高一Reading Comprehension for Weekends Sep. 5 & 6, 2015

Many animals use some kind of language. They use signals which have meanings. For example, when a bee(蜜蜂) has found some food, it goes back to its home. It is impossible for a bee to tell the other bees where the food is by speaking to them, but it can do a little dancing. This tells the bees where the food is and how far away it is.

   Some animals show how they feel by making sounds. It is not difficult to tell if a dog is angry because it barks. Birds make several different sounds and each has its own meaning. Sometimes we humans make sounds in the same way. We make sounds like “Oh!” or “Ouch!” to show how we feel about something or when we drop something on our feet!

   But we have something that no animal has: a large number of words which have the meaning of things, action, feelings or ideas. We are able to give each other information, to tell other people what is in our mind, or how we feel. By writing down words, we can remember what has happened or send messages to people far away. It is impossible for animals to do this. Some birds, like the parrot, can be taught to say words, but they do not know what they mean. They cannot use the words.

(1)(   ) What kind of signals do bees use?
(A) Singing.                  (B) Making sounds.      (C) Dancing.                 (D) Speaking.

(2)(   ) How do birds show how they feel?
(A) They make sounds.                                    (B) They fly up and down.
(C) They come close to people.                       (D) They say words.

(3)(   ) We may cry “Ouch” when ______.
(A) we feel excited                                          (B) we find something wonderful
(C) we want to tell others where the food is      (D) we drop a book to our feet

(4)(   ) Which is NOT true?
(A) Many animals use some kind of language to “talk” to each other.
(B) Parrots can be taught to communicate with people.
(C) Some animals make sounds to show how they feel. (D) Animals can’t send messages far away.

(5)(   ) Which is NOT true about people?
(A) We have a large number of words which have meanings.
(B) We may remember what happened long time ago.
(C) Being able to make sounds makes people different from animals.
(D) We are able to tell each other what is in our mind.

   It is true that necessity is the mother of invention. The first toothbrush was made in 1770 by a man who was locked up in an English prison. The man’s name was William Addis. Addis wanted to find a way to earn a living once he was set free. One day he was scrubbing his teeth with a rag, the way most people cleaned their teeth. Suddenly an idea popped into his head. He took a piece of bone and attached some brush bristles(鬃毛) to it. The new brush worked well. When he was set free, he began making and selling his toothbrush.

  The first high-heeled shoes were designed for King Louis XIV of France. The king was embarrassed that he was very short. He was so upset that he ordered a pair of high-heeled shoes made for him. Other men and women began wearing high-heeled shoes. In time, men gave up the high shoes, but women continued to wear shoes with higher and higher heels. In fact, some shoes got to be so high that women couldn’t walk in them. They needed to employ servants to lean on as they moved around.

(1)(   ) Before the toothbrush was invented, ______.

(A) people did not clean their teeth           (B) people used a bone to pick their teeth

(C) people used a rag to clean their teeth  (D) they cleaned their teeth with bristles

(2)(   ) What is true about the invention of the toothbrush?

(A) The idea came to him when Addis was scrubbing his teeth.

(B) Because Addis was thinking about how to improve the sanitation of the prison.

(C) Addis made a lot of money by selling toothbrushes in the prison.

(D) The first toothbrush was made less than two hundred years ago.

(3)(   ) The first pair of shoes were made ______.
(A) for women             (B) by Addis                (C) for a king                (D) by the king

(4)(   ) The first high-heeled shoes were made out of ______.
(A) a lie                       (B) necessity                (C) a joke                    (D) fun

(5)(   ) Which of the following is NOT true?

(A) King Louis XIV cared very much about his height.

(B) Even though women couldn’t move around freely in high-heeled shoes, they continued to wear them.

(C) The story didn’t tell us why men gave up shoes with high heels.

(D) Men refused to wear high-heeled shoes because more and more women wore them.

   The man who created the Phantom was called Gaston Leroux, who was a French writer. He loved the theater very much. After working on writing newspaper reviews(評論) and a number of unsuccessful plays, he thought he should have written something about the history of France’s greatest opera house.

   It did take the magic of the theater and the art of the dramatist to make people familiar with the Phantom of the Opera, but Leroux also managed to capture in his pages the times he was writing about — the latter part of the nineteenth century when France was filled with the belief in the supernatural and the spirit world(靈界).

   Born in Paris in 1868, Gaston Leroux himself was as interesting as his story. Pictures showed that he had been a big man with dark hair and a moustache, who dressed fashionably. Gaston was always good at writing, but when his father decided that he was to become a lawyer, Gaston changed from an energetic student to a lazy one. After he graduated from law school, he continued to write in his free time.

(1)(   ) What did Leroux’s father want him to be?
(A) A lawyer.               (B) An actor.                (C) A novelist.              (D) A writer.

(2)(   ) Which of the following about Leroux was NOT true?
(A) He was big.                                               (B) He was interesting.
(C) He was good at writing.                             (D) He worked as a full-time writer.

(3)(   ) Leroux was ______.
(A) a Frenchman  (B) interested in law  (C) always a good student (D) born in the 20th century

(4)(   ) Leroux wrote ______.
(A) newspaper reviews    (B) plays                  (C) novels        (D) all of the above

(5)(   ) Why was the Phantom of the Opera a success?
(A) It was about the future.                              (B) It reflected the world at that time.
(C) It was unusual.                                           (D) It made up an impossible story.