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【备战2024年高考】（全国通用）英语 09 阅读理解突破之主旨大意题 试卷
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阅读理解之主旨大意题
高考命题取向
主旨大意题主要是测试考生对一篇文章或一段文字的深层理解程度以及在快速中准确把握主旨大意的能力。一般针对某一语段或某一语篇的主题标题或目的设题。这类题目考查的范围是基本论点、文章标题、主题或段落大意等。要求考生在理解全文的基础上能较好地运用概括、判断、归纳、推理等逻辑思维方法，对文章进行高度概括或总结，语言一般简洁、凝练，其干扰项的设置往往比较有迷惑性，属于高层次的阅读理解题。
近3年全国高考主旨大意题题量统计
卷名 年份
2020
2021
2022
新高考I卷
0
1
1
全国卷I（乙卷）
2
2
1
全国卷II（甲卷）
2
1
3
全国卷III
3
3
2
技巧点拨
1. 标题是段落中心思想最精炼的表达形式。文章标题可以是单词、短语，也可以是句子。它的特点是：短小精悍，多为一短语；涵盖性强，一般要求能涵盖全文，其确定的范围要恰当，不能太大，也不能太小；精确性强，不能随意改变语言表意的程度及色彩。
2. 主旨大意题，要搞清楚是问某一段还是全文的大意，可利用文中主要信息来把握文脉，进行综合归纳。如有标题，标题中蕴含的信息往往是关键信息。另外，任何一篇文章都是围绕某个主题展开的，因此，许多文章中最明显的特点之一是有一个反复出现的中心词，即高频词，也叫主题词。抓住了它，便容易抓住文章的中心。
1. 高考典题例析
段落大意
例1 (2022·全国甲卷)
Sometime in the early 1960s, a significant thing happened in Sydney, Australia.The city discovered its harbor.Then, one after another, Sydney discovered lots of things that were just sort of there—broad parks, superb beaches, and a culturally diverse population.But it is the harbor that makes the city.
Andrew Reynolds, a cheerful fellow in his early 30s, pilots Sydney ferryboats for a living.I spent the whole morning shuttling back and forth across the harbor.After our third run Andrew shut down the engine, and we went our separate ways—he for a lunch break, I to explore the city.
“I'll miss these old boats,” he said as we parted.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, they're replacing them with catamarans.Catamarans are faster, but they're not so elegant, and they're not fun to pilot.But that's progress,I guess.”
Everywhere in Sydney these days, change and progress are the watchwords(口号), and traditions are increasingly rare.Shirley Fitzgerald, the city's official historian, told me that in its rush to modernity in the 1970s, Sydney swept aside much of its past, including many of its finest buildings.“Sydney is confused about itself,” she said.“We can't seem to make up our minds whether we want a modern city or a traditional one.It's a conflict that we aren't getting any better at resolving(解决).”
On the other hand, being young and old at the same time has its attractions.I considered this when I met a thoughtful young businessman named Anthony.“Many people say that we lack culture in this country,” he told me.“What people forget is that the Italians, when they came to Australia, brought 2000 years of their culture, the Greeks some 3000 years, and the Chinese more still.We've got a foundation built on ancient cultures but with a drive and dynamism of a young country.It's a pretty hard combination to beat.”
He is right, but I can't help wishing they would keep those old ferries.
32.What is the first paragraph mainly about?
A.Sydney's striking architecture.
B.The cultural diversity of Sydney.
C.The key to Sydney's development.
D.Sydney's tourist attractions in the 1960s.
32.【解析】选C。段落大意题。通读第一段可知,该段主题句是“But it is the harbor that makes the city.”据此可知,该段主要陈述了悉尼发展的关键:港口。故C项正确。
例2(2022·新高考Ⅰ卷)
Human speech contains more than 2,000 different sounds, from the common “m” and “a” to the rare clicks of some southern African languages. But why are certain sounds more common than others? A ground-breaking, five-year study shows that diet-related changes in human bite led to new speech sounds that are now found in half the world's languages.
More than 30 years ago, the scholar Charles Hockett noted that speech sounds called labiodentals, such as “f” and “v”, were more common in the languages of societies that ate softer foods. Now a team of researchers led by Damián Blasi at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, has found how and why this trend arose.
They discovered that the upper and lower front teeth of ancient human adults were aligned (对齐), making it hard to produce labiodentals, which are formed by touching the lower lip to the upper teeth. Later, our jaws changed to an overbite structure (结构), making it easier to produce such sounds.
The team showed that this change in bite was connected with the development of agriculture in the Neolithic period. Food became easier to chew at this point. The jawbone didn't have to do as much work and so didn't grow to be so large.
Analyses of a language database also confirmed that there was a global change in the sound of world languages after the Neolithic age, with the use of “f” and “v” increasing remarkably during the last few thousand years. These sounds are still not found in the languages of many hunter-gatherer people today.
This research overturns the popular view that all human speech sounds were present when human beings evolved around 300,000 years ago. “The set of speech sounds we use has not necessarily remained stable since the appearance of human beings, but rather the huge variety of speech sounds that we find today is the product of a complex interplay of things like biological change and cultural evolution,” said Steven Moran, a member of the research team.
34.What is Paragraph 5 mainly about?
A.Supporting evidence for the research results.
B.Potential application of the research findings.
C.A further explanation of the research methods.
D.A reasonable doubt about the research process.
【解析】选A。段落大意题。第五段提到,一个语言数据库的分析也证实,新石器时代之后,世界语言的发音发生了全球性的变化,在过去的几千年里,“f”和“ v ”的使用显著增加。这些音在今天许多狩猎采集者的语言中仍然找不到。由此可知,第五段是为上文提到的研究发现进一步提供证据。故选A。
标题概括
例3(2022·全国甲卷)
As Ginni Bazlinton reached Antarctica, she found herself greeted by a group of little Gentoo penguins(企鹅)longing to say hello.These gentle, lovely gatekeepers welcomed her and kick-started what was to be a trip Ginni would never forget.
Ever since her childhood, Ginni, now 71, has had a deep love for travel.Throughout her career(职业)as a professional dancer, she toured in the UK, but always longed to explore further. When she retired from dancing and her sons eventually flew the nest, she decided it was time to take the plunge.
After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile.And it was in Chile she discovered she could get last-minute cheap deals on ships going to Antarctica from the islands off Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the South American mainland.“I just decided I wanted to go,” she says.“I had no idea about what I'd find there and I wasn't nervous, I just wanted to do it.And I wanted to do it alone as I always prefer it that way.”
In March 2008, Ginni boarded a ship with 48 passengers she'd never met before, to begin the journey towards Antarctica.“From seeing the wildlife to witnessing sunrises, the whole experience was amazing.Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has,” Ginni says.“I remember the first time I saw a humpback whale; it just rose out of the water like some prehistoric creature and I thought it was smiling at us.You could still hear the operatic sounds it was making underwater.”
The realization that this is a precious land, to be respected by humans, was one of the biggest things that hit home to Ginni.
31.What is the text mainly about?
A.A childhood dream.
B.An unforgettable experience.
C.Sailing around the world.
D.Meeting animals in Antarctica.
