专题12 科普新知-2024年中考英语热点时文阅读专项训练

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2024年中考英语热点时文阅读

专题12 科普新知

姓名：_________ 班级：_________ 学号：_________

01

Whether yellow, red or white, the onion is a vegetable that you may not know well. The list of uses in cooking for it is endless. People have used onions to add flavor (味道) to their foods for thousands of years. Besides onions’ great taste, they are very good for you. They have special chemicals (化学物质) that improve your ability to fight off sickness and you have fewer chances of getting a disease.

No matter how good onions are for you, it is difficult to cut an onion without your eyes filling with tears! When you cut into an onion, irritating chemicals inside the onion will get into the air. They touch your whole eves and cause pain. Your eyes make tears to wash away the chemicals and protect your eyes.

Luckily, cooks and scientists have discovered some ways to keep you from crying when you cut up onions:

Cut the onion under running water. The water will wash away the chemicals before they can reach your eyes.

Use a fan to blow air over the onion as you cut it. The air will blow the chemicals away from your eyes.

Put the onion in a fridge for an hour before cutting. This helps make the chemicals in the onion move slowly, so they may not ever reach your eyes.

If you try out these good ideas and still cry while cutting onions, don’t worry. Scientists think if you cut more onions, your body will become more resilient to the onion’s chemicals. So the tears will not last long. If you think about how healthy onions are, you might even call those tears “happy tears”.

1．Why can onions help you fight off sickness?

A．Because they have different colors.

B．Because they have many uses in cooking.

C．Because they have great taste.

D．Because they have special chemicals.

2．Why do your eyes make tears when you cut onions?

A．To improve physical condition.

B．To prevent common diseases.

C．To wash away irritating chemicals.

D．To cause terrible pain.

3．What can you do to stop crying according to the text?

① Cut the onion under running water.

② Use a fan to blow air over the onion while cutting.

③ Cover the onion with a piece of cloth as you cut it.

④ Put the onion in a fridge for an hour before cutting.

A．①②③             B．①②④                  C．①③④                   D．②③④

4．In which section of a magazine can you probably read the text?

A．Life and Health.

B．Language and Culture.

C．Business World.

D．National News.

02

It’s said that China uses 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year. Here’s some information about chopstick’s history.

Chopsticks have a long history of more than 3,000 years in China. The recorded history of chopsticks is as early as the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC). According to an article about Chinese history, the emperor of the Shang Dynasty (商朝) used chopsticks made of ivory.

Legends (传说) about how chopsticks were invented

▲ One is about Jiang Ziya. He was told by a bird to use bamboo sticks to pick up meat. When smoke came from bamboo sticks, he found out that his wife wanted to use poisonous (有毒的) food to kill him.

▲ Another is about Da Ji. She used to please Emperor Zhou by picking up hot meat with hair sticks.

▲ The third one is about Da Yu. He invented wooden chopsticks to pick up hot food to save time over the meal while preparing for flood control work (控制洪水).

Materials of chopsticks

Bamboo has been the most popular material used for chopsticks because it is not expensive, easy-to-get, resistant (有抵抗力的) to heat, and has no terrible odor or taste.

Wood: Cedar, sandal wood, teak and pine have also been used.

Jade (玉、翡翠) and metal: In the past, the wealthy people had chopsticks made of jade. People also used some metals such as gold and silver to make chopsticks.

Porcelain (瓷器) and plastic: These two materials are used in modern times because of the development of technology.

5．How many legends are mentioned (被提到) in the passage?

A．Three.               B．Four.                     C．Five.                      D．Six.

6．Who wanted to kill Jiang Ziya according to the passage ?

A．Da Ji.               B．Da Yu.                   C．The emperor.          D．His wife.

7．What does the underlined word “odor” probably mean in Chinese ?

A．硬度                 B．触觉                      C．气味                      D．视觉

8．Which of the following is NOT the reason why bamboo is used to make chopsticks?

A．Bamboo is resistant to heat.

B．Bamboo grows fast everywhere.

C．Bamboo is not expensive to get.

D．Bamboo doesn’t taste terrible.

9．What’s the purpose of the passage?

A．To tell us some legends of using chopsticks.

B．To explain why chopsticks are popular.

C．To tell us how to use chopsticks to eat meals.

D．To tell us some information about chopsticks.

03

We all know the strange feeling of watching the time change on a clock. You never see it change because the hands move so slowly. But of course, the time is changing all the time.

Human faces, like clock faces, are also changing. And like clocks, the changes take place too slowly to be noticed. Over many thousands of years, though, huge changes are possible. For example, the human brain tripled (三倍) in size and began to think more. Our faces became flatter (平坦的).

