英语 热门试卷

A

I am an active playgoer and play-reader, and perhaps my best reason for editing this book is a hope of sharing my enthusiasm for the theater with others. To do this I have searched through dozens of plays to find the ones that I think best show the power and purpose of the short play.

Each play has a theme or central idea which the playwright（剧作家）hopes to get across through dialogue and action. A few characters are used to create a single impression growing out of the theme. It is not my intention to point out the central theme of each of the plays in this collection, for that would, indeed, ruin the pleasure of reading, discussing, and thinking about the plays and the effectiveness of the playwright. However, a variety of types is represented here. These include comedy, satire, poignant drama, historical and regional drama. To show the versatility（多面性）of the short play, I have included a guidance play, a radio play and a television play.

Among the writers of the plays in this collection, Paul Green, Susan Glaspell, Maxwell Anderson, Thornton Wilder, William Saroyan, and Tennessee Williams have all received Pulitzer Prizes for their contributions to the theater. More information about the playwrights will be found at the end of this book.

To get the most out of reading these plays, try to picture the play on stage, with you, the reader, in the audience. The houselights dim（变暗）. The curtains are about to open, and in a few minutes the action and dialogue will tell you the story.

36. 阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C和D四个选项中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题纸上将该项涂黑。

56. 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（1个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

B

The traffic signals along Factoria Boulevard in Bellevue, Washington, generally don’ t flash the same length of green twice in a row, especially at rush hour. At 9：30 am, the full red/yellow/green signal cycle might be 140 seconds. By 9：33 am, a burst of additional traffic might push it to 145 seconds. Less traffic at 9：37 am could push it down to 135. Just like the traffic itself, the timing of the signals changes.

That is by design. Bellevue, a fast-growing city, just east of Seattle, uses a system that is gaining popularity around the US：intersection（十字路口） signals that can adjust in real time to traffic conditions. These lights, known as adaptive signals, have led to significant declines in both the trouble and cost of travels between work and home.

“Adaptive signals can make sure that the traffic demand that is there is being addressed,” says Alex Stevanovic, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University.

For all of Bellevue’   s success, adaptive signals are not a cure-all for jammed roadways. Kevin Balke, a research engineer at the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute, says that while smart lights can be particularly beneficial for some cities, others are so jammed that only a sharp reduction in the number of cars on the road will make a meaningful difference. “It’s not going to fix everything, but adaptive signals have some benefits for smaller cities,” he says.

In Bellevue, the switch to adaptive signals has been a lesson in the value of welcoming new approaches. In the past, there was often an automatic reaction to increased traffic: just widen the roads, says Mark Poch, the Bellevue Transportation Department’s traffic engineering manager. Now he hopes that other cities will consider making their streets run smarter instead of just making them bigger.

C

Challenging work that requires lots of analytical thinking, planning and other managerial skills might help your brain stay sharp as you age, a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology suggests.

Researchers from the University of Leipzig in Germany gathered more than 1, 000 retired workers who were over age 75 and assessed the volunteers’ memory and thinking skills through a battery of tests. Then, for eight years, the scientists asked the same group to come back to the lab every 18 months to take the same sorts of tests.

Those who had held mentally stimulating（刺激）, demanding jobs before retirement tended to do the best on the tests. And they tended to lose cognitive（认知）function at a much slower rate than those with the least mentally challenging jobs. The results held true even after the scientists accounted for the participants’    overall health status.

“This works just like physical exercise,” says Francisca Then, who led the study. “After a long run, you may feel like you’re in pain, you may feel tired. But it makes you fit. After a long day at work — sure, you will feel tired, but it can help your brain stay healthy. ”

It’s not just corporate jobs, or even paid work that can help keep your brain fit, Then points out. A waiter’ s job, for example, that requires multitasking, teamwork and decision-making could be just as stimulating as any high-level office work. And “running a family household requires high-level planning and coordinating（协调）,” she says. “You have to organize the activities of the children and take care of the bills and groceries.”

Of course, our brains can decline as we grow older for lots of reasons — including other environmental influences or genetic factors. Still, continuing to challenge yourself mentally and keeping your mind busy can only help.

31. 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。