1997年高考英语试题及答案

　　Ⅲ.阅读理解(共25小题。A节每小题2分，B节每小题1分;满分45分)

　　A)阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项中，选出最佳答案。

　　A

　　JINTAN, JIANGSU: The 20 students - 18 boys and 2 girls -had a thousand reasons to be proud of themselves. They had just climbed their way to the top rung(阶梯)out of 4 million students taking part in the Fifth National Hua Luogeng Gold Cup Mathematics Contest(竞赛)on Tuesday evening.

　　The 20 gold medal winners are all primary and middle school students under the age of 14.

　　‘Many of the problems are of college level and these pupils can figure them out. It is just unbelievable!’said a teacher from Guangdong province.

　　Named after China's most famous mathematician, Hua Luogeng, the contest started in 1986, one year after his death. In less than 10 years, it has been recognised by the State Education Commission(国家教委) as the country's biggest and best contest of its kind.

　　51. This news story is mainly about .

　　A. when the contest started

　　B. how the contest got its name

　　C. the 20 pupils who have won gold medals in the contest

　　D. the 5th National Hua Luogeng Gold Cup Mathematics Contest

　　52. This news story most probably appeared in a newspaper in .

　　A. 1986 B. 1987

　　C. 1995 D. 1997

　　53. It can be inferred from the text that the teacher from Guangdong province .

　　A. felt proud of the gold medal winners

　　B. wondered if the students were honest

　　C. thought that the problems were too difficult for the students

　　D. believed that the twenty winners could go to study at university

　　54. The underlined phrase ‘figure out’ in the text means .

　　A. work out B. add up

　　C. guess D. study

　　B

　　In the 1930s, a lot of people in the USA were out of work. Among these people was a man named Alfred Butts. He always had an interest in word games and so, to fill his time, he planned a game which he called ‘Lexico’. However, he was not completely satisfied with the game, so he made a number of changes to it and, in time, changed its name from ‘Lexico’to ‘Alph’ and then to ‘Criss Cross’. He wanted to make some money from his new game but he didn't have any real commercial(商业性的) success.

　　In 1939, Butts happened to meet a man called Jim Brunot who showed an interest in the new game. The two men worked together on developing the game and in 1948 it was offered for sale in the United States under its new name - ‘Scrabble’.

　　At first, it didn't sell very well. In the first year it sold just 2,250 sets and by 1951 it had only reached 8,500 sets a year.

　　Then, in 1952 the manager of Macy's department store in New York,Jack Strauss, happened to play ‘Scrabble’while he was on holiday. He thought it was a wonderful game and, when he went back to work after his holiday, he insisted that Macy's should stock(储备) the game and make an effort (努力) to call the public's attention to it.

　　As a result,‘scrabble’became a big success in the United States and it soon spread to Australia and then to other English-speaking countries.