题目
题型:不详难度:来源:
Many of Gershwin’s songs were first written for musical plays performed in theatres in New York City. These plays were a popular form of entertainment in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of his songs have remained popular as ever. Over the years they have been sung and played in every possible way — from jazz to country.
In the 1920s there was a debate in the United States about jazz music. Could jazz, some people asked, be considered serious music? In 1924 jazz musician and orchestra leader Paul Whiteman decided to organize a special concert to show that jazz was serious music. Gershwin agreed to compose something for the concert before he realized he had just a few weeks to do it. And in that short time, he composed a piece for piano and orchestra which he called Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin himself played the piano at the concert. The audience were thrilled when they heard his music. It made him world-famous and showed that jazz music could be both serious and popular.
In 1928, Gershwin went to Paris. He applied to study composition (作曲)with the well-known musician Nadia Boulanger, but she rejected him. She was afraid that classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style. While there, Gershwin wrote An American in Paris. When it was first performed, critics (评论家)were divided over the music. Some called it happy and full of life, to others it was silly and boring. But it quickly became popular in Europe and the United States. It still remains one of his most famous works.
George Gershwin died in 1937, just days after doctors learned he had brain cancer. He was only thirty-nine years old. Newspapers all over the world reported his death on their front pages. People mourned the loss of the man and all the music he might have still written.
小题1:Many of Gershwin’s musical works were ________ .
A.written about New Yorkers | B.Composed for Paul Whiteman |
C.played mainly in the countryside | D.performed in various ways |
A.It attracted more people to theatres |
B.It proved jazz could be serious music |
C.It made Gershwin leader of the orchestra |
D.It caused a debate among jazz musicians |
A.He created one of his best works | B.He studied with Nadia Boulanger |
C.He argued with French critics | D.He changed his music style |
A.Many of Gershwin’s works were lost |
B.The death of Gershwin was widely reported |
C.A concert was held in memory of Gershwin |
D.Brain cancer research started after Gershwin’s death. |
A.Talented and productive | B.Serious and boring |
C.popular and unhappy | D.Friendly and honest |
答案
小题1:D
小题2:B
小题3:A
小题4:B
小题5:A
解析
小题1:细节理解题。根据第二段话末句“Over the years they have been sung and played in every possible way — from jazz to country”可知,其作品以不同的方式来演绎。故选D。
小题2:细节理解题。根据第三段话末句“…showed that jazz music could be both serious and popular”可知此次音乐会是证明了爵士也可以是严肃音乐。
小题3:细节理解题。根据倒数第二段话可知,他在巴黎写了An American in Paris及后文“it quickly became popular in Europe and the United States. It still remains one of his most famous works”可知答案选A。
小题4:细节判断题。根据最后一段话“Newspapers all over the world reported his death on their front pages”可知,全世界的报刊都在头版报道了他去世的消息。故答案为B。
小题5:推理判断题。根据第一段话“George Gershwin, born in 1998, was one of America’s greatest composers. He published his first song when he was eighteen years old.”可知他极具天赋;再根据第一段话“During the next twenty years he wrote more than five hundred songs”可知他是多产的作曲家。通读全文,我们也不难得出结论。
核心考点
试题【George Gershwin, born in 1998, was one of America’s greatest composers. He publi】;主要考察你对题材分类等知识点的理解。[详细]
举一反三
Sparrow failed to grow for another two years. Until a new CEO, Carl Pearson, decided to build up its market share. He did a survey, which showed that consumers who already used Sparrow restaurants were extremely positive about the chain, while customers of other fast-food chains were unwilling to turn away from them. Sparrow had to develop a new promotional campaign.
Pearson faced a battle over the future of the Sparrow brand. The chain’s owner now favored rebranding Sparrow as Marcy’s restaurants. Pearson resisted, arguing for an advertising campaign designed to convince customers that visits to Sparrow restaurants were fun. Such an attempt to establish a positive relationship between a company and the general public was unusual for that time. Pearson strongly believed that numbers were the key to success, rather than customers’ speeding power. Finally, the owner accepted his idea.
