全新版 大学英语 快速阅读第一册 Unit3 非英语专业(素文整理)

Unit 3

1.Direction: read the following passages, and then select the best choice for each of

the questions or incomplete statements.

Passage 1

Traditional American summer camps offer young people a chance to play many sports. These camps may be in the mountains. Or they may be in the woods, or at a lake. Some camps teach activities like painting or music. Or they teach computer programming or foreign languages. Children at all kinds of camps meet new friends. They learn new skills and develop independence.

Some children go to camp during the day and return home at night. Others stay at camp all day and all night. Children stay at an overnight camp for between one and eight weeks. Parents can pay less than one hundred dollars or more than seven-hundred dollars a week for an overnight camps.

Children from poor families might not have a chance to attend summer camp. The Fresh Air Fund is a well-known organization. People around the country give money to support the Fresh Air Fund. Each summer it sends ten thousand poor children to stay with families in the country or to five camps in New York State.

Summer camps have become very important to millions of families. Many American women now work outside the home. Working parents need a place where their children can be cared for during the summer when they are not in school.

Young people who like the arts can learn about painting, music, acting or writing. Camps that offer programs in science and environmental studies are popular, too. There are also camps for older children who like wilderness (野外) adventure. These campers take long trips by bicycle or canoe. Or they go rock climbing or ride horses. Other summer camps in American children learn about religion or help them lose weight.

(words: 280)

1. All traditional American Summer Camps teach children to be .

A) brave

B) lovely

C) patient

D) independent

2.In an overnight camp, children .

A) return home at night

B) only stay there for the night

C) spend less than a week there

D) are there the whole day and night

3. It can be learned from the passage that the Fresh Air Fund .

A) helps children in general

B) receives money from around the country

C) has established five summer camps

D) supports families in the country

4. Summer camps have become popular because .

A) children can learn more there than in school

B) they teach children new skills

C) children like living there

D) they are good places to send children to during summer vacation

5. The writer wants to explain that summer camp is .

A) something new

B) only for those in poverty

C) possible for children from either rich or poor families

D) possible only for those from rich families

Passage 2

On a summer afternoon in 1795, a teenage boy named Daniel McGinnis was exploring a tiny island off the eastern coast of Canada. He was walking through a meadow （草地）of tall grass when he noticed something strange. In the center of the meadow was a huge oak（橡树）tree. The ground beneath it was lower than the surrounding ground.

Daniel knew that pirates (海盗)had once sailed in the waters around the island. The next day Daniel returned to the island with shovels（铲子）and two friends. The boys began digging and soon discovered a layer of stones. Under the stones was a hole about four meters wide. It was filled with loose dirt. The boys kept digging for several days. Three meters below the ground their shovels hit an oak floor. They kept digging.

But when they discovered another oak floor nine meters below the ground, they decided that they couldn’t dig any deeper.

Eight years later, Daniel McGinnis returned with a group of men to continue digging beneath the oak tree. One evening, 30 meters below the ground, their shovels hit a large wooden box. The box had to be a treasure chest (大箱子)！The men went home to rest until daylight. When they returned in the morning, there was an unpleasant surprise—the hole had filled w ith water. The men couldn’t remove the water.

During the following 200 years, dozens of search groups have dug in the hole, but each group only made the hole bigger. The hole that was once four meter wide is now enormous. The oak tree is now gone. Where is the hole that Daniel McGinnis found? Today nobody knows for sure, and there is still the problem of water in the hole.

(Words: 286)

1. Daniel McGinnis .

A) had ancestors who were pirates

B) was curious about the valuable treasure of pirates

C) was a pirate himself

D) recovered the valuable treasure of pirates

2. When Daniel and his two friends dug for the treasure, they .

A) discovered an oak there

B) gave up because they had dug too deep

C) found an oak floor

D) dug for about 12 meters deep

3. When Daniel and his friends continued digging eight years later, the major problem was

A) removing the dirt

B) making the hole bigger

C) locating the large wooden box

D) getting water out of the hole

4. Which of the following explains the disappearance of the hole found by Daniel McGinnis?

A) The oak tree was planted elsewhere.

B) The hole was made much bigger.

C) Seawater drowned（淹没）the island.

D) Other search groups gave up on finding the hole.

5. The best title for the passage is .

A) Legend(传奇)of Daniel McGinnis

B) Mystery of the Hidden Treasure

C) Discovery of the Hidden Treasure

D) Explorer of the Mysterious Island

II. Directions: Read the following passages, and then fill in the blanks with the missing information.

Passage 3

The song “Happy Birthday to You” is sung all over the world just before the birthday boy or girl blows out the candles on the cake. It is so simple that children as young as three can sing it. The song, with its original （最初的）title “Good Morning to You”, was wri tten in 1893 by the two sisters, Mildred and Patty Smith Hill. They were the daughters of a progressive Kentucky couple, who believed in female education at a time—the mid-nineteenth century—when it was still a novel idea and who trained their two daughters to be schoolteachers. They were long involved in elementary education, and Patty, in particular. She achieved a lot as a pioneer in kindergarten education, and for several decades a major spokesman for preschool education. She taught at Columbia Univer sity’s Teachers College from 1905 to 1935, and at her retirement became one of the first women to be named an honorary (荣誉的)professor by Columbia.

A birthday cake with burning candles is also an important part at one’s birthday party. It may derive, distantly from the ancient Greek practice of offering to Artemis, goddess of the hunt and of the moon, a round honey cake into which a candle was stuck. After German bakers invented the modern birthday cake in the Middle Ages, a similar custom was adopted fro the advocate （提倡）of good spirits at birthdays. The cake, ready by morning, would be surrounded by burning candles, in a kind of protective fire circle, and they would be kept lit all day, until dessert time at the evening meal.

