题目内容

As we grow old, we realize that we have so little time to read and there are so many great books that we’ve yet to get around to. Yet re-readers are everywhere around us. For certain fans, re-reading The Lord of the Rings is a conventional practice annually. One friend told me that Jane Austen’s Emma can still surprise him, despite his having read it over 50 times.

New sudden clear understandings can be gained from the process of re-reading. Journalist Rebacca Mead, a long-time Englishwoman in New York, first came across George Eliot’s Middlemarch at 17. Since then, she has read it again every five years. With each re-reading, it has opened up further; in each chapter of her life, it has resonated (引起共鸣) differently. Mead evidenced the large number of ways in which really good books not only stand the test of repeat reads, but also offer fresh gifts each time we crack their spines. These kinds of books grow with us.

Scientists have also recognized the mental health benefits of re-reading. Research conducted with readers in the US found that on our first reading, we are concerned with the “what” and the “why”. Second time round, we’re able to better appreciate the emotions that the plot continues to express. As researcher Cristel Russell of the American University explained, returning to a book “brings new or renewed appreciation of both the great book and its readers.”

It’s true that we often find former selves on the pages of old books (if we’re fond of making notes on the pages). These texts can carry us back to a time and place, and remind us of the kind of person that we were then. We’re changed not only by lived experience but also by read experience – by the books that we’ve discovered since last reading the one in our hand.

More so than the movie director or the musician, the writer calls upon our imaginations, using words to lead us to picture this declaration of love or that unfaithfulness in life. A book is a joint project between writers and readers, and we must pour so much of ourselves into reading that our own life story can become connected with the story in the book.

Perhaps what’s really strange is that we don’t re-read more often. After all, we watch our favorite films again and we wouldn’t think of listening to an album only once. We treasure messy old paintings as objects, yet of all art forms, literature alone is a largely one-time delight. A book, of course, takes up more time, but as Mead confirms, the rewards make it adequately worthwhile.

1.The two books are mentioned in Paragraph 1 mainly to __________.

A. attract the attention of readers

B. introduce the topic of the passage

C. provide some background information

D. show the similarity between re-readers

2. The underlined expression “crack their spines” in Paragraph 2 refers to ________.

A. recite them B. re-read them

C. recall them D. retell them

3. The purpose of the passage is to __________.

A. call on different understandings of old books

B. focus on the mental health benefits of reading

C. bring awareness to the significance of re-reading

D. introduce the effective ways of re-reading old books

4.It can be learned from the passage that __________.

A. reading benefits people both mentally and physically

B. readers mainly focus on feelings on their first reading

C. we know ourselves better through re-reading experience

D. writers inspire the same imaginations as film directors do

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The Queen’s English is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific study of the Queen’s Christmas broadcasts had found. Researchers have studied each of her messages to the Commonwealth countries since 1952 to find out the change in her pronunciation from the noble Upper Received to the Standard Received.

Jonathan Harrington, a professor at Germany’s University of Munich, wanted to discover whether accent changes recorded over the past half century would take place within one person. “As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast records,” he said.

He said the noble way of pronouncing vowels (元音) had gradually lost ground as the noble upper-class accent over the past years. “Her accent sounds slightly less noble than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very small and slow changes that we don’t notice from year to year.”

“We may be able to relate it to changes in the social classes,” he told The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper. “In 1952 she would have been heard saying ‘thet men in the bleck het’. Now it would be ‘that man in the black hat’. Similarly, she would have spoken of ‘citay ’ and ‘dutay’ , rather than ‘citee’ and ‘dutee’ and ‘hame’ rather than ‘home’. In the 1950s she would have been ‘lorst’, but by the 1970s ‘lost’.”

The Queen’s broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth countries. Each Christmas, the 10-minute broadcast is put on TV at 3 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.

The results were published in the Journal of Phonetics.

1.The Queen’s broadcasts were chosen for the study mainly because ______.

A. she has been Queen for many years.

B. she has a less upper-class accent now.

C. her speeches are familiar to many people.

D. her speeches have been recorded for 50 years.

2.Which of the following is an example of a less noble accent in English?

A. “dutay” B. “citee” C. “hame” D. “lorst”

3.We may infer from the text that the Journal of Phonetics is a magazine on _________.

