高二期中考试英语试题含答案.doc

高二英语试题 第一部分：听力（120题）略 第二部分：阅读理解 （共1题;每小题分，满分分） 从每题所给的四个选项 （A 、B 、C 和 D ）中 ，选出最佳选项，题卡上将该项涂黑。Did you know the meaning of a word may change over time? Many English words we know now had different meanings a long time ago. One example is the word nice. Around the year 1300, nice was first used in English to mean “stupid”. Two hundred years later, nice began to carry a “better” meaning. If people said a book was written nicely, they meant the book was written “clearly” or “carefully”, not “stupidly”. After 1800, nice began to take its meaning like “kind” or “friendly”. Since then, people have thought of nice as a word with good meanings. A good change of a word’s meaning like this example of nice is called AMELIORATION. Though we don’t use nice to mean “stupid” any more, it is fun to know how much a word’s meaning can change from its start! For more examples of AMELIORATION, see next page. 21. 1300 years ago, a “nice person” was believed to be_________. A. carefully B. friendly C. clever D. stupid 22. What is the second paragraph mainly about? A. What nice used to mean. B. How the meaning of nice changed over time. C. How long nice has been used . D. Why the meaning of nice changed. 23. AMELIORATION means a word’s meaning_____. A. changes from bad to good B. can change from its start C. changes from good to bad D. remains the same over a long time B Long long ago, there lived in Greece a king named Midas. He was a greedy man and loved gold better than anything else in the world. One day, he asked a god to give him more gold. The god decided to punish him and said, “Your wish is granted already. Everything you touch will turn to gold.” Midas was very happy when he heard this. The next morning, he got up early to test his skill. When he touched his bed, it turned to gold. “Gold!” cried Midas, laughing like a little boy, “ It works!” Not only stones, flowers and the furniture in his house turned to gold, but,