【解析】选B。主旨大意题。通读全文可知,文章主要讲述了Ginni Bazlinton去南极洲旅行的经历,再根据倒数第二段中Ginni Bazlinton 对南极洲之旅的评价: the whole experience was amazing.Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has可知,去南极洲旅行让她非常难忘,故B项最能概括文章主旨。
例4 (2022·全国甲卷)
Goffin's cockatoos, a kind of small parrot native to Australasia, have been shown to have similar shape-recognition abilities to a human two-year-old.Though not known to use tools in the wild, the birds have proved skilful at tool use while kept in the cage.In a recent experiment, cockatoos were presented with a box with a nut inside it.The clear front of the box had a “keyhole” in a geometric shape, and the birds were given five differently shaped “keys” to choose from.Inserting the correct “key” would let out the nut.
In humans, babies can put a round shape in a round hole from around one year of age, but it will be another year before they are able to do the same with less symmetrical(对称的) shapes.This ability to recognize that a shape will need to be turned in a specific direction before it will fit is called an “allocentric frame of reference”.In the experiment, Goffin's cockatoos were able to select the right tool for the job, in most cases, by visual recognition alone.Where trial-and-error was used, the cockatoos did better than monkeys in similar tests.This indicates that Goffin's cockatoos do indeed possess an allocentric frame of reference when moving objects in space, similar to two-year-old babies.
The next step, according to the researchers, is to try and work out whether the cockatoos rely entirely on visual clues(线索), or also use a sense of touch in making their shape selections.
27.Which can be a suitable title for the text?
A.Cockatoos: Quick Error Checkers
B.Cockatoos: Independent Learners
C.Cockatoos: Clever Signal-Readers
D.Cockatoos: Skilful Shape-Sorters
27.【解析】选D。主旨大意题。通读全文可知,本文主要说明了凤头鹦鹉有着同人类相似的形状认知能力,能够使用工具认知物体的形状,故D项最适合作为本文标题。
模拟演练
A
(江苏省苏州市常熟市2022-2023学年高三12月阶段性抽测英语试题) A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to quickened warming of the Arctic.
Over the past four decades, warming in the Arctic has been far more definite than that in the rest of the world and has caused a rapid decrease of summer sea ice. Heating in the Arctic has ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex (旋涡). As a result, it got stretched out of shape and slid southward off the pole. Scientists believe this vortex stretching process led to the deadly Texas cold wave in February this year.
1.What is paragraph 2 mainly about?
A. The explanation given by scientists. B. The formation of Texas cold wave.
C. The decrease of summer sea ice. D. The polar vortex’s being disturbed. B
(山东省2022-2023学年高三百校联考) Alex Dunedin threw his smartphone in the rubbish bag 2 years ago. “Culturally, we have become addicted to these tools,” says this educational researcher and technology expert. “They are weakening cognition (认知) and impeding (妨碍，阻碍) productivity.” Dunedin says another reason behind his decision was environmental concerns. “We are wasting large amounts of energy and producing large amounts of CO2 emissions.”
2.What is paragraph 4 mainly about?
A. The benefits Alex Dunedin’s smartphone brought.
B. The characteristics of Alex Dunedin’s smartphone.
C. The reasons why Alex Dunedin abandoned his smartphone.
D. The ways Alex Dunedin reduced time spent on a smartphone.
C
(温州市2023届高三第一次适应性考试) The review points to disappearing and degraded habitat—resulting from climate change, urbanization, agricultural intensification, and international trade—as the leading driver of bird declines worldwide. In a note of hope, the authors cite a 2020 study indicating that restoring just 5% of habitat in priority areas around the world could avert 60% of likely extinctions.
Lead author Alexander Lees, a research associate at the Cormell Lab, also points to the need for substantial changes in human behavior to prevent further losses. “Loss and degradation of habitat is often driven by demand for resources,” says Lees. “We need to better consider how commodity flows such as beef, oil, and seed crops can contribute to biodiversity loss and try to reduce the human footprint on the natural world.”
3.What is the last paragraph mainly about?
A. Extra reasons for bird extinction. B. Possible solutions to habitat loss.
C. Substantial changes in human behavior. D. The prospect of biodiversity loss.
D
(江苏省镇江市2022-2023学年高三上学期期中调研考试) I started playing the piano when I was around four years old—that was 15 years ago!—and since then, the longest I haven’t touched piano keys was probably two months. This was an enormous amount of devotion to something that I wasn’t even planning to make money off of it—so there must have been something worth holding on to, right?
The easy guess is that I was always so purely in love with music and piano that I couldn’t bear to let them go. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I struggled a lot with piano. I felt pressure to improve, innovate, and be the best in order to prove something to others. The seed of my musical interest was grown with competition and doubt.
It’s difficult to learn to love something that you didn’t choose in the first place. But somehow, sometime, love grew. And by high school, it was strong enough that I found the strength to hold on tighter, dig further, and find something of my own to grow. In a way, I had to start over.
And so, I took a pause. I switched teachers, and got incredibly lucky with one who encouraged me and helped me tunnel into what I loved, not what I was told I should learn. Anything I had was good enough to be loved.
This summer, I started learning the guitar. I deliberately wanted to learn on my own—this was just for me, to form a new relationship to music. Even though my guitar skills are miles lower than my piano skills, I feel I can express myself even more wholly through strings than keys. There’s just something about doing it all for myself that has helped me heal the damages to my relationship to music.
The love and hate I’ve had for the piano were both planted and grown. If you too have learned to hate something you once loved—or something you never chose—remember that with dedication, it can be uprooted, and love can make a home in its place. There is always time. There is always room.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A. Practice makes perfect B. Love cannot be forced
C. Love is a thing that grows D. There is no end to learning
E
(湖北省2022-2023学年高三上学期期中试题) “Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention,” Frank Sinatra chanted in his 1969 hit “My Way”. The song’s idea is attractive: that anyone can just declare what’s done is done and move on. Some take the declaration a step further and claim they have no regrets at all. Whether a boast or an actual attitude, “no regrets” suggests that life can and should be lived without looking through the rear-view mirror.
Easier said than done, though. In 2020, author Daniel H. Pink launched the World Regret Survey, the largest ever survey on the topic. With his research team, Pink asked more than 15,000 people in 105 countries, “How often do you look back on your life and wish you had done things differently?” 82% said regret is at least an occasional part of their life; roughly 21% said they feel regret “al1 the time.” Only 1% said they never feel regret.
If you are of the “no regrets” type, you might think that all this regret is a recipe for unhappiness. But that isn’t the case. True, being overwhelmed by regret is indeed bad for you. But going to the other extreme may be even worse. To rid yourself of regrets doesn’t free you from shame or sorrow; it leads you to make the same mistakes again and again. To truly get over our guilt requires that we put regret in its proper place.
As uncomfortable as it is, regret is an amazing cognitive (认知) achievement. If today your relationship with your partner has soured, your regret might mentally take you back to last year. You would remember your being mean and sensitive, and then imagine yourself showing more patience, being kind instead of hurtful at key moments. Then you would fast-forward to today and see how your relationship could be progressing instead of languishing.
But regret doesn’t have to be left unmanaged. The trick is to acknowledge it and use it for learning and improvement. You can be honest with yourself about what went wrong and use that knowledge to enjoy better relationships in the future.
5.What might be a suitable title for the text?
1. Regret to become smarter—if you let it. B. Long for a different past? Regret it!
C. Regret? Not my way! D. Stay away! Regret will heal itself.
F
(山东省济南市2022-2023学年高中三年级摸底考试) Every summer artists perform at Fringe (边缘) Festivals around the world. Fringe Festivals are a celebration of strange art. They have all kinds of performers—from dancers, musicians and actors to everything in between. The shows give artists a chance to create unusual art. For festival goers, each show is a time to experience something different.
