夜雨聆风浙江省宁波市余姚中学2025学年第二学期期中考试高二英语学科试题
D
Left-handed people, making up only about one in ten of the population, often face challenges in a world designed for right-handers. However, they are over-represented in certain one-on-one sports like fencing (击剑) and table tennis.
The conventional explanation for this is that the scarcity of lefties means right-handed athletes lack familiarity with them as opponents. Nevertheless, Dr. Tim Simon, a researcher in Italy, suspected that left-handers might have a natural-born advantage in these sports. To test his idea, Dr. Simon studied the performance of top athletes in badminton, table tennis, tennis and three types of fencing for over a decade. He reasoned that if the advantage was only due to unfamiliarity, it would decrease at the highest levels of competition, where players would be wise to lefties’ tricks. However, if it was an inborn factor, the advantage might actually increase.
His research revealed an interesting pattern. In foil (花剑) and épée fencing (重剑), and table tennis, there was indeed an increase in left-handedness at the summit. For example, 18% of the top 200 male epee fencers and 23% of the top male foil fencers were lefties, but that went up to 28% and 31% respectively when only the top 100 were considered. The other three sports, however, did not show this effect.
Dr. Simon suggests this difference comes from how left-handed people’s brains work. He believes their brains are especially good at processing visual, spatial and timing information and generating quick responses, which is crucial for those rapid-action sports such as foil and épée fencing. Table tennis requires similar skillfulness. Sabre fencing (佩剑), by contrast, involves larger swinging movements similar to those employed in tennis and badminton.
Even tiny differences in brain activity can make a huge impact at the highest level, where “being a split second faster than an opponent separates victory from defeat”. This research helps us understand that individual differences, even minute ones, can lead to unique strengths and successes.
32. Which is closest in meaning to the underlined word “scarcity” in paragraph 2?
A. Equality.
B. Innocence.
C. Rarity.
D. Imbalance.
33. What did Simon’s experiment seek to distinguish between?
A. Different athletes’ tricks.
B. Two sources of advantage.
C. Top players’ performance.
D. The impacts of unfamiliarity.
34. What do the statistics in paragraph 3 imply?
A. Left-handers favor specific fencing styles.
B. A higher proportion of athletic left-handers.
C. The variations among different fencing events.
D. Lefties have an edge in certain top-level sports.
35. According to Dr. Simon, what accounts for lefties’ sport-specific excellence?
A. Their unique brain structure.
B. Their superior technical skills.
C. Their swifter brain processing.
D. Their special movement patterns.
32. C 33. B 34. D 35. C
浙江北斗星盟2025-2026学年第二学期高二阶段性质量检测试卷高二年级英语学科试题
C
When families gather for Christmas dinner, some will stick to formal traditions dating back to Grandma’s generation. Their tables will be set with the good dishes and silver, and the dress code will be Sunday-best.
But in many other homes, this china-and-silver elegance has given way to stoneware-and-stainless informality, with dresses assuming an equally casual-Friday look. For hosts and guests, the change means greater simplicity and comfort. For makers of fine china in Britain, it spells economic hard times.
Last week Royal Doulton, the largest employer in Stoke-on-Trent, announced that it is cutting 1,000 jobs — one-fifth of its total workforce. That brings the number of positions lost in 18 months in the pottery (陶器) region to more than 4,000. Wedgwood and other pottery factories made cuts earlier.
Although a strong pound and weak markets in Asia play a role in the downsizing, the layoffs in Stoke have their roots in earthshaking social shifts. A spokesman for Royal Doulton admitted that the company “has been somewhat slow in catching up with the trend” toward casual dining. Families eat together less often, he explained, and more people eat alone, either because they are single or they eat in front of television.
Even dinner parties, if they happen at all, have gone casual. In a time of long work hours and demanding family schedules, busy hosts insist, rightly, that it’s better to share a takeout pizza on paper plates in the family room than to wait for the perfect moment or a “real” dinner party. Too often, the perfect moment never comes. Iron a fine-patterned tablecloth? Forget it. Polish the silver? Who has time?
Yet the loss of formality has its downside. The fine points of etiquette (礼节) that children might once have learned at the table by observation or instruction from parents and grandparents (“Chew with your mouth closed.” “Keep your elbows off the table.”) must be picked up elsewhere. Some companies now offer etiquette seminars for employees who may be competent professionally but clueless socially.
8. What does the change in Christmas dinner traditions mean for British fine china makers?
A. It makes their products simpler.
B. It leads to difficult economic situations.
C. It brings them more business opportunities.
D. It results in the improvement of their products.
9. What can we learn from the passage?
A. The pottery industry is suffering severe job losses.
B. Wedgwood cut more jobs than Royal Doulton did.
C. Stoke-on-Trent has created new jobs for pottery workers.
D. Royal Doulton has recovered from its economic hard times.
10. Which of the following may be the best reason for casual dining?
A. Busy schedules leave people no time for formality.
B. Family members need more time to relax at home.
C. People want to cut costs by giving up fine china.
D. Young people won’t follow the traditional table rules.
11. What is the author’s attitude toward the trend of casual dining?
A. Opposed.
B. Supportive.
C. Objective.
D. Indifferent.
8. B 9. A 10. A 11. C
