专题11 备战2022高考英语阅读理解文体专项训练之研究类说明文

备战2022高考英语阅读文体专项训练

之研究类说明文（学生版）

（A）

Plants are boring. They just sit there photosynthesizing(光合作用) while animals have all the fun. Right? Not so much. A new study has found that there is a long history of interactions between ants and plants. The co-evolution (协同进化) of ants and plants started with ants feeding on plants and plants evolving ant-friendly features.

Plants make a number of different structures that are specific for ants to use. Some plants have evolved features that persuade ants into defending them from attacks from other insects and even mammals. These include hollow thorns that ants will live inside, or extra nectar (琼浆) on leaves or stems for ants to eat. Some ants will just cheat and take the nectar and run, but some will stick around and attack anything that tries to hurt the plant. Other plants get ants to help them move their seeds around by providing them with rich food packets attached to the seeds. The ant will pick up the seed and carry it away, eat the food packet, and leave the seed—often in a nutrient-rich area where it’ll grow better, and since it’s farther away from its parent, it won’t have to compete for resources.

But scientists weren’t sure how the evolutionary relationship between ants and plants got started. If evolution is an arms race between species developing ways to make use of their neighbors, then scientists wanted to know whether plants or ants fired the first shot. It was a chicken-and-egg question, whether things started with ants developing behaviors to take advantage of plants, or plants evolving structures to take advantage of ants.

The history of ants and plants evolving together goes back to the time of the dinosaurs, and it’s not easy to tell from fossils who fired the first shot. However, it is a question of little significance. Scientists say their study matters because it provides a look at how these widespread and complex interactions evolved.

1.Some plants attach food packets to their seeds in order to　　. 

A.reward the ants

B.make a fool of ants

C.provide nutrition for the seeds

D.get the seeds moved around

2.What does Paragraph 2 mainly tell us?

A.How plants and ants interact.

B.What ants do to protect plants.

C.How plants and ants survive attacks.

D.Why plants and ants need co-evolution.

3.Which is true about the evolutionary relationship between ants and plants?

A.Ants depended more upon plants.

B.It caused a race for better evolution.

C.How it got started was uncertain.

D.It was of little value for future studies.

4.What’s the author’s purpose of writing the passage?

A.To introduce a science research method.

B.To inform readers of a latest research finding.

C.To arouse readers’ interest in science research.

D.To criticize people’s traditional views about plants.

（B）

Can you trust your very first childhood memories?Maybe not,a new study suggests.

Past researches show that people’s earliest memories typically form around 3 to 3.5 years of age.But in a recent survey of more than 6,600 people,British scientists have found that 39 percent of participants claimed to have memories from age 2 or younger.These first memories are likely false,the researchers said.This was particularly the case for middle-aged and older adults.

For the study,researchers asked participants to describe their first memory and the age at which it occurred.Participants were told they had to be sure the memory was the one that had happened.For example,it shouldn’t be based on a photograph,a family story or any source other than direct experiences.Then the researchers examined the content,language and descriptive details of these earliest memories and worked out the likely reasons why people would claim to have memories from an age when memories cannot form.

As many of these memories dated before the age of 2,this suggests they were not based on actual facts,but facts or knowledge about their babyhood or childhood from photographs or family stories.Often these false memories are fired by a part of an early experience,such as family relationships or feeling sad,the researchers explained.

“We suggest that what a rememberer has in mind when recalling fictional early memories is...a mental representation consisting of remembered pieces of early experiences and some facts or knowledge about their own babyhood or childhood,”study author Shania Kantar said in a journal news release,“Additionally,further details may be unconsciously inferred or added.Such memory—like mental representations come over time,to be collectively experienced when they come to mind,so for the individual,they quite simply are memories,which particularly point to babyhood.”

“Importantly,the person remembering them doesn’t know this is fictional,”study co-author Martin Conway said.“In fact,when people are told that their memories are false they often don’t believe it.”

1.What can we learn from a recent study?

A.Memories form after the age of 3.

B.Participants are good at telling stories.

C.Adults are likely to form false memories.

D.Earliest memories may play a trick on us.

2.Which source did the researchers require for the earliest memories?

A.A direct experience. B.A family story.

C.A family photo. D.A sad feeling.

3.What are these fictional early memories according to Kantar?

A.They are repeated mental representations.

B.They are a collection of early experiences.

C.They are a combination of both facts and fictions.

D.They are further details of remembered experiences.

4.Which part of a newspaper is this text probably taken from?

A.Society.             B.Psychology.

C.Technology.             D.Health.

（C）

If you read the news about honeybee survival,it’s all very confusing.

