阅读理解突破之说明文
巩固提升
A
(2023福建省三明市高三上学期期中联考英语试题) Calling vegetables and fruits “ugly” can be a recipe for
sales success, according to a new study.
A French supermarket chain made international headlines when it began marketing misshapen produce as
“ugly” in 2014. Since then, food stores around the world have launched campaigns to sell “imperfect produce”.
Some have been successful, while others haven’t — but until now, researchers hadn’t adequately explained why
consumers rejected imperfect produce, or what marketing approach was most likely to whet their appetites.
The researchers conducted seven studies that tested the effects of “ugly” labeling by having participants
purchase produce at a farmer’s market and online, and by examining people’s impressions about misshapen foods.
Interestingly, they found that consumers expected the imperfect produce to be less tasty and even less nutritious
than more traditionally attractive foods.
But it’s not all bad news for unattractive foods. The researchers also found that when the produce is labeled
“ugly”, consumer hesitancy disappears — and it’s not because of humor or originality. Calling items “ugly” signals
to consumers that the only difference between items is appearance, which makes them aware of their bias (偏见)
and significantly increases their willingness to buy the less attractive produce.
“We’re pointing to the source of the rejection,” explains John Meredith, the lead researcher. “It makes people
aware of the limited nature of their objection to the unattractive produce and makes it clear to consumers that there
are no other problems in the produce other than attractiveness.”
The research also found consumers spent more on the misshapen produce labeled “ugly” instead of
“imperfect”. And even though the ugly produce was sold at a 25 percent discount, it turned out to be more
profitable for sellers, as the cost of acquiring the ugly produce was lower. However, if the price reduction was too
sharp, participants expected the “ugly” foods to be of low quality.
1. What is the new study mainly about?
A. Food quality. B. Consumer demand.
C. Marketing approach. D. Bias against appearance.
2. What does the underlined phrase “whet their appetites” in paragraph 2 refer to?
A. Satisfy their need to eat better. B. Stimulate their desire of buying.C. Encourage them to risk trying out. D. Raise their concerns about nutrition.
3. Why are people willing to buy ugly-labeled produce without hesitation?
A. They are happy to spend less and have more.
B. They are curious about the special shapes of produce.
C. They are attracted by the funny and creative idea of labeling.
D. They are led to believe ugly produce has no quality problems.
4. Which way helps food sellers make more profit according to the study?
A. Call the ugly produce “ugly”. B. Label the ugly produce “imperfect”.
C. Group the produce by its attractiveness. D. Price the ugly produce at a sharp discount.
B
(2023 山东省聊城市高三第一次模拟考试) Making eye contact with a robot can be a very strange
experience. Scientists even have a name for the feeling: the “uncanny valley”. Now, researchers at the Istituto
Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Italy have found that it is more than just a feeling. They ran an experiment that
showed how a robot’s gaze can trick people into thinking they are socially interacting with a human being. That
experience can slow a person’s ability to make decisions.
“Gaze is an extremely important social signal,” said the lead writer, Professor Agnieszka Wykowska, “The
question is whether the robot’s gaze will evoke very similar mechanisms in the human brain as a human’s gaze
would.”
The team asked 40 participants to play a video game of “chicken”. Each player had to decide whether to
permit a car to run straight toward another car or to turn to avoid a crash. The people played against a human-like
robot sitting across from them. During breaks in the game, players had to look at the robot. Sometimes the robot
would look back and at other times it would look away. As the interactions happened, the scientists collected data
on participants’ behavior and brain activity.
“Our results show the gaze of the robot had an impact on the way humans made decisions and humans’
responses, so humans were much slower in making decisions in the game,” Wykowska said. Given that the robot, is
designed loosely to copy the shape and appearance of people, it’s not altogether startling perhaps that its gaze can
influence people’s attention.
The findings could be useful for deciding where and how human-like robots might be placed. When we
understand when and how robots change people’s social behavior, “then we can decide in which sort of context this
is desirable and beneficial for humans and in which context this should not occur,” Wykowska said.5. Why was the experiment conducted?
A. To find out how the robot interacted with people. B. To study the function of the robot’s eyes.
C. To test the effect of robots’ gaze on people. D. To arouse people’s interest in service robots.
6. What were the participants asked to do?
A. Control the direction of a real car. B. Look at the robot in the game breaks.
C. Have a car race with a robot. D. Gaze at the robot while playing games.
7. What does the author think of the results according to paragraph 4?
A. Unsurprising. B. Amazing. C. Disappointing. D. Threatening.
8. What’s the purpose of the text?
A. To advertise the robot. B. To introduce a study.
C. To stress the importance of eye contact. D. To show robots’ ability to make decisions.
C
(2023浙江省台州市高三年级教学质量评估) On June 7, 1195, a fiery spinning ball emerged from a dark
cloud in the sunny sky close to the London city. An account of this extraordinary moment survives in a chronicle
(编年史) between about 1180 and 1199 by Gervase. It would appear that this is the first credible record of ball
lightning in England, and much more convincing than the earliest European description, which was believed to be
from the 17th century.
