英语泛读教程2快速阅读

1、.Unit 1 P81The quest for success always begins with a target. As Berra once said, "You got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." Too many people wander through life like sleepwalkers. Each day they follow familiar routines, never

2、 asking, "What am I doing with my life?" and they don't know what they're doing because they lack goals. Goal-setting is a focusing of the will to move in a certain direction. Begin with a clear conception of what you want. Write down your goals and date them putting them into word

3、s clarifies them. Rather than concentrating on objects to acquire and possess, focus on fulfilling your desires to do, to produce, to contribute goal-setting that yields the true sense of satisfaction we all need. It's important to visualize yourself accomplishing your goal. While losers visuali

4、ze the penalties of failure, winners visualize the rewards of success. I've seen it among athletes, entrepreneurs and public speakers. I've done it myself. I was terrified of air travel. Friends quoted statistics contrasting air and highway safety, but it made no difference. I had read too m

5、any articles describing crash scenes and imagined these scenes vividly. I had programmed myself, without realizing it, to stay off planes. Then one summer I had the opportunity to fly on a private plane with friends to a resort. I didn't want to miss out on a great vacation. So I spent two weeks

6、 imagining a smooth flight on a beautiful sunny day and an easy landing. When the day arrived, I was eager to go. To everyone's surprise, I got on the plane and flew. I loved every minute of it, and I still use the techniques I employed that day. (290 words) 1. According to the passage, if you w

7、ant to be successful, the first thing for you to do is to _.( D ) (a) find the right methods (b) be careful (c) know your ability (d) have a clear goal 2. If you have a target, you will _.( B ) (a) wander like a sleepwalker (b) know well what you are doing (c) do the same work everyday without quest

8、ioning it (d) work very hard 3. Goal-setting means _.( C ) (a) concentrating on things you want to possess (b) listing all the things you desire to have (c) focusing on doing things truly valuable (d) visualizing the penalties of failure 4. The problem with the author before he overcame his fear of

9、air travel is that _.( C ) (a) he didn't know air travel is safer than highway travel (b) he knew he was reluctant to fly but was unable to do anything about it (c) he read too much about plane crashes and tried to avoid flying unconsciously (d) he wanted to take a private plane instead of a pub

10、lic one 5. A good title for the passage is _.( A ) (a) Define Your Goals (b) Visualize Rewards of Success (c) Overcome the Fear of Air Travel (d) Sleepwalking Through Life 2 My father was 17 when he left the farm in Cameron, N.C., and set off for Baltimore to apply for a job at the Martin Aircraft C

11、ompany. When asked what he wanted to do, he said, "Everything." He explained that his goal was to learn every job in the factory. He'd like to go to a department and find out what was done there. When the supervisor determined his work was as good as anyone else's, he'd want to

12、 go to a different department and start over. The personnel people agreed to this unusual request, and by the time H. T. Morris was 20, he'd made his way through the huge factory and was working in experimental design for a fantastic salary. Whenever he went to a new department, he looked for th

13、e guys who had been around forever. These were the people novices usually avoided, afraid that next to them they'd look like the beginners they were. My father asked them every question he could think of. They liked this inquisitive young man and showed him shortcuts they had developed that no o

14、ne else had ever asked about. These sages became his mentors. Whatever your goals, plan to network with those who know more than you. Model your efforts on theirs, adjusting and improving as you go. (218 words) 6. The author's father applied for a job at the Martin Aircraft Company and his goal

15、was _.( C )(a) to be a good worker with a special knowledge about his work (b) to do everything assigned him willingly (c) to be able to do whatever job there was in the factory (d) to be a good supervisor himself in the future 7. The request made by the author's father was regarded by the perso

16、nnel department as _.( B ) (a) natural (b) strange (c) unacceptable (d) over-reaching 8. It took the author's father about _ years to be able to do every job in the big factory. ( B ) (a) two (b) three (c) five (d) six 9. The veteran workers in the factory liked the author's father because t

17、he young man was _.( C ) (a) willing to look like a beginner (b) trying to avoid being around forever (c) always asking questions (d) interested in his mentors 10. The advice given by the author is: _.( D ) (a) Have a goal in your life (b) Be modest while working (c) Be ready to ask questions (d) Le

18、arn from those who know more than you3 In any field it's important to have ambition and drive. But having worked as a psychologist with athletes, executives, artists and young people, I've learned that those who rise to the headiest heights in any field aren't necessarily the ones with t

19、he greatest natural talent. They're the diligent few who put in the hours. They work hard. And then they work harder. Recent research by fellow psychologists bears out the significance of focused hard work. In 1988, K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University in Tallahassee and colleagues in

20、Germany compared the careers of two groups of young musicians. The ten members of the first group were identified as potential topflight international performers. Another ten were identified as merely "good". Ericsson also included ten violinists performing in orchestras of international r

