题目内容
By the middle of the 21st century, the vast majority of the world’s population _____ in cities rather than in the country.
| A．are living | B．will be living | C．have lived | D．will have lived |
B
解析试题分析：考查时态。根据本句的时间状语by the middle of the 21st century说明是一个将来时。陈述的是在将来的这段时间里所发生的事情，所以使用将来进行时。句意：到21世纪中叶，大部分的人口都将生活在城里而不是在乡下。故B正确。
考点：考查时态
点评：时态题的考查关键是抓住句中的时间状语。要根据时间状语来选择合适的时态，在平时的学习中要注意积累有关时态的用法和各种时态的特殊之处。
Beijing opera or Peking opera （Pinyin: Jīngjù） is a form of Chinese opera which arose in the late 18th century and became fully developed and recognized by the mid-19th century．The form was extremely popular in the Qing Dynasty court and has come to be regarded as one of the cultural treasures of China．Major performance troupes （剧团，戏班子） are based in Beijing and Tianjin in the north，and Shanghai in the south．The art form is also enjoyed in Taiwan，and has spread to other countries such as the United States and Japan.
Beijing opera features four main types of performers．Performing troupes often have several of each variety，as well as numerous secondary and tertiary performers．With their elaborate （认真的，精心的） and colorful costumes，performers are the only focal points on Beijing opera's characteristically small stage．They make use of the skills of speech，song，dance，and combat in movements that are symbolic and suggestive，rather than realistic．Above all else，the skill of performers is evaluated according to the beauty of their movements．Performers also hold a variety of stylistic conventions that help audiences navigate the plot of the production．The layers of meaning within each movement must be expressed in time with music．The music of Beijing opera can be divided into the Xipi and Erhuang styles．Melodies include arias （唱腔），fixed-tune melodies，and percussion patterns．The repertoire of Beijing opera includes over 1,400 works，which are based on Chinese history，folklore，and，increasingly，contemporary life.
In recent years，Beijing opera has attempted numerous reforms in response to sagging audience numbers．These reforms，which include improving performance quality，adapting new performance elements，and performing new and original plays，have met with mixed success．Some Western works have been adopted as new plays，but a lack of funding and an adverse political climate have left Beijing opera's fate uncertain as the form enters the 21st century．
【小题1】How long has Beijing Opera become a popular art form?
| A．About one and a half centuries. |
| B．More than two centuries. |
| C．More than one century. |
| D．About half a century. |
| A．Two including Beijing and Tianjin，and Shanghai in the south. |
| B．Two including Beijing and Tianjin in the north. |
| C．Three including Beijing and Tianjin，and Shanghai in the south and Taiwan. |
| D．Five including Beijing and Tianjin，and Shanghai in the south，Taiwan，US and |
| A．Elaborate. | B．Colourful. |
| C．Realistic . | D．Representative. |
| A．Performers can take different stylistic traditions in the plays. |
| B．The standard to estimate a performer is the amount of his/her movements. |
| C．It’s necessary to keep movements along the music in time. |
| D．The content of Beijing Opera is plentiful but much fixed. |
| A．Very bright. | B．Certainly good. |
| C．Much uncertain. | D．More popular. |
By the mid-nineteenth century, the “icebox” had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War (1861-1865), as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880, half the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families of their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursors of modern refrigerator, had been invented.
Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.
But as early as 1803, an ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium(奖金) price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.
【小题1】What does the passage mainly discuss?
| A．The influence of ice on the diet. |
| B．The development of refrigeration. |
| C．The transportation of goods to market. |
| D．Sources of ice in the nineteenth century. |
| A．in 1803 | B．sometime bore 1850 |
| C．during the civil war | D．near the end of the nineteenth century. |
| A．progressive | B．popular | C．thrifty | D．well-established |
| A．many fish dealers also sold ice. |
| B．fish was shipped in refrigerated freight cars. |
| C．fish dealers were among the early commercial users of ice |
| D．fish was not part of the ordinary person’s diet before the invention of the icebox. |