阅读理解. Does knowledge of a writer's private life help to explain his works? It's an age-old question, but it's also one in which interest is aroused again by Antonia Fraser's book about her life with 题目和参考答案——青夏教育精英家教网—

题目内容

阅读理解。

     Does knowledge of a writer's private life help to explain his works? It's an age-old question, but it's
also one in which interest is aroused (激起) again by Antonia Fraser's book about her life with Harold
Pinter, Must You Go?. The book is obviously a personal account rather than a study of the plays. All the
same, I'd argue it throws a good deal of light on Pinter the dramatist (剧作家).
     I start from the belief that all information about a writer is helpful. In fact, one of the pleasures of
writing Pinter's biography was discovering that nearly all his plays were started by some strong personal
memory. This got me into trouble with some scholars. I remember Martin Esslin, a great Pinter scholar,
arguing that I had reduced the value of Pinter's Betrayal by linking it to the dramatist's seven-year-long
love affair with Joan Bake well. But, as I saw it, that was simply the play's origin. All I had done, I hoped, was to remind people that Pinter was a writer who would make use of his own life experience.
     That point can also be seen from Antonia's book. There's an interesting account of a dinner with Tom
Stoppard where Pinter says that he doesn't plan his characters' lives and then asks his fellow dramatist:
"Don't you find they take you over sometimes?", to which Stoppard firmly replies: "No." That says a lot.
One reason why The Homecoming is a great play is that Pinter allows his characters, almost unconsciously, to take over. Despite Stoppard's many strengths, he tends to keep his characters under a much tighter
control.
     Again, there's an eye-opening passage in Antonia's book where she recalls a moment in 1983 when
Pinter refers back to his relationship with his former wife, Vivien: "While she was alive, if you think about
it, so much of my work was about unhappy frozen married relationships."
     In short-as Stoppard once wrote-information, in itself, about anything, is light. And modern biography, particularly in the hands of masters, has been helpful to literature by opening writers' lives to public eyes.
For that reason, among many others, I welcome Antonia Fraser's book.

1. What is TRUE about Antonia Fraser's book?

A. It is well received by the public.
B. It carries Antonia's views about biography.
C. It is helpful to the study of Pinter's works.
D. It includes serious studies of Pinter's works.

2.What do the author of this article and Martin Esslin disagree on?

A. The literary value of Pinter's Betrayal.
B. The literary value of the accounts of Pinter's life.
C. The truthfulness of the contents of Antonia's book.
D. The truthfulness of Pinter's love affair with Joan Bakewell.

3.What can we infer about Pinter and Stoppard?

A. They treat their characters in different ways.
B. Stoppard has more strengths than Pinter.
C. They often have dinners together.
D. They often argue with each other.

4. This article is probably ______.

A .a feature story
B. a book review
C. a news report
D. a biography

1-4: CBAB

练习册系列答案

相关题目

阅读理解: 阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项。

It is difficult for doctors to help a person with a damaged brain Without enough blood, the brain lives for only three to five minutes More often the doctors can’t fix the damage Sometimes they are afraid to try something to help because it is dangerous to work on the brain The doctors might make the person worse if he operates on the brain

Dr. Robert White, a famous professor and doctor, thinks he knows a way to help He thinks doctors should make the brain very cold. If it is very cold, the brain can live without blood for 30 minutes. This gives the doctor a longer time to do something for the brain.

Dr. White tried his idea on 13 monkeys. First he taught them to do different jobs, then he operated on them. He made the monkeys’ blood back to the monkeys’ brains. When the brain’s temperature was 10℃, Dr. White stopped the blood to the brain. After 30 minutes he turned the blood back on. He warmed the blood again. After their operations the monkeys were like they had been before. They were healthy and busy. Each one could still do the jobs the doctor had taught them.

1. The biggest difficulty in operating on the damaged brain is that_____.

A. the time is too short for doctors

B. the patients are often too nervous

C. the damage is extremely hard to fix

D. the blood-cooling machine might break down w*w

2. The brain operation was made possible mainly by .

A. taking the blood out of the brain B. trying the operation on monkeys first

C. having the blood go through a machine D. lowering the brain’s temperature

3. With Dr. White’s new idea, the operation on the damaged brain .

A. can last as long as 30 minutes B. can keep the brain’s blood warm

C. can keep the patient’s brain healthy D. can help monkeys do different jobs

4. What is the right order of the steps in the operations?

A. send the cooled back to the brain B. stop the blood to the brain

C. have the blood cooled down D. operate on the brain

A. a, b, c, d B. c, a, b, d C. c, b, d, a D. b, c, d, a

5. Which of the following is not true?

A. If there isn’t enough blood, the brain can live for only three to five minutes.

B. If the brain is very cold, it can live without blood for half an hour.

C. Dr. White tried his idea for thirteen times.

D. After their operations, the monkeys were healthy and busy again

第二部分阅读理解（共25小题。第一节每小题2分，第二节每小题1分；满分45分）

第一节阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C、D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

A new study in West Africa shows how farm irrigation systems powered by the sun can produce more food and money for villagers. The study in Benin found that solar-powered pumps are effective in supplying water, especially during the long dry season.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the part of the world with the least food security. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than one billion of the world’s people faced hunger last year. Around two hundred sixty-five million of them live south of the Sahara Desert. Lack of rainfall is one of their main causes of food shortages.

Jennifer Burney from Stanford University in California led the study. The research team helped build three solar-powered irrigation systems in northern Benin.