The first Fringe Festival was held in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947. That was also the year of the first Edinburgh International Festival. Artists from around the world traveled to Scotland for the Edinburgh International Festival. They performed at arts centers throughout the city. Eight local theater companies did not receive an invitation, however. In response, they performed at smaller spaces around Edinburgh. These artists performed wherever they could, including churches and even on the street. They started their own cultural event and named it the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
6.What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?
A. Why Edinburgh became the global art center.
B. How the first Fringe Festival came into being.
C. When the Edinburgh International Festival was held.
D. Where the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was celebrated.
G
(河北省衡水中学2022-2033学年高三上学期评估试题) There may be a reason why astronauts are crazy about the view from space but never mention the food. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station must drink meals out of a plastic squeeze-bag because of zero gravity. Food in space can only be reheated instead of being cooked fresh. Besides, meals for each crew member must be stored in advance and eaten in order. All of this may sound a little difficult to accept.
Therefore, it was one small step for interstellar (星际的) cuisine when U. S. astronaut Megan McArthur recently posted photos of herself holding a pancakes gorged with beef, tomatoes and a fresh hatch chilli (红番椒) grown aboard the International Space Station itself.
“Best space pancakes yet,” she shared online.
Pesquet, a French astronaut, posted on Instagram, “It is such a joy to grow (and eat) your own food, and necessary for further exploration of our Solar System.” It seems there is a suitcase-sized space garden aboard the ISS (International Space Station) that holds about six “pillows” stuffed with clay and fertilizer, and a LED light. Astronauts have grown several kinds of vegetables including Chinese cabbage and red Russian kale (羽衣甘蓝) in this micro-plot, to test which plants might grow best during a long space voyage.
We called Melva Aguirre, who owns the Pepper Pot in Hatch, N. M., home of hatch chilli. She says the harvest of their famous local crop in outer space is the talk of the town. “Now the whole universe knows how great our chilli are,” she said. When I asked if she could recommend a hatch chilli recipe, Aguirre told me, “Just stuff it.” “Stuff it?” I asked, and she laughed and said, “I mean, in your mouth.” A recipe even I can follow.
7.What is the best title for the passage?
A. Challenges Astronauts Face in Space.
B. The Best Food Ever for Space Voyages.
C. Fine Dining on the International Space Station.
D. The Constant Steps of Human’s Space Exploration.
H
(重庆南开中学2022-2023学年高三上学期质量检测) With climate change on track to destroy the world’s coral reefs, scientists race to create a new super-coral that can survive extreme temperatures.
A type of microscopic algae called Symbiodiniaceae lives within most coral’s tissues. The two organisms have been living dependently for hundreds of millions of years in a way that resembles the relationship between humans and trees. The algae consume coral’s waste products, and coral consumes nutrients that the algae photosynthesize. Coral also provides shelter for algae. But when exposed to too much heat or light, the algae release harmful chemicals, so the coral casts them out. Left without their main energy source, the coral will starve to death. This is also bad news for the algae. But natural evolution has provided a biological feedback loop that can help the two reunite.
One of the compounds that algae release when water becomes hot, called DMs, bubbles up to the surface of the water and forms a thin layer, which shields the coral like a natural, on-demand layer of sunscreen. With this protection, the water cools down and algae can return to the coral and reestablish their partnership unless the water is too hot, in which case the coral consumes the components that make up DMs before it can form.
Climate change is becoming too intense for coral and algae to naturally adapt fast enough. Therefore, scientists are testing out different ways to accelerate that adaptation through various methods of assisted evolution. Some teams are currently conducting small field trials of selective breeding, where they identify the most heat-tolerant members of a sample of corals. Then they breed them together to create offspring that can be used to help restore coral reefs. Others are focusing their efforts on speeding up the algae’s adaptation, attempting to increase its heat tolerance in labs.
Ultimately, scientists may implement a cocktail of solutions to save coral reefs. “To create a super-coral, we could, for example, selectively breed heat-tolerant corals and combine that with enhanced algae,” says van Oppen.
8.What is the passage mainly about?
A. The role played by the algae within the coral.
B. The way to create a super-coral to save reefs.
C. Selective breeding conducted among corals.
D. Scientists’ efforts to increase algae’s heat tolerance.
I
(福建省漳州市2023届高三毕业班第一次教学质量检测) Could a sudden sharp increase in the size and variety of ancient life have been linked to dramatic changes deep inside the Earth? About 550 million years ago, in the Cambrian (寒武纪) period of prehistory so many new animals appeared that the event is referred to as the “Cambrian explosion”. Scientists have long wondered what triggered the change, after billions of years in which life was mostly extremely small. Now it seems that the formation of Earth’s inner core—a solid iron ball at the centre of Earth—was crucial.
The inner core lies about 3,000 miles below Earth’s surface and is 1,500 miles across. It is surrounded by a liquid-metal outer core and is slowly growing as the liquid metal cools. Heat from the inner core powers swirling (旋转) movements in the liquid layer, which create a strong magnetic field (磁场) around Earth—a barrier that protects life by blocking harmful particles from outer space.
The magnetism-driving inner core seems to be a recent arrival, however. In 2019 a team led by Professor John Tarduno at the University of Rochester, New York, Us, analysed chemicals in ancient rocks from Quebec Canada, which trap a record of the magnetic field at the moment they formed. The team found that 565 million years ago, Earth’s magnetism had less than 10% of its strength today. This suggests that the swirling of liquid metal, which had always produced a protective magnetic force, was growing weak.
Now, further work has shown that the field’s strength started to recover just before the Cambrian explosion—almost certainly driven by the newly formed inner core providing a fresh power source. It seems highly likely that the two events are somehow linked.
“I don’t think that the return of Earth’s magnetic field and the subsequent explosion of life on Earth can be unconnected” says Tarduno. Working out the exact nature of the connection, however, will need a lot more scientific research.
9. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?
A. The inner core’s features. B. The inner core’s structure.
C. The inner core’s motion. D. The inner core’s development.
J
(安徽省十校联盟2023届高三开学考试) A change to organic dairy farming around the nature reserves could significantly reduce damage done to the areas by nitrogen (氮) produced by solid waste from cows, according to a research.
Concentrated animal farming near Natura 2000 areas was banned in 2002. However, 800 farms still remain in the outer edge of these protected areas, some of which are particularly damaging to the environment.
Researchers looked at 34 organic farms to see how organic farming practices compared with those large-scale factory farms. They found that cows at organic farms produced 22% less nitrogen in their waste, while the amount of emissions per hectare (公顷) was 53% lower.
“The reason why organic farming is less polluting is that farms generally have fewer cows and don’t use fertilizer,” said researchers. Organic cows are also put out to grassland more often and aren’t given concentrates (精饲料) to the same degree, which also limits emissions.
While organic dairy farms would make a good protective barrier against nitrogen around the nature reserves, this doesn’t hold true for organic chicken and pig farms, the research showed.
“Despite the good it would do, not many dairy farmers are likely to make the change,” researcher Gerard Migchels said. “The organic sector is currently relatively small. Growth is only possible if there is enough market demand. That would make it possible to come to a realistic price for organic milk,” he said.
In 2019, some 40,000 cows in the Netherlands were farmed organically, accounting for just 1% of the Dutch herd of 3.8 million.
