中考阅读理解实战演练之缤纷自然篇

Section I 缤纷自然篇

Passage 1

We know that many animals do not stay in one place. Birds, fish and other animals move from one place to another at a certain time. They move for different reasons: most of them move to find food more easily, but others move to get away from places that are too crowded.

When cold weather comes, many birds move to warmer places to find food. Some fishes give birth in warm water and move to cold water to feed. The most famous migration (迁移) is probably the migration of fish, which is called “salmon”. This fish is born in fresh water but it travels many miles to salt water. There it spends its life. When it is old, it returns to its birthplace in fresh water. Then it gives birth and dies. In northern Europe, there is a kind of mouse. They leave their mountain homes when they become too crowded. They move down to the low land. Sometimes they move all the way to the seaside, and many of them are killed when they fall into the sea.

Recently (近来), scientists have studied the migration of a kind of lobster (龙虾). Every year,

when the season of the bad weather arrives, the lobsters get into a long line and start to walk

across the floor of the ocean. Nobody knows why they do this, and nobody knows where they go.

So, sometimes we know why humans and animals move from one place to another, but at other

times we don’t. Maybe living things just like to travel.

1.Most animals move from one place to another at a certain time to _______.

A.give birth B. enjoy warmer weather

C. find food more easily D. find beautiful places

2.The fish called “salmon” spends a long time in ______.

A. salt water B. rivers C. fresh water D. its birthplace

3.The mice in northern Europe move when _______.

A. they give birth B. the place gets too crowded

C. the weather is bad D. they haven’t enough food

4.The lobsters move ________.

A. to the fresh water B. at a certain time C. to the undersea D. to find more food

5.What is the main idea of the passage?

A.Animals move to find food more easily.

B.The migration of the fish called “salmon” is the most famous migration.

C.Living things move from one place to another because they like to travel.

D. Sometimes we know why and how living things move from one place to another, but sometimes we don’t.

Passage 2

If you look at the sky one night and see something moving and shining that you have never seen before, it might be a comet (彗星).

A comet sometimes looks like a star. Like a planet, a comet has no light of its own. It shines from the sunlight it reflects (反射). Like the earth, a comet goes round the sun, but on a much longer path (轨道) than the earth travels.

If a comet isn’t a star, what is it then?

Some scientists think that a large part of a comet is water frozen into pieces of ice and mixed with iron and rock dust and perhaps a few big pieces of rock. When sunshine melts (融化) the ice in the comet, great clouds of gas go trailing after it. These clouds, together with the dust, form a long tail.

Many people perhaps have seen a comet. However no one knows how many comets there are. There may be millions of comets, but only a few come close enough for us to see.

An Englishman named Edmund Halley, who lived from 1656 to 1742, found out a lot about the paths that comets take through the sky. Some comets move out of our sight and never come back. Others keep coming back at regular times. A big comet that keeps coming back was named after Halley because he was the one who worked out when it would come back again. Maybe you have ever seen Halley’s Comets because the last time it came close to the sun and the earth was in the year 1986. Then people all over the world were outside at night to look at it. You will probably be able to see Halley’s Comets when it comes near the earth again.

1.A comet is like ________.

A. sun B. moon C. sunlight D. the earth

2.A large part of a comet is ______.

A.water and rock B. water frozen into pieces of ice and mixed with iron

C. ice, iron and rock dust D. only a few big pieces of rock

3.Maybe many people _______.

A. haven’t seen any comets B. have seen all comets

C. have seen a comet at daytime D. have seen a comet

4.Some comets keep coming back ________.

A. at any time B. at noon C. at regular times D. at daytime

5.Halley’s Comets came back _____.

A. in 1990 B. in 1980 C. in 1986 D. in 1989

Passage 3

Do you know something about tree rings (年轮)? Do you know they can tell us what the weather was like, sometimes even hundreds of years ago?

