Although April did not bring us the rains we all hoped for, and although the Central Valley doesn’t generally experience the sound and lightning that can go with those rains, it’s still important for parents to be able to answer the youthful questions about thunder and lightning.
The reason these two wonders of nature are so difficult for many adults to explain to children is that they are not very well understood by adults themselves. For example, did you know that the lightning we see flashing down to the earth from a cloud is actually flashing up to a cloud from the earth? Our eyes trick us into thinking we see a downward motion when it’s actually the other way around. But then, if we believed only what we think and we see, we’d still insist that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.
Most lightning flashes take place inside a cloud, and only a relative few can be seen jumping between two clouds or between earth and a cloud. But, with about 2,000 thunderstorms taking place above the earth every minute of the day and night, there’s enough activity to produce about 100 lightning strikes on earth every second.
Parents can use thunder and lightning to help their children learn more about the world around them. When children understand that the light of the lightning flashing reaches their eyes almost at the same moment, but the sound of the thunder takes about 5 seconds to travel just one mile, they can begin to time the interval (间隔) between the flash and the crash to learn how lose they were to the actual spark (闪光).
【小题1】According to the author, in the area of the Central Valley .A．rains usually e without thunder and lightning.B．it is usually dry in AprilC．children pay no attention to the two natural wonders.D．parents are not interested in thunder and lightning.【小题2】We believe that lightning is a downward motion because .A．we were taught so by our parents from our childhood.B．we are taken in by our sense of vision.C．it is a mon natural sight.D．it is a truth proved by science.【小题3】What is TRUE about lightning according to the passage?A．Only a small number of lightning flashes occur on earth.B．Lightning flashes usually jump from one cloud to another.C．Lightning travels 5 times faster than thunder.D．There are far more lightning strikes occurring on earth than we can imagine.【小题4】The underlined word “activity” is most closely related to the word (s) .A．cloudB．lightning strikesC．lightning flashesD．thunderstorms【小题5】It can be concluded from the passage that .A．we should not believe what we see or hear.B．things moving downward are more noticeable.C．people sometimes may have wrong ideas about ordinary phenomena.D．adults are not as good as children in observing certain natural phenomena.A
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(答案→)A
解析：
【小题1】推理判断题。 第二段中说：尽管the Central Valley一般不会经历下雨时伴随雷电(的情况），但是……由此可知在Central Valley下雨时通常没有雷电。
【小题2】细节理解题。结合第二段Our eyes trick us into thinking we see a downward motion when it’s actually the other way around可知答案。
【小题3】细节理解题。第三段第二句：由于地球上每天每分钟发生2 000次雷雨，它们足够造成地球上每秒100次的闪电。这说明闪电的次数要比我们想象的多。
【小题4】猜测词意题。第三段第二句说明有了雷雨才产生了闪电。
【小题5】推理判断题。第二段第三句：我们的眼睛使我们错误地认为闪电是由上而下，而事实上却相反。