Argentina in the late nineteenth century was an exciting place.Around 1870，it was experiencing an economic(经济的)boom，and the capital，Buenos Aires，attracted many people.Farmers，as well as a flood of foreigners from Spain and Italy，came to Buenos Aires seeking jobs.These jobs didn’t pay well，and the people felt lonely and disappointed with their new life in the city.As the unhappy newcomers mixed together in the poor parts of the city，the dance known as the tango(探戈舞)came into being.
At the beginning the tango was a dance of the lower classes.It was danced in the bars and streets.At that time there were many fewer women than men，so if a man didn’t want to be left out，his only choice was to dance with another man so that he could attract the attention of the few available women.Gradually，the dance spread into the upper classes of Argentinean society and became more respectable.
In Europe at this time，strong interest in dance from around the world was beginning.This interest in international dance was especially evident in Paris.Every kind of dance from ballet(芭蕾舞)to belly dancing could be found on the stages of the Paris theaters.After tango dancers from Argentina arrived in Europe，they began to draw the interest of the public as they performed their exciting dance in cafes.Though not everyone approved of the new dance，saying it was a little too shocking，the dance did find enough supporters to make it popular.
The popularity(流行)of the tango continued to grow in many other parts of the world.Soldiers who returned to the United States from World War I brought the tango to North America.It reached Japan in 1926，and in 2003 the Argentinean embassy in Seoul hired a local tango dancer to act as a kind of dance ambassador，and promote tango dancing throughout South Korea.
小题1:The origin of the tango is associated with________.| A．belly dancers | | B．American soldiers | | C．a Spanish city | | D．the capital of Argentina |
小题2:Which of the following is true about the tango?| A．It was created by foreigners from Spain and Italy. | | B．People of the upper classes loved the tango most. | | C．It was often danced by two males in the beginning. | | D．A dancer in Seoul became the Argentinean ambassador. |
小题3:Before World War I，the tango spread to________.| A．America | B．Japan | | C．France | D．South Korea |
小题4:What can be the best title for the text?| A．How to Dance the Tango | | B．The History of the Tango | | C．How to Promote the Tango | | D．The Modern Tango Boom |
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小题1:D
小题2:C
小题3:C
小题4:B |
本文为说明文。文章介绍了探戈舞的起源及其发展过程。
小题1:解析：选D。细节理解题。文章第一、二段介绍的是探戈舞的起源，belly dances是当时在欧洲流行的舞蹈之一，与探戈舞的起源无关，A项可排除。一战归来的美国士兵将探戈舞传到了北美，这是探戈舞的发展史，不是起源，B项也可排除。C项和D项为两个地名，通读第一段可知，探戈舞起源于阿根廷首都Buenos Aires(布宜诺斯艾利斯)，故选D项。
小题2:解析：选C。细节理解题。文中信息不足以判断A项正确与否；根据第二段首句“At the beginning the tango was a dance of the lower classes.”和最后一句“Gradually，the dance spread into the upper classes of Argentinean society and became more respectable.”可排除B项。D项与最后一段最后一句“...and in 2003 the Argentinean embassy in Seoul hired a local tango dancer to act as a kind of dance ambassador，and promote tango dancing throughout South Korea”不符。根据第二段第三句“At that time there were many fewer women than men，so if a man didn’t want to be left out，his only choice was to dance with another man so that he could attract the attention of the few available women.”可知C项正确。
小题3:解析：选C。细节理解题。探戈舞传到美国是在第一次世界大战之后，传到日本是在1926年，在韩国流传开来是在2003年，显然A项、B项和D项均可排除。根据排除法可推断C项正确。根据第三段内容可知，探戈舞传到法国的时间比较早，在其诞生后不久就传到法国。其诞生时间大约在1870年，所以传到法国应该是在19世纪，在一战前。故选C项。
小题4:解析：选B。主旨大意题。本文介绍的是探戈舞的起源及其发展史，故选B项。 |
核心考点
试题【Argentina in the late nineteenth century was an exciting place.Around 1870，it wa】；主要考察你对
题材分类等知识点的理解。
[详细]举一反三
Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel.And he surely deserves additional praise：the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism.
I say clever because antislavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War.H.B.Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the most famous example.These early stories dealt directly with slavery.With minor exceptions，Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely.He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.
