Unit 3 A healthy life reading 课时作业

一、阅读理解

　　Oxford English Dictionary(OED)editors recently noted that the three­letter word "run" has indeed become the single word with the most meanings with about 645 different usage cases for the verb form alone，making it the most complicated word in the English language.

　　The various definitions of "run" featured in the OED's upcoming third edition begin with the obvious "to go with quick steps"，then continue to run on for 75 columns of type.How could three little letters be responsible for so much meaning？Context is everything.

　　Think about it：When you run a fever，for example，those three letters have a very different meaning than when you run a bath to treat it，or when your bathwater runs over and wets your cotton bath runner，forcing you to run out to the store and buy a new one.And when you ran over a nail in the parking lot and now your car won't even run properly...God-you'd do things differently if you ran the world.

　　When the OED's first edition came out in 1928，the longest entry belonged to another three­letter word："set"．Even today，the print edition of the OED contains some 200 meanings，beginning with"put，lay，or stand" and continuing on for about 32 pages.

　　So what happened? British author Simon Winchester believes "a feature of our more energetic times" made word like "set" seem more passive by comparison."Run" appears to have earned some major lift during the Industrial Revolution."Machines run, clocks run, computers run-all of those meanings began in the middle of the 19th century，" Winchester says.

　　So，ready to run through the whole list of definitions？Ah，to read all 645 meanings you'll have to wait for the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

　　1．Which phrase has the first meaning of "run" in the upcoming third edition of OED?

　　A．To run a fever.

　　B．To run out to the store.

　　C．To run a bath.

　　D．To run a machine.

　　2．What does the writer intend to tell us in Paragraph 3?

　　A．Various meanings of the word "run"．

　　B．How to use "run" in specific cases.

　　C．How to learn about the word "run"．

　　D．Different ways to run the world.

　　3．What can we learn from the text?

　　A．"Run" is the most difficult word.

B．The meaning of "set" continues on for 75 columns of type.