专四阅读理解

　　出国留学网高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　B

　　Everyone becomes a little more forgetful as they get older, but men's minds decline more than women's, according to the results of a worldwide survey.

　　Certain differences seem to be inherent in male and female brains: Men are better at maintaining and dealing with mental images (useful in mathematical reasoning and spatial skills), while women tend to excel (擅长) at recalling information from their brain's files (helpful with language skills and remembering the locations of objects).

　　Many studies have looked for a connection between sex and the amount of mental decline (衰退) people experience as they age, but the results have been mixed.

　　Some studies found more age-related decline in men than in women, while others saw the opposite or even no relationship at all between sex and mental decline. Those results could be improper because the studies involved older people, and women live longer than men: The men tested are the survivors, "so they're the ones that may not have shown such cognitive decline," said study team leader Elizabeth of the University of Warwick in England.

　　People surveyed completed four tasks that tested sex-related cognitive skills: matching an object to its rotated form, matching lines shown from the same angle, typing as many words in a particular category (范畴) as possible in the...

　　出国留学网高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　A

　　Joan Chen is famous both in China, where she grew up, and in the United States，where she now lives. How did Joan become a famous actress in two countries? It’s an interesting story. Joan Chen was born in Shanghai in 1961. When she was 14, some people from a film studio (制片厂) came to her school and chose her to study at the studio. She was happy about this chance, but mainly she liked the idea of getting out of school. Soon, however she discovered that she really liked acting. At age 18, she won the Golden Rooster, China's top film prize.

　　In the late 1970s, Joan's parents, who were doctors, moved to the United States. Joan joined them when she was 20 and went to college there. Her parents hoped she would study medicine. In-stead, she majored in film and later looked for work as an actress. To work in the United States, Joan had to start all over again. She told Hollywood that she was an actress in China, but she only got some small parts in TV shows.

　　One day Joan went to speak to a director who was making a movie called Tai - pan. The interview didn't go well. As she walked away, a man in a car noticed her. The man was Dino DeLaurntiis, the film’s producer. He immediately offered her a leading part. A year later, she started in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor and was on her way to worldwide fame. 1. Wh...

　　出国留学网高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　A

　　NOT all memories are sweet. Some people spend all their lives trying to forget bad experiences. Violence and traffic accidents can leave people with terrible physical and emotional scars. Often they relive these experiences.

　　Now American researchers think they are close to developing a pill, which will help people forget bad memories. The pill is designed to be taken immediately after a frightening experience. They hope it might

　　reduce , or possibly erase(抹去), the effect of painful memories. In November, experts tested a drug on people in the US and France. The drug stops the body releasing chemicals that fix memories in the brain. So far the research has suggested that only the emotional effects of

　　memories may be reduced, not that the memories are erased. The research has caused a great deal of argument. Some think it is a bad idea, while others support it. Supporters say it could lead to pills that prevent or treat soldiers' troubling memories after war. They say

　　that there are many people who suffer from terrible memories. "Some memories can ruin people's lives . They come back to you when you don't want to have them in a daydream or nightmare. They usually come with very painful emotions," said Roger Pitman, a professor of psychiatry

　　at Harvard Medical School. "This could relieve a l...

　　出国留学网高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　A

　　Many people eventually get round to trading in their first car. But not Mike Harrison. He loves his 1931 black Bentley sports car so much that he’s still driving it – 54 years after be bought it.

　　Mr Harrison was 20 when he paid £150 (about £3,000 now) for the car after passing his test in 1956. It had already done 85,000 miles and he has since driven it a further 100,000, yet the car still runs like clockwork.

　　It is now one of only three left in the country and is worth £250,000. Despite its value, Mr Harrison, 74, says he would never sell the car “which has been my best friend and part of my family all my life”.

　　Mr Harrison courted his wife Jenny in it during the early sixties and it was their family car when children Caroline, now 46, and Ben, 42, came along. Even when he took a job as an advertising executive which came with the company car of his choice, Mr Harrison kept the Bentley.

　　He said: 'How many people still have their first car these days when everything is so disposable? But it is a real eye-catcher. It has something that modern cars just don't have - style and character. 'I still drive it most days, even though it only does about 15 miles to the gallon!' Petrol was just six shillings (30p) a gallon when Mr Harrison bought the Bentley, which had a top speed of 120mph.

　　H...

　　出国留学网高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　Many animal and plant species have become extinct(灭绝的)and many more are in critical danger. Finding ways to protect the earth's wildlife and conserve(保护)the natural world they inhabit(居住)is now more important than ever.

　　Dodo The Dodo is a classic example of how human caused damage to the earth's biology. The flightless Dodo was native to the Island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It lived off fruit fallen from the island's trees and lived unthreatened until humans arrived in 1505. The easily controlled bird became a source of food for sailors and was attacked by animals introduced to the island by humans such as pigs, monkeys and rats. The population of Dodos rapidly decreased and last one was killed in 1681.

　　Rhinos The Rhino(犀牛)horn is a highly priced item for Asian medicine. This has led to the animal being hunted in its natural habitat. Once widespread in Africa and Eurasia, most rhinos now live in protected natural parks and reserves(保护区). Their numbers have rapidly decreased in the last 50 years, and the animals remain under constant threat from poachers(偷猎者).

　　The Giant Panda The future of the World Wildlife Fund's symbol is far from certain. As few as 1000 remain in the wild. The Chinese government has set up 33 panda reserves to protect these beautiful animals and made poaching them punishable with 20 years ...

　　出国留学网高考频道在考试后及时公布各科高考试题答案和高考作文及试卷专家点评。请广大考生家长关注，祝福广大考生在2013年高考中发挥出最佳水平，考出好成绩!同时祝愿决战2014高考的新高三学员能倍加努力，在2014年高考中也能取得优异的成绩。

　　C

　　The largest earthquake ( magnitude里氏 9.5) of the 20th century happened on May 22, 1960 off the coast of South Central Chile.

　　It generated(生成) one of the most destructive Pacific-wide tsunamis(海啸). Near the generating area, both the earthquake and the tsunami were very much destructive, particularly in the coastal area from Concepcion to the south end of Isla Chiloe. The largest tsunami damage occurred at Isla Chiloe---the coastal area closest to the epicenter(震中). Huge tsunami waves measuring as high as 25 meters arrived within 10 to 15 minutes after the earthquake, killing at least two hundred people, sinking all the boats, and flooding half a kilometer inland.

　　There was large damage and loss of life at Concepcion, Chile's top industrial city. Near the city of Valdivia, the earthquake and following aftershocks generated landslides which killed 18 people. At the port city of Valparaiso, a city of 200,000, many buildings collapsed. A total of 130,000 houses were destroyed --- one in every three in the earthquake zone and nearly 2,000,000 people were left homeless.

　　Total damage losses, including to agriculture and to industry, were estimated(估计) to be over a half billion dollars . The total number of death related with both the tsunami and the earthquake was never found accurately for the region. Estimates o...