Question

【题目】If you’re ever reading a book or watching a movie and get thedistinctfeeling you’ve come across the story before — or even better, can predict exactly what's going to happen next — there could be a good reason for that.

Researchers from the Computational Story Laboratory at the University of Vermont studied the complete text of some 1,737 fiction worksavailableon Project Gutenberg, an online collection of more than 50,000 digital books in the publicarea. They discovered that English literature consists of just six kinds of emotional arcs (情感弧线) that make up nearly all of the most well-known stories. By analysing thesentiment(情感) of language used in these texts, the researchers were able toshowthe emotional ups and downs for the stories as a whole. They discovered that negativewords like “poverty”, “dead”, and “punishment” dragged the emotion down, whilepositiveterms like “love”, “peace”, and “friend” brought it up.

According to the researchers, those six core (核心的) emotional arcs are:

“Rags to riches”(An ongoing emotional rise)

“Tragedy, or riches to rags”(An ongoing emotional fall)

“Man in a hole”(A fall followed by a rise)

“Icarus”(A rise followed by a fall)

“Cinderella”(Rise–fall–rise)

“Oedipus” (Fall–rise–fall)

Interestingly, based on download statistics from Project Gutenberg, the researchers say the most popular stories are ones that use more complex emotional arcs, with the “Cinderella” and “Oedipus” arcs registering the most downloads. Also popular are works that combine these core arcs together in new ways within one story, such as two“Man in a hole” arcs stuck together, or the “Cinderella” arc coupled with a tragic ending.

【1】Readers often feel familiar when reading a new story because stories have similar ______.

A. beginnings B. endings

C. characters D. emotional arcs

【2】How did researchers carry out their study?

A. By conducting surveys among readers.

B. By reading books borrowed from libraries.

C. By analysing works from an online collection.

D. By interviewing authors of the well-known stories.

【3】Which set of works may drag emotion down?

A. Hope, fortune and riches.

B. Disease, murder and war.

C. Smile, health and beauty.

D. Cold, earthquake and spring.

【4】According to the last paragraph, which kind of works are most popular among readers?

A. Works with an ongoing emotional rise.

B. Works with an ongoing emotional fall.

C. Works with a rise followed by a fall.

D. Works with more than one rise and fall.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】D

【2】C

【3】B

【4】D

【解析】计算机科学家们在测查了1700多部小说后，发现英语文学中只包含六种情感弧线，而几乎所有的名著都是由它们构成的。最受欢迎的故事往往应用了较为复杂的情感弧线。另外，还有一些很受欢迎的作品是以一种新的方式将几种情感弧线结合在一个故事里。

【1】D

细节理解题。根据第二段中They discovered that English literature consists of just six kinds of emotional arcs (情感弧线) that make up nearly all of the most well-known stories. By analysing thesentiment(情感) of language used in these texts, the researchers were able toshowthe emotional ups and downs for the stories as a whole.可知读者通常在读新故事时感到熟悉，因为故事有相似的情感线。故选D。

【2】C

推理判断题。根据第二段中的an online collection of more than 50,000 digital books in the publicarea. 以及 By analysing thesentiment(情感) of language used in these texts, the researchers were able toshowthe emotional ups and downs for the stories as a whole.可知研究者通过分析网上收藏的作品来执行他们的研究。故选C。

【3】B

推理判断题。根据第二段中They discovered that negativewords like “poverty”, “dead”, and “punishment” dragged the emotion down, while positive terms like “love”, “peace”, and “friend” brought it up.可知贫穷”、“死亡”、“惩罚”等消极词汇会使情感变得低落，而“爱情”、“和平”、“友谊”之类积极词汇会使情感变得高昂。可知B项符合题意。

【4】D

推理判断题。根据最后一段中the researchers say the most popular stories are ones that use more complex emotional arcs,以及Also popular are works that combine these core arcs together in new ways within one story可知最受欢迎的故事往往应用了较为复杂的情感弧线，另外，还有一些很受欢迎的作品是以一种新的方式将几种情感弧线结合在一个故事里，故选D。