If our heads became larger in the past, how will things change in the future? Unlike the changes of a clock face, the changes in human faces are very difficult to predict (预测). One of the main reasons for this is the way in which we can now control parts of nature. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, all changes were natural, but now we can actively choose ways for our own evolution (进化).

Just a few hundred years ago, most humans were working in the fields, whereas nowadays more and more people receive education. These are just predictions, and no one can be sure how human beings will become in the future. But with such huge changes in our environment, it seems likely that we will look very different in the future.

10．The changes of human are hardly noticed because ________.

A．human faces never change

B．the human brain becomes bigger

C．the changes take place too slowly

D．we never think about the changes

11．The third paragraph tells us ________.

A．human faces can’t be controlled by us

B．human faces used to be changed by nature

C．it is easy to predict the changes in human changes

D．human can’t change the size of the brain in the future

12．From the last paragraph, we can learn that ________.

A．the predictions will surely be true

B．people in the past liked to be educated

C．future humans must have larger heads

D．humans will not look the same as today

04

In the story Snow White, the jealous queen decides to get rid of Snow White once and for all with an apple dipped in deadly poison (毒药). Thanks to some helpful dwarfs and a handsome prince, Snow White recovers (恢复). But the queen didn’t need to go to all that trouble. In fact, apples, along with many common fruits we eat are already poisonous! But don’t worry—it won’t harm you. It’s only the seeds you need to avoid.

Apple trees belong to a plant family called Prunus (蔷薇科树). This group also includes peaches, cherries and so on. The seeds and pits (果核) of all these fruits contain a chemical called amygdalin (苦杏仁苷). Inside an animal’s stomach, amygdalin turns into a strong poison called cyanide (氰化物). And cyanide can make people and animals very sick, or even kill them.

Still, don’t worry if you accidentally swallow a few apple seeds. Each seed has only a very tiny amount of poison. You’d have to eat a large bowlful of seeds to feel any effect. And you’d need to chew them well—the hard, shiny shells of apple seeds keep the poison locked inside. Unchewed seeds usually pass right through and come out whole in your poop (粪便). But cows and other animals often chew up seeds along with the fruit, so they can get sick from eating apples and plums that fall to the ground.

Why would a tree make poisoned seeds? To stop animals from nibbling on them! Amygdalin tastes terrible. It’s also found in leaves and other parts of fruit trees. If a deer or cow chews on apple leaves, it gets a nasty taste and an upset stomach. Animals soon learn to leave those trees alone. Thanks, amygdalin!

13．Why does the writer mention the story of Snow White in the first paragraph?

A．To amuse the readers.

B．To provide an example.

C．To express an opinion.

D．To lead in to the topic.

14．According to the passage, amygdalin is contained in ______.

A．A                    B．B                           C．C                           D．D

15．What does the underlined word “nibble” mean in paragraph four?

A．pollute             B．touch                     C．break                     D．eat

16．According to the passage, which of the following is NOT TRUE?

A．A tree makes poisoned seeds to protect itself.

B．There’s tiny amount of poison in each apple seed.

C．It’s not harmful for animals to chew up seeds with fruit.

D．It’s just OK to swallow several seeds without chewing up.

05

How do people think differently? This has always been unusual. To search an answer, a scientist named J. P. Guilford started a famous study of creativity in the 1970s, known as the nine-dot puzzle (九点谜题). He asked the participants (参与者) to connect all nine dots using only four straight lines, without lifting their pencils from the page. All the participants looked for solutions within the square they imagined. Only 20 percent managed to break out of the square and continue their lines in the white space around the dots, while the rest of them were blinded by the boundaries (边界) of the square.

The results of Guilford’s study led him to a conclusion: creativity needs you to go outside the box. The idea was widely spread soon. Overnight, it seemed that creativity experts everywhere were teaching managers how to think outside the box. The idea was so popular that no one thought of checking the facts. No one, that is, before two different research teams— Clarke Burmham with Kenneth Davis, and Joseph Alba with Robert Weisberg—did another experiment.

To make sure that Guilford’s study is correct, both teams divided participants into two groups. The first group was given the same instructions as the participants in Guilford’s experiment. The second group was told to draw the lines outside the imagined box. Guess what? Only a little more than 20 percent solved the puzzle, which is no big difference from the result of Guilford’s experiment.