A. speech sounds B. Christmas customs

C. TV broadcasting D. personal messages

4.What is the text mainly about?

A. The Queen’s Christmas speeches on TV.

B. The relationship between accents and social classes.

C. The changes in a person’s accent.

D. The recent development of the English language.

What does it mean to say that we live in a world of persuasion? It means that we live among competing interests. Your roommate’s need to study for an exam may take priority over pizza. Your instructor may have good reasons not to change your grade.

In such a world, persuasion is the art of getting others to give fair and favorable consideration to our points of view. When we persuade, we want to influence how others believe and behave. We may not always prevail — other points of view may be more persuasive, depending on the listener, the situ­ation, and the merit of the case. But when we practice the art of persuasion, we try to ensure that our position receives the attention it deserves.

Some people, however, object to the very idea of persuasion. They may regard it as an unwelcome interruption into their lives. Just the opposite, we believe that persuasion is unavoidable — to live is to persuade. Persuasion may be ethical (合乎道义的) or unethical, selfless or selfish, inspiring or degrad­ing. Persuaders may enlighten our minds or get our vulnerability(脆弱之处). Ethical persuasion, however, calls on sound reasoning and is sensitive to the feelings and needs of listeners. Such persuasion can help us apply the wisdom of the past to the decisions we now must make. Therefore, the most basic part of edu­cation is learning to resist the one kind of persuasion and to encourage and practice the other.

Beyond its personal importance to us, persuasion is necessary to society. The right to persuade and be persuaded is the bedrock of the American political system, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

1.According to the passage, persuasion means ______.

A. changing others’ points of view

B. exercising power over other people

C. getting people to agree with you and do what you want

D. getting other people to consider your point of view

2.The underlined word in the second paragraph “prevail” means ______.

A. win B. talk C. compare D. expect

3.The passage states that some people object to persuasion because they think it is ______.

A. a danger to society B. difficult to do well

C. unwelcome behavior D. never successful

4.The passage mainly discusses ______.

A. that people persuade to get what they want

B. that persuasion is important and it is all around us

C. that persuasion is widely accepted and appreciated

D. that people persuade in different ways

When I was a boy my father told me that he could do anything he wanted to.Dad said that he wanted to be the first to develop color prints in our city, and so he did.

When I was 16,dad looked closely at the violin I played and said that he wanted to make one.He read about violinmaking,and then became a violinmaker at the age of 43.He bought the tools and materials,opened a small store and set Mom up as the shopkeeper,while he worked at a local company.He retired from the company 17 years later and continued to make violins and other instruments.

Dad often guessed why the Stradivarius violins sounded so beautiful.Some experts told him that it was the special varnish(油漆)that gave the instruments their beautiful sound.Dad argued that chemists could analyze the varnish—if that was the answer.

One of Dad’s friends asked him which kind of wood was used to make violins.When dad explained that the top was made of spruce(云杉),his friend said that he had all old piece of spruce which dad might be interested in.

He worked for the next 12 months making a violin from the wood that his friend had given him.It proved to be an excellent violin and it would become Dad’s masterpiece.He believed that the secret of the Stradivarius sound was in the wood itself.

Later, the instrument was stolen. Dad’s spirit was broken and he stopped making instruments. But he kept the music shop until he was 80 years old,selling guitars and violins.

The violin has been missing for more than 25 years.Somewhere a musician is playing a late-20th-century violin with an excellent tone.The owner today may never understand why this Ordinary-looking violin sounds so much like Stradivarius.

1.In Paragraph l,the writer mentioned his father's developing color prints to

A.let others know that he believed his father

B.show that his father would like to make violins

C.prove that his father could do anything he wanted to

D.give an example showing that his father was an inventor

2.What did the writer's father think about Stradivarius violins?

A.They were made by experts.

B.The wood of the violins was special.

C.The way of making them was unusual.

D.The varnish was different from the others.

3.From the underlined sentence,we learn that the writer's father

A.found another new job

B.wanted to become famous

C.lost interest in instruments

D.liked the violin very much

4.What could be the best title of the passage?

A.My Experienced Father

B.My Father and His Violin

C.The Secret of Making Violins

D.The New Owner of the Violin

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