题目内容
15. Struck by the terrible earthquake, Wenchuan, a country in Sichuan province, was _____ from the outside.
| A．cut up | B．cut down | C．cut in | D．cut off |
D
解析
阅读快车系列答案Starry Night
Have you ever seen a real night sky that looks like Van Gogh’s Starry Night? I hope not! So, why would an artist paint the sky this way? Perhaps I can answer that with another question. When you’re happy, why do you sing instead of speaking? Or when you’re in love, why do you speak of roses and honey? When we do these things, we, too are artists. We’re using something that goes beyond a mere scientific description in order to communicate our feelings more powerfully than straightforward words can. So consider for a moment that Van Gogh might not have been hallucinating (产生幻觉的) on the night he painted this. Maybe he felt something so powerful that he had to go beyond the familiar to express it.
I hope I’m reminding you of something you already know as I describe the experience of being outside at night under a crystal clear sky that makes everything seem clean and refreshing. So you look up. And suddenly you see the sky that you’ve seldom seen before. It’s not just the same old dark night sky tonight. Instead, the blackness is a deep, rich blue that is more bottomless than any ocean. The stars are not spots of light but brilliant, magical diamonds that dance like tiny angels. In just this special moment, the sky is somehow alive, and it seems to speak to you silently about the meaning of infinity (无限).
Now look at the painting again. Can you see something of what makes this such a famous and well-loved image? But there’s more here than that. Van Gogh painted this while he was quite struck down by a mental disease. It is natural to imagine that he frequently battled the fear that he would never escape his prison to true freedom. It is natural for us to imagine this because each of us has faced our own personal prison, whether it be disease, the loss of a loved one, serious financial problems … In such moments it is tempting to give up to despair (绝望) and collapse in hopelessness.
Looking at this painting, I imagine Van Gogh in just such a moment of despair, when he is struck by the memory of one of those amazing night skies. He recalls the sense that he is not alone, that there is a living, infinite world with rich colorful creatures and scenes all around.
And so th
e sky flows across the canvas (画布) full of vitality (活力) and power. The stars don’t just sparkle; they explode. Looking closer, we notice that the earth itself seems to respond to the movement in the sky, forming its own living waves in the mountain and rolling trees. In the sleepy village, the windows of the houses glow (发光) with the same light that brightens the universe. The giant trees at the left seem to capture the joy by stretching upwards toward the sky.
What a tremendous message of hope there is in this masterpiece! Even if our troubles persist, the world around us assures us that life is worth living. That’s what the angels sing about. Doesn’t it make you want to sing, too?
【小题1】Looking at the painting Starry Night, we can see all the following except________.
| A．The singing angels | B．the giant trees |
| C．the sleepy village | D．the sparkling stars |
| A．happiness | B．vitality | C．power | D．despair |
| A．trouble in one’s life | B．mental illness |
| C．control from the authority | D．a place where criminals are kept |
| A．To explain how Van Gogh painted the Starry Night. |
| B．To tell us how to appreciate the Starry Night. |
| C．To prove Van Gogh was in a hallucinating state of mind while painting the picture. |
| D．To show us the beauty of the sky on a starry night. |
Hans Christian Andersen was a poor boy who lived in Denmark. His father, a shoemaker, had died, and his mother had married again.
Andersen’s father liked to read better than to make shoes. In the evenings, he had read aloud from The Arabian Nights. His wife understood very little of the book, but the boy, pretending to sleep, understood every word.
By day Hans Christian Anderson went to a house where
old women worked as weavers. There he listened to the tales that the women told. In those days, there were almost as many tales in Denmark as there were people to tell them.
Among the tales told in the town of Odense, where Andersen was born in 1805, was one about a fairy who brought death to those who danced with her. To this tale, Hans Christian later added a story from his own life.
Once, when his father was still alive, a young lady ordered a pair of red shoes. When she refused to pay for them, unhappiness filled the poor shoemaker’s house. From that small tragedy and the story of the dancing fairy, the shoemaker’s son years later wrote the story that millions of people now know as The Red Shoes.
As a little girl, Hans Christian’s mother was sent out on the streets to beg. She did not want to beg, so she hid under one of the city bridges. She warmed her cold feet in her hands, for she had no shoes. She was afraid to go home. Years later, her son, in his pity for her and his anger at the world, wrote the angry story She’s No Good and the famous tale The Little Match Girl.
