高考英语二轮阅读理解基础训练题（4）
2014高考英语阅读理解基础二轮训练题（4）及答案
【2014高考英语湖北省汉阳市联考试题】E.
If you live in America in the 21st century you'll probably have to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It's become the default respon when you ask anyone how they are doing: “Busy!”“Crazy busy!”. It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguid as a complaint. And the common respon is a kind of congratulation:“ That's a good problem to have, ”or“ Better than the opposite.”
Notice it isn't generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the ICU or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are. What tho people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted! Dead on their feet. It's almost always people who busyness is purely lf-impod work and obligations they've taken on voluntarily, class and activities they've “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They're busy becau of their own ambition
or drive or anxiety, becau they're addicted to busyness and dread that they might have to face in its abnce.
Almost everyone I know is busy. They feel anxious and guilty when they aren't either working or doing something to promote their work. It's something they have chon. Busyness rves as a kind of existential reassurance(令人安心的保证），a measure against emptiness, obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or tiny or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.
Idleness is not just a vacation. It is as necessary to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as ugly as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and eing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration.” Idle dreaming is often the esnce of what we do”, wrote Thomas Pynchon. Archimedes' “Eureka” in the bath, Newton's apple :history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments.
67. When many Am ericans say “Crazy busy”, they mean______.
A. they are really tired of their prent situation
B. they are really proud of their prent life
C. they are complaining about their current work
D. their life are full of all kinds of problems
68. The writer menti ons Archimedes'“Eureka” and Newton's apple to show
that________.
A. history is full of interesting stories
B. Archimedes and Newton were very busy, so they made great discoveries
C. people may get inspiration when they are idle
D. inspirations come from hard work
69.The word “its” in the cond paragraph refers to_________________.
A. ambition
B. anxiety
C. busyness
D. dread
70.From the article, we can infer that ___________________.
A.generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the ICU tell you
they are busy
B.“Dead on their feet” means “being tired out”
C.all the kids are lf-impod due to the drive and motivation
D.The author ems to agree that idleness is better than busyness
【参考答案】67—70、ＢＣＣＢ
Passage Thirty-two (The Young Generation)
Old people are always saying that the young are not what they were. The same comment is made from generation to generation and it is always true. It has never been truer than it is today. The young are better educated. They have a lot more money to spend and enjoy more freedom. They grow up more quickly and are not so dependent on their parents. They think more for themlves and do not blindly accept the ideals of their elders. Events which the older generation remembers vividly are nothing more than past history. This is as it should be. Every new generation is different from the one that preceded it. Today the difference is very marked indeed.
The old always assume that they know best for the simple reason that they have been around a bit longer. They don’t like to feel that their values are being
questioned or threatened. And this is precily what the young are doing. They are questi
on the assumptions of their elders and disturbing their complacency. Office hours, for instance, are nothing more than enforced slavery. Wouldn’t people work best if they were given complete freedom and responsibility? And what about clothing? Who said that all the men in the world should wear drab grey suits and convict haircuts? If we ruin our minds to more rious matters, who said that human differences can best be solved through conventional politics or by violent means, who said that human difference can best be solved through conventional politics or by violent means? Why have the older generation so often ud violence to solve their problems? Why are they so unhappy and guilt-ridden in their personal lives, so obsd with mean ambitions and the desire to amass more and more material posssions? Can anything be right with the rat-race? Haven’t the old lost touch with all that is important in life?