The campaign itself changed the traditional advertising style of the fast-food industry. The TV ads of Sparrow focused on entertainment and featured original songs performed by a variety of stars. Instead of showing the superiority of a specific product, the intention was to put Sparrow in the hearts of potential customers.
Pearson also made other decisions which he believed would contribute to the new Sparrow image. For example, he offered to lower the rent of any restaurants which achieved a certain increase in their turnover (营业额) .
These efforts paid off, and Sparrow soon became one of the most successful fast-food chains in the regions where it operated.
小题1:Which was one of the problems Sparrow faced before Pearson became CEO?
A.The number of its customers was declining |
B.Its customers found the food unhealthy |
C.It was in need of financial support |
D.Most of its restaurants were closed |
A.Customers of Sparrow restaurants | B.Sparrow restaurants |
C.Customers of other fast-food chains | D.other fast-food chains |
A.To build a good relationship with the public |
B.To stress the unusual tradition of Sparrow |
C.To lean about customers’ spending power. |
D.To meet the challenge from Marcy’s restaurants. |
A.changed people’s views on pop stars |
B.amused the public with original songs |
C.focused on the superiority of its products |
D.influenced the eating habits of the audience |
A.He managed to pay off Sparrow’s debts. |
B.He made Sparrow much more competitive |
C.He helped Sparrow take over a company |
D.He improved the welfare of Sparrow employees |
I say clever because anti-slavery 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 occurences 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 anti-slavery. 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 slave-holding 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 black-face—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 question in 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. |
A.target readers at the bottom |
B.anti-slavery attitude |
C.rather impolite language |
D.frequent use of “nigger” |
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. |
A.slaves were forced to give up their babies to their masters |
B.slaves’ babies could pick up slave-holders’ way of speaking |
C.blacks’ social position was shaped by how they were brought up |
D.blacks were born with certain features of prejudice |
A.The attacks. | B.Slavery and prejudice. |
C.White men. | D.The shows. |
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. |
That was why she was alone on the 39 , wearing an expensive swimsuit. It has taken a massive tantrum to 40 her parents to buy it. They were back at the beach-house, 41 from the tantrum she had thrown when they told her that it was too dangerous to go diving 42 . “Dangerous?” she had said. “You just don’t want me to have 43 . I’m going and if you try to stop me, I’ll scream.”
“What are you doing ?” a voice asked. Diane jumped. She did not know that the man was there 44 he spoke .
“I’m going diving, ” she answered.
“You shouldn’t swim that day, ” the man 45 . “There is a storm coming up.”
“You should mind your own 46 !” Diane replied and walked into the gentle waves.
“If you go out there you’ll be 47 ,” the man called after her. She did not bother to reply.
Diane slipped into the water and dived 48 until white caps began rolling in and it became harder to 49 against the current (水流). Saltwater hit against her face, making it 50 to breathe. Oh, why had she not listened to advice.
Panicking, she began to 51 . Then, just as it seemed as if she would slip beneath the surface, she heard a 52 voice. “Hold on ! I’m coming.” With 53 , she saw the old man rowing an ancient-looking boat towards her. “I hope you’ve learned a lesson. You put us both in 54 , ” he shouted angrily, as he dragged her over the side of the 55 . Gratefully, Diane thanked him and ran towards the beach-house.
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“So,” Martin asked as they sat watching the hot coals. “How did this place get its name?”
“Are you sure you want to hear it ? It’s a scary story,” warned Jack.
“Of course!” cried out Tom. “If there were anything to be scared of, you wouldn’t have chosen this place!”
“Ok, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” said Jack, and he began this tale.
“Way back in time, a man called Dennis tried to start a farm here. He built that cottage over there to live in. In those days, the area looked quite different ---- it was covered with tall trees and the swamp was a crystal-clear river. After three hard years, Dennis had cleared several fields and planted crops. He was so proud of his success that he refused to listen to advice.