The Hoover Institution’s Dr.Henry Miller notes,“The reality is that honeybee populations are not declining.According to U.N.Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) statistics—the world’s honeybee population rose to 80 million colonies(群落) in 2011 from 50 million in 1960.” Meanwhile Jennifer Sass of the Natural Resources Defense Council points out,“The number of managed honeybee colonies in the U.S.has dropped from 4 million hives(蜂群) in 1970 to 2.5 million today.”

Surprisingly,both of these claims are correct.Miller points to the “global” commercial honeybee-hive count,which has grown considerably.Sass points to domestic colony numbers only,which have in fact declined.Far more bees are farmed for making honey than for pollination(传粉) services.Since more honey is now made overseas than it was in the past,more hives are kept overseas,and fewer in the United States and Europe.And the global number of commercial hives and honey they produce has grown to meet the demands of an expanding world population.Such shifts offer no evidence of a honeybee hive crisis.They simply represent the market forces of supply and demand.

The FAO data also clarify that national or even regional declines in the size of the managed honeybee population cannot prove claims of a global pollinator decline or a pollination crisis.However,it emphasizes that solutions to those problems must be motivated locally,rather than globally.

Solutions will follow only if we take a non-subjective look at the issues,so we can address them appropriately rather than have a crisis mentality.As I highlight in a recent post for The Hill,a big part of the solution lies at the very local level:with the beekeepers,farmers,and communities that surround them.

1.What makes the news confusing?

A.Various species. 

B.Different affects.

C.Complicated statistics. 

D.Contradictory conclusions.

2.What contributes to the growth of commercial hives?

A.The claims of the FAO.

B.The shift of honey export.

C.The increasing demands of honey.

D.The more services of pollination.

3.What’s the author’s attitude to the honeybee population issue?

A.Supportive.                 B.Objective.

C.Confused.                 D.Doubtful.

4.What would be the best title for the text?

A.Honeybee Crisis Solved or Not?

B.Honeybee Population Declining or Not?

C.Honeybee Market Global or Local?

D.Honeybee Research Global or Local?

（D）

Playing tennis regularly could help keep people off death,but football,rugby and running may not help people to live longer,a study suggests.

A study followed more than 80,000 people for an average of nine years to find out if certain sports protected them against early death.It found that people who played racket sports regularly were the least likely to die over the study period,reducing their individual risk by 47 percent compared with people who did no exercise.Swimmers also reduced their chance of death by 28 percent,aerobics(有氧运动)fans by 27 percent and cyclists by 15 percent.Yet running appeared to have no impact at all on dying early,and neither did playing football or rugby.

Scientists say the difference may lie in the social aspect which goes alongside sports like tennis and squash(壁球),which often involve clubs and organized activities outside of the game.It means that people often have larger social net-works and tend to keep up activities into later life,both of which are proven to be good for health.

In contrast,people who play team sports often do not move onto a new sport once their teams break up for family,or injury reasons.They become watchers rather than participants in their chosen activity.

The researchers found that playing racket sports was associated with a 56 percent lower risk from heart death.Similarly,swimmers lowered their heart disease or stroke risk by 41 percent,and people who took part in activities like aerobics,dance or gymnastics lowered their risk by 36 percent.But again running,football and rugby had no significant impact on heart deaths.

However,other experts argue that this study must not be misinterpreted as showing that running and football do not protect against heart disease.In this study both runners and footballers had a lower rate of death from heart disease.

1.Which sport does not have any impact on protecting people against early death?

A.Cycling.            B.Swimming.

C.Rugby.            D.Tennis.

2.According to the study,which makes a big difference in keeping healthy?

A.Playing basketball with their friends occasionally.

B.Watching football games every day.

C.Taking up gymnastics and joining a club.

D.Doing running in the park every day.

3.What is considered more important to people’s health?

A.Social networks.

B.Staying at home.

C.Physical examinations.

D.Setting up families.

4.What is the main idea of the text?

A.Thousands of people participated in a 9-year study.

B.Study finds playing tennis helps people live longer.

C.It is wrong to say running has no impact on heart disease.

D.There are differences between racket sports and team games.

（E）

Climate change,not human hunting,may have wiped out the thylacine (袋狼),according to a new study based on DNA from thylacine bones.

The meat-eating marsupials (有袋动物) died out on mainland Australia a few thousand years ago,but survived in Tasmania,an island of southeast Australia separated from the mainland,until the 1930s.Until now,scientists had believed the cause of this mainland extinction was increased activity from native Australians and dingoes (Australian wild dogs).