Historians discovered the account of what appears to be ball lightning while exploring Gervase’s records of
natural events in his chronicle, a treasure of historical details giving insights into medieval culture. They dug
through hundreds of pages in Latin and came across this sighting. Gervase’s records of natural events appear within
the historical narrative, often with no opening statement, and the account of ball lightning is sandwiched between
the events of the changing of kings at that time.
No attempt is made to explain the “marvellous sign” in the sky seen near London. Readers are left to draw
their own conclusions. But Gervase appears to have been a sharp-eyed observer and reporter of celestial (天空的)
activity. His fanciful description of ball lightning is remarkably similar to modern reports.
For a long time, ball lightning was regarded with skepticism. Although it is now generally accepted as a
genuine phenomenon with thousands of reported sightings, there is still no accepted scientific explanation of its
origin. Understanding the phenomenon has been blocked by an inability to reproduce the effect convincingly in the
lab and partly because of the variations in eyewitness reports. Whatever the case, centuries later, Gervase’s record
makes stimulating reading for modern scientists as well as historians.
9. What’s special about the account of ball lightning by Gervase?A. It’s the most confusing version. B. It’s written in different languages.
C. It’s the earliest acknowledged record. D. It’s the only copy from the 17th Century.
10. Historians spotted Gervase’s account of ball lightning ______.
A. with ease B. as planned C. at the start D. by accident
11. It’s difficult to explain the origin of ball lightning mainly because of ______.
A. no qualified scientists B. no accurate reproductions
C. few eyewitness reports D. little support from historians
12. Which of the following is the best title for the text?
A. Scientists Search for Explanations for Ball Lightning
B. Gervase Was Found as The Eyewitness of Ball Lightning
C. Account of First Ball Lightning Sighting Was Uncovered
D. Historians Gain a Breakthrough in a Natural Phenomenon
D
(2023浙江省衢州、丽水、湖州三地市高三教学质量检测) Owww! A little girl wails after falling and
bumping her knee. Her father rushes over and inspects the leg. “I’ll kiss it and make it better,” he says. The kiss
works. The girl sniffles, wipes her eyes, then jumps up and gets back to playing. Her pain is forgotten.
Scenes like this one happen on playgrounds and in homes around the world every day. When a child gets a
bump or bruise in Germany, says Ulrike Bingel, “Someone will blow the pain away.”
A caring adult can seemingly stop a child’s pain with a puff of air, a kiss or even just a few kind words. Of
course, none of these things can repair injured skin. So what’s happening? Doctors call it the placebo effect. It
describes what happens when something that should have no effect triggers a real, positive change in someone’s
body.
Placebos are a very important part of medical research. To prove that a new medicine works, researchers must
show that people taking it improve more than people getting a placebo. This placebo is usually a pill that looks the
same as the treatment but contains no medicine. At times a person may feel better after taking a placebo pill, even
though the pill did not act on any disease or symptoms.
This placebo response isn’t an illusion. It comes from the brain. A placebo effect can only influence body
processes that the brain can modify, such as pain or digestion.
Kathryn Hall, a medical researcher in Boston says, “Placebos don’t do anything for bacteria, but they can
change how strongly someone experiences pain or other symptoms.” Other researchers are also trying to figure out
why the placebo effect works. Ted Kaptchuk’s group has discovered that placebo treatments work better when adoctor spends more quality time with a patient.
13. Which of the following can be described as placebo effect?
A. Taking more responsibilities if promoted.
B. Not feeling pains in knees after an operation.
C. Becoming more active after drinking coffee.
D. Falling fast asleep after taking vitamins labelled as sleeping pills.
14. What is the author’s purpose in writing the text?
A. To persuade patients to try the placebo pills. B. To introduce the placebo effect.
C. To encourage studies on placebo pills. D. To promote values of real pills.
15. Which of the following can be the best title for the text?
A. Power of Placebos B. Value of Placebo Pills
C. History of Placebo Research D. Placebo Effects on Patients
E
(2022 届北京市东城区高三综合练习) Journal-based peer review-the process of subjecting a scientific
research paper to the inspection of others who are experts in the same field-is generally held up as the quality
assurance mechanism for research. It claims to be an essential measure which prevents publishing faulty papers.
Reviewing a paper can delay its publication by up to a year; is that a price worth paying to ensure the
trustworthiness of the published literature? Well, yes and no.