According to a government report, 46% of nitrogen compound (复合物) pollution around nature reserves is down to agriculture, to which dairy farming contributes 60%. The new law on nitrogen emissions aims to reduce pollution by 40% by 2025 and 74% by 2035.
10. What’s the author’s main purpose of writing this text?
A. To introduce the benefit of organic dairy farming.
B. To compare different types of farming practices.
C. To seek financial support for organic dairy farming.
D. To encourage people to drink more organic milk.
K
2023届大湾区普通高中毕业班联合模拟考试(二)
An artificial intelligence can decode(解码) words and sentences from brain activity with surprising accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities. researchers found in a primary study.
Developed at the parent company of Facebook, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help thousands of people around the world who are unable to communicate through speech, typing or gestures.
Most existing technologies to help such patients communicate require risky brain surgeries to put in electrodes(电极).This new approach “could provide a possible path to help patients with communication problems, avoiding the use of surgeries,” says neuroscientist Jean-Rémi King, a Meta AI researcher.
King and his colleagues trained a computational tool, also known as a language model, to detect words and sentences on56,000 hours of speech recordings from 53 languages. The team applied an AI with this language model to databases from four institutions that included brain activity from 169 volunteers. In these databases, participants listened to various stories and sentences, while the people’s brains were scanned by magnetoencephalography (MEG)(脑磁图).
Then with the help of a computational method that helps account for physical differences among actual brains, the team tried to decode what participants had heard using just three seconds of brain activity data from each person. The team instructed the Al to match up the speech sounds from the story recordings with patterns of brain activity that the AI computed as corresponding to what people were hearing. It then made predictions about what the person might have been hearing during that short time, given more than 1,000 possibilities. Using MEG, the correct answer was in the AI’s top 10 guesses, the researchers found.
“The new study is decoding of speech recognition, not production,” King agrees, “Though speech production is the final goal, for now, we’re quite a long way away.”
11. What is the best title for the text?
A. A New Way to Decode Speech
B. The Application of MEG Technology
C. A New Study on Artificial Intelligence
D. A Solution to Communication Problems
L
（江苏省前黄中学·姜堰中学·如东中学·沭阳中学2023届高三联考）
Russ Miller, 36, from Ohio, was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (类风湿性关节炎) when he was just 26, making it progressively difficult for him to do everyday tasks.
“My hands are deformed (畸形的). I can’t bend them like others. Recently my thumb has stopped working,” said Miller in a letter to a company. “I can no longer use normal computer keyboards and it’s hard for me to even hold a pen anymore.”
Russ’ condition resulted in him living on the streets in Florid for 4 years, but in 2018, he started trying to turn his life around. “I was trying to get help and get myself out of my situation. I had a phone, but I struggled to type on keyboards. So I started looking for alternative smartphone keyboards that might enable me to type again. I found the keyboard app Typewise by accident.”
Russ thinks that Typewise smartphone keyboard enables him to get his life back by allowing him to communicate with people, and therefore get help, get an apartment and even get a job. “I am able to communicate a lot better than talking, because my voice is kind of monotone (单调的) so people don’t understand me very well. And because I was able to start typing on my phone again, I was able to use social media to reach out to an organization that helps people with disabilities.” It’s the hexagonal (六边形的) layout of the keyboard that Russ finds a whole lot easier.“ I can move my fingers around and not mess up as often.”
“Now I have a part-time job where I take care of dogs and cats on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can’t work full time, because of my physical issues but at least I have something to do and something to look forward to.” Russ said.
The company making the smartphone app had been unaware that their unique keyboard design could help people with disabilities until they received Russ’ letter.
12. What would be the best title for the text?
A. A homeless man faces his trouble bravely.
B. A company tries its best to help the disabled.
C. Typewise has been popular among the disabled.
D. A homeless man rebuilds his life after finding Typewise.
M
（2023届4月高三联合测评(福建)
Richard Croft had never struggled to feed his three dogs before, but when he was forced to stop working after being diagnosed with cancer, their monthly food bill was difficult to keep up with. He is one of dozens of people who have turned to the Blue Cross pet food bank in Grimsby, set up in June to help people in the area struggling to feed their pets amid the cost of living crisis.
Stocked(提供货物)entirely by donations from the local community， there is a steady stream of people stopping by to pick up food for their dogs and cats every Tuesday and Thursday. In a two-hour period last Tuesday, the food bank helped 76 animals from 32 families.
“Week on week we’re seeing more and more people. As fast as the food is coming in, it’s literally touching the shelf and going back out again,” said Cristina Pool, who runs the service alongside her fellow veterinary(兽医)nurse，Hannah Cardey.
“A lot of people come and they actually get quite emotional,” said Cardey. “Some people feel a bit embarrassed that it’s come to the point where they can’t feed their pet. For some people their pet is like their child, so they feel quite ashamed.”
The origins of the food bank started in January, when staff at the Grimsby Blue Cross animal hospital noticed an increase in emaciated(憔悴的)animals coming in for treatment who clearly were not getting the right nutrition. “There was a particular one, a really emaciated boxer dog. So she was one of the cases that made us think, there really is a need for this,” said Pool.
After first operating out of a cupboard, the food bank is now based in a small building next to the animal hospital, and the Blue Cross is rolling out the pet food bank plan nationally.
13. What’s the main idea of Paragraph 5?
A. The cruel conditions of some pets.
B. The function of the Blue Cross pet food bank.
C. The reason for opening the Blue Cross pet food bank.
D. The present situation of the Blue Cross pet food bank.
N
（潮南区2022-2023学年度第二学期期初高三摸底考试）
National Guide Dog Month is held in September every year. It is a month-long celebration set apart to honor the work of guide dogs and raise awareness, appreciation, and support for guide dog schools across the US. Guide dogs go through demanding training from an early age. They help those with sensory issues such as blindness and provide added mobility (移动能力) and independence for those who might not have otherwise had such freedoms.
The first attempt to train guide dogs was in Paris at the “Les Quinze-Vingts” hospital for the blind. The founder of the Institute for the Education of the Blindd “Blinden-Erziehungs-Institut” in Vienna, Johann Wilhelm Klein, wrote about guide dogs in his book published in 1819. This provides evidence that dogs have been helping humans for a long period.
After the World War I, when many soldiers came back blind, the use of guide dogs peaked. The demand for this service accounted for the opening of the first school for guide dogs in Oldenburg, Germany. Dog trainer Dorothy Harrison Eustis is credited with bringing the first guide dog to America, and Eustis later established the “Seeing Eye School” in Morristown, New Jersey.
Dick Van Patten was the inspiration behind National Guide Dog Month. He admired the ability of these dogs to improve the standards of life for those living with blindness but he was also aware of the time, energy, and cost that went into training these dogs. He decided to take action and raise awareness and provide financial support for guide dog schools. Van Patten owned a pet food company that underwrote (承担) all costs for the promotion of National Guide Dog Month. The first guide dog fundraiser was in Southern Califormia with the support of the Petco Foundation.
Thanks to Van Patten’s effort, many guide dog organizations have now become beneficiaries (受益者) of these month-long events. In the month of September, a drive is held to collect funds that go towards funding non-profit guide dog organizations accredited by the International Guide Dog Federation.