Scientists behind the University of Adelaide study,which was published in the Journal of Biogeography on Thursday,collected 51 new thylacine DNA samples from fossil bones and museum skins — the largest data set of thylacine DNA to date.The paper concluded that climate change starting about 4,000 years ago — in particular drier seasons caused by the weather systems known as El Nino-Southern Oscillation — was likely the main cause of the mainland extinction.

The ancient DNA showed that the mainland extinction of thylacines was rapid,and not the result of loss of genetic diversity.There was also evidence of a population crash in thylacines in Tasmania at the same period of time,reducing their numbers and genetic diversity.

Associate Professor Jeremy Austin,deputy director of the University’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA,said Tasmania would have been protected from mainland Australia’s warmer,drier climate due to its higher rainfall.He argued that climate change was “the only thing that could have caused,or at least started,an extinction on the mainland and caused a population crash in Tasmania.”

“They both occurred at about the same time,and the other two things that have been talked about in the past that may have driven thylacines to extinction on the mainland were dingoes and humans.So the only explanation that’s left is climate change.And because that population crash happened at the same time that the species went extinct on the mainland,our argument is there’s a common theme there and the only common theme that’s there is this change in climate.”

1.What happened to thylacines in the 1930s?

A.They died out on mainland Australia.

B.They were hunted in large numbers.

C.They survived in Tasmania.

D.They were no longer seen.

2.What did scientists believe before the University of Adelaide study?

A.Marsupials were all meat-eating animals.

B.Dingoes should be removed from Australia.

C.Thylacines had no enemies on mainland Australia.

D.Native people were responsible for the extinction of thylacines.

3.What’s the difference between mainland Australia and Tasmania?

A.Tasmania has more dingoes.

B.Tasmania has more wet days.

C.Tasmania has a higher temperature.

D.Tasmania has more native Australians.

4.What’s the best title for the text?

A.DNA is playing an important role

B.Climate change led to thylacines’ disappearance

C.Australian animals are facing a population crash

D.Native Australians and dingoes were misunderstood

（F）

When she was studying to become a scientist,Megan Strauss rode in a small airplane to study giraffes.While a pilot flew over the Serengeti in Tanzania,Africa,the researchers looked down carefully and counted giraffes.

“I am always amazed how easily we can spot warthogs and other small animals,yet we sometimes have trouble seeing giraffes.Giraffes are slender in shape,and they may not throw a good shadow,” says Dr.Strauss,who has since become a wildlife scientist.

The Serengeti is about the size of Vermont,a state in the northeastern US,so the scientists could not study the entire area.Instead,they surveyed three areas where giraffes were studied in the 1970s.As they expected,they saw far fewer of these animals.

To find out if lions had been killing more giraffes in recent years,the team looked at the survival of young giraffes.Lions kill more young giraffes than adults,but the team found no decrease in young giraffes’ survival after they are born,compared with the 1970s.

The team then looked at whether too many giraffes were being killed by parasites(寄生虫).The researchers counted parasite eggs in giraffe droppings,and they found too few to harm the giraffe population.

They looked into whether poachers(盗猎者)were killing too many giraffes.Two of the areas they studied are where giraffe meat is sometimes sold in local markets.Poachers catch more adult males than other giraffes.Researchers spotted too few males compared with females in those two areas,a sign of poaching.

When the food supply is short,the environment supports fewer giraffes and the females have fewer young giraffes.A lot of new trees have grown in the Serengeti,but many are a type that giraffes do not like to eat.The researchers found fewer young giraffes today than in the 1970s compared with the number of adult females,a sign that food was in short supply.

Dr.Strauss is working on an environmental education program for Tanzania including books for students.These materials will educate Tanzanians and help them to help giraffes.As knowledge grows and changes are made,they hope the giraffe population will increase.

1.What did Dr.Strauss find while studying giraffes in the Serengeti?

A.It was too costly to study giraffes.

B.It was hard to spot giraffes from the air.

C.The number of giraffes had increased slowly.

D.Giraffes lived in smaller areas than in the 1970s.

2.How did the team study the lion-giraffe relationship?

A.By analyzing giraffe droppings.

B.By comparing young giraffes with adults.

C.By comparing male giraffes and females.

D.By surveying the survival of young giraffes.

3.What is Dr.Strauss doing to help giraffes?

A.She is founding a national park in Tanzania.

B.She is counting giraffes in the entire Serengeti.

C.She is educating students to write about giraffes.

D.She is raising environmental awareness in local people.

4.What’s the main idea of the passage?

A.Series of studies about giraffes.

B.Ways of becoming a scientist.