Let’s look a little more closely at the surprising result. Solving this problem requires people to think outside the box. However, direct and clear instructions to “think outside the box” do not help participants improve their performance. The widely spread idea that out-of-the-box thinking makes people more creative can, in some way, be dangerous. After all, with one simple but brilliant experiment, researchers had proved that the connection between thinking outside the box and creativity was a misunderstanding.

17．The nine-dot puzzle study is mainly focused on ________.

A．how people do things in real life

B．what people see in the experiment

C．how people think in different ways

D．what knowledge people have learned

18．Why did the two research teams do the following experiment?

A．To discover the main idea of Guiford’s study.

B．To show different views against Guiford’s study.

C．To collect supporting details for Guiford’s study.

D．To double-check the correctness of Guiford’s study.

19．From the passage, we can learn that _________.

A．boundaries sometimes make people think less creatively

B．clear instructions influence how people solve problems

C．few people performed better with the clear instructions

D．the methods of nine-dot puzzle study need to be improved

20．Which is the best title for the passage?

A．Puzzle Solving: A Key To Creativity

B．Nine-Dot Puzzle: A Magic Test

C．Thinking Outside the Box: A Misleading Idea

D．Creative Thinking: An Unusual Topic

06

①Most people agree that honesty is a good thing. But does Mother Nature agree? Animals can’t talk, but can they lie in other ways? Can they lie with their bodies and behavior? Animal experts may not call it lying, but they do agree that many animals, from birds to chimpanzees, behave dishonestly to fool other animals. Why? Dishonesty often helps them survive.

②Many kinds of birds are very successful at fooling other animals. For example, a bird called the plover sometimes pretends to be hurt in order to protect its young. When a predator gets close to its nest, the plover leads the predator away from the nest. How? It pretends to have a broken wing. The predator follows the “hurt” adult, leaving the baby birds safe in the nest.

③Another kind of bird, the scrub jay, buries its food so it always has something to eat. Scrub jays are also thieves. They watch where others bury their food and steal it. But clever scrub jays seem to know when a thief is watching them. So they go back later, unbury the food, and bury it again somewhere else.

④Birds called cuckoos have found a way to have babies without doing much work. How? They don’t make nests. But they get into other birds’ nests secretly. Then they lay their eggs and fly away. When the baby birds come out, their adoptive parents feed them.

⑤Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky. After a fight, the losing chimp will give its hand to the other. When the winning chimp puts out its hand, too, the chimps are friendly again. But an animal expert once saw a losing chimp take the winner’s hand and start fighting again.

⑥Chimps are sneaky in other ways, too. When chimps find food that they love, such as bananas, it is natural for them to cry out. Then other chimps come running. But some clever chimps learn to cry very softly when they find food. That way, other chimps don’t hear them, and they don’t need to share their food.

⑦As children, many of us learn the saying “You can’t fool Mother Nature.” But maybe you can’t trust her, either.

21．A plover protects its young from a predator by ________.

A．getting closer to its young

B．driving away the adult predator

C．leaving its young in another nest

D．pretending to have a wound

22．By “Chimpanzees, or chimps, can also be sneaky” (Paragraph⑤), the author means ________.

A．chimps are always honest

B．chimps are sometimes dishonest

C．chimps are ready to fight others

D．chimps can be selfish

23．Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?

A．Cuckoos fool their adoptive parents by making no nests.

B．The losing chimp won the fight by taking the winner’s hand.

C．Some clever scrub jays often steal their food back.

D．Some chimps lower their cry to keep food away from others.

24．Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．How does honesty help animals survive?

B．Do animals lie?

C．Does Mother Nature fool animals?

D．How do animals learn to lie?

07

These days, wearing a face mask (口罩) is a common thing to do, and it helps prevent diseases during COVID-19. However, that also means single-use face masks, gloves, and other PPE are the newest forms of rubbish on city streets, beaches, and in the ocean.

This is bad for all, and there are many reasons. And one of the worst ones is that the littered face masks can seriously hurt animals. Ashley Fruno, a member of an animal rights group said, “Face masks aren’t going away soon.” So when we throw them away, they can be bad for the environment and the animals that live on the same planet as us.

Monkeys have been found biting the straps (带子) of used masks in the hills outside Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur. This may make them lose their breath or even die. In Britain, a seabird’s legs have been found tangled (缠住) in the straps of a mask for up to a week. It was a painful experience for the seabird.

It’s hard to believe that face masks that once saved people’s lives are now killing wild animals. A large number of face masks are moving to the living places of animals. If you wear a single-use face mask, make sure of throwing it away properly. Never litter it on the ground, or throw it away outside, as the wind could blow it away.

Please don’t let the masks become a night-mare for wildlife. Thank you for doing your part to keep all animals safe!