14. What is the text mainly about?
A. The strict training on guide dogs.
B. The reasons for needing guide dogs.
C. The origin of National Guide Dog Month.
D. The impact of National Guide Dog Month.
阅读理解之主旨大意题
高考命题取向
主旨大意题主要是测试考生对一篇文章或一段文字的深层理解程度以及在快速中准确把握主旨大意的能力。一般针对某一语段或某一语篇的主题标题或目的设题。这类题目考查的范围是基本论点、文章标题、主题或段落大意等。要求考生在理解全文的基础上能较好地运用概括、判断、归纳、推理等逻辑思维方法，对文章进行高度概括或总结，语言一般简洁、凝练，其干扰项的设置往往比较有迷惑性，属于高层次的阅读理解题。
近3年全国高考主旨大意题题量统计
卷名 年份
2020
2021
2022
新高考I卷
0
1
1
全国卷I（乙卷）
2
2
1
全国卷II（甲卷）
2
1
3
全国卷III
3
3
2
技巧点拨
1. 标题是段落中心思想最精炼的表达形式。文章标题可以是单词、短语，也可以是句子。它的特点是：短小精悍，多为一短语；涵盖性强，一般要求能涵盖全文，其确定的范围要恰当，不能太大，也不能太小；精确性强，不能随意改变语言表意的程度及色彩。
2. 主旨大意题，要搞清楚是问某一段还是全文的大意，可利用文中主要信息来把握文脉，进行综合归纳。如有标题，标题中蕴含的信息往往是关键信息。另外，任何一篇文章都是围绕某个主题展开的，因此，许多文章中最明显的特点之一是有一个反复出现的中心词，即高频词，也叫主题词。抓住了它，便容易抓住文章的中心。
1. 高考典题例析
段落大意
例1 (2022·全国甲卷)
Sometime in the early 1960s, a significant thing happened in Sydney, Australia.The city discovered its harbor.Then, one after another, Sydney discovered lots of things that were just sort of there—broad parks, superb beaches, and a culturally diverse population.But it is the harbor that makes the city.
Andrew Reynolds, a cheerful fellow in his early 30s, pilots Sydney ferryboats for a living.I spent the whole morning shuttling back and forth across the harbor.After our third run Andrew shut down the engine, and we went our separate ways—he for a lunch break, I to explore the city.
“I'll miss these old boats,” he said as we parted.
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Oh, they're replacing them with catamarans.Catamarans are faster, but they're not so elegant, and they're not fun to pilot.But that's progress,I guess.”
Everywhere in Sydney these days, change and progress are the watchwords(口号), and traditions are increasingly rare.Shirley Fitzgerald, the city's official historian, told me that in its rush to modernity in the 1970s, Sydney swept aside much of its past, including many of its finest buildings.“Sydney is confused about itself,” she said.“We can't seem to make up our minds whether we want a modern city or a traditional one.It's a conflict that we aren't getting any better at resolving(解决).”
On the other hand, being young and old at the same time has its attractions.I considered this when I met a thoughtful young businessman named Anthony.“Many people say that we lack culture in this country,” he told me.“What people forget is that the Italians, when they came to Australia, brought 2000 years of their culture, the Greeks some 3000 years, and the Chinese more still.We've got a foundation built on ancient cultures but with a drive and dynamism of a young country.It's a pretty hard combination to beat.”
He is right, but I can't help wishing they would keep those old ferries.
32.What is the first paragraph mainly about?
A.Sydney's striking architecture.
B.The cultural diversity of Sydney.
C.The key to Sydney's development.
D.Sydney's tourist attractions in the 1960s.
32.【解析】选C。段落大意题。通读第一段可知,该段主题句是“But it is the harbor that makes the city.”据此可知,该段主要陈述了悉尼发展的关键:港口。故C项正确。
例2(2022·新高考Ⅰ卷)
Human speech contains more than 2,000 different sounds, from the common “m” and “a” to the rare clicks of some southern African languages. But why are certain sounds more common than others? A ground-breaking, five-year study shows that diet-related changes in human bite led to new speech sounds that are now found in half the world's languages.
More than 30 years ago, the scholar Charles Hockett noted that speech sounds called labiodentals, such as “f” and “v”, were more common in the languages of societies that ate softer foods. Now a team of researchers led by Damián Blasi at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, has found how and why this trend arose.
They discovered that the upper and lower front teeth of ancient human adults were aligned (对齐), making it hard to produce labiodentals, which are formed by touching the lower lip to the upper teeth. Later, our jaws changed to an overbite structure (结构), making it easier to produce such sounds.
The team showed that this change in bite was connected with the development of agriculture in the Neolithic period. Food became easier to chew at this point. The jawbone didn't have to do as much work and so didn't grow to be so large.
Analyses of a language database also confirmed that there was a global change in the sound of world languages after the Neolithic age, with the use of “f” and “v” increasing remarkably during the last few thousand years. These sounds are still not found in the languages of many hunter-gatherer people today.
This research overturns the popular view that all human speech sounds were present when human beings evolved around 300,000 years ago. “The set of speech sounds we use has not necessarily remained stable since the appearance of human beings, but rather the huge variety of speech sounds that we find today is the product of a complex interplay of things like biological change and cultural evolution,” said Steven Moran, a member of the research team.
34.What is Paragraph 5 mainly about?
A.Supporting evidence for the research results.
B.Potential application of the research findings.
C.A further explanation of the research methods.
D.A reasonable doubt about the research process.
【解析】选A。段落大意题。第五段提到,一个语言数据库的分析也证实,新石器时代之后,世界语言的发音发生了全球性的变化,在过去的几千年里,“f”和“ v ”的使用显著增加。这些音在今天许多狩猎采集者的语言中仍然找不到。由此可知,第五段是为上文提到的研究发现进一步提供证据。故选A。
标题概括
例3(2022·全国甲卷)
As Ginni Bazlinton reached Antarctica, she found herself greeted by a group of little Gentoo penguins(企鹅)longing to say hello.These gentle, lovely gatekeepers welcomed her and kick-started what was to be a trip Ginni would never forget.
Ever since her childhood, Ginni, now 71, has had a deep love for travel.Throughout her career(职业)as a professional dancer, she toured in the UK, but always longed to explore further. When she retired from dancing and her sons eventually flew the nest, she decided it was time to take the plunge.
After taking a degree at Chichester University in Related Arts, Ginni began to travel the world, eventually getting work teaching English in Japan and Chile.And it was in Chile she discovered she could get last-minute cheap deals on ships going to Antarctica from the islands off Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the South American mainland.“I just decided I wanted to go,” she says.“I had no idea about what I'd find there and I wasn't nervous, I just wanted to do it.And I wanted to do it alone as I always prefer it that way.”
In March 2008, Ginni boarded a ship with 48 passengers she'd never met before, to begin the journey towards Antarctica.“From seeing the wildlife to witnessing sunrises, the whole experience was amazing.Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has,” Ginni says.“I remember the first time I saw a humpback whale; it just rose out of the water like some prehistoric creature and I thought it was smiling at us.You could still hear the operatic sounds it was making underwater.”
The realization that this is a precious land, to be respected by humans, was one of the biggest things that hit home to Ginni.
31.What is the text mainly about?
A.A childhood dream.
B.An unforgettable experience.
C.Sailing around the world.
D.Meeting animals in Antarctica.
【解析】选B。主旨大意题。通读全文可知,文章主要讲述了Ginni Bazlinton去南极洲旅行的经历,再根据倒数第二段中Ginni Bazlinton 对南极洲之旅的评价: the whole experience was amazing.Antarctica left an impression on me that no other place has可知,去南极洲旅行让她非常难忘,故B项最能概括文章主旨。
例4 (2022·全国甲卷)
Goffin's cockatoos, a kind of small parrot native to Australasia, have been shown to have similar shape-recognition abilities to a human two-year-old.Though not known to use tools in the wild, the birds have proved skilful at tool use while kept in the cage.In a recent experiment, cockatoos were presented with a box with a nut inside it.The clear front of the box had a “keyhole” in a geometric shape, and the birds were given five differently shaped “keys” to choose from.Inserting the correct “key” would let out the nut.
