英语是进步的阶梯，也是你所更多的了解世界，学习国内外知识的必备工具。精品学习网为大家推荐了高三英语上学期期中模拟卷，请大家仔细阅读，希望你喜欢。

第I卷(选择题)

一、阅读理解(共15小题;每小题2分，共30分)

A

His first successful fight was for the equal rights of black people in South Africa. Then, as the first black president, he fought to unite the country and organize the government. Now Nelson Mandela has set his sights on a new enemy, AIDS.

On March 19 the former president, hosted his second AIDS awareness concert. He warned that 25 million people in Africa were already infected with the fatal disease.

Mandela was born in a small village in South Africa in 1918. He was adopted by the chief of his tribe and could have been a chief himself and lived a happy country life.

But he refused to be a chief when his people lived under racial discrimination(歧视). He decided to fight for equal rights for all the people in South Africa. Before 1990, under the country's Racial Segregation Law, colored people and white people lived separately. Black people were treated unfairly even when taking a bus. Blacks had to stand at the back of the bus to make room for white people even when there were only a few of them on board.

For his opposition to the system, Mandela was arrested and spent 27 years in prison. He was freed in 1990 and became the president of the country after the first election was held in which everyone could vote.

Mandela was not only a political fighter who attacked with speeches. He was also a trained boxer and fought in the ring when he was young.

“Although I did not enjoy the violence of boxing, I was  interested in how one moved one’s body to protect oneself, how one used a strategy both to attack and retreat，”he wrote in his autobiography.

As a skillful fighter, he chose music as his weapon against AIDS. He hopes to win another victory against AIDS.

1.When was Mandela arrested?

A.In 1963.

B.In 1990.

C.When he refused to be a chief.

D.When he became the president.

2.Nelson Mandela succeeded in doing the following EXCEPT ________.

A.winning the equal rights for the black people in South  Africa

B.uniting South Africa

C.organizing a government in South Africa

D.controlling the spread of AIDS

3.Which of the following statements can best describe the life of Nelson Mandela?

A.Struggle is his life.

B.Sports make his fame.

C.Fight for equal rights.

D.A great fighter against the government.

B

Many people have tried to simplify (简化) the spelling of English words. Unlike other languages, English sometimes spells the same sounds in very different ways. For example, there is “light” but “white”, “loan” but “phone”, and there are at least seven different ways of pronouncing “ough”: “though”, “through”, “bough”, “ cough”, “enough”, “ought” and “thorough”.

The American President Theodore Roosevelt almost succeeded in simplifying English spelling. In 1906, Andrew Carnegie started the Simplified Spelling Board. He was one of the richest men in the United States of America. The board's plan was to make the spelling of words nearer to the way they sound. For example, the word "though" would be spelt “tho” and “through” would become “thru”. Other people on the board were Melvil Dewey, the head of the New York libraries, and Professor Brander Matthews of Columbia University. They explained their idea to President Roosevelt, who thought that it was indeed logical. He immediately asked the government printer to use simplified spelling in all government letters.

But people didn't like the change, even if it made life easier. So the new simpler spelling was not popular. More importantly, when the American politicians (政客) discussed the plan, they did not like it either.

Because Roosevelt did not want to have any problems with the politicians, he changed his mind and told the printer to go back to the old way of spelling.

Since then no one in any government has dared to simplify English spelling. However, people do simplify some words, mainly in advertisements. For example, we often see “tonite” instead of “tonight” and “thru” instead of “through”.

4.Many people have tried to simplify English spelling because________.

A. English words are too long to remember

B. there are many mistakes in English words

C. lots of words are spelt in many different ways

D. sometimes the same sounds have different spellings.

5.Who is NOT a member of the Simplified Spelling Board?

A. Andrew Carnegie.

B. Melvil Dewey.

C. Theodore Roosevelt.

D. Brander Matthews.

6.What was Theodore Roosevelt's attitude towards simplified spelling?

A. Worried  B. Supportive  C. Uncertain  D. Doubtful

7.According to the passage, simplified spelling________.

A. was welcomed by the US politicians

B. changed the way the words sound

C. has been used widely for over a century

D. was first used in US government letters.

C

A romantic message-in-a-bottle discovered by a mother and daughter at a Scottish beach has sparked(触发) a mystery about whether it could have travelled 5,000 miles across the seas from China.

Nicola MacFarlane, 41, and daughter Lucy, four, from Portobello, near Edinburgh, were looking for driftwood(浮木)on Portobello Beach when they came across an old glass bottle containing a note inside written in Mandarin. Now the family are trying to work out if the letter has managed the extraordinary journey across the Philippine Sea, into the Indian Ocean and through both the South Atlantic and the North Atlantic Ocean’s before washing up on the shores of Great Britain. It was written on Chinese Valentine’s Day or Qixi Festival as it is more traditionally known, lunar July 7, 2012, so it sent off as recently as six days ago because it followed the modern calendar, which celebrated the occasion on August 23. Nicola was still excited to read about the Chinese love story after having it translated.

“I really do hope that it is from China but even it is from nearer to home, it’s still a lovely gesture and an inspiring find. It’s a love story regardless of where it came from. Nicola, who runs a beach art business in Portobello, added, “I’m always at the beach looking for bits of driftwood but I’ve never come across anything like this before. We knew it was Chinese, but we had no idea what it said.”

Unable to read the Mandarin text, Nicola turned to the internet and her Australian friend, Julie Gould, whose daughter attended a Chinese school in Sydney.

Several hours later Julie returned with the news that it was in fact a love letter.

The translated letter reads, “Da Hai(Ocean), I hope no-one will get this bottle, as we just wish you can hear our voice, and get your blessing. Today is the Chinese Valentine’s Day, we pray that our relationship will last forever and we will have a long happy life together…”

Nicola said, “It sounds to me like the couple are in love but cannot be together so they have sent the message to tell the world of their love.”

8.When did Nicola and her daughter come across the message-in-bottle?

A. On July 15, 2012.       B. On August 29, 2012.

C. On August 31, 2012.     D. On September 2, 2012.

9.What were Nicola and her daughter probably doing when they found the bottle?

A. They were walking on the beach.

B. They were washing hands and feet.

C. They were looking for the driftwoods.

D. They were lying on the beach resting.

10.The underlined word “Mandarin” probably means “        ” .

A. Scottish    B. British  C. English     D. Chinese

11.We can learn from the passage that Nicola__________.

A. thinks the letter was written to show love

B. had expected to get something unusual

C. knows a little Chinese

D. found the bottle was from a nearby place