.Then, wind was rediscovered, though it means higher costs.Today, there is a global movement to supply more and more of our electricity through the use of wind.

　　1.From the text we know that windmills ________.

　　A.were invented by European armies