In humans, babies can put a round shape in a round hole from around one year of age, but it will be another year before they are able to do the same with less symmetrical(对称的) shapes.This ability to recognize that a shape will need to be turned in a specific direction before it will fit is called an “allocentric frame of reference”.In the experiment, Goffin's cockatoos were able to select the right tool for the job, in most cases, by visual recognition alone.Where trial-and-error was used, the cockatoos did better than monkeys in similar tests.This indicates that Goffin's cockatoos do indeed possess an allocentric frame of reference when moving objects in space, similar to two-year-old babies.
The next step, according to the researchers, is to try and work out whether the cockatoos rely entirely on visual clues(线索), or also use a sense of touch in making their shape selections.
27.Which can be a suitable title for the text?
A.Cockatoos: Quick Error Checkers
B.Cockatoos: Independent Learners
C.Cockatoos: Clever Signal-Readers
D.Cockatoos: Skilful Shape-Sorters
27.【解析】选D。主旨大意题。通读全文可知,本文主要说明了凤头鹦鹉有着同人类相似的形状认知能力,能够使用工具认知物体的形状,故D项最适合作为本文标题。
模拟演练
A
(江苏省苏州市常熟市2022-2023学年高三12月阶段性抽测英语试题) A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to quickened warming of the Arctic.
Over the past four decades, warming in the Arctic has been far more definite than that in the rest of the world and has caused a rapid decrease of summer sea ice. Heating in the Arctic has ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex (旋涡). As a result, it got stretched out of shape and slid southward off the pole. Scientists believe this vortex stretching process led to the deadly Texas cold wave in February this year.
1.What is paragraph 2 mainly about?
A. The explanation given by scientists. B. The formation of Texas cold wave.
C. The decrease of summer sea ice. D. The polar vortex’s being disturbed. B
(山东省2022-2023学年高三百校联考) Alex Dunedin threw his smartphone in the rubbish bag 2 years ago. “Culturally, we have become addicted to these tools,” says this educational researcher and technology expert. “They are weakening cognition (认知) and impeding (妨碍，阻碍) productivity.” Dunedin says another reason behind his decision was environmental concerns. “We are wasting large amounts of energy and producing large amounts of CO2 emissions.”
2.What is paragraph 4 mainly about?
A. The benefits Alex Dunedin’s smartphone brought.
B. The characteristics of Alex Dunedin’s smartphone.
C. The reasons why Alex Dunedin abandoned his smartphone.
D. The ways Alex Dunedin reduced time spent on a smartphone.
C
(温州市2023届高三第一次适应性考试) The review points to disappearing and degraded habitat—resulting from climate change, urbanization, agricultural intensification, and international trade—as the leading driver of bird declines worldwide. In a note of hope, the authors cite a 2020 study indicating that restoring just 5% of habitat in priority areas around the world could avert 60% of likely extinctions.
Lead author Alexander Lees, a research associate at the Cormell Lab, also points to the need for substantial changes in human behavior to prevent further losses. “Loss and degradation of habitat is often driven by demand for resources,” says Lees. “We need to better consider how commodity flows such as beef, oil, and seed crops can contribute to biodiversity loss and try to reduce the human footprint on the natural world.”
3.What is the last paragraph mainly about?
A. Extra reasons for bird extinction. B. Possible solutions to habitat loss.
C. Substantial changes in human behavior. D. The prospect of biodiversity loss.
D
(江苏省镇江市2022-2023学年高三上学期期中调研考试) I started playing the piano when I was around four years old—that was 15 years ago!—and since then, the longest I haven’t touched piano keys was probably two months. This was an enormous amount of devotion to something that I wasn’t even planning to make money off of it—so there must have been something worth holding on to, right?
The easy guess is that I was always so purely in love with music and piano that I couldn’t bear to let them go. However, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I struggled a lot with piano. I felt pressure to improve, innovate, and be the best in order to prove something to others. The seed of my musical interest was grown with competition and doubt.
It’s difficult to learn to love something that you didn’t choose in the first place. But somehow, sometime, love grew. And by high school, it was strong enough that I found the strength to hold on tighter, dig further, and find something of my own to grow. In a way, I had to start over.
And so, I took a pause. I switched teachers, and got incredibly lucky with one who encouraged me and helped me tunnel into what I loved, not what I was told I should learn. Anything I had was good enough to be loved.
This summer, I started learning the guitar. I deliberately wanted to learn on my own—this was just for me, to form a new relationship to music. Even though my guitar skills are miles lower than my piano skills, I feel I can express myself even more wholly through strings than keys. There’s just something about doing it all for myself that has helped me heal the damages to my relationship to music.
The love and hate I’ve had for the piano were both planted and grown. If you too have learned to hate something you once loved—or something you never chose—remember that with dedication, it can be uprooted, and love can make a home in its place. There is always time. There is always room.
4.What is the best title for the text?
A. Practice makes perfect B. Love cannot be forced
C. Love is a thing that grows D. There is no end to learning
E
(湖北省2022-2023学年高三上学期期中试题) “Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention,” Frank Sinatra chanted in his 1969 hit “My Way”. The song’s idea is attractive: that anyone can just declare what’s done is done and move on. Some take the declaration a step further and claim they have no regrets at all. Whether a boast or an actual attitude, “no regrets” suggests that life can and should be lived without looking through the rear-view mirror.
Easier said than done, though. In 2020, author Daniel H. Pink launched the World Regret Survey, the largest ever survey on the topic. With his research team, Pink asked more than 15,000 people in 105 countries, “How often do you look back on your life and wish you had done things differently?” 82% said regret is at least an occasional part of their life; roughly 21% said they feel regret “al1 the time.” Only 1% said they never feel regret.
If you are of the “no regrets” type, you might think that all this regret is a recipe for unhappiness. But that isn’t the case. True, being overwhelmed by regret is indeed bad for you. But going to the other extreme may be even worse. To rid yourself of regrets doesn’t free you from shame or sorrow; it leads you to make the same mistakes again and again. To truly get over our guilt requires that we put regret in its proper place.
As uncomfortable as it is, regret is an amazing cognitive (认知) achievement. If today your relationship with your partner has soured, your regret might mentally take you back to last year. You would remember your being mean and sensitive, and then imagine yourself showing more patience, being kind instead of hurtful at key moments. Then you would fast-forward to today and see how your relationship could be progressing instead of languishing.
But regret doesn’t have to be left unmanaged. The trick is to acknowledge it and use it for learning and improvement. You can be honest with yourself about what went wrong and use that knowledge to enjoy better relationships in the future.
5.What might be a suitable title for the text?
1. Regret to become smarter—if you let it. B. Long for a different past? Regret it!
C. Regret? Not my way! D. Stay away! Regret will heal itself.
F
(山东省济南市2022-2023学年高中三年级摸底考试) Every summer artists perform at Fringe (边缘) Festivals around the world. Fringe Festivals are a celebration of strange art. They have all kinds of performers—from dancers, musicians and actors to everything in between. The shows give artists a chance to create unusual art. For festival goers, each show is a time to experience something different.