25．Which of the following belongs to the newest forms of rubbish according to the passage?

①single-use face masks ②single-use gloves ③single-use plastics ④single-use cups

A．①③                B．①④                      C．②③                      D．①②

26．What does the underlined sentence mean?

A．People will stop wearing face masks in recent years.

B．Face masks can be blown to a far place in a short time.

C．Face masks can be made into other things soon.

D．It takes a long time for face masks to disappear.

27．How does the writer show the harm of littered face masks on animals?

A．By giving reasons.

B．By listing numbers.

C．By giving examples.

D．By asking questions.

28．What can we infer (推断) from the passage?

A．Animals like to play with masks.

B．Face masks are only bad for animals.

C．Face masks can be buried under the ground.

D．Whether face masks are good or not depends on how people deal with them.

29．Where can we most probably read this passage?

A．In a storybook.

B．In a travel guide.

C．In a sports newspaper.

D．In an environmental magazine.

08

Can plants talk? Modem research has found something amazing: they do     30     with each other.

It has been known that plants use chemicals (化学物质) to communicate with each other. This happens     31     a plant gets attacked (攻击) by insects. The plant     32     chemicals from the leaves that are being eaten. This is like a warning, or a call for help. When another plant gets the chemicals, it starts to give out its own chemicals. Some of these chemicals drive insects away. Others attract (吸引) the     33    . The bees kill the insects.

More     34    , plants have an amazing system of communication that can connect nearly every     35     in a forest. Scientists call this system the “wood wide web”. The wood wide web connects different plants to each other. Using the wood wide web, plants can     36     information and even food with each other. However, some plants may use it to     37     chemicals to attack other plants. Perhaps one day scientists will learn how to create a “firewall” to help    38     these attacks within the wood wide web.

Scientists are studying to learn more about the secret     39     plants talk to each other. Maybe one day we will know enough about their communication so that we are able to “talk” with them ourselves.

30．A．agree              B．fight                      C．communicate          D．grow

31．A．and                 B．when                     C．or                          D．so

32．A．gives up          B．gives in                  C．gives out                D．gives away

33．A．bees                B．rabbits                   C．bears                      D．lions

34．A．heavily            B．smoothly                C．usually                   D．surprisingly

35．A．animal            B．plant                      C．wood                     D．flower

36．A．search             B．receive                   C．share                      D．collect

37．A．spread             B．sell                        C．store                      D．trade

38．A．start                B．plan                       C．lead                       D．stop

39．A．voices             B．words                    C．ways                      D．languages

09

阅读下面短文，在空白处填入适当的内容（不多于3个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。

In Western countries, people are used to drinking cold water when they’re    40    (thirst). And they always receive a glass of cold water alongside their meals at a restaurant.    41    in China we would get a cup of steaming hot water or tea instead. We drink hot water in four    42    (season), no matter what the weather is like. It’s said that Chinese people    43    (drink) hot water since thousands of years ago. Before the   44  (twenty) century drinking hot water was the main treatment, especially during wars. And drinking raw (生的) water was a symbol    45    low social status (地位). The scholars and rich people always drank tea. Later, tea became a rare (稀有的) product after years of war, so they    46    (natural) got into the habit of drinking boiled water.

According to Chinese medicine, our body has two sources of energy—Yin and Yang. If Yang becomes too strong, our body temperature will go up. We feel    47    (comfortable) and may get illnesses. Therefore, we have to return our body to balance. Hot water is a Yin beverage, so when we’re sick, people around us will tell us to drink a lot of hot water. In winter, it is known to be good to drink hot drinks just    48    (avoid) catching cold.

So if a foreigner in China asks for water, there’s a good chance that he or she will   49   (give) a cup of hot water.

…………

参考答案

1．D    2．C    3．B    4．A

【导语】本文是一篇说明文。主要介绍了洋葱的用途和营养价值，也提供了几种切洋葱不流泪的方法。

1．细节理解题。根据“They have special chemicals (化学物质) that improve your ability to fight off sickness and you have fewer chances of getting a disease.”可知，洋葱能帮你战胜疾病是因为它们含有特别的化学物质。故选D。

2．细节理解题。根据“When you cut into an onion, irritating chemicals inside the onion will get into the air. They touch your whole eves and cause pain. Your eyes make tears to wash away the chemicals and protect your eyes.”可知，当你切洋葱时，洋葱内部的刺激性化学物质会进入空气中。它们会触摸你的整个眼睛，引起疼痛。你的眼睛会分泌眼泪来洗掉化学物质，保护你的眼睛。故选C。

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