The solar-powered irrigation systems produced an average of nearly two metric tons of vegetables per month.

They sold the surplus(过剩的) produce at local markets. The earnings greatly increased their ability to buy food during the dry season which can last six to nine months.

People in the two villages with the systems were able to eat three to five more serving of vegetables per day. But making the surplus available at markets also had a wider effect.

The study compared the villages with two others where women farmed with traditional methods like carrying water in buckets. The amount of vegetables eaten in those villages also increased, though not as much.

The researchers note that only four percent of the cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated. Using solar power to pump water has higher costs at first. But the study says it can be more economical in the long term than using fuels like gasoline, diesel or kerosene. And solar power is environmentally friendly.

1. People living in sub-Saharan Africa are short of food mainly because______.

A. it seldom rains there throughout the year B. there is little farmland in the area

C. people there lack experience in farming D. people know nothing about irrigation techniques

2. Which of the following is an advantage of Jennifer’s irrigation systems?

A. They are not affected by the weather.

B. They cost much less than traditional irrigation systems.

C. They have no bad effects on the environment.

D. They use less fuel than traditional irrigation systems.

3. We can learn from the last paragraph that______.

A. people in South Africa will soon be provided with enough food

B. the demand for fuels like gasoline will greatly decrease in Africa

C. people in sub-Saharan Africa don’t take agriculture seriously

D. it’s worthwhile to use the new irrigation systems on the while

4. People in the two villages owe all the following to Jennifer’s irrigation systems EXCEPT that ______.

A. they could buy more food during the dry season

B. they could eat more vegetables than usual every day

C. they could supply local markets with vegetables

D. they could provide people in other villages with food

第三部分阅读理解（共20小题；每小题2分，满分40分）

阅读下列短文，从每题所给的四个选项（A、B、C和D）中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

A new study suggests that the more teenagers watch television, the more likely they are to develop depression （沮丧；抑郁）as young adults.

The researchers used a national long - term survey of adolescent health to investigate（调查）the relationship between media use and depression. They based their findings on more than four thousand adolescents who were not depressed when the survey began in 2000.

As part of the survey, the young people were asked how many hours of television or videos they watched daily. They were also asked how often they played computer games and listened to the radio. Media use totaled an average of five and one - half hours a day. More than two hours of that was spent watching TV.

Seven years later, in 2007, more than seven percent of the young people had signs of depression. The average age at that time was twenty -one.

The study didn’t explore if watching TV causes depression. But one possibility is that it was taking time away from activities that could help prevent depression.

Previous study found that people who describe themselves as happy spend less time watching television than unhappy people. The study found that happy people are more likely to be socially active to read, to attend religious services and to vote.

1. The result of the research seems to prove ________.

A. teenagers are more likely to develop depression than adults

B. other media uses do no harm to adolescents

C. TV probably causes teenagers to grow up with depression

D. those who don’t watch TV will not develop depression

2. We can learn from the survey that of all the media use ________.

A. computer games are teenagers’ favorite

B. most teenagers prefer to listen to the radio

C. teenagers enjoy watching TV very much

D. newspaper is not included in the survey

3. According to the passage, what kind of activity may help prevent depression?

A. Playing computer games. B. Taking part in sports.

C. Listening to the radio. D. Watching movies.

4. We can conclude that a teenager should ________.

A. play more video games instead of watching TV

B. be active in taking part in outdoor activities

C. be more active in watching educational TV programmes

D. attend religious services and care for politics

第三部分阅读理解 (共15小题；每小题2分，满分30分)

请认真阅读下列短文，从短文后各题所给的A、B、C、D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

Picking a Christmas tree takes most people a few minutes, a couple of hours if they head to the woods. Dave Murbach needs 11 months.

Almost every day of every year, Murbach’s thoughts turn to vision of a perfectly shaped evergreen tree that will take everyone’s breath away.

“The tree,” he says wearily. “Always the tree.”

Murbach is the man responsible for finding the towering tree that graces Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center each Christmas season.

“I’m always looking for a tree,” the center’s chief gardener says. “I look for it even when I go to the beach in the summer. It’s like a homework assignment hanging over your head.”

And if he gets it wrong, there’s nothing hiding it.

“Every day it’s up, 400,000 people go by, and 2.5 million people watch the lighting celebration on television,” he says.

This year’s tree, a 74-foot Norway spruce (云杉) from Richfield, Ohio, flown to New York on the world’s largest cargo plane, was lighted on December 2.

The arrival of the tree leads in the Christmas season in New York - a tradition dating to 1931, when the workers building Rockefeller Centre put up a small tree with decorations.

The search for the next year’s tree starts soon after the old tree is chopped up for wood chips and horse-jumping logs.

That’s not as simple as it sounds. Though forests are full of evergreens, few get enough sunlight or space to fill out. And branches in snowy regions often break under the weight, making flees uneven.

Back at the office, he sorts through hundreds of letters from people offering their trees, many addressed simply to “Mr. Christmas Tree Man.”

Despite the occasional anxiety attack and sleepless night, Murbach knows the together people you love. That’s what I hope it sets off.”

But Murbach says he’s always too worn out to celebrate Christmas.

“No card, no lights, nothing,” he says.

“No tree?”

“No tree.”

1. Murbach takes his job seriously because he most likely wants _____________.

A. everyone to be happy with his work

B. to make everyone surprised at his choice

C. everyone to know his care for their happiness

D. to attract people’s attention to his special ability

2. Which is the correct order of the events in the passage?