The first Fringe Festival was held in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947. That was also the year of the first Edinburgh International Festival. Artists from around the world traveled to Scotland for the Edinburgh International Festival. They performed at arts centers throughout the city. Eight local theater companies did not receive an invitation, however. In response, they performed at smaller spaces around Edinburgh. These artists performed wherever they could, including churches and even on the street. They started their own cultural event and named it the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
6.What does Paragraph 2 mainly talk about?
A. Why Edinburgh became the global art center.
B. How the first Fringe Festival came into being.
C. When the Edinburgh International Festival was held.
D. Where the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was celebrated.
G
(河北省衡水中学2022-2033学年高三上学期评估试题) There may be a reason why astronauts are crazy about the view from space but never mention the food. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station must drink meals out of a plastic squeeze-bag because of zero gravity. Food in space can only be reheated instead of being cooked fresh. Besides, meals for each crew member must be stored in advance and eaten in order. All of this may sound a little difficult to accept.
Therefore, it was one small step for interstellar (星际的) cuisine when U. S. astronaut Megan McArthur recently posted photos of herself holding a pancakes gorged with beef, tomatoes and a fresh hatch chilli (红番椒) grown aboard the International Space Station itself.
“Best space pancakes yet,” she shared online.
Pesquet, a French astronaut, posted on Instagram, “It is such a joy to grow (and eat) your own food, and necessary for further exploration of our Solar System.” It seems there is a suitcase-sized space garden aboard the ISS (International Space Station) that holds about six “pillows” stuffed with clay and fertilizer, and a LED light. Astronauts have grown several kinds of vegetables including Chinese cabbage and red Russian kale (羽衣甘蓝) in this micro-plot, to test which plants might grow best during a long space voyage.
We called Melva Aguirre, who owns the Pepper Pot in Hatch, N. M., home of hatch chilli. She says the harvest of their famous local crop in outer space is the talk of the town. “Now the whole universe knows how great our chilli are,” she said. When I asked if she could recommend a hatch chilli recipe, Aguirre told me, “Just stuff it.” “Stuff it?” I asked, and she laughed and said, “I mean, in your mouth.” A recipe even I can follow.
7.What is the best title for the passage?
A. Challenges Astronauts Face in Space.
B. The Best Food Ever for Space Voyages.
C. Fine Dining on the International Space Station.
D. The Constant Steps of Human’s Space Exploration.
H
(重庆南开中学2022-2023学年高三上学期质量检测) With climate change on track to destroy the world’s coral reefs, scientists race to create a new super-coral that can survive extreme temperatures.
A type of microscopic algae called Symbiodiniaceae lives within most coral’s tissues. The two organisms have been living dependently for hundreds of millions of years in a way that resembles the relationship between humans and trees. The algae consume coral’s waste products, and coral consumes nutrients that the algae photosynthesize. Coral also provides shelter for algae. But when exposed to too much heat or light, the algae release harmful chemicals, so the coral casts them out. Left without their main energy source, the coral will starve to death. This is also bad news for the algae. But natural evolution has provided a biological feedback loop that can help the two reunite.
One of the compounds that algae release when water becomes hot, called DMs, bubbles up to the surface of the water and forms a thin layer, which shields the coral like a natural, on-demand layer of sunscreen. With this protection, the water cools down and algae can return to the coral and reestablish their partnership unless the water is too hot, in which case the coral consumes the components that make up DMs before it can form.
Climate change is becoming too intense for coral and algae to naturally adapt fast enough. Therefore, scientists are testing out different ways to accelerate that adaptation through various methods of assisted evolution. Some teams are currently conducting small field trials of selective breeding, where they identify the most heat-tolerant members of a sample of corals. Then they breed them together to create offspring that can be used to help restore coral reefs. Others are focusing their efforts on speeding up the algae’s adaptation, attempting to increase its heat tolerance in labs.
Ultimately, scientists may implement a cocktail of solutions to save coral reefs. “To create a super-coral, we could, for example, selectively breed heat-tolerant corals and combine that with enhanced algae,” says van Oppen.
8.What is the passage mainly about?
A. The role played by the algae within the coral.
B. The way to create a super-coral to save reefs.
C. Selective breeding conducted among corals.
D. Scientists’ efforts to increase algae’s heat tolerance.
I
(福建省漳州市2023届高三毕业班第一次教学质量检测) Could a sudden sharp increase in the size and variety of ancient life have been linked to dramatic changes deep inside the Earth? About 550 million years ago, in the Cambrian (寒武纪) period of prehistory so many new animals appeared that the event is referred to as the “Cambrian explosion”. Scientists have long wondered what triggered the change, after billions of years in which life was mostly extremely small. Now it seems that the formation of Earth’s inner core—a solid iron ball at the centre of Earth—was crucial.
The inner core lies about 3,000 miles below Earth’s surface and is 1,500 miles across. It is surrounded by a liquid-metal outer core and is slowly growing as the liquid metal cools. Heat from the inner core powers swirling (旋转) movements in the liquid layer, which create a strong magnetic field (磁场) around Earth—a barrier that protects life by blocking harmful particles from outer space.
The magnetism-driving inner core seems to be a recent arrival, however. In 2019 a team led by Professor John Tarduno at the University of Rochester, New York, Us, analysed chemicals in ancient rocks from Quebec Canada, which trap a record of the magnetic field at the moment they formed. The team found that 565 million years ago, Earth’s magnetism had less than 10% of its strength today. This suggests that the swirling of liquid metal, which had always produced a protective magnetic force, was growing weak.
Now, further work has shown that the field’s strength started to recover just before the Cambrian explosion—almost certainly driven by the newly formed inner core providing a fresh power source. It seems highly likely that the two events are somehow linked.
“I don’t think that the return of Earth’s magnetic field and the subsequent explosion of life on Earth can be unconnected” says Tarduno. Working out the exact nature of the connection, however, will need a lot more scientific research.
9. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?
A. The inner core’s features. B. The inner core’s structure.
C. The inner core’s motion. D. The inner core’s development.
J
(安徽省十校联盟2023届高三开学考试) A change to organic dairy farming around the nature reserves could significantly reduce damage done to the areas by nitrogen (氮) produced by solid waste from cows, according to a research.
Concentrated animal farming near Natura 2000 areas was banned in 2002. However, 800 farms still remain in the outer edge of these protected areas, some of which are particularly damaging to the environment.
Researchers looked at 34 organic farms to see how organic farming practices compared with those large-scale factory farms. They found that cows at organic farms produced 22% less nitrogen in their waste, while the amount of emissions per hectare (公顷) was 53% lower.
“The reason why organic farming is less polluting is that farms generally have fewer cows and don’t use fertilizer,” said researchers. Organic cows are also put out to grassland more often and aren’t given concentrates (精饲料) to the same degree, which also limits emissions.
While organic dairy farms would make a good protective barrier against nitrogen around the nature reserves, this doesn’t hold true for organic chicken and pig farms, the research showed.
“Despite the good it would do, not many dairy farmers are likely to make the change,” researcher Gerard Migchels said. “The organic sector is currently relatively small. Growth is only possible if there is enough market demand. That would make it possible to come to a realistic price for organic milk,” he said.
In 2019, some 40,000 cows in the Netherlands were farmed organically, accounting for just 1% of the Dutch herd of 3.8 million.
According to a government report, 46% of nitrogen compound (复合物) pollution around nature reserves is down to agriculture, to which dairy farming contributes 60%. The new law on nitrogen emissions aims to reduce pollution by 40% by 2025 and 74% by 2035.
