2精编英语阅读理解220篇

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Polluted water is nothing new in the United States. We have lived through flaming rivers and caustic creeks that could take the hide off a hound. For decades, however, efforts to safeguard drinking water were hampered because no one had an accurate sense of the full range of contaminants in the water supply, nor of the geographic extent of the pollution. This year two separate research teams unveiled sophisticated new tools to find out exactly what chemical dangers are lurking in freshwater streams.
“Research in Europe in the 1990s showed that pharmaceuticals were turning up in the water,” says Dana Kolpin, leader of a U.S. Geological Survey Water Resources Division research team that developed five new analytic methods for methods for measuring water contaminants. “Our big effort was to develop methods to measure very small amounts of organic chemicals,” The research team fanned out across 30 stated nationwide and conducted two years of sampling from 139 streams. They were chosen, says Kolpon, on the basis of their location downstream from “intense urbanization and livestock production.” In a study published in the March 15 Journal of Environmental Science & Technology, Kolpin and his colleagues reported they looked for 95 different contaminants, such as antibiotics, steroids, hormones, antioxidants, plasticizers, and various solvents, They found 82 of them. Nearly 80 percent of the streams showed one or more of the contaminants. The median stream contained seven. Even the good news-that the most frequently detected contaminants like fecal steroids, cholesterol, insect repellent, caffeine, disinfectant, dire retardant, and detergents were found in generally low concentrations-had to be qualified. May of those compounds have no guidelines for safe amounts, and little is known about the effects of chronic exposure or the interactive effects of compounds that have been detected together.
In a related Environmental Protection Agency study that is still in progress, a team of scientists at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering is using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to detect the presence of various anticonvulsants and anticancer drugs in drinking water. Led by Lynn Roberts and Ed Bouwer to determine whether track samples at sewage treatment facilities in Massachusetts and Mary land to determine whether and in what quantities pharmaceuticals are getting through the waster-treatment plants and the extent to which they may be accumulating in coastal water,
The goal of both research teams is to provide a baseline of what organic compounds are in the water, in what quantities, and how they are getting there-key steps toward ensuring that the water we drink isn’t killing us.
1.The second sentence of the first paragraph, “We have lived through …off a hound”, intends to say that___.
A.many rivers and creeks have been excessively polluted by various contaminants
B.our lives depend on flaming rivers and caustic creeks
C.we cannot prevent rivers and creeks from being hounded
D.people cannot live without the supply of water from rivers and creeks
2.According to this passage, two research teams___
A.have determined the full range of contaminants in the water supply
B.have ascertained the geographic extent of the water pollution
C.have developed new methods to measure water contaminants
D.have succeeded in preventing drinking water from being polluted
3.Which of the following statements is true?
A.Altogether 95 different contaminants have been found in streams.
B.Nearly 80 percent of the streams surveyed contains only the familiar contaminants
C.The most frequently detected contaminants arte usually in low concentrations
D.The average number of contaminants in each stream surveyed is seven
4.The two research teams mentioned in the passage endeavor___
A.to track samples at more sewage-treatment facilities
B.to determine latent chemical dangers in the water
C.to measure the exact amount of any drug found in drinking water
D.to find out the precise number of contaminants in freshwater streams
5.Which of the following can serve as the best title of the passage?
A.The Organic compounds in the water
B.Drinking Water Drugged
C.Polluted Rivers and Streams
D.Guidelines for Safe Water