Again and again，in the postwar years，Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race.Consider the most controversial，at least today，of Twain’s novels，Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn，Twain’s most widely read tale.Once upon a time，people hated the book because it struck them as rude.Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel“trash and suitable only for the slums(贫民窟)．”More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim，the escaped slave，and many occurrences of the word nigger.(The term Nigger Jim，for which the novel is often severely criticized，never appears in it.)
But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point.The novel is strongly antislavery.Jim’s search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic.As J．Chadwick has pointed out，the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities，“the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual：Jim，the father and the man.”
There is much more.Twain’s mystery novel Pudd’nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day.Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites，especially in intelligence，Twain’s tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth.A slave gave birth to her master’s baby and，for fear that the child should be sold South，switched him for the master’s baby by his wife.The slave’s lightskinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slaveholding class.The master’s wife’s baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.
The point was difficult to miss：nurture (养育)，not nature，was the key to social status.The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech，for example—were，to Twain，indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.
Twain’s racial tone was not perfect.One is left uneasy，for example，by the lengthy passage in his autobiography (自传) about how much he loved what were called“nigger shows”in his youth—mostly with white men performing in blackface—and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them.Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality.His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not.
Was Twain a racist? Asking the questioning the 21st century is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln.If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the“wisdom”of the considered moral judgments of the present，we will find nothing but error.Lincoln，who believed the black man the inferior of the white，fought and won a war to free him.And Twain，raised in a slave state，briefly a soldier，and inventor of Jim，may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century.
小题1:How do Twain’s novels on slavery differ from Stowe’s?| A．Twain was more willing to deal with racism. | | B．Twain’s attack on racism was much less open. | | C．Twain’s themes seemed to agree with plots. | | D．Twain was openly concerned with racism. |
小题2:Recent criticism of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn arose partly from its________.| A．target readers at the bottom | | B．antislavery attitude | | C．rather impolite language | | D．frequent use of“nigger” |
小题3:What best proves Twain’s antislavery stand according to the author?| A．Jim’s search for his family was described in detail. | | B．The slave’s voice was first heard in American novels. | | C．Jim grew up into a man and a father in the white culture. | | D．Twain suspected that the slaves were less intelligent. |
小题4:The story of two babies switched mainly indicates that________.| A．slaves were forced to give up their babies to their masters | | B．slaves’ babies could pick up slaveholders’ way of speaking | | C．blacks’social position was shaped by how they were brought up | | D．blacks were born with certain features of prejudice |
小题5:What does the underlined word “they” in Paragraph 7 refer to?| A．The attacks. | | B．Slavery and prejudice. | | C．White men. | | D．The shows. |
小题6:What does the author mainly argue for?| A．Twain had done more than his contemporary writers to attack racism. | | B．Twain was an admirable figure comparable to Abraham Lincoln. | | C．Twain’s works had been banned on unreasonable grounds. | | D．Twain’s works should be read from a historical point of view. |
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A little boy was learning to play the piano in a musical school.One day，Paderewski，who was a very famous ____in Poland，was holding a piano concert in his city.Wishing to encourage her young son"s ____ on the piano，his mother took the boy to the Paderewski concert.After they were seated，the mother ____a friend in the audience，who she hadn"t met for a long time.So she walked down the aisle(过道)to ____her.The mother and her friend stood ____happily for a while before the ____.Seizing the opportunity，the little boy rose and eventually made his way through a door ____“No Admittance”to explore the wonders of the concert hall.
When the house lights became ____and the concert was about to begin，the mother returned to her ___.And she discovered that her child was ____.She looked around，but her son was nowhere to be seen.Suddenly，the ____parted and spotlights ____on the impressive piano on the stage.To her ___，the mother saw her little boy sitting at the ___，innocently playing Twinkle，Twinkle Little Star on the piano.
At that moment，the great piano master made his entrance.He____moved to the piano in a hurry，and ___in the boy"s ear，“Don"t ____.Keep playing.”Then leaning over，Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass(低音的)part.Soon his____arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added a running obbligato(伴奏)．Together，the old master and the young beginner transformed a frightening situation into a (n) ____experience.
