发布时间 : 星期五 文章湖北省黄冈市黄冈中学高三英语上学期期中试题更新完毕开始阅读6044e57f4531b90d6c85ec3a87c24028915f859c
I was as normal as other children, totally exposed to brilliant sunshine and splendid world. However, I became blind at four after falling off a box car in a yard and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can slightly remember the brightness of sunshine and what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity(灾难) can do strange things to people. It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.
Life, I believe, asks adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and frightened. But luckily, my parents and teacher saw my potential to live, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.
The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I would have broken down and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself, I am not talking about simply the kind of self confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone, but something bigger than that：an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the complicated pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.
It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the simplest things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball and urged me to roll it around. His words stuck in my head. “Roll it around!” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible：playing baseball. Later I invented a successful variation of baseball—groundball.
I have set a series of goals and tried to reach them, one at a time. It was no good trying for something that I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.
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28．What attitude does the author take to his blindness？ A．Pessimistic. B．Optimistic. C．Desperate. D．Shameful.
29．According to the passage, which statement is TRUE？
A．After struggling, the author discovered his potential on his own and began to live with it.
B．The author invented a baseball with the help and encouragement of a kind man. C．The author happened to be blind due to a car accident.
D．The author would not appreciate life if the calamity hadn’t occurred. 30．What is the greatest challenge for the author？ A．Attempting to adjust himself to reality.
B．Figuring out his own potential to live on one’s own.
C．Building up his own confidence so that he can find his place in society. D．Setting and reaching a series of goals. 31．What is the best title of the passage？ A．A Disaster Pushes a man forward B．A Fateful Accident C．A Sorrowful Life
D．Fighting Against Difficulties
D
Wise compromise is one of the basic principle and virtue of the British. If a continental greengrocer asks 14 shillings (or crowns, or francs) for a bunch of radishes, and his customer offer 2, and finally they strike a bargain agreeing on 6 shilling, this is just the low continental habit of bargaining; on the other
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hand if the British dock-workers or any other workers claim a rise of 4 shillings per day, and the employer first flatly refuse even a penny, but after a six week’s strike they agree to a rise of 2 shilling a day—that is yet another proof of the British genius for compromise. Bargaining is a hateful habit; compromise is one of the highest human virtues—the difference between the two is that the first is practiced on the continent, the latter in Great Britain.
The genius for compromise has another aspect, too. It has a tendency to unite together everything that is bad. English club life, for instance, unites the duties of social life with the boredom of being alone. An average English house combines all the curses of civilizations with the ups and downs of life in the open. It is all right to have windows, but you must do not have double windows because double would indeed stop the wind from blowing right into the room, and after all, you must be fair and give the wind a chance. It is all right to have central heating in an English home, except in the bathroom, because that is the only place where you are naked and wet at the same time, and you must give British germs a fair chance. The open fire is an accepted, indeed a traditional institution. You sit in front of it and your face is hot while your back is cold. It is a fair compromise between two extremes and settles the problem of how to burn and catch cold at the same time. English spelling is a compromise between documentary expressions and an delicate code-system; spending 3 hours in a queue in front of a cinema is a compromise between entertainment and asceticism(苦行主义); the English weather is a fair compromise between rain and fog; to employ an English charwoman is a compromise between have a dirty house or cleaning it yourself; Yorkshire pudding is a compromise between a pudding and the county of Yorkshire.
32．What is the tone of author while writing this passage？ A．Serious. B．Sincere. C．Humorous. D．Delightful.
33．Which of the following is NOT the example of compromise of the British in the passage？
A．The employer finally promises his workers a rise of 2 shilling a day.
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B．People sit in front an open fire and their face is hot while their back is cold. C．The house has double windows and central heating system in the bathroom. D．To see a film，some people would like to wait in a queue for 3 hours. 34．What is the weather like in Britain according to the passage？ A．It is foggy when it is raining. B．It is determined by humidity. C．It is sunny and bright. D．It is either foggy or rainy.
35．Where does this text probably come from？ A．A Culture Magazine. B．The Business Weekly.
C．A Travel Brochure. D．An English Literature Textbook.
第二节（共5小题，每小题2分，满分10分）
根据短文内容，从短文后的选项中选出能填入空白处的最佳选项，选项中有两项为多余选项。
3 habits of remarkably charming people
Some people instantly make us feel important. Some people instantly make us feel special. Some people light up a room just by walking in. They're naturally charming. 36 Familiarity leads to, well, familiarity.
37 ：They build and maintain great relationships, consistently influencing the people around them positively. They’re the kind of people we all want to be around and want to be. Fortunately we can, because being remarkably charming isn’t about our level of Success or our presentation skills or how we dress or the image we project—it’s about what we do. Here are the 3 habits of remarkably charming people:
They listen more than they talk.
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