Question

Modern inventions have speeded up people’s loves amazingly. Motor-cars cover a hundred miles in little more than an hour, aircraft cross the world inside a day, while computers operate at lightning speed. Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending. Every year motor-cars are produced which go even faster and each new computer boats (吹嘘) of saving precious seconds in handling tasks.

All this saves time, but at a price. When we lose or gain half a day in speeding across the world in an airplane, our bodies tell us so. We get the uncomfortable feeling known as jet-lag; our bodies feel that they have been left behind on another time zone. Again, spending too long at computers results in painful wrists and fingers. Mobile phones also have their dangers, according to some scientist; too much use may transmit harmful radiation into our brains, a consequence we do not like to think about.

However, what do we do with the time we have saved? Certainly not relax, or so it seems. We are so accustomed constant activity that we find it difficult to sit and do nothing or even just one thing at a time. Perhaps the days are long gone when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imagination take us into another world.

There was a time when some people’s lives were devoted simply to the cultivation of the land or the care of cattle. No multi-tasking there; their lives went on at a much gentler pace, and in a familiar pattern. There is much that we might envy about a way of life like this. Yet before we do so, we must think of the hard tasks our ancestor faced: they farmed with bare hands, often lived close to hunger, and had to fashion tools from wood and stone. Modern machinery has freed people from that primitive existence.

1.The new products become more and more time-saving because ________.

A. our love of speed seems never-ending

B. time is limited

C. the prices are increasingly high

D. the manufactures boast a lot

2.What does “the days” in Paragraph 3 refer to?

A. Imaginary life.

B. Simple life in the past.

C. Times of inventions.

D. Time for constant activity.

3.What is the author’s attitude towards the modern technology?

A. Critical         B. Objective.

C. Optimistic.      D. Negative.

4.What does the passage mainly discuss?

A. The present and past times.

B. Machinery and human beings.

C. Imaginations and inventions.

D. Modern technology and its influence.

Answer

1.A

2.B

3.B

4.D

【解析】

试题分析：现代科技发明极大的提高了人们的生活，但同时也带来了一些负面影响。那我们该如何利用现代发明节省下来的时间呢？

1. 细节理解题。根据第一自然段“Indeed, this love of speed seems never-ending.”可知，选A。

2. 细节理解题。根据后文提到的“when we might listen quietly to a story on the radio, letting imaginations take us into another world.”可知，是那种生活简单的日子。故选B。

3. 推理判断题。一方面作者对于现代发明给人们带来的便利予以肯定，另一方面又承认了它的负面影响，所以作者的观点是中立的、客观的。故选B。

4. 主旨大意题。本文主要讲述了现代发明提高了人们的生活，同时讲述了它所带来的负面影响，故选D。

考点：考查社会生活类短文阅读。

【名师点睛】

在做阅读理解题过程中，应首先略读一下短文，了解一下短文的大致意思，然后把几个选项含义理解透，尤其注意意思相近，表达有交叉的选项之间的区别。然后再细读短文，把答案填入合适位置。答题时可以把含义相近的几个选项轮流填入同一处位置，反复阅读，反复体会，找出最佳选项，对于实在没有把握的小题可以最后完成。完成短文后，再认真通读一遍全文，看看上下语意是否通顺，是否符合逻辑关系。

另外，做题时要注意文章的首段和每一段的首句或尾句，因为它们往往就是文章的主题句。阅读中要注意要点之间的关系。