题目
题型：不详难度：来源：
Like every language, American English is full of special expressions, phrases that come from the day-to-day life of the people and develop in their own way. Our expression today is “to face the music”.
When someone says, “well, I guess I’ll have to face the music,” it does not mean he’s planning to go to the concert. It is something far less pleasant, like being called in by your boss to explain why you did this and did that, and why you didn’t do this or that. Sour music indeed, but it has to be faced. At sometime or another, every one of us has had to face the music, especially as children. We can all remember father’s angry voice, “I want to talk to you.” and only because we did not obey him. What an unpleasant business it was!
The phrase “to face the music” is familiar to every American, young and old. It is at least 100 years old. And where did this expression come from? The first explanation comes from the American novelist, James Fenimore Looper. He said, in 1851, that the expression was first used by actors while waiting in the wings to go on the stage. When they got their cue to go on, they often said, “Well, it’s time to face the music.” And that was exactly what they did — facing the orchestra which was just below them. And an actor might be frightened or nervous as he moved on to the stage in front of an audience that might be friendly or perhaps hostile, especially if he forgot his lines. But he had to go out. If he did not, there would be no play. So the expression “to face the music” come to mean “having to go through something, no matter how unpleasant the experience might be, because you knew you had no choice.”
Other explanations about the expression go back to the army. When the men faced an inspection by their leader, the soldiers would be worried about how well they looked. Was their equipment clean, shinny enough to pass the inspection? Still the men had to go out and face the music of the band as well as the inspection. What else could they do?
Another army explanation is more closely related to the idea of facing the results and accepting the responsibility for something that should not have been done. As, for example when a man is forced out of the army because he did something terrible, he is dishonored. The band does not play. Only the drums tap a sad, slow beat. The soldier is forced to leave, facing such music as it is and facing the back of his horse.
小题1: How many ways does the phrase “to face the music” comes from?
| A．1 | B．2 | C．3 | D．4 |
| A．To face something far less pleasant. |
| B．To face the stage. |
| C．To face the back of one’s horse. |
| D．To face one’s leader. |
| A．When we are playing basketball. |
| B．When we are making a speech. |
| C．When we are having a party. |
| D．When we are talking with somebody. |
| A．unfriendly | B．dislike | C．unkind | D．unnecessary |
答案
小题1:C
小题2:A
小题3:B
小题4:A
解析
本文说明了美国习语to face the music的来历和意义。
小题1:细节题。根据文章第三、四、五段的解释，可推知此题答案为C。
小题2:细节题。根据文章第2段第2句It is something far less pleasant可推知此题答案为A。
小题3:推断题。根据文章第3段的解释：演讲与演出一样，都要面对观众，可推知此题答案为B。
小题4:词义猜测题。根据单词所在的语境：friendly or perhaps hostile, especially if he forgot his lines说明hostile与friendly意义相反，从而可推知此题答案为A。
核心考点
试题【To face the musicLike every language, American English is full of special expres】；主要考察你对题材分类等知识点的理解。[详细]
举一反三
This attitude toward manual(体力的) labor is now still seen in many aspects of American life. One is invited to dinner at a home that is not only comfortably but even luxuriously (豪华地) furnished and in which there is every evidence of the fact that the family has been able to afford foreign travel, expensive hobbies, and college education for the children; yet the hostess probably will cook the dinner herself, will serve it herself and will wash dishes afterward, furthermore the dinner will not consist merely of something quickly and easily assembled from contents of various cans and a cake or a pie bought at the nearby bakery. On the contrary, the hostess usually takes pride in careful preparation of special dishes. A professional man may talk about washing the car, digging in his flowerbeds, painting the house. His wife may even help with these things, just as he often helps her with the dishwashing. The son who is away at college may wait on table and wash dishes for his living, or during the summer he may work with a construction gang on a highway in order to pay for his education.
小题1:From paragraph 1, we can know that in America _________.
A. people tend to have a high opinion of the self-made man
B. people can always rise to the top through their won efforts
C. college professors win great respect from common workers
C. people feel painful to mention their fathers as labors.
小题2:According to the passage, the hostess cooks dinner herself mainly because _________.
| A．servants in American are hard to get |
| B．she takes pride in what she can do herself |
| C．she can hardly afford servants |
| D．It is easy to prepare a meal with canned food |
| A．work in a furniture shop | B．keep accounts for a bar |
| C．wait to lay the table | D．serve customers in a restaurant |
| A．A Respectable Self-made Family | B．American Attitude toward Manual Labor |
| C．Characteristics of American Culture | D．The Development of Manual Labor |
“It might seem strange that people still want to listen in age of watching television, but this is an unusual art form whose time has come again,” said David Ambrose, director of Beyond the Border, an international storytelling festival(节) in Wales.
“Some of the tales, like those the Inuit from Canada, are thousands years old. So our storytellers have come from distant lands to connect us with the distance of time,” he said early this month.
