Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be enough rain. Other times there is too much. Maybe thereisn’t a lot we can do to control the rain, but there is a lot we can do to reduce problems caused bydifferent rainfall patterns.
A new development at the London Wetland Centre in Barnes solves the problems of managingwater with a “Rain Garden”. We are likely to be hearing about it a lot more often over the next fewyears. The idea is that the garden owner can store rainwater and use it in dry periods. They canreduce the problems caused by extra rain this way.
One of the key problems that the rain garden tries to deal with is the problem caused by toomuch water in the street. In a natural environment, a lot of rainwater is sent back into the air byplants. Much is also absorbed deep into the ground, and flows into streams and rivers. What happensin city environments can be completely different —— a large amount of rainwater flows straight offthe hard surfaces of roofs and roads. The harder the rain, the less likely it will be absorbed into theground —— floods are the result. Rainwater running off roads is often polluted.
The rain garden deals with living plants rather than hard surfaces. Plants are designed to holdwater and release it slowly, either into the ground, to be absorbed by plant roots (and so eventuallyback up into the atmosphere) or to go down into the water table. Not only does the rain gardenreduce the amount of water that flows onto the street, but it helps to clean it because plants are very goodat breaking down pollutants(污染物).
小题1:What’s the main idea of the first paragraph?
A．Explaining why there is a lack of rain at times.
B．Introducing several different patterns of rainfall.
C．Telling us how to avoid problems caused by rain.
D．Giving the idea that there are ways to manage rain water.小题2:According to the second paragraph, “Rain Gardens" are likely to _____.
A．harm the environment in the short run
B．become popular over the next few years
C．be turned down by most new developments
D．be too expensive for common people to accept小题3:We can learn from the third paragraph that _____.
A．floods are often the results of small rains
B．a heavy rain is less difficult for plants to absorb
C．the rain garden helps send rainwater back into the air
D．larger amounts of rainwater flow straight off in city environments小题4:According to the last paragraph, what does the rain garden help to clean?
A．The plants
B．The ground.
C．The water.
D．The street.
小题1:D
小题2:B
小题3:D
小题4:C
题目分析：有时候雨水偏少有时候雨水又过多。本文介绍了一种用rain garden来处理雨水的方法以达到合理利用雨水的目的。
小题1:段落大意题。第一段作者从雨水多少不定的难题出发提出了我们有办法减少不同降雨类型造成的问题以此导出下文所以D项能较好地概括本段大意。 答案D
小题2:事实细节题。由第二段的“We are likely to be hearing about it a lot more often over the next few years.”可知未来几年rain garden会越来越多故选B。
小题3:事实细节题。由第三段中的“What happens in city environments can be...flows straight off the hard surfaces of roofs and roads.”可知在城市里大量的雨水直接流走了所以答案选D小题4:事实细节题。由最后一段的“Not only does the rain garden reduce the amount of water...but it helps to clean it...”可知rain garden不仅能减少流到大街上的水量还有助于净水所以选C项。
点评：这类文章结构清晰易懂，可以快速的把握文章的结构和内容。做题时可以先看题目，带着问题看文章，有的放矢。文章的主旨大意即是文章的中心思想。做阅读理解题首先要明确文章的中心意思，只有明确了中心意思，那么做阅读理解的试题才能做到游刃有余。