The audience had never seen such a performance form.They listened curiously and attentively，____in the wonderful music world.
| 小题1: | | A．violinist | B．scientist | | C．artist | D．pianist |
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| 小题2: | | A．progress | B．curiosity | | C．talent | D．interest |
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| 小题3: | | A．called | B．spotted | | C．made | D．treated |
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| 小题4: | | A．congratulate | B．welcome | | C．greet | D．help |
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| 小题5: | | A．chatting | B．quarreling | | C．joking | D．laughing |
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| 小题6: | | A．class | B．lecture | | C．meeting | D．performance |
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| 小题7: | | A．decorated | B．equipped | | C．packed | D．marked |
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| 小题8: | | A．dim | B．bright | | C．shiny | D．colorful |
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| 小题9: | | A．home | B．table | | C．seat | D．piano |
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| 小题10: | | A．missing | B．sick | | C．afraid | D．asleep |
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| 小题11: | | A．friends | B．door | | C．stage | D．curtain |
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| 小题12: | | A．insisted | B．took | | C．focused | D．agreed |
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| 小题13: | | A．horror | B．delight | | C．shame | D．pride |
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| 小题14: | | A．floor | B．keyboard | | C．spotlight | D．entrance |
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| 小题15: | | A．quickly | B．angrily | | C．slowly | D．sadly |
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| 小题16: | | A．shouted | B．cried | | C．talked | D．whispered |
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| 小题17: | | A．wait | B．quit | | C．speak | D．play |
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| 小题18: | | A．short | B．long | | C．right | D．left |
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| 小题19: | | A．creative | B．attractive | | C．embarrassing | D．puzzling |
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| 小题20: | | A．engaged | B．caught | | C．involved | D．lost |
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A mouse looked through a crack(裂缝) in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package. “What food might this contain？”The mouse____.He was alarmed to discover that it was a mousetrap(捕鼠夹子)．
Going back to the farmyard the mouse gave a(n)____：“There is a mousetrap！” The chicken raised her head and said: “Mr Mouse, I can tell this is a big____to you, but it is of no consequence to me.I cannot be____by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig. “I am so sorry，”sympathized the pig, “but there is____I can do about it but____.I will make sure that you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow.“Mr Mouse, I"m sorry for you，____it"s no skin off my nose，” said she.
So he returned to the house, head down and___， to face the farmer"s mousetrap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house，like the sound of a mousetrap____its prey.The farmer"s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she didn"t see that it was a____ snake whose tail the trap had caught.The snake bit her.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital.She returned home with a fever.Now everyone knows you____a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took a knife to the____for the chicken.
His wife"s sickness___so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.To feed them the farmer killed the pig.
The farmer"s wife didn"t get____and died.So many people came for her____that the farmer had the____ killed so as to____meat for all of them to eat.
The mouse looked upon it all from his____in the wall with great____.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn"t concern you, remember—when one of us is threatened, we are all at____.
| 小题1: | | A．whispered | B．shouted | | C．wondered | D．hesitated |
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| 小题2: | | A．warning | B．message | | C．notice | D．information |
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| 小题3: | | A．surprise | B．concern | | C．result | D．deal |
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| 小题4: | | A．bothered | B．cheated | | C．murdered | D．exchanged |
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小题5:．| A．anything | B．something | | C．everything | D．nothing |
| 小题6: | | A．wait | B．pray | | C．avoid | D．prevent |
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| 小题8: | | A．astonished | B．puzzled | | C．depressed | D．satisfied |
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| 小题9: | | A．catching | B．protecting | | C．gathering | D．collecting |
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小题10:．| A．poisonous | B．nervous | | C．fat | D．big |
| 小题11: | | A．check | B．treat | | C．abandon | D．examine |
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| 小题12: | | A．room | B．farmyard | | C．kitchen | D．wall |
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| 小题13: | | A．appeared | B．reduced | | C．disappeared | D．continued |
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| 小题14: | | A．good | B．safe | | C．quiet | D．well |
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| 小题15: | | A．funeral | B．event | | C．farm | D．death |
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| 小题16: | | A．chicken | B．cow | | C．snake | D．pig |
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| 小题17: | | A．offer | B．afford | | C．provide | D．supply |
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| 小题18: | | A．house | B．position | | C．crack | D．expression |
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| 小题19: | | A．happiness | B．sadness | | C．tiredness | D．carelessness |
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| 小题20: | | A．peace | B．risk | | C．sight | D．work |
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One cold afternoon a postman was slowly pushing his mail cart (邮车)____the hill that led out of the small town of lane.He was walking very____because there was a lot of ice on the____.He had only one more letter to deliver(传递), and this was for an old lady who lived at the____.Everybody____her “grandma”．
She had lived alone____her daughter had____to Hawaii many years before.She used to invite the postman____for coffee whenever he____her letter, and she would tell him about her two grandchildren in Hawaii，whom she had____seen.However, she had lots of____of them, which she used to____him.
