高中英語閱讀理解練習100篇 First and Last Men

閱讀試題

Olaf Stapledon wrote a book called First and Last Men, in which he looked millions of years ahead. He told of different men and of strange civilizations(文明), broken up by long "dark ages" in between. In his view, what is called the present time is no more than a moment in human history and we are just the First Men. In 2,000 million years from now there will be the Eighteenth or Last Men.

However, most of our ideas about the future are really very short-sighted. Perhaps we can see some possibilities for the next fifty years. But the next hundred? The next thousand? The next million? That's much more difficult.

When men and women lived by hunting 50,000 years ago, how could they even begin to picture modern life? Yet to men of 50,000 years from now, we may seem as primitive(原始的) in our ideas as the Stone-Age hunters do to us. Perhaps they will spend their days gollocking to make new spundels, or struggling with their ballalators through the cribe. These words, which I have just made up, have to stand for things and ideas that we simply can't think of.

So why bother even to try imagining life far in the future? Here are two reasons. First, unless we remember how short our own lives are compared with the whole human history, we are likely to think our own interests are much more important than they really are. If we make the earth a poor place to live because we are careless or greedy(貪婪) or quarrelsome, our grandchildren will not bother to think of excuses for us.

Second, by trying to escape from present interests and imagine life far in the future, we may arrive at quite fresh ideas that we can use ourselves. For example, if we imagine that in the future men may give up farming, we can think of trying it now. So set you imagination free when you think about the future.

1. A particular mention made of Stapledon's book in the opening paragraph ________.
A. serves as a description of human history
B. serves an introduction to the discussion
C. shows a disagreement of views
D. shows the popularity of the book

2. The text discusses men and women 50,000 years ago and 50,000 years from now in order to show that ________.
A. human history is extremely long
B. life has changed a great deal
C. it is useless to plan for the next 50 years
D. it is difficult to tell what will happen in the future

3. Spundels and ballalators are used in the text to refer to ________.
A. tools used in farming
B. ideas about modern life
C. unknown things in the future
D. hunting skills in the Stone Age

4. According to the writer of the text, imagining the future will ________.
A. serve the interests of the present and future generations
B. enable us to better understand human history
C. help us to improve farming
D. make life worth living

閱讀答案

1. B。用排除法解答：先排除 A，因為這篇短文并非是對人類歷史進行描述;再排除C，因為作者在此文章中并非表明對不同觀點的否定;最后排除 D，因為作者并非要說明這本書的普遍意義。至于 B 項內(nèi)容，正好符合這本書引導人們討論的意圖，故應選 B。

2. D。文中提及五萬年前，處于狩獵時代的人們不可能勾勒出現(xiàn)代生活的畫卷;也許我們將來會被認為是我們所認為的原始人，正如石器時代的狩獵者和我們相比一樣，可知要預測較為遙遠的未來是一件困難的事情。

3. C。從上下文可知，這四個詞匯是作者杜撰的，用以形象地表示五萬年后未知的事物和行為。

4. A。文中提及現(xiàn)在即開始對未來展開想象，是基于兩點理由：人生是有限的;我們可能得到一些對我們自己切實可行的新見解。文中還提及如果我們因粗心大意和貪得無厭而把地球弄得一塌糊涂而不能居住，我們的子孫們就不難找到遷怒于我們的理由，故應選A。