Through his genius, he changed every early experience, even his father’s death, into a fairy tale. One cold day his father showed him a white, woman-like figure among the frost patterns. “That is the snow queen,” said the shoemaker. “Soon she will be coming for me.” A few months later he died. And years later, Andersen turned that sad experience into a fairy tale, The Snow Queen.
【小题1】Which of the following is TRUE about Anderson when he was a boy?
| A．His father had remarried before he died. |
| B．His mother was struck by The Arabian Night. |
| C．He enjoyed listening to stories very much. |
| D．He would help old weavers with their work. |
| A．Almost all tales from around the world once had their origin in Denmark. |
| B．The people in Denmark were very enthusiastic about telling tales. |
| C．The number of tales in Denmark was exactly equal to that of the people living there. |
| D．The people in Denmark loved doing nothing but tell stories to each other. |
| A．5. | B．6. | C．3. | D．4. |
| A．The Red Shoes was based on a tragedy of Anderson’s family |
| B．Andersen’s genius as well as his early experience made him successful |
| C．Andersen was educated at home by his parents because of poverty |
| D．Anderson wrote The Snow Queen in memory of his parents |
| A．Hans Christian Andersen’s Own Fairy Tales. |
| B．Hans Christian Andersen’s Family. |
| C．Hans Christian Andersen’s Bitter Experiences. |
| D．Hans Christian Andersen’s Considerate Parents. |
In 1995, Susan Boyle went to Glasgow to audition（试镜）for My Kind of People, a televised talent show popular in the UK. She was immediately rejected. She was nervous during the audition, and felt she didn’t perform well, but her brother said that she was rejected because of her plain looks. Susan was not discouraged and continued to sing at church and at the karaoke nights in a local pub.
Susan suffered a personal loss in 1997, when her father passed away. After his death, Susan put her big dreams on hold to care for her sick mother, Bridget Boyle. The mother and daughter often talked of Susan’s possible fame. Bridget Boyle encouraged her daughter to take part in singing competitions. “She was the one who said I should enter Britain’s Got Talent. We used to watch it together,” Susan later told reporters. “She thought I would win.”
In 1999, Susan used all of her savings to pay for a professional demo（样本唱片）tape, which she sent to record companies. In 2002, Susan began taking singing lessons from voice coach Fred O’Neil.
In 2007, her mother passed away at the age of 91. A neighbor reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter “wouldn’t come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone”. She lived alone with her cat, Pebbles. For over a year, she refused to sing. But in August of 2008, O’Neil urged her to try out for Britain’s Got Talent. Convinced that the performance would be an honor to her mother, Susan auditioned in Glasgow, Scotland. She sang I Dreamed A Dream, a hit song from the musical Les Miserables（《悲惨世界》）, in the first round of the show, which was aired on April 11, 2009.
The 47-year-old Scottish woman's plain looks provided a sharp contrast（对比）to her powerfully beautiful voice. The performance astonished the audience and the judges. Online videos of her performance totaled over 40 million views within a week. Although she failed to win the final of Britain’s Got Talent, Susan Boyle became globally popular. Her first album I Dreamed A Dream has sold over five million copies.
【小题1】Bridget Boyle’s attitude towards her daughter’s musical talent can be described as ___.
| A．critical | B．doubtful | C．indifferent | D．confident |
| A．was slightly discouraged by her voice coac | B．entered Britain’s Got Talent to prove her ability |
| C．decided to give up her singing career | D．was deeply affected by her mother’s death |
| A．Her international fame grew rapidly in 2008. | B．Her audition for My Kind of People failed. |
| C．She has never stopped singing since 1995. | D．She was the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. |
| A．Susan Boyle was convinced by her brother that her plain looks were disadvantageous to her success |
| B．It was at the age of forty that Susan Boyle established a student-teacher relationship with O’Neil. |
| C．Susan Boyle was so struck by her father’s death that she shut herself out from the neighborhood. |
| D．The online views of Les Miserables numbered over 40 million within a week in 2009. |
| A．tell us how Susan’s dream come true | B．let us know more about Susan’s personal life |
| C．show how Susan was influenced by her family | D．explain how to enter and win a talent show |