Unit 20 New Frontiers能力提升题组训练(B).阅读理解A(2018东北三校一模)CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW HARD IT WOULD BE TO READ SENTENCES LIKE THIS? Every one of us gets so used to punctuation marks that not many of us give them a second thought.Actually,the ancient Greeks wrote this way.The lack of punctuation marks probably didnt bother good readers,though.As they read,they just put pauses where they fit best.Also at this time,sentences switched directions.A sentence read from left to right.The next one read right to left,and then left to right again,etc.The ancient Romans sometimes punctuated like this: Theyputsomethingthatcanseparatewordsinasentence.The word punctuation actually comes from this idea and the Latin word puncture,which means a dot.When the 5th century arrived,there were just two punctuation marks: spaces and points.The spaces separated words while the points showed pauses in reading.Then in the 13th century,a printer named Aldus Manutius tried to standardize punctuation.He always used a period for a complete stop at the end of a sentence.He used a slash (/) to indicate a short pause.Over time,that slash was shortened and curled,and it became the modern comma (逗号).Since that time,other marks have enlarged the punctuation family.The exclamation mark(感叹号) comes from the Latin word io.It means “exclamation of joy”.The question mark originally started out as the Latin word questio,meaning question.Eventually,scholars put it at the end of a sentence to show a question.Punctuation even keeps changing nowadays.New marks are coming into existence,and old punctuation marks are used in new ways.Take for example the “interrobang”.This 1962 invention combines the question mark and exclamation mark for times when writers want both.For example,“She did what!?”or“How much did you pay for that dress!?”Obviously,the interrobang is not widely used or recognized yet,but its invention shows that English is not yet finished with its punctuation.1.From the first paragraph,we can know that .A.good readers had trouble reading without punctuation marksB.a sentence always read from left to right in ancient GreeceC.the ancient Greeks switched the direction of punctuation marksD.the use of punctuation marks can date back to ancient times2.The passage is developed by .A.time B.spaceC.comparisonD.importance3.We can learn from the passage that .A.ancient Romans didnt use any punctuation marksB.exclamation and question marks came from LatinC.spaces and slashes were already used before the 5th centuryD.Aldus Manutius first started to use commas4.What can be concluded from the last paragraph?A.The combination of two marks will not work.B.It takes time for people to accept new punctuation marks.C.Old punctuation marks need to be standardized.D.Punctuation marks are still changing today.语篇解读:本文主要介绍了英文中标点符号的起源和发展。答案及剖析:1.D推理判断题。根据第一段最后两句“The ancient Romans sometimes.which means a dot.”可推知,标点符号的使用可以追溯到古代。故答案选D。2.A篇章结构题。第二、三、四段开头第一句都与时间有关,由此可推知本文是按照时间顺序来写的。故答案选A。3.B细节理解题。根据第三段第二、四句可知,感叹号和问号都起源于拉丁语。故答案选B。4.D细节理解题。根据最后一段第一句“Punctuation even keeps changing nowadays.”和最后一句中的“but its invention shows that English is not yet finished with its punctuation”可知,英语中的标点符号至今还在继续变化。故答案选D。B(2018辽宁部分重点高中联考)Chilean astronomer Maritza Soto has discovered a planet three times as large as Jupiter orbiting a red giant star larger than the Sun and the planet is located some 290 million light years from the Earth.Soto,a 25-year-old Ph.D.student in sciences at the University of Chile,worked for eight months using two telescopes at the La Silla Observatory,about 370 miles north of Santiago.Last November,she discovered the planet now bearing the designation HD 110,014c and her work has now been published in a journal of the London Royal Astronomical Society.The discovery of planets orbiting red giant stars is “rare”,with only five such planets located around stars of that magnitude to date,she told EFE.HD 110,014c orbits its star at a distance about six-tenths the distance from the Sun to the Earthor about the distance between Venus and the Sun.“Its like imagining a planet three times bigger than Jupiter with the orbit of Venus around the Sun,” she said,adding that the red giant star is about twice the size of the Earths Sun.Another planet had already been discovered orbiting the star,and now Sotos work has added a second planet to that solar system.To find the planet,she used the so-called radial velocity(径向速度) method,which consists of measuring the slight jiggling(晃动) movement of a star as a planet orbits around it,given that the planets themselves send only a very weak signal and are quite difficult to detect on their own.“The planets are very weak compared to the stars and you have to use indirect methods to detect them.I analyzed the data that had been gathered over years to confirm the first planet and I discovered the second one orbiting the star,”she said.5.What