题目内容

Arthur Miller (1915—2005) is universally recognized as one of the greatest dramatists of the 20th century. Miller's father had moved to the USA from Austria Hungary, drawn like so many others by the “Great American Dream”. However, he experienced severe financial hardship when his family business was ruined in the Great Depression of the early 1930s.
Miller's most famous play, Death of a Salesman, is a powerful attack on the American system, with its aggressive way of doing business and its insistence on money and social status as indicators of worth. In Willy Loman, the hero of the play, we see a man who has got into trouble with this system. Willy is “burnt out” and in the cruel world of business there is no room for sentiment: if he can't do the work, then he is no good to his employer, the Wagner Company, and he must go. Willy is painfully aware of this, and at a loss as to what to do with his lack of success. He refuses to face the fact that he has failed and kills himself in the end.
When it was first staged in 1949, the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards.
Miller died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on the evening of February 10, 2005, the 56th anniversary of the first performance of Death of a Salesman on Broadway.
【小题1】Why did Arthur Miller's father move to the USA?

A.He suffered from severe hunger in his home country.
B.He was attracted by the “Great American Dream.”
C.He hoped to make his son a dramatist.
D.His family business failed
【小题2】The play Death of a Salesman________.
A.exposes the cruelty of the American business world
B.discusses the ways to get promoted in a company
C.talks about the business career of Arthur Miller
D.focuses on the skills in doing business
【小题3】What can we learn about Willy Loman?
A.He treats his employer badly.
B.He runs the Wagner Company.
C.He is a victim of the American system.
D.He is regarded as a hero by his colleagues.
【小题4】After it was first staged, Death of a Salesman________.
A.achieved huge success
B.won the first Tony Award
C.was warmly welcomed by salesmen
D.was severely attacked by dramatists
【小题5】What is the text mainly about?
A.Arthur Miller and his family.
B.The awards Arthur Miller won.
C.The hardship Arthur Miller experienced.
D.Arthur Miller and his best known play.


【小题1】B
【小题2】A
【小题3】C
【小题4】A
【小题5】D

解析试题分析:
【小题1】从第一段drawn like so many others by the “Great American Dream可知 Miller的父亲被伟大的美国梦所吸引。
【小题2】从第二段。。。is a powerful attack on the American system, with its aggressive way of doing business and its insistence on money and social status as indicators of worth可得知答案
【小题3】 从第二段第三,四,五行及最后一行可知Willy Loman陷入到残酷的商业体系不能自拔以致最后自杀,说明他是美国体制的牺牲品。
【小题4】从倒数第二段the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards可知一个推销员之死一登台就获得了巨大成功。
【小题5】综合全文,本文主要讲述Arthur Miller及他的最有名的戏剧。
考点:传记体短文阅读
点评:本文主要讲述Arthur Miller及他的最有名的戏剧。集中考查了细节题,要求考生有较强的细节理解能力。

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       Researchers found that people become happier and experience less worry after they reach the age of fifty.In fact, they say by the age of eighty-five, people are happier with their life than they were when they were eighteen years old.

       The findings came from a survey of more than 340,000 adults in the United States.The Gallup(民意调查) Organization questioned them by telephone in 2008.At that time, the people were between the ages of eighteen and eighty-five.

       The researchers asked questions about emotions like happiness, sadness and worry.They also asked about mental or emotional stress.

       Arthur Stone at Stony Brook University in New York led the study.His team found that levels of stress were highest among adults between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five.The findings showed that stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their fifties.Happiness was highest among the youngest adults and those in their early seventies.The people least likely to report feeling negative emotions were those in their seventies and eighties.

       Researchers say they do not know why happiness increases as people get older.One theory is that, as people grow older, they grow more thankful for what they have and have better control of their emotions.They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences.

       Professor Stone says the emotional patterns could be linked to changes in how people see the world, or maybe even changes in brain chemistry.

       The researchers also considered possible influences like having young children, being unemployed or being single.But they found that influences like these did not affect the levels of happiness and well-being related to age.

