高考阅读理解题主要考查考生对文章整体的把握能力、理解能力、语法能力（尤其是复杂句型，如复合句）、词汇能力等等。阅读理解能力强弱的标志关键就是两点：理解正确率和阅读速度。所以，它要求考生在有限的时间内快速阅读，除了了解文章的表层意思，还要进行理性的推断，挖掘文章字里行间的隐含意义，然后根据题目要求选择正确的答案。因为它是一种重要的综合性检验手段，所以题量较大，分值也高（每小题2分）。
不难理解，阅读理解题答得好坏在很大程度上会决定考生的英语成绩。
2005年高考英语全国卷II中的阅读理解题为五篇不同体裁和题材的短文。A篇关于母女情深，很有《心灵鸡汤》的风格；B篇（下述）是关于社会问题；C篇为“警匪故事”；D篇讲的是“全球变暖导致海平面升高及给人类造成的影响”，属科技内容；E篇则运用夹叙夹议的形式论述如何教育学生学习科学。
英语水平中上等的同学应该在30`35分钟之内完成这五篇文章的阅读和答题。也就是说，平均每篇文章所用时间为6`7分钟，而且错误率不应高于20%，也就是不超过四个（8分）。
由于篇幅限制，这里不可能对每篇文章作出详尽分析，笔者下面仅对本阅读理解试题中的B篇文章进行评析。
你做做看
B
The days of elderly women doing nothing but cooking huge meals on holidays are gone. Enter the Red Hat Society －a group holding the belief that old ladies should have fun.
“My grandmothers didn’t do anything but keep house and serve everybody. They were programmed to do that,” said Emils Comette, head of a chapter of the 7-year-old Red Hat Society.
While men have long spent their time fishing and playing golf, women have sometimes seemed to become unnoticed as they age. But the generation now turning 50 is the baby boomers (生育高峰期出生的人), and the same people who refused their parents’ way of being young are now trying a new way of growing old.
If you take into consideration feminism (女权主义), a bit of spare money, and better health for most elderly, the Red Hat Society looks almost inevitable(必然的). In this society, women over 50 wear red hats and purple (紫色的) clothes, while the women under 50 wear pink hats and light purple clothing.
“The organization took the idea from a poem by Jenny Joseph that begins: “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple. With a red hat which doesn’t go,” said Ellen Cooper, who founded the Red Hat Society in 1998. When the ladies started to wear the red hats, they attracted lots of attention.
“The point of this is that we need a rest from always doing something for someone else,” Cooper said. “Women feel so ashamed and sorry when they do something for themselves.” This is why chapters are discouraged from raising money or doing anything useful. “We’re a ladies’ play group. It couldn’t be more simple,” added Cooper’s assistant Joe Heywood.
44．The underlined word “chapter” in paragraph 2 means __________.
A．one branch of an organization
B．a written agreement of a club
C．one part of a collection of poems
D．a period in a society’s history
45．From the text, we know that the “baby boomers” are a group of people who
A．have gradually become more noticeable
B．are worried about getting old too quickly
C．are enjoying a good life with plenty of money to spend
D．tried living a different life from their parents when they were young
46．It could be inferred from the text that members of the Red Hat Society are .
A．interested in raising< |