C.Protecting the environment.

D.An environmental program.

（G）

High levels of chocolate consumption might be associated with a one third reduction in the risk of developing heart disease, suggests a study published online in the British Medical Journal. The findings confirm the results of existing studies that generally agree on a potential beneficial link between chocolate consumption and heart health. However, the authors stress that further studies are needed to test whether chocolate actually causes this reduction or if it can be explained by some other unmeasured factors.

The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030, nearly 236 million people will die from heart disease. However, lifestyle and diet are key factors in preventing heart disease, says the paper. A number of recent studies have shown that eating chocolate has a positive influence on human health due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. This includes reducing blood pressure and improving insulin sensitivity.

However, the evidence about how eating chocolate affects your heart still remains unclear. So, Dr Oscar Franco and colleagues from the University of Cambridge carried out a large scale of review of the existing evidence to evaluate the effects of eating chocolate on cardiovascular(心血管的)events like heart attacks and strokes.

They analyzed the results of seven studies, involving over 100,000 participants with and without existing heart disease. For each study, they compared the group with the highest chocolate consumption and the group with the lowest consumption.

Five studies reported a beneficial link between higher levels of chocolate consumption and the risk of cardiovascular events. They found that the “highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in strokes compared with the lowest levels”. No significant reduction was found in relation to heart failure.

The authors say the findings need to be interpreted with caution, in particular because commercially available chocolate is very calorific(around 500 calories for every 100 grams)and eating too much of it could lead to weight gain, the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

However, they conclude that given the health benefits of eating chocolate, initiatives to reduce the current fat and sugar content in most chocolate products should be explored.

1.Which statement is NOT true according to the passage?

A.There used to be studies about the beneficial link between chocolate consumption and heart health.

B.Millions of people will die from heart disease according to the WHO.

C.There are still other factors that may reduce the risk of heart disease.

D.There is clear evidence about how eating chocolate affects your heart.

2.What are the possible causes of heart disease?

A.Unhealthy diet.               B.Eating chocolate. 

C.Exercising regularly.              D.Drinking coffee.

3.What’s the author’s attitude towards the findings?

A.Doubtful.    B.Cautious.   

C.Disapproving.   D.Negative.

4.If the author will go on writing, what is likely to be talked about?

A.We should eat less chocolate.

B.Chocolate benefits our health.

C.The ways to reduce the sugar and fat content in chocolate products.

D.When to eat chocolate is better for our health.

（H）

There are many programs for high school students today that help lonely teenagers deal with loneliness. However, loneliness is not only an issue for teens but also an important and rarely acknowledged one in the elderly.

In Britain, Tracey Crouch was appointed to be the first Minister of Loneliness in order to address the issues caused by loneliness. This is the first time such a position has been created.

In Britain, there are around 9 million people who say they are lonely frequently. In Germany, a study conducted by Ruhr University Bochum found that 20 percent of people over the age of 85 felt lonely, and that 14 percent of those between age 45 and 65 felt socially lonely. In the United States, more than 25 percent of the population live alone, and more than 50 percent are unmarried.

Loneliness is generally associated with heart disease and anxiety. Additionally, the stress from loneliness can cause your cells to change on a molecular(分子)level that reduces its abilities to defend your body against diseases. In fact, doctors believe having feelings of loneliness is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes per day in regard to its effect on health!

In Britain, the new Minister of Loneliness will help introduce government policies on the issue and fund a charity—an organization for helping people in need, to devote their efforts to aiding loneliness. There are charities that link lonely seniors to high school students in order to give them a line of communication whenever they feel lonely!

The possibilities for the new Minister of Loneliness are endless. For example, she can provide education services to household businesses so that they can identify lonely customers if they see one. Loneliness fits into the category of being a social issue that must be monitored by the entire community in order to help those in need. Therefore, government involvement in medical services and care for seniors and others is vital for happy seniors.

1.How does the author develop Paragraph 3?

A.By listing some statistics.

B.By giving examples of lonely people.

C.By pointing out similarities and differences.

D.By comparing different cultures in different countries.

2.What does the underlined word “equivalent” in Paragraph 4 probably mean?

A.Relevant.   B.Similar.   C.Opposite.   D.Superior.

3.What will the Minister of Loneliness do?

A.Do housework for lonely people.

B.Develop friendships with the elderly.

C.Help fund a charity to aid lonely people.

D.Communicate with anxious school students.

4.What is the main idea of the text?

A.The UK becomes the capital of loneliness.

B.Loneliness affects old people’s life worldwide.

C.Many teenagers suffer from loneliness.