“‘You are clearing too much land,’ warned one old man. ‘ The land is a living thing. It will hit back at you if you abuse it. ’
“‘Silly fool,’ said Dennis to himself. ‘If I clear more land, I can grow more crops. I’ll become wealthier. He’s just jealous!’”
“Dennis continued to chop down trees. Small animals that relied on them for food and shelter were destroyed. He was so eager to expand his farm that he did not notice the river flowing slowly towards his door. He did not notice salt seeping to the surface of the land. He did not notice swamp plants choking all the native plants.”
“What happened?” Martin asked. It was growing colder. He trembled, twisting his body closer to the fire.
“The land hit back ---- just as the old man warned,” Jack shrugged. “Dennis disappeared. Old folks around here believe that swamp plants moved up from the river and dragged him underwater. His body was never found.”
“What a stupid story,” laughed Tom. “Plants can’t …” Before he had finished speaking, he screamed and fainted (晕倒). The other two boys jumped up with fright, staring at Tom. Suddenly, they burst out laughing. Some green swamp ivy (常春藤) had covered Tom’s face. It was a while before Tom could appreciate the joke.
小题1:The underlined word “dare” in Paragraph 1 is closed in meaning to ________.
A.courage | B.assistance | C.instruction | D.challenge |
A.To frighten them. |
B.To satisfy their curiosity. |
C.To warn them of the danger of the place. |
D.To persuade them to camp in the swamp. |
A.The old man envied him. | B.The old man was foolish |
C.He was too busy to listen to others. | D.He was greedy for more crops. |
A.He saw Dennis’s shadow | B.He was scared by a plant |
C.His friends played a joke on him. | D.The weather became extremely cold. |
A.Grasp all, lose all |
B.No sweat, no sweet. |
C.It is no use crying over spilt milk |
D.He who makes no mistakes makes nothing. |
Perri notes with amazement how closely her own life has mirrored her mother’s: both have full-time careers; both have published books, articles, and stories; each has three children; they both love to read. They also love to travel—in fact, they often take trips together. But in truth, the harder they look at their lives, the more they acknowledge their big differences in circumstance and basic nature.
A child of the Depression (大萧条), Sheila was raised in Brooklyn by parents who considered education a luxury for girls. Starting with her college education, she has fought for everything she’s ever accomplished. Perri, on the other hand, grew up privileged in the New Jersey suburbs of the 1960s and 1970s. For Sheila, wasting time or money is a crime, and luxury is unthinkable while Perri enjoys the occasional small luxury, but has not been successful at trying to persuade her mother into enjoying even the tiniest thing she likes.
Each writing in her own unmistakable voice, Perri and Sheila take turns exploring the joys and pains, the love and bitterness, the minor troubles and lasting respect that have always bonded them together. Sheila describes the adventure of giving birth to Perri in a tiny town in Trinidad where her husband was doing research fieldwork. Perri admits that she can’t sort out all the mess in the households, even though she knows it drives her mother crazy. Together they compare thoughts on bringing up children and working, admit long-hidden sorrows, and enjoy precious memories.
Looking deep into the lives they have lived separately and together, Perri and Sheila tell their mother-daughter story with honesty, humor, enthusiasm, and admiration for each other. A written account in two voices, Every Mother Is a Daughter is a duet (二重奏) that produces a deep, strong sound with the experiences that all mothers and daughters will recognize.
小题1:Why does Perri think that her own life has mirrored her mother’s?
A.They both have gone through difficult times. |
B.They have strong emotional ties with each other. |
C.They have the same joys and pains, and love and bitterness. |
D.They both have experiences as daughter, mother and writer. |
A.something rare but not pleasant |
B.something that cannot be imagined |
C.something expensive but not necessary |
D.something that can only be enjoyed by boys |
A.The content of the book. | B.The purpose of the book. |
C.The influence of the book. | D.The writing style of the book. |
A.In a musical form. | B.Through field research. |
C.With unique writing skills. | D.From different points of view. |
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