雅思阅读练习题：The moments that made me love flying

　　新东方在线雅思网为大家带来了雅思阅读练习题：The moments that made me love flying。正文都做了贴心的注解，文章包含雅思词汇、例句讲解。希望以下内容能够为同学们的雅思备考提供帮助。新东方在线雅思网将第一时间为大家发布最新、最全、最专业的雅思报名官网消息和雅思考试真题及解析，供大家参考。

　　As adults, we often forget the magic of flying. But what it brings to our lives, our perspectives and our outlooks is undeniably the stuff of dreams.

　　(From BBC, 20 October 2015)

　　One hectic(忙乱的) morning, early in my marriage, I was driving my father-in-law to the airport. While navigating(航行) the snarling(咆哮的) highway traffic, my mind looped(回环;纠结) through to-do lists, calculating(盘算;计算)how long it would take to drop him off, say goodbye and make it cross-town to the office. Then a jet glided silently over the road like a giant heron(鹭), about to touch down at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport.

　　"It's magic,” my father-in-law said, interrupting my restless thoughts. I looked at him, confused.

　　Here was a doctor who lectured at colleges and had visited more than 100 countries. He understood better than I the Bernoulli principle(伯努利原则) that keeps planes in the air; how the miracle of flight is actually no miracle at all but a simple physics equation(方程式;等式). It definitely wasn’t magic.

　　But thinking back now, I realize he was at least partially right. While flying might not be magic, it’s certainly magical. (飞行虽然也许称不上魔幻，却肯定称得上神奇。)What it brings to our lives, our perspectives and our outlooks is undeniably the stuff of dreams. (飞行给我们的生活、视角和观感带来的无疑似梦境一样的东西。)

　　But too often, we I forget.

　　I read a tweet a few months ago that struck a little too close to home.(几个月前我读到一条推特，真的说到点子上了。)

　　“You know you’re grown-up,” it said, “when you no longer want a window seat.”

　　And too often in recent years, I've found myself sweet-talking gate agents to land a coveted(觊觎，想要)aisle seat on the exit row, forgetting the wonders travelling at near the speed of sound. But occasionally, when the wi-fi’s out or my laptop battery is depleted(用完，枯竭), I remember to look.

　　One night sticks out to me. I was heading home from California and connecting in Texas after a challenging work trip. Delay piled up on delay as storms marched across the region. When we finally took off, hours late, it was pushing midnight. The crew dimmed the cabin lights and most of my fellow passengers were asleep in minutes (or at least closing their eyes and wishing they were).

　　I was about to follow suit(紧随其后，效仿) when a flash of light caught my attention. The thunderstorm that had snarled air traffic that night still had some life. Our pilot had routed us 100 miles to the north of the weather system, providing bleacher seats(露天座位)for the performance.

　　Clouds sparkled as they shot silent bolts of lightning to the ground. They glowed like lanterns, popping with colours in a cosmic light show. I stared into the darkness and noticed the flight attendant had kneeled next to my bulkhead seat to watch the show.

　　For the next half-hour we were riveted(铆钉，被钉住，醉心), not saying a word as we sailed through the night. How many hundreds of thousands of miles had she flown? I didn't ask. But she could still appreciate the wondrous moment – and on that night, so could I.

　　I’m invariably(总是)rewarded when I remember to look. The world seems to make more sense from up high. Seeing the great expanse of the Earth divided into neat patterns – fields checker boarding the landscape and roads racing to the horizon – brings symmetry(对称)to the messiness of everyday life.

　　I've leaned past snoozing seatmates to marvel at snow-covered mountain peaks gliding past the window, and been hypnotized(使催眠，着迷) by a glowing Los Angeles night, the undulating(连绵的，起伏的) topography(表面，地形) sparkling like a star-studded cape. Then there's the unexpected glory of a sunrise that arrives hours too early when you fly overseas, the majestic rays illuminating(照亮)the horizon of another continent. (当你飞行在海上，还有那日出明辉，提前数小时就不期而至，喷薄的光线照亮了远处另一个大陆的水平线。)This moment of discovery unfolds every dawn for tens of thousands of passengers, but few, I would venture, ever stop to think about it.

　　To be honest, I usually don't either.

　　I recall another time when I was leaving on what was supposed to be a family vacation, and once again, my mind was on the office and unfinished projects left behind.

　　Moments after take-off from Chicago, I dove into work. But a passenger behind me wouldn't stop talking. “The clouds!” he kept saying, “Look at the clouds!”

　　I turned to glare, and saw two men, one who appeared to be in his 70s and the other much younger. I felt sorry for the travelling companion, whom I imagined was the unlucky son tasked to join his aging father on the trip. (我为这两个旅人感到遗憾，我想象，那一定是位不走运的儿子不得不带着他的老父亲在旅游。)The chatter continued for 20 minutes until, in frustration, I looked up from my glowing computer screen and opened the window shade.

　　The clouds!

　　He was right. We were floating through giant balls of cotton, soft and fluffy(毛茸茸的), each as different as a snowflake and seemingly close enough to touch. The afternoon sun provided a shifting palette(调色板)of colours: pink and salmon, red and raspberry, crimson and ivory, all set off against a royal blue sky. I closed my laptop and stared at them for the rest of the flight.

　　I don't remember the work I felt compelled(强迫)to complete that afternoon. But I've never forgotten those clouds.

　　Vocabulary

　　Hectic 忙乱的;发热的

　　Navigate 航行

　　Snarl 吼叫

　　Calculate 计算

　　Equation 方程式;等式

　　Covet 想要……，觊觎

　　Deplete 使枯竭，用完

　　Follow suit 紧随其后，效仿

　　Rivet 铆钉;使迷住

　　Invariably 一成不变地，总是

　　Symmetry 对称

　　Hypnotize 使催眠，着迷

　　Undulating 连绵起伏的

　　Topography 地形表面

　　Illuminate 照亮

　　Fluffy 毛茸茸的

　　Palette 调色板

　　Compel 强迫

　　读雅思真题，记基础词汇

　　1. Throughout the course of history, people have traveled for purposes of trade, religious conviction, economic gain, war, migration and other equally compelling motivations.(剑10T3P1)

　　纵观历史，人们爬山涉水，目的多样：贸易、宗教信仰、经济利益、战争、迁徙和其他种种同样紧迫的动机。

　　2. Shannon showed how to calculate this limit, opening the way to the design of compression methods that cram maximum information into the minimum space. (剑9T3P3)

　　Shannon说明了如何计算这一极限，为设计信息压缩方法从而将最大的信息量塞进最小的空间开辟了道路。