10. What’s the author’s main purpose of writing this text?
A. To introduce the benefit of organic dairy farming.
B. To compare different types of farming practices.
C. To seek financial support for organic dairy farming.
D. To encourage people to drink more organic milk.
K
2023届大湾区普通高中毕业班联合模拟考试(二)
An artificial intelligence can decode(解码) words and sentences from brain activity with surprising accuracy. Using only a few seconds of brain activity data, the AI guesses what a person has heard. It lists the correct answer in its top 10 possibilities. researchers found in a primary study.
Developed at the parent company of Facebook, Meta, the AI could eventually be used to help thousands of people around the world who are unable to communicate through speech, typing or gestures.
Most existing technologies to help such patients communicate require risky brain surgeries to put in electrodes(电极).This new approach “could provide a possible path to help patients with communication problems, avoiding the use of surgeries,” says neuroscientist Jean-Rémi King, a Meta AI researcher.
King and his colleagues trained a computational tool, also known as a language model, to detect words and sentences on56,000 hours of speech recordings from 53 languages. The team applied an AI with this language model to databases from four institutions that included brain activity from 169 volunteers. In these databases, participants listened to various stories and sentences, while the people’s brains were scanned by magnetoencephalography (MEG)(脑磁图).
Then with the help of a computational method that helps account for physical differences among actual brains, the team tried to decode what participants had heard using just three seconds of brain activity data from each person. The team instructed the Al to match up the speech sounds from the story recordings with patterns of brain activity that the AI computed as corresponding to what people were hearing. It then made predictions about what the person might have been hearing during that short time, given more than 1,000 possibilities. Using MEG, the correct answer was in the AI’s top 10 guesses, the researchers found.
“The new study is decoding of speech recognition, not production,” King agrees, “Though speech production is the final goal, for now, we’re quite a long way away.”
11. What is the best title for the text?
A. A New Way to Decode Speech
B. The Application of MEG Technology
C. A New Study on Artificial Intelligence
D. A Solution to Communication Problems
L
（江苏省前黄中学·姜堰中学·如东中学·沭阳中学2023届高三联考）
Russ Miller, 36, from Ohio, was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (类风湿性关节炎) when he was just 26, making it progressively difficult for him to do everyday tasks.
“My hands are deformed (畸形的). I can’t bend them like others. Recently my thumb has stopped working,” said Miller in a letter to a company. “I can no longer use normal computer keyboards and it’s hard for me to even hold a pen anymore.”
Russ’ condition resulted in him living on the streets in Florid for 4 years, but in 2018, he started trying to turn his life around. “I was trying to get help and get myself out of my situation. I had a phone, but I struggled to type on keyboards. So I started looking for alternative smartphone keyboards that might enable me to type again. I found the keyboard app Typewise by accident.”
Russ thinks that Typewise smartphone keyboard enables him to get his life back by allowing him to communicate with people, and therefore get help, get an apartment and even get a job. “I am able to communicate a lot better than talking, because my voice is kind of monotone (单调的) so people don’t understand me very well. And because I was able to start typing on my phone again, I was able to use social media to reach out to an organization that helps people with disabilities.” It’s the hexagonal (六边形的) layout of the keyboard that Russ finds a whole lot easier.“ I can move my fingers around and not mess up as often.”
“Now I have a part-time job where I take care of dogs and cats on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I can’t work full time, because of my physical issues but at least I have something to do and something to look forward to.” Russ said.
The company making the smartphone app had been unaware that their unique keyboard design could help people with disabilities until they received Russ’ letter.
12. What would be the best title for the text?
A. A homeless man faces his trouble bravely.
B. A company tries its best to help the disabled.
C. Typewise has been popular among the disabled.
D. A homeless man rebuilds his life after finding Typewise.
M
（2023届4月高三联合测评(福建)
Richard Croft had never struggled to feed his three dogs before, but when he was forced to stop working after being diagnosed with cancer, their monthly food bill was difficult to keep up with. He is one of dozens of people who have turned to the Blue Cross pet food bank in Grimsby, set up in June to help people in the area struggling to feed their pets amid the cost of living crisis.
Stocked(提供货物)entirely by donations from the local community， there is a steady stream of people stopping by to pick up food for their dogs and cats every Tuesday and Thursday. In a two-hour period last Tuesday, the food bank helped 76 animals from 32 families.
“Week on week we’re seeing more and more people. As fast as the food is coming in, it’s literally touching the shelf and going back out again,” said Cristina Pool, who runs the service alongside her fellow veterinary(兽医)nurse，Hannah Cardey.
“A lot of people come and they actually get quite emotional,” said Cardey. “Some people feel a bit embarrassed that it’s come to the point where they can’t feed their pet. For some people their pet is like their child, so they feel quite ashamed.”
The origins of the food bank started in January, when staff at the Grimsby Blue Cross animal hospital noticed an increase in emaciated(憔悴的)animals coming in for treatment who clearly were not getting the right nutrition. “There was a particular one, a really emaciated boxer dog. So she was one of the cases that made us think, there really is a need for this,” said Pool.
After first operating out of a cupboard, the food bank is now based in a small building next to the animal hospital, and the Blue Cross is rolling out the pet food bank plan nationally.
13. What’s the main idea of Paragraph 5?
A. The cruel conditions of some pets.
B. The function of the Blue Cross pet food bank.
C. The reason for opening the Blue Cross pet food bank.
D. The present situation of the Blue Cross pet food bank.
N
（潮南区2022-2023学年度第二学期期初高三摸底考试）
National Guide Dog Month is held in September every year. It is a month-long celebration set apart to honor the work of guide dogs and raise awareness, appreciation, and support for guide dog schools across the US. Guide dogs go through demanding training from an early age. They help those with sensory issues such as blindness and provide added mobility (移动能力) and independence for those who might not have otherwise had such freedoms.
The first attempt to train guide dogs was in Paris at the “Les Quinze-Vingts” hospital for the blind. The founder of the Institute for the Education of the Blindd “Blinden-Erziehungs-Institut” in Vienna, Johann Wilhelm Klein, wrote about guide dogs in his book published in 1819. This provides evidence that dogs have been helping humans for a long period.
After the World War I, when many soldiers came back blind, the use of guide dogs peaked. The demand for this service accounted for the opening of the first school for guide dogs in Oldenburg, Germany. Dog trainer Dorothy Harrison Eustis is credited with bringing the first guide dog to America, and Eustis later established the “Seeing Eye School” in Morristown, New Jersey.
Dick Van Patten was the inspiration behind National Guide Dog Month. He admired the ability of these dogs to improve the standards of life for those living with blindness but he was also aware of the time, energy, and cost that went into training these dogs. He decided to take action and raise awareness and provide financial support for guide dog schools. Van Patten owned a pet food company that underwrote (承担) all costs for the promotion of National Guide Dog Month. The first guide dog fundraiser was in Southern Califormia with the support of the Petco Foundation.
Thanks to Van Patten’s effort, many guide dog organizations have now become beneficiaries (受益者) of these month-long events. In the month of September, a drive is held to collect funds that go towards funding non-profit guide dog organizations accredited by the International Guide Dog Federation.
14. What is the text mainly about?
A. The strict training on guide dogs.
B. The reasons for needing guide dogs.
C. The origin of National Guide Dog Month.
D. The impact of National Guide Dog Month.
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