Two Inuit women, both in their mid 60s, are among the few remaining who can do Kntadjait, or throat singing, which has few words and much sound. Their art is governed by the cold of their surroundings, forcing them to say little but listen attentively.
Ambrose started the festival in 1993, after several years of working with those reviving (coming back into use or existence) storytelling in Wales.
“It came out of a group of people who wanted to reconnect with traditions. and as all the Welsh are storytellers, it was in good hands here.” Ambrose said.
小题1:Ambrose believes that the art of storytelling _______.
| A．will be more popular than TV |
| B．will be popular again |
| C．started in Wales |
| D．are in the hands of some old people |
| A．about their life as early as thousands of years ago |
| B．why they tell the stories in a throat-singing way |
| C．how cold it has been where the Inuit live |
| D．how difficult it is to understand the Inuit |
| A．Storytelling once stopped in Wales. |
| B．Storytelling has a long history in Wales. |
| C．Storytelling is always well received in Wales. |
| D．Storytelling did not come back until 1993 in Wales. |
| A．controlled by rich people | B．grasped by good storytellers |
| C．taken good care of | D．protected by kind people |
It would seem that there are three kinds of travel books. The first are those that give a personal, subjective(主观的) account of travels which the author has actually made himself. if they are informative and have a good index(索引), then they can be useful to you when you are planning your travels. The second kind are those books whose purpose is to give a purely objective(客观的) description of things to be done and seen. If a well-read, cultured person has written such a book, then it is even more useful. It can be sorted as a selected guide book. The third kind are those books which are called “a guide” to some place or other. If they are good, they will, in addition to their factual information, give an analysis or an explanation. Like the first kind they can be inspiring and interesting. But their basic purpose is to help the reader who wishes to plan in the most practical way.
Whatever kind of travel book you choose you must make sure that it does not describe everything as “wonderful”, “excellent” or “magical”. You must also note its date of publication because travel is a very practical affair and many things change quickly in the twenty-first century. Finally, you should make sure that the contents are well presented and easy to find.
小题1:This passage is about _______.
| A．how to travel | B．how to buy travel books |
| C．how to read a travel book | D．travel books |
| A．the book written by some people who have had the same travel experience themselves |
| B．the book which tells you what is worth doing and seeing based on the facts |
| C．the book in which a lot of big adjectives are used to draw your attention |
| D．the book which offers you a lot of useful information like a tour guide |
| A．the world is changing and so are the places you are going to visit |
| B．the price of the book is always changing |
| C．the author of the book may be different |
| D．the contents of the book are always the same |
As we have noted many times, it is hard to find out how these expressions begin. Sometimes, we get some hard facts. But more often we have to depend on guesswork. And that is true of this phrase, which came from England.
Before 1932, English law did not permit a doctor to cut open a dead human body for scientific examination, unless it was the corpse(尸体) of an executed(处决) criminal.
But when it became legal, more and more doctors demanded skeletons for a more scientific study of medicine. It was helping in the advance of modern medicine. The demand had become so strong that men began to rob tombs and sell skeletons to doctors at high prices.
We are told that a doctor would usually buy just one skeleton for scientific study. It became very important in his work. But he had to keep it hidden because most people objected to keeping such a thing. As a rule, the doctor would keep his skeleton in some dark corner where it could not be seen, or hide it in a closet.
After a time, people began to suspect(怀疑) every doctor of hiding a skeleton in the closet. From this suspicion, the phrase “a skeleton in the closet” took on a broader, more general meaning to describe anything that a man wanted to keep others from discovering. It could be proof of a criminal act, or something much less serious. Well, that is one theory.
One writer, however, believes that the phrase might have come from something that really happened. It is his guess that a hidden closet in some old English country home may have turned up a real skeleton, clear proof of some old family shame or crime. Well, one man’s guess is as good as another. But this sounds like a story by the great French novelist, Balzac.
Baizac tells us of a man who suspected his wife of having a lover. The husband comes home by surprise. But she hears him and quickly hides her lover in the closet of her bedroom. He enters her room and asks her if she is hiding her lover. He says he will not open the door to the closet if she promises him there is no one there; He will believe her. She answers firmly that she is not hiding anyone in the closet.
The husband then begins to build a solid brick wall against the closet. His wife watches, knowing that her lover will never come out alive. But she will not change her story and admit her guilt.
小题1:Which of the following situations is suitable for using the phrase “skeleton in the closet” ?
| A．You have stolen something precious and don’t want it discovered. |
| B．You are a doctor and have to keep a skeleton for research. |
| C．If you have cut open a dead human body for scientific examination you should keep the skeleton secret. |
| D．You have done a crime or done something foolish, but you want to keep other from discovering it. |
| A．one | B．two | C．three | D．four |
| A．尸体 | B．标本 | C．收藏 | D．骷髅 |
| A．In the 20th century, doctors realized the importance of anatomy(解剖) in the development of medicine. |
| B．The doctors of the ancient times liked to collect as many skeleton as possible. |
| C．The thieves stole skeletons from tombs in order to help the doctors. |
| D．It was legal that corpses of anybody were cut open for scientific examination in history. |
| A．a corpse | B．a phrase | C．a skeleton | D．a secret |
In the past, most development policies were aimed at increasing the growth rate of income per capita (人均所得). Many are still based on the theory that benefit of economic growth will come to all members of society. If this theory is correct, growth should encourage development.