       The study also showed that men and women have similar emotional patterns as they grow older.However, women at all ages reported more sadness, stress and worry than men.

What can be the best title of the text?

       A.Happiness Varies with Ages    B.Experience More, Worry Less

       C.The Older, the Wiser       D.Being Young, Being Happy

We can learn from the research that _________.

       A.only when people get older will they feel happier

       B.stress levels among the youngest are the highest

       C.older people tend to be grateful

       D.older people usually have no worries

According to the research, when people get older, _________.

       A.they miss the old days     B.they are physically weak

       C.they have better self-control    D.they are more emotional

What would the author probably talk about next?

       A.What influences happiness.  B.How to live better.

       C.How to keep happier.   D.Why women are less happier.

The author is intended to _________.

       A.advise how to reduce stress

       B.introduce a scientific finding

       C.describe how to do research

       D.talk about human emotions

In the United States, when one becomes rich, he wants people to know it. And even if he does not become very rich, he wants people to think that he is. That is what “keeping up with the Joneses” is about. It is the story of someone who tried to look as rich as his neighbors.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American called Arthur Momand. He told this story about himself. He began earning $ 125 a week at the age of 23. That was a lot of money in those days. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horseback riding every day. When he saw that rich people had servants, Momand and his wife also hired a servant and gave big parties for their new neighbors.
It was like a race, but one could never finish his race because one was always trying to keep up. The race ended for Momand and his wife when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They moved back to an apartment in New York City.
Momand looked around him and noticed that many people do things just to keep up with rich lifestyle of their neighbors. He saw the funny side of it and started to write a series of short stories. He called it “Keeping up with the Joneses” because “Jones” is a very common name in the United States. “Keeping up with the Joneses” came to mean keeping up with rich lifestyle of the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
People never seem to get tired of keeping up with the Joneses. And there are “Joneses” in every city of the world. But one must get tired of trying to keep up with the Joneses because no matter what one does, Mr. Jones always seems to be ahead.
【小题1】Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because they ________.

A.want to be as rich as their neighbors
B.want others to know or to think that they are rich
C.don’t want others to know they are rich
D.want to be happy
【小题2】It can be inferred from the story that rich people like to ________.
A.live outside New York CityB.live in New York city
C.live in apartmentsD.have many neighbors
【小题3】Arthur Momand used the name “Jones” in his series of short stories because “Jones” is _____.
A.an important nameB.a popular name in the United States
C.his neighbor’s nameD.not a good name

New Annotated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Price: £28.00

Publication Date: 30/11/2006

Publisher’s description:

Collect Doyle’s fifty-six classic short stories, arranged in the order in which they appeared in late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century book editions, in a set complemented by four novels, editor biographies of Doyle, Holmes, and Watson as well as literary and cultural details about Victorian society.

Breaking Ground by Daniel Libeskind

Price: £16.00

Publication Date:11/10/2006

Brief description:

This is a book about the adventure life that can offer each of us if we seize it, and about the powerful forces of tragedy, memory and hope. For Daniel Libeskind, life’s adventure has been through architecture, which he has found has the power to reshape human experience. Although often relating to the past, his buildings are about the future. This biology of one man’s journey brings together history, personal experience, our physical environment and a fresh international vision.

In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman

Price: £16.00

Publication Date:02/09/2006

Brief description:

On 11th September 2001, Art Spiegelman raced to the world Trade Center, not knowing if his daughter Nadja was alive or dead. Once she was found safe---in her school at the foot of the burning towers---he returned home, to mediate(反省) on the trauma(创伤), and to work on a comic strip(连环漫画). In the Shadow of No Towers is New Yorker Art Spiegelman’s extraordinary account of “the hijacking(劫机) on 9.11 and the following hijacking of those events” by America.

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve

Price: £14.00

Publication Date:07/10/2006

Publisher’s description:

This is the 11th novel by Anita Shreve, the critically accepted bestseller. A moving story of love and courage and tragedy and of the ways in which the human heart always seeks to heal itself.