A tree will grow well in a climate (气候)with lots of sunshine and rainfall. And little sunshine or rainfall will limit (限制)the growth of climate by studying the tree rings. For example, to find out the weather of ten years ago, count the rings of a tree from the outside to the inside. If the tenth ring is far from the eleventh ring, then we’re sure that it was sunny and rainy most of that year. If it is near to the eleventh ring, then the climate that year was bad.

Tree rings are important not only for studying the history of weather but also for studying the history of man. Many centuries ago there lived a lot of people at a place in New Mexico. But now you can find only sand there—no trees and no people. What happened?

A scientist studied the rings of dead trees there. He found that the people had to leave because they had cut down all the trees to make fires and buildings. As all the trees had gone, the people there had to move.

1._____ in good climate.

A. Tree rings grow far from each other B. Tree rings become thinner

C. Trees don’t need sunshine or rainfall D. People can cut down most of the trees

2.The scientists are interested in studying tree rings because tree rings can tell ______.

A.whether a tree was strong or not B. whether people took good care of the trees or not

C. whether the climate was good or not D. how old the trees were

3.If you want to find out the weather of twenty years ago, you should study _______.

A. the twentieth ring B. the tenth ring

C. the nineteenth ring D. the twenty-first ring

4.Why did people usually live in places with lots of trees?

A.Trees could tell the change of the weather

B.Trees brought lots of sunshine and rain

C.Trees could make weather not too hot or too cold

D.Trees could be used for burning and for building house

5.The people had to leave the place in New Mexico because _______.

A.had weather stopped the growth of trees

B.they no longer had water and the land became sand

C.they didn’t have enough trees for burning

D.there was too much rain there

Passage 4

All our food comes from the soil (土壤). Some of us eat meat, but animals live on plants. If these were no plants, we should have no animals and meat. So the soil is necessary for life.

The top of ground is usually covered with grass or other plants. Plants grow in soil, which has a dark color. This dark soil is humus, dead leaves, dead plants and animal waste make it, but this takes a long time. When the humus has been made, plants can grow well in it.

All soil needs food. If we don’t give it any, the plants will be weak. Animals waste is the best food for the soil, but chemical fertilizers (化肥) are also very useful. The same crop should not be grown in the same place every year; it is better to have a different crop. A change of crop and the use of a good fertilizer will keep the land in good condition.

When the soil is dry, the wind blows it away. Sometimes heavy rain carries the humus down to a river. People should grow more and more trees and grass to stop wind from carrying the humus away. It takes hundreds of years to make humus, and so we must save every bit of it. Without soil, where can we grow food?

1.From the text, we know people live on _______.

A. animal B. plant C. meat D. soil

2.The word “humus” means _____ in Chinese.

A.微生物 B.土壤 C.腐殖土 D.粘土

3.We should _______ to keep the soil.

A. give more fertilizers B. kill more animals

C. make more humus D. grow more trees and grass

4.We should save every bit of humus, because ______.

A.it takes a long time to make humus

B.the more humus in the soil, the better plants grow

C.the chemical fertilizers are expensive

D.A and B

5.The best title of this text should be ______.

A.Soil is necessary to people

B.The same crop can’t be grown in the same place every year

C.Soil’s food is chemical fertilizers

D.Humus is hard to make

Passage 5

In the sea there are many islands. In its warm waters there are some little ones. We call them “coral Islands”.

A coral island is very nice to look at. It looks like a ring of land (一圈陆地) with trees, grass, and flowers on it. One part of the ring is open to the water. There is a little round lake inside the island.

If you look into this lake, you will see beautiful coral. You say think they are flowers. If you look at a piece of coral, you will see many little holes in it. In each of these holes a very small sea animal has lived. These sea animals make the coral.

They began to build under the water. Year after year, the coral grew higher and higher. At last it grew out of the water.

Then the sea brought it small trees and something else. After some years, these things changed into earth. Sometimes the wind brought seeds (种子) to this earth. Sometimes birds flew over it and brought seeds to the island.

