温馨提示：手机用户请点击下方“原网页”或“电脑版”进行查看本文，效果最佳！ B
I was stopped at a red light only a mile or so from my goal of my brother’s house. We were planning to drive down together to North Carolina to be with my father who was badly ill.
    As I waited at the stop light experiencing this forced slowdown, I noticed Sharper’s Florist over to the left. It was the same place where I had experienced many things— floods of memories went through my mind as the light seemed a blessing. I noticed the wine store straight ahead where my father and I had been many times before, picking out the beer of the week. We both liked German beer.
    The light finally became green and I made my left turn and drove through the poor section of our hometown. I remembered how each Thanksgiving my family would be together. I also remembered how my father would take some time out of each Thanksgiving to make sure there was no one hungry in the neighborhoods surrounding where we lived. I can remember as a young boy going with him to deliver some food. I was scared because I had never been into this part of town this deeply before.
    My father seemed unfazed (不受困扰的) by this and went about his business. The people we went to seemed to know him and gratefully accepted what he came to offer. My father seemed able to give away the food in a way that honored those he was giving to. This was not an arrogant act. He would stop at each place and talk a little, which troubled me a lot. I wanted to get the hell out of there. My father wanted to be sure everyone had food. If there were people he found who didn’t have food, he would take the time to go back and get more. That’s the kind of man he was.
24. When the father was ill, he _______.          
A. gave away food to the poor                B. lived in North Carolina
C. came to help the poor in his hometown     D. stayed at the home of the author’s brother
25. The author mentions the wine store to tell us _______.
A. the same taste as his father                 B. the life in his childhood
C. the birthplace of his father                D. the experience with his father 
26. The author was afraid of giving away food to the poor probably because _______.
   A. he was unfamiliar with the surroundings  B. his father didn’t take good care of him
C. his father didn’t stay with him then   D. he had never met with so many poor people
27. The underlined word “arrogant” in the last paragraph probably means _______.
A. angry                  B. careless                C. proud          D. wild
C
Social change is more likely to occur in societies where there is a mixture of different kinds of people than in societies where people are similar in many ways. The simple reason for this is that there are more different ways of looking at things present in the first kind of society. There are more ideas, more disagreements in interest, and more groups and organizations with different beliefs. In addition, there is usually a greater worldly interest and greater tolerance in mixed societies. All these factors (因素) tend to promote social change by opening more areas of life to decision. In a society where people are quite similar in many ways, there are fewer situations for people to see the need or the opportunity for change because everything seems to be the same. And although conditions may not be satisfactory, they are at least customary and clear.
Within a society, social change is also likely to occur more frequently and more readily in the material aspects of the culture than in the non-material aspects, for example, in technology rather than in values; in what has been learned later in life rather than in what was learned early; in the simple elements (因素) rather than in the complex ones; in elements that are acceptable to the culture rather than in strange ones.
Besides, social change is easier if it is gradual. For example, it comes more readily in human relations on a continuous scale rather than one with a shape division. This is one reason why change has not come more quickly to Black Americans as compared to other American minorities, because of the sharp difference in appearance between them and their white fellows.
28. The underline part “greater tolerance” in Paragraph 1 probably refers to “________”.
A. quicker adaptation to changing condition
B. greater willingness to accept social change
C. greater readiness to agree to different conditions
D. more respect for different beliefs and behavior
29. Why is social change less likely to occur in a society where people are similar in many
ways?
A. They are so conservative that they tend to slow down social change.
B. They are so used to their conditions that they seldom want to change.
C. They can easily get what they want in the material aspect of society.
D. They have similar needs that can be satisfied without much difficulty.
30. Which of the following factors probably tends to promote social change fast?
A. Sharp divisions in relations B. Traditional values
C. Different points of view     D. Similar appearances.
31. What is this passage mainly discussing？
A. Two different kinds of society    B. Certain factors affecting social change.
C. The importance of social change    D. Consequences of social change
D
One of my first memories as a child in the 1950s was a discussion I had with my brother in our tiny bedroom in the family house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
We had heard in school about a planet called Pluto. It was the farthest, coldest, and darkest thing a child could imagine. We guessed how long it would take to die if we stood on the surface of such a frozen place wearing only the clothes we had on. We tried to figure out how much colder Pluto was than Antarctica, or than the coldest day we had ever experienced in Pennsylvania.
Pluto, which famously was downgraded from a “major planet” to a “dwarf planet”（矮星）in 2006, captured our imagination because it was a mystery that could complete our picture of what it was like at the most remote corners of our solar system
Pluto’s underdog discovery story is part of what makes it so attractive. Clyde Tombaugh was a Kansas farm boy who built telescopes out of spare auto parts, old farm equipment and self-ground lenses. As an assistant at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Tombaugh's task was to search millions of stars for a moving point of light, a planet that the observatory’s founder thought existed beyond the orbit of Neptune. On February 18，1930，Tombaugh found it. Pluto was the first planet discovered by an American, and represented a moment of light in the midst of the Great Depression’s dark encroachment (入侵).
Pluto is much more than something that is not a planet. It’s a reminder that there are many worlds out there beyond our own and that the sky isn’t the limit at all. We don’t know what kinds of fantastic variations on a theme nature is capable of making until we get there to look.
32. Why did Pluto become famous in 2006 according to the passage?
A. Because it lost its major planet status.
B. Because it disappeared in the sky.
C. Because it was discovered by an American.
D. Because it was proved to be the coldest planet in the universe.
33. What can be a suitable title for the text?
A. An American Scientist: Clyde Tombaugh
B. Pluto was First Discovered by a Boy
C. Pluto’s Strange Romance
D. The Days I Spent with My Brother in Pennsylvania
34. What can we learn from the fourth paragraph?
A. Clyde Tombaugh discovered the darkness in the Great Depression.
B. Pluto was the only planet that was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh.
C. Clyde Tombaugh’s job was to build telescopes for Lowell Observatory.
D. Clyde Tombaugh’s telescopes used for searching stars were very simple.
35. What does the underlined sentence in the last paragraph most probably mean?
A. Pluto is no less than a planet in the solar system.
B. Pluto is much more than a planet in the solar system.
C. Pluto is more important than any other planet in the sky.
D. Pluto is not a planet in the solar system, but it is more than a planet.
高考英语模拟试题库  http://www.17xuexiba.com/yy/