石春祯2004阅读220篇No.4

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Experiments on monkeys were viewed much more negatively than those involving mice. Indeed, only experiments to test or develop drugs to treat childhood leukaemia were seen as justifying monkeys suffering. In Britain, experiments involving primates are very tightly controlled. Researchers must convince government officials that the knowledge to be gained justifies any suffering to the animals, and that that adequate date cannot be obtained by using other species.
In practice , this means that monkeys are unlikely to be used in leukaemia research, as the disease can be studied in other animals. But attempts to develop AIDS vaccines depend heavily on experiments with related viruses in monkey, in which some of the animals are likely to become ill. Our poll indicated that a majority of British people would oppose these experiments.
In the US, where regulations are less stringent, the goal of developing an AIDS vaccine is seen as sufficient justification for injection chimpanzees, our nearest relatives, with potentially lethal strains of HIV. And while most people are probably not aware of such facts, 64per cent of those we polled judged correctly that regulations governing animal experiments in Britain are as strict, or stricter, than those in other developed countries. Just 11 per cent though that British rules are less strict, while 24 per cent said they didn’t know.
In one respect, however, our poll reveals a disturbing gap in people’s knowledge, which the British government might want to address. No prescription drug is marketed without first being tested in animals, yet people are either unaware that this is the case, or don’t want to acknowledge the fact, While 35 per cent of the people we polled said they or close family member had been prescribed a drug for a serious illness in the past two years or so, lonely 18 per cent of these people-6 per cent of the total sample-knew it had been tested on animals. Significantly, this small group was more favorably disposed to animal experimentation than the larger number who said they weren’t aware their drugs had been tested on animals. Indeed, with 66 per cent of then backing animal research in our question, they were more positive about animal experiments than everyone we polled except the hunters and fur coat wearers.
While people may not be in full possession of the facts about animal research, many experiments that arte licensed in Britain-including hundreds of thousands of toxicity tests and fundamental biological studies-could be banned if regulators were to follow the majority views expressed in our poll.
People can clearly weigh the pros and cons of animal experimentation. It’s time for those who want to pursue a peaceful debate to seize the initiative.

1.Most people ignore the fact that___
A.no new drugs would ever be developed without monkeys being involved
B.all the prescription drugs sold on market have been tested on animals
C.leukaemia can hardly be studied in animals other than monkeys
D.adequate data can still be obtained without using monkeys in animal research

2.In the US, it is believed that ___
A.monkeys can be involved in the experimentation to develop an AIDS vaccine
B.to test potential lethal drugs on animals isn’t justifiable in any case
C.Animal research is justified only if it helps us gain new knowledge
D.The regulations governing animal research should be less strict

3.According to this passage, ___ of those being polled were aware that the drug they had been prescribed had been tested on animals
A.6%
B.18%
C.35%
D.66%

4.We can learn from this passage, ___ may be negative about animal experimentation
A.the hunters and fur coat wearers
B.those who support animal research
C.those who are unaware that their drugs had been tested on animals
D.those who are in full possession of the facts about animal research

5.The author’s attitude toward animal experimentation is ___
A.negative
B.positive
C.subjective
D.objective

石春祯2004阅读220篇No.5

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(1)Computer science as an independent discipline dates to only about 1960, although the electronic digital computer that is the object that is the object of its study was invented some two decades earlier. The roots of computer science lie primarily in the related fields of electrical engineering and mathematics. Electrical engineering provides the basics of circuit design-namely, the idea that electrical impulses input to a circuit can be combined to produce arbitrary outputs. (2) The invention of the transistor and the miniaturization of circuits, along with the invention of electronic, magnetic, and optical media for the storage of information, resulted from advances in electrical engineering and physics. Mathematics is the source of one of the key concepts in the development of the computer-the idea that all information can be represented as sequences of zeros and ones. In the binary number system, numbers are represented by a sequence of the binary digits 0 and 1 in the same way that numbers in the familiar decimal system are represented using digits 0 through 9 . (3) The relative ease with which two states (eg. High and low voltage) can be realized in electrical and electronic devices led naturally to the binary digit, or bit, becoming the basic unit of data storage and transmission in a computer system.The Boolean algebra developed in the 19th century supplied a formalism for designing for designing a circuit with input values of 0’s and 1’s (false or true, respectively, in the terminology of logic) to yield any desired combination of 0’s and 1’s as output. (4) Theoretical work on computability, which began in the 1930s, provided the need extension to the design of whole machines; a milestone was the 1936 specification of the conceptual Turing machine ( a theoretical device that manipulates an infinite string of 0’s and 1’s ) by the British mathematician Alan Turing and his proof of the model’s computational power. Another breakthrough was the concept of the stored-program computer, usually credited to the German-American mathematician John von Neumann. (5) This idea-that instructions as well as date should be stored in the computer’s memory for fast access and execution-was critical to the development of the modern computer. Previous thinking was limited to the calculator approach, in which instructions are entered one at a time .

