Question

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote hundreds of poems during her lifetime. She was known around the world for using poetry to increase understanding about black culture in America.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Gwendolyn Brooks used her poems to describe conditions among the poor, racial inequality and drug use in the black community. She also wrote poems about the struggles of black women. But her skill was more than her ability to write about struggling black people. She combined traditional European poetry styles with the African American experience.

Gwendolyn Brooks once said that she wrote about what she saw and heard in the street. She said she found most of her material looking out of the window of her second-floor apartment house in Chicago, Illinois. In her early poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks wrote about the South Side of Chicago, where many black people live. In her poems, the South Side is called Bronzeville. It was “A Street in Bronzeville” that gained the attention of literary experts in 1945. Critics praised her poetic skill and her powerful descriptions about the black experience during the time. The Bronzeville poems were her first published collection.

In 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African-American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She won the prize for her second book of poems called “Annie Allen.” “Annie Allen” is a collection of poetry about the life of a Bronzeville girl as a daughter, a wife and mother. She experiences loneliness, loss, death and being poor.

Mizz Brooks said that winning the prize changed her life. Her next work was a novel written in 1953 called “Maud Martha”. “Maud Martha” received little notice when it first was published. But now it is considered an important work by some critics. Its main ideas about the difficult life of many women are popular among female writers today.

40. Gwendolyn Brooks became world-famous because      .
A. she was an expert at the language of poetry
B. she introduced black culture with poems
C. she fought for black rights by writing poems
D. her writing reflects the true life of black women

41. Which of the following can we learn from the passage?
A. Gwendolyn Brooks’ poems focus on black people in Africa.
B. Winning the Pulitzer Prize was important for Brooks’ career.
C. Gwendolyn Brooks herself used to suffer a lot from drugs.
D. Gwendolyn Brooks’ early poetry showed a strong Asian style.

42. How did Gwendolyn Brooks get ideas for most of her writing?
A. By observing life.       B. By having talks.         C. By reading widely.    D. By traveling.

43. We can infer that the book “Annie Allen” mainly deals with “      ”.
A. married life                B. drug use                   C. adventure                 D. emotion

Answer 1

BBAD