Just as the____came near her gate，a small boy came____down the hill.Suddenly the boy slipped on the ice and fell.The postman stopped his mail cart and hurried____the street to help the boy.After a quick____，he saw that he had hurt his leg very badly.In fact, he was____that the boy"s leg had been broken. He knew that “grandma” did not have a____，so he stopped a____driver and asked him to____the boy to Lance Hospital.
| 小题1: | | A．down | B．up | | C．along | D．around |
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| 小题2: | | A．bravely | B．carefully | | C．fast | D．slowly |
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| 小题3: | | A．cart | B．ground | | C．field | D．road |
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| 小题4: | | A．gate | B．bottom | | C．end | D．top |
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| 小题5: | | A．named | B．shouted | | C．called | D．talked |
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| 小题6: | | A．ever since | B．just as | | C．ever after | D．until |
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| 小题7: | | A．left | B．came | | C．moved | D．been |
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| 小题9: | | A．carried | B．sent | | C．wrote | D．brought |
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| 小题10: | | A．already | B．often | | C．never | D．hardly |
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| 小题11: | | A．pictures | B．letters | | C．news | D．things |
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| 小题12: | | A．tell | B．show | | C．give | D．send |
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| 小题13: | | A．postman | B．lady | | C．children | D．boy |
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| 小题14: | | A．and ran | B．to run | | C．ran | D．running |
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| 小题16: | | A．search | B．look | | C．hurry | D．test |
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| 小题17: | | A．sad | B．angry | | C．afraid | D．disappointed |
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| 小题18: | | A．driver | B．TV set | | C．telephone | D．radio |
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| 小题19: | | A．passing | B．careful | | C．good | D．walking |
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| 小题20: | | A．send | B．bring | | C．get | D．take |
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Steven Jobs was born on February 24,1955，in San Francisco，California，and was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs.In 1961 the family moved to Mountain View, California.At that time people started to refer to the area as “Silicon Valley”．
As a child, Jobs preferred doing things by himself, not interested in team sports or other group activities.He enrolled in the HewlettPackard Explorer Club. There he saw his first computer at the age of twelve. He was very impressed, and knew right away that he wanted to work with computers.
At that time almost all computers were so large that one could fill a room, and so costly that individuals could not afford to buy them.Advances in electronics, however, meant that the parts of a computer were getting smaller and the power of the computer was increasing.
By 1980 the personal computer era was well underway.Apple was continually forced to improve its products to remain ahead, as more competitors entered the marketplace. Apple introduced the Apple Ⅲ， but the new model suffered technical and marketing problems.It was removed from the market.
Early in 1983 Jobs unveiled the Lisa.It did not sell well，however, because it was more expensive than personal computers sold by competitors.Apple"s biggest competitor was International Business Machines (IBM). By 1983 it was estimated that Apple had lost half of its market share ( part of an industry"s sales that a specific company has) to IBM.
In 1984 Apple introduced a revolutionary new model, the Macintosh.The Macintosh did not sell well to businesses，however.It lacked features other personal computers had, such as a corresponding high quality printer. The failure of the Macintosh signaled the beginning of Jobs"s downfall at Apple.
Late in 1988 the NeXT computer was introduced, aimed at the educational market.The product was very userfriendly，and had a fast processing speed, excellent graphics displays，and an outstanding sound system.Despite the warm reception，however, the NeXT machine never caught on. It was too costly, had a blackandwhite screen, and could not be linked to other computers or run common software.
小题1:When did Steven Jobs first get the chance to catch sight of a computer?| A．In 1955. | B．In 1961. | | C．In 1967. | D．In 1980. |
小题2:Which of the following statements is RIGHT?| A．All the computes used to be large enough to fill a room. | | B．Before 1980, Apple was not successful in the field of personal computers. | | C．Steven Jobs was born in Silicon Valley. | | D．Apple and IBM competed for sales of personal computers. |
小题3:According to the passage, the Apple Ⅲ________.| A．was popular among the young people | | B．turned out to be a failure | | C．caused more competitors to come into the market | | D．could be linked to a printer |
小题4:Which of the following leads to Jobs"s downfall at Apple?| A．The Apple Ⅲ. | B．The Macintosh | | C．The NeXT. | D．The Lisa. |
小题5:One of the reasons why the NeXT computer didn"t become popular is that ________.| A．few people could afford it | | B．it was not fast enough | | C．it was not easy to use | | D．it lacked super sound system |
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