21、eputation, such as the Berlin Philharmonic. Both student groups kept diaries of their current practice schedules, and all three groups provided estimates of their earlier schedules. Of the student musicians, Ericsson found, by the age of 20, the "good" group had practiced 7500 hours an imp

22、ressive total. But the potential world-class performers had practiced a staggering 10 000 hours the equivalent of more than a year of hard work. "It's the difference between a college freshman and a junior," Ericsson says. Moreover, the top group's total practice time matched almos

23、t exactly that of the symphony performers at the same age. Of course, there's a difference between hard work and drudgery. Keeping your nose mindlessly to the grindstone will only get you abraded nostrils. It's important to put in the hours. But it's not just the hours that count. For ha

24、rd work to really pay off, you need to work effectively. (276 words) 11. According to the author, the most important quality for one desiring the greatest achievements is _.( D )(a) ambition (b) drive (c) the greatest natural talent (d) hard work 12. It can be learned from the passage that the aim o

25、f Ericsson's research work was _.( C )(a) to find the highflying (b) to find the best young musicians (c) to find the importance of hard work (d) to understand the psychology of potentially successful musicians 13. Ericsson's research showed that _.( D ) (a) the potential world-class perform

26、ers had spent more years practicing in school (b) the students in the "good" group had not worked very hard (c) the students in the "good" group were college freshmen while the potential world-class performers were college juniors (d) the students in the top group spent much more

27、 time practicing 14. The word "drudgery" in the last paragraph means _.( C ) (a) laziness (b) light work (c) dull work (d) interesting work 15. A good title for the passage is: _.( D ) (a) Ericsson and His Research (b) The Difference Between Hard Work and Effective Work(c) Practice Makes P

28、erfect (d) The Importance of Hard Work Unit 2 P291No one thought of anything even a little bit like the zipper until Whitecomb L. Judson came along. There were buttons and button-holes, hooks and eyes, laces and buckles. They all took an irritatingly long time to do up, especially when men wore high

29、-laced boots and fashionable ladies squeezed themselves into long corsets. Whitecomb L. Judson's slide-fastener was an out-of-the-blue invention, and no one knows what gave him the idea. No one even knows much about him, except that he was a mechanical engineer living in Chicago and that he pate

30、nted other inventions, to do with a street railway system and motor-cars. Judson invented the first zipper (called, at the time, a Clasp Locker or Unlocker) in 1891. This ingenious little device looks so simple, and the principle behind it is simple: one row of hooks and eyes slotting neatly into an

31、other row by means of a tab. Yet it took twenty-two years, many improvements and another inventor to make the zipper really practical. (164 words) 1. Before Judson invented the zipper, people found buttoning clothes to be _.( B ) (a) interesting (b) burdensome (c) easy (d) comfortable 2. When Judson

32、's invention first appeared, people _.( B ) (a) had expected it for a long time (b) were very much surprised (c) didn't understand it (d) were indifferent to it3. The first zipper was invented in _.( C ) (a) the end of the 18th century (b) the beginning of the 19th century (c) the end of the

33、 19th century (d) the beginning of the 20th century 4.The word "ingenious" means _.( A ) (a) clever (b) admirable (c) important (d) useful 5. A good title for the above passage is _. ( D ) (a) Judson the Inventor (b) How the Zipper Works (c) The Principle of the Zipper (d) The Invention of

34、 the Zipper2 The inventor of spectacles probably lived in the town of Pisa, Italy, around 1286, and was almost certainly a craftsman working in glass. But nobody knows his name. We only know this much about him because Friar Giordane preached a sermon one Wednesday morning in February 1306 at a chur

35、ch in Florence. "It is not yet twenty years since there was found the art of making eye-glasses which make for good vision," said the Friar. "One of the best arts and most necessary that the world has. So short a time is it since there was invented a new art that never existed. I have

36、 seen the man who first invented and created it, and I have talked to him." We know what Friar Giordane said because admirers copied his sermons down as he gave them. The inventor of spectacles apparently kept the method of making them to himself. Perhaps he thought this was the best way of get

37、ting money from his invention. But the idea soon got around. As early as 1300, craftsmen in Venice, the center of Europes glass industry, were making the new "disks for the eyes". Spectacles at first were only shaped for far-sighted people. Concave lenses, for short-sighted people, were no

38、t developed until the late fifteenth century. Spectacles allowed people to go on reading and studying long after bad eyesight would normally have forced them to give up. They were like a new pair of eyes. The inventor of such a valuable thing should be honored, everyone thought. But for centuries no

39、 one had any idea who the inventor really was. So all kinds of candidates were put forward: Dutch, English, German, Italians from rival cities. A fake memorial was erected last century in a church in Florence to honor a man as the true inventor of spectacles but he never even existed! (308 words) 6.