I’m not yet ready to abandon journal-based peer review. I’d still like to see all papers pass some sort of
checking stage before formal publication, but I feel the ground moving. The growing use of preprints, drafts of
papers which are posted online without having been peer reviewed, is a crucial part of that shift because they bring
academics back to what research publication is all about: the rapid circulation of new results so they can be read,
analyzed and built upon. Publication in journals has become more about fame and this has affected both the
motivations of authors and the job of reviewers.
Competition for prized spots in journals drives scientists to do some of their best work. But the excessive (过
多的) rewards for publishing in top journals are encouragements to corner-cutting, as stories polished by leaving
out inconvenient data are more likely to be taken up. And the job of the reviewer also becomes distorted: it is more
often now to decide not whether a paper is any good, but whether it is good enough for the journal considering
publication. For top journals, that can depend as much on newsworthiness as scientific quality.
These problems are well known, but the tragedy for science is that few people are willing to break away from
the present system. However, as biologist Ron Vale argued recently-fittingly, in a preprint-preprints may be a wayout because they don’t involve a major shift away from the norm. That may seem an odd claim given that preprints
have been in existence for twenty years, yet have not been adopted universally. This slow uptake is not only a
reflection of the built-in conservatism of scientists, but also a result of the widespread misunderstanding that
journals won’t accept manuscripts which have been posted online as preprints. There is also a fear that publication
of papers without peer review risks opening the floodgates to “junk science”-something which, so far at least, has
yet to occur.
Preprints enable the informal scientific discussions once restricted to correspondence between individuals.
They could also become an effective outlet for negative results-a vital aspect of the scientific process often ignored
by the journals’ excessive preoccupation (关注) with new discoveries. Furthermore, preprints significantly increase
the number of times papers are read and cited by others. By taking advantage of the web’s culture of openness and
accessibility, preprints should help to refocus attention where it matters-on the work itself, not where it is published.
16. According to Paragraph 1, what is the popular opinion on peer review?
A. It limits the number of research works. B. It ensures the quality of scientific papers.
C. It removes public doubts about publication. D. It changes the process of scientific publishing.
17. The author may agree that scientific journals ______.
A. urge scientists to pursue integrity in their work
B. rely on reviewers to revise faulty research papers
C. choose articles for their appeal over scientific value
D. try to cut costs to maintain their position in the field
18. What’s the author’s opinion on the growing use of preprints?
A. It will contribute to junk science. B. It may end the practice of peer review.
C. It promotes the spread of research findings. D. It improves the quality of scientific publication.
19. This is basically a passage to ______.
A. make comparison B. confirm a concept
C. encourage innovation D. propose a practice
F
(2023届广东省惠州市高三第一次调研考试英语试题) Earthquakes cannot be forecast, but engineers can
prepare for them. Seismic-isolation (地震隔离) systems built into the bases of certain buildings in high-risk areas,
use complex structures of concrete, rubber and metal to reduce quake damage by absorbing the ground’s horizontal
shaking.
But such adaptations are expensive. Engineer Jian Zhang of the University of California, says building seismicisolation-system can increase construction costs by up to 20 percent. Although these systems might save more than
they cost over time, builders in some regions may not have the budget for them at present.
A new seismic-isolation method uses the physics of rolling to create a lower-cost alternative with readily
available materials: recycled tennis balls. “Everyone plays tennis, and they don’t know what to do with the tennis
balls after each game,” says ETH Zürich seismic engineer Michalis Vassiliou.
Vassiliou’s team based its method on an early form of seismic-isolation that rolls a shaking building to a stop
the way a skater in a half-pipe eventually comes to rest. By separating a building from the ground with a layer of
spheres (球体), rolling isolation changes unstable horizontal shaking into a gentle rocking motion. This method was
used in 5,000-year-old Peruvian pyramids, but today builders favor expensive, standardized isolation systems.
For their modern take on rolling seismic-isolation, the researchers injected concrete-like mixes into hundreds
of balls that had lost their bounce. They built an inexpensive model consisting of four filled tennis balls sandwiched
between two concrete slabs (厚板), and they found that it withstood earthquake shaking while supporting eight kilo
newtons of force per ball — about twice what isolation systems might experience under one-story houses.
Zhang says that the work is worthwhile and that such technology might serve an unmet need. But she notes
that the results are primary. Vassiliou agrees; next steps will mean creating and testing a larger model with hundreds
of tennis balls at a research center in earthquake-prone Cuba — an example of a place where such systems could
make isolation practicable in ordinary construction.
20. Why do the engineers adopt recycled tennis balls?
A. To improve the performance of tennis balls.
B. To help deal with the tennis balls after matches.
C. To simplify the complex structures of buildings.
D. To cut the expense of seismic-isolation building.
21. What effect could the new method achieve?
A. Recycling useless tennis balls. B. Transforming the shaking into a gentle one.
C. Withstanding earthquake shaking. D. Enabling a house to support much more force.
22. Which of the following best describes Zhang’s attitude towards the new technology?
A. Doubtful. B. Unclear. C. Objective. D. Approving.
23. What is the main idea of the text?
A. Researchers are creating and testing models in Cuba.
B. Engineers are exploring ways of earthquake forecasts.
C. A low-cost design helps shaking buildings roll to a stop.D. Recycled tennis balls could protect buildings from disasters.