D.The UK’s Minister of Loneliness settles loneliness.

（I）

There is more of a connection between food and culture than you may think. On an individual level, we grow up eating the food of our culture. It becomes a part of who we are. Many associate food from our childhood with warm feelings and good memories and it ties us to our family, holding a special and personal value for us. Food from our family often becomes the comfort food we seek as adults in times of frustration and stress.

On a large scale, traditional food is an important part of culture. It also operates as an expression of culture identity. Immigrants bring it wherever they go, and it is a symbol of pride for their culture and means of coping with homesickness.

Many immigrants open their own restaurants and serve traditional dishes. However, the food does not remain exactly the same. Some materials needed to make traditional dishes may not be readily available, so the taste and flavor can be different from what they would prepare in their home countries. Additionally, immigrants do not only sell dishes to people from the same countries as them, but to people from different countries. Therefore, they have to make small changes about the original dishes to cater to a wider range of customers. Those changes can create new flavors that still keep the cultural significance of the dishes.

Not only should we embrace our heritage(传统) through our culture’s food but also become more informed about other cultures by trying their food. It is important to remember that each dish has a special place in the culture to which it belongs, and is special to those who prepare it. Food is a window into culture, and it should be treated as such.

1.What’s the function of food mentioned in the article?

A.To help motivate homesickness.

B.To show national identity.

C.To reflect a country’s history.

D.To show a community’s superiority.

2.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 2 refer to?

A.The specific traditional food.

B.The national culture.

C.A traditional expression of food.

D.The old-fashioned taste.

3.Why do some immigrants have to change the original dishes in their restaurants?

A.To attach cultural importance to their dishes.

B.To announce the beginning of their life on foreign soil.

C.To make the dishes popular among customers.

D.To present their own food culture in a new way.

4.What’s the author’s attitude towards different food cultures?

A.Negative.   B.Balanced.   C.Unfair.   D.Unchangeable.

（J）

Most dog owners are convinced that their four-legged friends know exactly what they mean when they use certain words like “sit” “stay” or “treat”. However, researchers have always wondered whether dogs really understand human speech or if they rely on other information to get the meaning. For example, does the word“fetch” form a picture of a stick or a ball in the dog’s mind, or does the dog bring back the object based on the owner’s voice or gesture?A new study by scientists at Atlanta’s Emory University seems to indicate that “man’s best friend” does indeed know what the owner is saying.

The researchers began by asking the owners of twelve dogs of various kinds to train their pets to identify two toys of different materials, such as a toy animal and a ball. Once the dogs had mastered the task, they took turns inside a special scanner. The owners then tested their dogs’ language skill by first calling out the names of the toys they had been trained to recognize and then saying meaningless words such as “bobbu” and “bodmick” while holding up random objects the dogs hadn’t seen before.

The scans suggested that the parts of the dogs’ brains responsible for processing sounds showed different brain patterns when they heard words they were familiar with, compared with the ones they had never heard before. While that was not enough to prove that the dogs were picturing their toys when they heard the words, it did indicate some sort of recognition. The researchers believe this is an important step in understanding how dogs process language.

Something even more interesting was that the dogs’ brains showed a higher level of neural(神经的) activity at the sound of unknown words. This is the exact opposite of what happens in human brains, which get more active at the sound of familiar words. The researchers say the dogs may become cheerful at the sound of new words to try to understand them in the hope of delighting their masters. “Dogs want to please their owners, and perhaps also want to receive praise or food,” says Emory neuroscientist Gregory Berns, senior author of the study.

However, though your pet may understand human speech, the scientists recommend using visual signals and smell for training. “When people want to teach their dog a trick, they often use spoken commands because that’s what we humans prefer,” Prichard says. “From the dog’s view, however, a visual command might be more effective, helping the dog learn the trick faster.”

1.What’s the purpose of the new study?

A.To convince dog owners to understand their dogs.

B.To advise dog owners to treat their dogs kindly.

C.To prove that dogs follow owners’ order by listening.

D.To test out how dogs get information from owners.

2.What does the author intend to do in Paragraph 2?

A.Inform the result of the research.

B.State the process of the research.

C.Stress the importance of the research.

D.Introduce the subjects of the research.

3.How do human brains and dog brains react to words?

A.Human brains become active in unfamiliar words.

B.Dog brains become delighted at unfamiliar words.

C.Human brains are not sensitive to familiar words.

D.Dog brains show no response to familiar words.

4.What do scientists advise the owners to do in dog training?

A.Give dogs oral commands.

B.Teach dogs new tricks.

C.Involve sight and smell.

D.Encourage faster learning.