By the early 1970s, however, the relationship between growth and development was being questioned. A major study by the World Bank in 1974 concluded that it is now clear that more than decades of rapid growth in developing countries has been of little benefit to & third of their population.
The World Bank study showed that increase in GNP per capita did not promise important improvements in such development indicators as nutrition (营养), health, and education. Although GNP per capita did indeed rise, its benefit came down to only a small part of the population. This realization gives rise to a call for new development policies. These new policies favor agriculture over industry, call for national redistribution (资源分配) of income and wealth, and encourage programs to satisfy such basic needs as food and shelter.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s the international macroeconomic crises (大规模的经济危机) of high oil prices, worldwide recession (衰退) and the third world debt, forced attention away from programs designed to get rid of poverty. however, the lesson remains: economic growth does not promise economic development. Efforts may be required to change growing output capacity (能力) into economic benefit that reach most of a nation’s people.
小题1:What do we learn from the first paragraph about the relationship between growth and development?
| A．Growth and development refer to the same thing. |
| B．Growth always brings about development. |
| C．Development is not a necessary result of growth. |
| D．Development is a reliable measure of growth. |
| A．most people in society | B．some people in society |
| C．few people in society | D．everyone in society |
A. benefit to a third of their population
B. benefit to two thirds of their population
C little benefit to their people
D. no benefit at all to their people
小题4:If the passage continues, what would the author most likely discuss in the next paragraph?
| A．How to turn growth into development. |
| B．How to remove poverty from society. |
| C．How to decrease the third world debt. |
| D．How to cope with economic crises. |
最新试题
- 1发射同步卫星与地球自转线速度密切相关，据此分析，下列发射场中最有利于发射卫星的是[ ]A．西昌B．太原C．酒泉D
- 2下表是我国三个地区的人口密度和人均土地资源情况，据表回答下列问题。（1）根据我国目前生产力水平，你认为哪一个地区人口分布
- 3（2011年四川广安，3题）下表是元素周期表中部分元素的原子结构示意图，请分析：ⅠAⅡAⅢA第2周期第3周期X第4周期Y
- 4观察桃和松的种子，发现只有 ________的种子外面有果皮包被着，分析：有果皮包被的种子在传播上的意义________
- 5听下面一段材料，回答第1至3题。 1. Where would you most probably hear this
- 6阅读下面这首宋词，然后回答问题。（8分）点绛唇访牟存叟①南漪钓隐周晋午梦初回，卷帘尽放春愁去。昼长无侣，自对黄鹂语。 絮
- 7要了解某种产品的质量，从中抽取出300个产品进行检验，在这个问题中，300个产品的质量叫做（ ）A．总体B．个体
- 8用方框内所给词的填空。on, holiday, wishes, Sunday, give
- 9读“巴西略图”完成下列问题。（1）填出图中字母和数码所表示的地理事物的名称：A________（国家），B_______
- 10在人体血液循环中，当血液流经肺部毛细血管时，血液的变化是（ ）A．动脉血变为静脉血B．静脉血变为动脉血C．此处血液并没
热门考点
- 1听下面一段材料，回答第1-3题。1.Why does the man want o make an appointmen
- 2不等式组表示的平面区域是（ ）
- 3下列对实验现象的描述，正确的是A．红磷在空气中燃烧，有大量白雾生成B．硫在氧气中燃烧发出蓝紫色火焰 C．蜡烛在氧气中燃烧
- 4根据短文内容，从下框的A---F选项中选出能概括每一段主题的最佳选项,并在答题卡上将该选项涂黑。 选项中有一项为多余选项
- 5请找出下列各组词中的错别字，并将正确的字写在后面的横线上。（1）嫩芽 拆散 花辨 憎恨贪婪_______________
- 6《朝花夕拾》是鲁迅的回忆性散文集。其中，一些作品记述了作者童年的欢乐生活，如《 ① 》中，对冬天里 ② 活动的回忆
- 7甲、乙两辆公共汽车分别自A、B两地同时出发，相向而行．甲车行驶85千米后与乙车相遇，然后继续前进．两车到达对方的出发点等
- 8阅读理解。 Thirteen vehicles(车辆)lined up last March to race a
- 9阅读下面这首宋词，然后回答问题。木兰花 宋祁东城渐觉风光好，縠皱[注]波纹迎客棹。绿杨烟外晓寒轻，红
- 10 已知（1）求的值域；（2）若，求的值。