G
(2022届浙江省温州市普通高中高考适应性测试) If you look up in the sky, you probably see, at some point,
an aircraft. And behind that aircraft are white, fluffy streaks (条纹). And that’s what we call a contrail. Contrails are
made up of ice crystals that form when aircraft engines emit exhaust (废气) that hits the cold air.
The ice crystals reflect incoming light from the sun back into space, which has a cooling effect on the
atmosphere. But the contrails also stop heat coming up from the ground from escaping into space. It is reflected
back down toward the ground. And so that's a warming effect. Stettler, an engineer from Imperial College London,
says, on balance, contrails warm the atmosphere more than they cool it. And that's mainly because the cooling
effect due to reflecting of sunlight can only happen during the day, when the sun's shining, whereas the warming
effect due to trapping of outgoing heat happens all of the time.
How long do contrails last? This depends on the atmospheric conditions at the altitude where a plane is flying.
Some contrails can form clouds that last for up to 18 hours. During that time, they spread out, trapping even more
heat. This process allows contrails to warm the planet about as much as the carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft.
But when Stettler and his team analyzed flight data they obtained of Japan airspace, they found that most
contrail warming was caused by just 2 percent of flights. And most of those flights originated in the late afternoon
because as the sun goes down, cooling can no longer offset (抵消) the warming. And the warming effect continues
to exist throughout the evening into the night. But what if the contrails that contribute the most to warming could be
got rid of?
24. What does “it” in paragraph 2 refer to?
A. A cooling effect. B. Heat from the ground.
C. Light from the sun. D. Exhaust hitting the cold air.
25. What can be learned about contrails?
A. They can easily disappear in the air. B. They actually contribute to global warming.
C. Their cooling effect happens all of the time. D. Their warming effect is usually overlooked.
26. What is most likely to be talked about next?
A. A future plan for Japan airspace. B. The negative influence of contrails.
C. Other potential causes of contrails. D. A possible way to remove contrails.
H
(福建省福州市2021-2022学年高三上学期期末质量抽检) When Howard Bisla was tasked with saving a
local shop from financial ruin, his concern was energy efficiency. He approached his electricity provider aboutupgrading the lights. The provider had another idea. An experimental cooling system: panels (面板) that could stay
colder without consuming energy.
The panels now sit on the shop's roof, their mirrored surfaces coated with a thin cooling film and angled to the
sky. They cool liquid in pipes underneath that run into the shop and, together with new lights, have reduced
electricity bills by 15%.
The panels came from a discovery at Stanford. Researchers there created a material that stayed colder than its
surroundings in direct sunlight. Since then, they have made a host of materials, including films, paints and treated
wood, that stay cool in the heat.
These materials all rely on improving a natural effect known as passive radiative (辐射的) cooling. They
reflect light in much the same way as mirrors or white paints do, but they can do far more. When the materials point
at the sky, the rays can pass through the atmosphere and into space. That links the materials to a heat sink, into
which they can keep dumping (倾倒) heat without it coming back. As a result, they can stay a few degrees cooler
than surrounding air. Scientists have termed them super-cool materials.
These materials might also reduce the increasing demand for power-hungry refrigeration and air conditioning.
Researchers have even suggested they might help Earth respond to global rising temperatures. But many more are
cautious. So far, how much electrical power can be saved has been based on data from small samples. There are
also doubts about their ability to work in a variety of climates and places. Another unknown is whether consumers
will embrace the idea. Even replacing worn-out roofs with reflective white ones has not been widely adopted.
However, this modelling work suggests that use of a super-cool paint might double the energy savings. “It’s a bit of
a game-changer, in a sense,” according to researchers.
27. How did the shop get out of trouble?
A. By cooling liquid in the shop. B. By adopting a cooling system.
C. By quitting consuming energy. D. By changing electricity providers.
28. What is Para.4 mainly about?
A. A heat sink. B. The working principle.
C. A natural effect. D. The discovery process.
29. What can we infer from the last paragraph?
A. Consumers should be aware of power shortage.
B. It takes more research to explore wider application.
C. Quicker response should be made to rising temperatures.
D. The demand for reflective white roofs has been reduced.30. What is the best title for the text?
A. Magic Power: the Game-Changing Technology
B. Lights Out: Less Energy Consumption Can Help
C. The Natural Cooling that Doubles Energy Savings
D. The Super-Cool Materials that Send Heat into Space
