高考英语简答题专项训练

(1)

If you are in any major city in America, the chances are high that you are not far from a Starbucks. In fact, you might be very close to several of these coffee stores. The company started in the West Coast city of Seattle, Washington, in 1971. Starbucks was named after a character in the famous American novel “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville. Today, there are more than twelve thousand Starbucks around the world.

Sales last year were almost eight billion dollars. The company believes in opening many stores in busy areas of cities. For example, there are about thirty Starbucks stores in downtown Seattle. Recently, three Starbucks opened in the area near VOA headquarters in Washington, D.C. 

Starbucks sells more than just plain coffee. It started a whole coffee culture with its own special language and coffee workers called baristas. It sells many kinds of hot and cold coffee drinks, like White Chocolate Mocha and Frappuccino. It also sells music albums, coffee makers, food, and even books. But most of all, it sells the idea of being a warm and friendly place for people to sit, read or talk.

Starbucks is a great success story. Buyers are willing to pay as much as five dollars for a coffee drink. People we talked to said they go to Starbucks because they can depend on it to have exactly what they want and to be nearby.

However, some people do not like the company's aggressive expansion. Owners of independent coffee stores cannot compete with Starbucks. One small coffee seller is taking the company to court. She says the way the company does business is illegal because it stops property owners from leasing stores to other coffee companies. She sees Starbucks as controlling the market and forcing out competition.

73. Find in the passage a word closest in meaning to the underlined word “baristas”.

74. What do people think of Starbucks? (回答词数不超过8个)

75. According to some people, what will be the result of Starbucks’ doing? (回答词数不超过6个)

(2)

Baloney is a kind of sausage that many Americans eat often. The word also has another meaning in English. It is used to describe something—usually something someone says—that is false or wrong or foolish.

Baloney sausage comes from the name of the Italian city, Bologna. The city is famous for its sausage, a mixture of smoked, spiced meat from cows and pigs. But, boloney sausage does not taste the same as beef or pork alone.

Some language experts think this different taste is responsible for the birth of the expression baloney. Baloney is an idea or statement that is nothing like the truth...in the same way that baloney sausage tastes nothing like the meat that is used to make it.

Baloney is a word often used by politicians to describe the ideas of their opponents.

The expression has been used for years. Fifty years ago, a former governor of New York State, Alfred Smith, criticized some claims by President Franklin Roosevelt about the successes of the Roosevelt administration. Smith said, “No matter how thin you slice it, it is still baloney.”

A similar word has almost the same meaning as baloney. It even sounds almost the same. The word is blarney. It began in Ireland about 1600.

The lord of Blarney castle, near Cork, agreed to surrender the castle to British troops. But he kept making excuses for postponing the surrender. And, he made them sound like very good excuses, “this is just more of the same blarney.”

The Irish castle now is famous for its Blarney stone. Kissing the stone is thought to give a person special powers of speech. One who has kissed the Blarney stone, so the story goes, can speak words of praise so smoothly and sweetly that you believe them, even when you know they are false.

73. Find in the passage a word closest in meaning to the underlined word “baloney”.

74. According to Americans, what does baloney refer to? (回答词数不超过8个)

75. What do you know about the lord of Blarney castle, near Cork?  (回答词数不超过6个)

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