(Words: 262)

1. The passage is about .

2. In the mid-nineteenth century was still a new idea.

3. Patty made great achievement in .

4. The cake today may come from

.

5. The candles on a birthday cake were kept burning from morning

.

Passage 4

Most of us have formed an unrealistic picture of life on a desert island. We sometimes imagine a desert island to be a sort of paradise （天堂）where the sun always shines. Life there is simple and good. Ripe fruits fall from the trees and you never have to work. The other side of the picture is quite the opposite. Life on a desert island is wretched. You either starve to death or live like Robinson Crusoe, waiting for a boat which never comes. Perhaps there is an element of truth in both pictures, but few of us would ever have the opportunity to find out.

Two men who recently spent five days on a coral island wished they had stayed there longer. They were taking a badly damaged boat from the Virgin Islands to Miami to have it repaired. During the journey, their boat began to sink. They quickly loaded a small rubber dinghy （船上附属的小船）with food, matches, and cans of beer and rowed for a few miles across the Caribbean until they arrived at a tiny coral island. There were hardly any trees on the island and there was no water, but this did not prove to be a problem. The men collected rain-water in the rubber dinghy. As they had brought a spear gun with them, they had plenty to eat. They caught lobster and fish every day, and, as one of them put it “ate like kings”. When a passing tanker rescued them five days later, both men were genuinely sorry that they had to leave.

(Words 258 ) 1.The two pictures of life on a deserted island people tend to have are:

.

2. Neither of the two opposite pictures of life on a desert island .

3. The two men made the journey to Miami to .

4. Water was no problem for the two men on the island because

.

5. The two men were sorry to leave the island because

.

III. Directions: Read the following passages, and then decide whether the statements are true (T) or false (F).

Passage 5

When someone who is in good health dies suddenly, there is usually an inquest.

An inquest is a kind of court inquiry. The person in charge of an inquest is called a coroner. His job is to find out exactly how a person died.

If there is nothing suspicious(可疑的)about the death, he would decide that the person died from natural causes or an accident. If, however, he is suspicious, he may decide that the person’s death was caused by a person or persons unknown.

At one inquest, the coroner was trying to find out exactly what had caused the death of a local businessman, Henry Smith.

The man’s widow was offering the evidence. Sh e was very upset and had to stop from time to time.

The coroner did not want to upset her more than necessary, but he had to find out the truth. There were questions he had to ask her.

“Mrs. Smith, I know this is too much for you,” he said, “but I wan t you to think very carefully and then answer my questions.”

“You and your husband were having dinner at home. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Suddenly he fell to the floor.”

“Yes.”

“Did he say anything?”

The widow lowered her head.

“Please, Mrs. Smith, you must answer the question. What were his last words?”

The widow took a deep breath and then spoke. “He said,” he whispered, “I’m not surprised you were charged only 50 cents for that seafood we had for dinner.”

(Words: 249) ( ) 1. An inquest is done in one’s home.

( ) 2. The coroner decides on the nature of a person’s death.

( ) 3. The coroner was very careful in asking Mrs. Smith questions so as not to upset her.

( ) 4. Mrs. Smith was quick to tell the truth.

( ) 5. The bad seafood was responsible for Mr. Smith’s death.

Passage 6

Joe Bloggs worked in a large and famous company.

The president of the company believed in keeping his employees （雇员）happy. One year, he offered them a pension (养老金)fund.

The idea was that the workers would pay five percent of their wages into a pension fund. The company would also pay a sum equal to five percent.

When an employee retire （退休）from the company, he could take with him all the money that he and the company had put into his pension fund.

“I will open the pension fund”, the president of the company said, “as soon as you all agree to join. Unless you all join, I won’t open the fund. You’ve got a week to make up your minds.”

The idea was very a good one and everyone except Joe Bloggs agreed to join.

“I don’t understand it,” Bloggs said.

His co-workers tried to explain it to him, but he just kept saying, “I still don’t understand it.”

Time passed and there was only an hour left until the week was up.

The president sent for Joe Bloggs to come to his office on the 20th floor.

“Mr. Bloggs,” he said, “all the employees agree with what I am going to say to you, so listen carefully.”

“It had better be good,” Bloggs said.

“Oh, it is,” the president said. “If you don’t agree to join the pension fund before I finish counting to ten, the security guards will throw you out of the window.”

Joe Bloggs immediately signed the form which said he would agree to join the plan. “Now that you have explained it clearly,” he said, “of course I’ll join.”

(Words: 274) ( ) 1. The company would put more money into an employee’s pension fund. ( ) 2. The employees could not take the money from his pension fund until their retirement.

( ) 3. The president gave his employees one week to decide whether to join the pension fund or not.

( ) 4. Joe Bloggs was called to the president’s office one day before the end of the week.

( ) 5. Joe agreed to join the pension fund after realizing its importance.

Key

Unit 3

Passage 1

D D B D C

Passage 2

B C D B B

Passage 3

1.the birthday song and birthday cake

2.female education

3.kindergarten education

4.ancient Greek practice of offering to the goddess of the hunt and the moon

5.till dessert time in the evening

Passage 4

1.it is simple and good; or it is wretched

2.is realistic

3.have their boat repaired

4.there was enough rain water

5.they ate like king there

Passage 5

F T T F T Passage 6

F T T F F