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv

Price: £20.99

Publication Date:11/08/2006

Brief description:

Camping in the garden, riding bikes through the woods, climbing trees, picking wildflowers, running through piles of autumn leaves… these are the things childhood memories are made of. But for a whole generation of today’s children the pleasures of a free-range childhood are missing, and their indoor habits contribute to obesity, attention disorder and childhood depression. This book shows how our children have become increasingly distanced from nature, why this matters and how we can make a difference. Richard Louv is chairman of the Children and Nature Network and co-chair of the National Forum on Children and Nature. He is the author of seven other books and has written for newspapers and magazines including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

1.Who is the writer of the latest book published among the four books?

A.Arthur Conan Doyle                     B.Daniel Libeskind

C.Art Spiegelman                         D.Anita Shreve

2.If one wants to know something about Victorian society, he or she may read____.

A.Light on Snow                          B.In the Shadow of No Towers

C.Breaking Ground                        D.New Annotated Sherlock Holmes

3.Which of the following refers to tragedies?

A.Light on Snow & Breaking Ground

B.Light on Snow & In the Shadow of No Towers

C.In the Shadow of No Towers & Breaking Ground

D.New Annotated Sherlock Holmes & In the Shadow of No Towers

4.Which book is based on a real big event?

A.Breaking Ground                        B.In the Shadow of No Towers

C.Light on Snow                          D.Last Child in The Woods

5.Who has also written for newspapers and magazines according to the text?

A.Arthur Conan Doyle.                     B.Daniel Libeskind

C.Art Spiegelman                         D.Richard Louv

 

If you were to walk up to Arthur Bonnet and say, "Hey, Butterfly Man," his face would break into a smile. The title suits him. And he loves it.

Arthur Bonnet works with the Palos Verdes blue butterfly, once thought to have died out. Today the butterfly is coming back thanks to him. But years ago if you'd told him this was what he'd be doing someday, he would have laughed, "You're crazy." As a boy, he used to be a little tough guy on the streets". At age thirteen, he was caught by police stealing. At eighteen, he landed in prison for shooting a man.

"I knew it had hurt my mom," Bonner said after he got out of prison. "So I told myself I would not put my mom through that pain again."

One day he met Professor Mattoni, who was working to rebuild the habitat for an endangered butterfly called E1 Segundo blue.

"I saw the sign 'Butterfly Habitat' and asked, 'How can you have a habitat when the butterflies can just fly away?'" Bonner recalls. "Dr. Mattoni laughed and handed me a magnifying glass (放大镜) , "Look at the leaves. ' I could see all these caterpillars (蝴蝶的幼虫) on the plant. Dr Mattoni explained, 'Without the plant, there are no butterflies. '"

Weeks later, Bonner received a call from Dr. Mattoni, who told him there was a butterfly that needed help. That was how he met the Palos Verdes blue. Since then he's been working for four years to help bring the butterfly back. He grows astragals, the only plant the butterfly eats. He collects butterflies and brings them into a lab to lay eggs. Then he puts new butterflies into the habitat.

The butterfly's population, once almost zero, is now up to 900. For their work, Bonner and Dr. Mattoni received lots of awards. But for Bonnet, he earned something more: he turned his life around.

For six years now Bonnet has kept his promise to stay out of prison. While he’s bringing back the Palos Verdes blue, the butterfly has helped bring him back, too.

1.When he was young, Arthur Bonner

A.broke the law and ended up in prison

B.was fond of shooting and hurt his morn

C.often offered necessary help to other people

D.often caught butterflies and took them home

2.Bonner came to know the Palos Verdes blue after he ______.

A.found the butterfly had died out

B.won many prizes from his professor

C.met Dr. Mattoni, a professor of biology

D.collected butterflies and put them into a lab

3. From the last sentence of the text, we learn that raising butterflies has ______

A.made Bonner famous

B.changed Bonner's life

C.brought Bonner wealth

D.enriched Bonner's knowledge

4. Which of the following would be the best title for the text?

A.A Promise to Morn

B.A Man Saved by Butterflies

C.A Story of Butterflies

D.A Job Offered by Dr. Mattoni

 

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