2018成人高考专升本《英语》阅读理解专题练习（8）

　　Passage One

　　Stories don't just happen ; they are created. There are no stories in the everyday course of events; there are only the ingredients for stories. A dozen people may watch a man standing on the fifth-floor ledge or a small child crying. There is no story involved in either case unless one of the dozen chooses to make one up—to surround the isolated event with a beginning and an end, thereby giving what we call a meaning to human action. In other words, there has to be a story-maker--a story-teller--if there is to be a story.

　　You as the story-maker or writer are in complete control of all of the details of your story. You have control over who the characters are, what they do, and why they do it. You also have control over how the story is to be told and who is going to tell it. You can adopt one of a number of points of view, each of which will give a quite different total story.

　　Broadly speaking, there are two major approaches a writer can take: (1) you can present the story as if told by someone who is completely outside it, or (2) you can present the story as if told by one of its characters. In either case, the teller's role is an assumed role.

　　1. The author of this passage uses ingredients to mean ______.

　　A. creative features B. unimportant details

　　C. misleading facts D. raw materials

　　2. Who controls all the details of the story?

　　A. The story-maker. B. The characters.

　　C. The publisher. D. The proofreader.

　　3. The main idea of this passage is ______.

　　A. stories are created B. nonfiction stories are true

　　C. legends are a type of story D. most stories are historical accounts

　　4. Based on the two approaches mentioned in the passage, the story can be told by ______.

　　A. the one who writes the story

　　B. people who create stories

　　C. the man who is watched by people

　　D. the one who is one of the characters

　　Passage Two

　　The thought of not sleeping for twenty-four hours or more is not a pleasant one for most people. The amount of sleep that each person needs varies. In general, each of us needs about eight hours of sleep each day to keep our bodies healthy and happy. Some people, however, can get by just a few hours of sleep at night.

　　It doesn't matter when or how much a person sleeps. But everyone needs some rest to stay alive. Few doctors would have thought that there might be an exception on this. Sleep is, after all, a very basic need. But a man named A1 Herpin turned out to be a real exception, for supposedly, he never slept!

　　A1 Herpin was 90 years old when doctors came to his home in New Jersey. They hoped to negate the claims that he never slept. But they were surprised. Though they watched him every hour of the day, they never saw Herpin sleeping. He did not even own a bed. He never needed one.

　　The closest that Herpin came to resting was to sit in a rocking chair and read a half dozen newspapers. His doctors were baffled by this strange case of permanent insomnia. Herpin offered the only clue to his condition. He remembered some talk about his mother having been injured several days before he had been born. Herpin died at the age of 94, never having slept a wink.

　　5. This passage centers on ______.

　　A. dream interpretation B. patterns of sleep

　　C. A1 Herpin's sleepless life D. sleeps and dreams

　　6. The expression "get by", in the last sentence of the first paragraph is ______.

　　A. a confusing expression B. a rude expression

　　C. an everyday expression D. an improper expression

　　7. A1 Herpin's condition could be regarded as ______.

　　A. normal B. curable C. healthful D. rare

　　8. The most likely reason on Herpion's insomnia was ______.

　　A. his mother's injury before he was born

　　B. that he never got tired

　　C. his magnificent physical condition

　　D. that he got enough rest rocking

　　Passage Three

　　Americans are well known for the strange diets they always seem to be following. It seems that Americans like to diet almost as much as they like to eat. New types of diet plans are always coming out. Usually, though, they don't stay popular for long.

　　There are many diets on the market. It is often difficult to know which ones really work. It's also hard to believe how fast a dieter is supposed to shed pounds. A lot has been written about dieting. And some interesting facts about diets and foods have been discovered.

　　For example, did you know that the more celery you eat, the more weight you will lose.9 Celery has "negative" calories. The body burns up more calories digesting a piece of celery than there are in the celery stick itself.

　　Dieters shun potatoes because they think they are fattening. But they aren't. A potato has about the same number of calories as an apple. To gain a single pound, you would have to eat eleven pounds of potatoes!

　　Some dieters even worry about getting fat from licking postage stamps. But they have nothing to worry about. The glue on an average stamp has only about one-tenth of a calorie. Maybe a diet of postage stamps would be popular?

　　9. This passage is all about ______.

　　A. vegetables B. fads C. Americans D. dieting

　　10. Celery is a good food for the dieter because ______.

　　A. it has a lot of protein B. vegetables are not fattening

　　C. it has "negative" calories D. it is easy to digest

　　11. The shun is to ______.

　　A. love B. hate C. avoid D. fear

　　12. One could conclude from this passage that ______.

　　A. dieting is not a healthy practice

　　B. everyone diets

　　C. there is only one good way to lose weight

　　D. dieting can be confusing