The little seeds grew. In a few years there were plants all over the island. In a few more years there were trees growing there.

So you see, these islands were built little by little. The workers were very small. Do they not teach us a lesson? Can you think what the lesson is?

1.In the sea ________.

A. there are coral islands in all places B. there are some coral islands

C. the water is always warm D. we can see many flowers

2.A coral island looks like __________.

A. a round cake B. trees, grass and flowers

C. a ring of land D. a round lake

3.There are _______ in the holes in corals.

A. flowers B. little corals C. grass D. sea animals

4.How did seeds of trees, grass and flowers come to the coral islands? ________

A.The wind and birds brought them to the coral islands

B.Only the wind brought them there

C.People brought them there

D.Fishes brought them there

5.From the story we learn that ___________.

A.small workers can’t do big things

B.only big workers can do big things

C.small workers can do big things if they work hard work and work a long time

D.all small things can do big things

Passage 6

When some plates of the earth move suddenly, an earthquake happens. Many earthquakes begin under the sea. Earthquakes may happen anywhere on the earth. They often happen near the mountains.

During an earthquake, the shakings make rocks rise suddenly and even crack (断裂) open. Houses fall, people are killed or hurt, and sometimes the whole villages or cities are destroyed.

Can we do something to keep ourselves safe from earthquakes? Scientists have studied earthquakes and make maps that show the “earthquake belts”. In areas (地区) in these belts, it’s possible for earthquakes to happen. In these areas we should build strong houses to fight against earthquakes.

In the future, scientists will be able to tell when and where an earthquake will be before they happen. They can also tell people what to do and how to do it.

1.A large number of earthquakes often happens ________.

A. in the area B. on land C. at night D. next to mountains

2.The reason for an earthquake is _______.

A.the result of rock plate sudden movement

B.that there are so many plates on the earth

C.that the sea is too deep

D.rocks’ cracking open

3.A map showing the earthquake belts will tell people ______.

A.what kind of houses to build

B.what kind of houses can stay up in an earthquake

C.where earthquake may happen

D.how to keep themselves safe during an earthquake

4.In the future we’ll be no longer so afraid of earthquakes ______.

A.with the help of scientists’ exact prediction (预报)

B.because of a map showing the “earthquake belts”

C.because we can guess the date and place of earthquakes

D.as scientists know what to do and how to do it

5.Choose the best title fro the passage.

A.An Earthquake B. A Scientist and an Earthquake

C. How to Fight Against Earthquake D. Earthquakes Today and Tomorrow

Passage 7

It seems to us that the earth stands quite still (静止的). But it is really moving all the time. It turns around a make-believe line through its center. We call this make-believe line the earth’s axis (地轴). The two ends of the earth’s axis are called its poles (极). The earth travels twenty-four hours around its axis once.

We look at the sun and say it “travels” across the sky, but the sun doesn’t really do so. The turning of the earth makes us feel as if the sun were moving across the sky. We can’t see that the earth is moving because everything else on the earth is turning with us. As the earth turns around every twenty-four hours, first one half faces the sun and then the other half. When our half of the earth is facing the sun, we say it is “day”. When our half is away from the sun, we say it is “night”. It is the turning of the earth that tells us when to go to bed and when to get up.

1.The meaning of “a make-believe line” is “a line that ______”.

A. is called pole B. we can’t see

C. anyone can see D. we can make and believe

2.It takes the earth ______ to turn around its axis once.

A. a week B. a month C. 12 hours D. 24 hours

3.Usually we say, “The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.” In fact, the sun _______.

A. does not move B. is moving all the time

C. moves sometimes D. is too heavy to move

4.We can’t see the earth moving because _________.

A. the earth stands still B. everything on the earth is moving with us

C. the earth is smaller than the sun D. the earth goes only at night

5.When our part of the earth turns away from the sun we have “______”, and when our part faces the sun we have “_____”.

A.day; night B. day; day C. night; day D. night; night