40、 The invention of spectacles appeared in the _ century in Europe. ( B ) (a) 12th (b) 13th (c) 14th (d) 15th 7. The first record of the spectacles is to be found in _. ( B ) (a) newspapers (b) church sermons (c) trade reports (d) praises of Jordan 8. The first spectacles were made for _. ( B ) (a) an

41、y one who had an eye trouble (b) the far-sighted (c) the short-sighted (d) both the far-sighted and the short-sighted 9. Which of the following is true? ( D ) (a) The inventor made known his method of making spectacles.(b) Florence was the center of Europes glass industry in the 14th century. (c) In

42、 the 14th century short-sighted people could read books with the help of spectacles. (d) Early craftsmen used lenses for far-sighted people. 10. The final paragraph discusses _. ( D ) (a) the function of spectacles (b) the fake memorial (c) the invention of spectacles (d) the identity of the invento

43、r 3 Europeans have been using the wheelbarrow for about eight hundred years. But the Chinese invented it at least ten centuries before that. Ancient Chinese gave the wheelbarrow nice names Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse. "In the time taken by a man (with a similar burden) to go six feet, the Woode

44、n Ox could get twenty feet," wrote an admiring historian in AD 430. "It could carry the food supply (of one man) for a whole year, and yet after twenty miles the porter would not feel tired." A famous general called Chuke Liang developed wheelbarrows two hundred years before this hist

45、orian was writing, to help carry supplies for his army. But, very recently, pictures have been discovered on ancient tombs, and bricks, of even earlier wheelbarrows. So perhaps they were invented in the first century AD. No one knows how people in Europe found out about the wheelbarrow or, for that

46、matter, about many other Chinese inventions. Perhaps the idea came overland across the steppes, with nomadic (游牧的) tribes. Or perhaps traders using the famous silk-route to the great city of Constantinople, on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, talked about things seen in far-off China. Probably

47、 someone who heard the talk worked out his own version, because the wheelbarrow used in Europe is a different design from the Chinese. It has the wheel out in front, so that the load is supported both by the wheel and the man pushing it. The wheelbarrow in China has the wheel in the middle, right un

48、der the load, and the pusher only has to steer and balance it. At all events, some time in the twelfth or thirteenth century, workmen building the great castles and cathedrals of Europe had, to their great relief, a new simple device to help them. One man with a wheelbarrow could carry the same load

49、 as two men and much more easily and quickly. The wheel took the place of a man. (330 words) 11. The Chinese began to use the wheelbarrow at least _.( C ) (a) eight centuries ago (b) ten centuries ago (c) eighteen centuries ago (d) two centuries earlier than the Europeans 12. The historian admired t

50、he wheelbarrow because it could move faster and _.( D )(a) carry the food supply of one man (b) carry the food supply for a whole year (c) carry a heavy load for twenty miles (d) carry a much heavier load and save energy 13. The Chinese invention of the wheelbarrow might have reached Europe with the

51、 help of any of the following except _.( D ) (a) nomadic tribes (b) traders using the silk-route (c) Mediterranean (d) ancient Greeks 14. The European design of the wheelbarrow _.( D ) (a) has the wheel in the middle under the load (b) is similar to that of the Chinese (c) needs less pushing force (

52、d) is less scientific than the Chinese one 15. The final paragraph discusses _. ( A ) (a) the European wheelbarrow (b) the difference between the European wheelbarrow and the Chinese wheelbarrow (c) how the idea of the wheelbarrow came to Europe (d) the invention of the wheelbarrowUnit 3 P441Imagine

53、 you go to the beach and find a sign: "Water Polluted No Swimming Allowed." That's what happened to actor Ted Danson in 1984. The experience changed his life. Worried that his daughters (then aged 5 and 10) couldn't plunge into the ocean the way he had as a teen, Danson founded the

54、 American Oceans Campaign, an organization aimed at protecting Earths oceans and coastal waters. "Our oceans feed the world, cool our planet, regulate (调节) climate, and create nearly one-half of the global oxygen supply," Danson says. He's not joking. Fish are the main source of dietar

55、y protein (营养蛋白质) for nearly 1 billion people most of them in developing nations. Oceans absorb and radiate the Sun's heat to help keep Earth's temperature in balance. Microscopic plants (微生物) that live on the oceans surface take in carbon dioxide to make food and the precious oxygen we need

56、 to breathe. "Yet each day, billions of gallons of sewage (污水), pesticides (杀虫剂，农药), and industrial chemicals flow into the sea," Danson says. According to a United Nations report on the marine environment, about 80 percent of all marine pollution comes from human activities (like farming

57、and driving) on land. Even if you live hundreds of miles from the nearest seashore, Danson adds, each day, Earth's atmosphere recycles (回收利用) billions of kiloliters of salty seawater and turns it into fresh water. Ocean water evaporates (蒸发) and rises into the atmosphere. There it condenses (冷凝聚) and falls to Earth as rain or snow. This fresh water collects in rivers, streams, and lakes or goes deep into the earth. These are the main sources of our drinking water. Human activities like