石春祯2004阅读220篇No.6

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As infants, we live without a sense of the past; as adults, we can recall events from decades ago. Scientists have only a vague understanding of this remarkable transition, when our sense of time expands beyond this morning’s feeding and last week’s both, but now they know a bit more: Conor Liston of Harvard University has determined that the beginnings of long-term recall arise between the ninth and the 17th month of a baby’s life, coinciding with structural changes in the memory-processing regions of the brain. Besides explaining why Junior doesn’t remember last month’s trip to Disney World, these results should help guide future research on the link between early behavioral development and changes in the infant brain.
“It wasn’t clear how long children in the first year of life could retain a memory of an event, “ Liston say. “We were interested in testing the hypothesis that neurological developments at the end of the first year and the beginning of the second would result in a significant enhancement in this kind of memory.”
Liston showed a simple demonstration to infants ages 9, 17, or 24 months old.
The test results showed a huge difference between the test children who had been 9 months old when they saw the first demonstration and those who had been older. Whereas 9-month-olds don’t really remember a thing after four months, 17-and 24-month-olds do.” Liston says, “something is happening in the brain between 9 and 17 months old that enables children to encode these memories efficiently and in such a way that they can be retained and retrieved after a long period of time,” Liston say. Re searchers believe that changes in certain regions of the brain’s drive the rapid expansion of childhood recall. Previous studies have shown that the frontal lobes in humans begin to mature during the last quarter of the first year of life.
Liston’s work many help explain why adults can rarely remember anything from before their second birthday or so. Most people simply accept his “ infant amnesia “ as a fact of life. “but it’s not clear why a 40-year-old has plenty of memories for something that happened 20 years ago, but a 20-year-old has basically no memories for something that happened when he was 2 or 3,” Liston says. He suggests that the same brain mechanisms that were not yet able to encode long-term memories in 9-moth-olds may also play some role in adults’ inability to remember events of infancy. Researchers still need to look at other areas of cognition-such as what role language ability plays in memory-to really fully understand why people can’t remember anything that happened before 2-3 years of age. But one thing is clear: When 1-year-old Snookums claims he doesn’t remember breaking the heirloom china five months ago, he’s almost surely telling the truth.

1.Conor Liston___
A.has only a vague understanding of infants’ poor memory
B.has found something more about the origin of long-term recall
C.has detected the regions of the brain responsible for memory-processing
D.has established a theory about memory development

2.According to this passage, __-many promote the rapid expansion of childhood recall.
A.the development of a sense of the past
B.the last quarter of the first year of life
C.certain regions of the brain
D.the maturation of the frontal lobes in humans

3.According to Liston, ____initiate(s) the long-term recall ability of child
A.early behavioral developemt
B.the memory-processing regions of the brain
C.the changes in the brain between 9 and 17 months old
D.the changes in the brain between 17 and 24 months old

4.According to this passage, it is normal that___
A. a 1-year-old cannot recall what has happened one month ago
B. a 20-year-old can recall what happened when he was 2
C. a 20-year-old fails to recall what has happened one month ago
D. a 40-year-old has few memories for an event that happened 20 years ago

5.The proper title for this passages should be____
A.liston’s Testing
B.Forgetting and Memory
C.Baby’s forgotten Years
D.The Role Language Ability Plays in Memory

答案：
Answer1: D,B,A,A,C
answer 2：D,A,B,B,C
Answer3 : A,C,D,B,B
Answer4: B,A,A,C,D
Answer6: B,D,C,A,C