Masterpieces

The Starry Night was painted in June 1889 when Vincent van Gogh was staying at a home for the mentally ill. Van Gogh painted what he saw from his window—the night sky with clouds, stars and a moon. However, he didn’t just paint the clouds. He also painted the massive circles of white and yellow racing across the sky. The stars and the moon hang bright in the night sky. Beneath this amazing sky, we see a sleeping village and a dark, lonely tree.

His unusual use of colour has led experts to think that Van Gogh’s mental illness may have affected his sense of sight. He also took a drug that can make people see yellow spots, just like the stars in The Starry Night.

Unfortunately, Van Gogh’s unique paintings weren’t very popular and he only sold one painting in his lifetime. He also thought The Starry Night was a failure. However, the fact remains that The Starry Night is now one of the world’s most famous paintings.

The Scream was painted by Edvard Munch in 1893. What makes it striking is that it shows a thin figure with an expression of fear—the figure’s mouth is wide open and letting out a powerful scream. The figure covers his or her ears and looks directly at the viewer. This figure is set on a bridge above a dark, stormy sea, and against a burning orange-red sky.

In his diary, Munch talked about what inspired him. “I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly the sky turned as red as blood ... I stood there shaking. Then I heard the scream of nature.”

Many experts say that The Scream is connected to Munch’s mental health problems, which caused him a lot of pain.

The Empire of Light is a series of paintings by Belgian artist René Magritte. Between 1953 and 1954, he painted the same scene 27 times. It shows a beautiful house lit by lights from inside, surrounded by the darkness of night. What is strange is that above the house and the tree, we see a daytime sky full of brightness and soft white clouds. It seems like quite a mysterious scene.

Magritte was a painter inspired by his thoughts and ideas. His paintings were visual experiments as he tried to play with reality. His view was that art should shock the viewers and challenge their sense of reality.

The Empire of Light has produced different reactions in viewers. Some feel that the paintings look dark and troubling. Others, however, find them calming. As for Magritte himself, he thought that the change between day and night in the paintings was surprising. “I call this power poetry,” he said.

任务一：图文匹配，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。

【1】The Scream Picture _____

【2】The Starry Night Picture _____

【3】The Empire of Light Picture _____

任务二：选择最佳选项。

【4】What do these three paintings have in common?

A.They are paintings of night.

B.They were painted in the 19th century.

C.They were drawn by mentally-ill artists.

D.They picture the artists’ understanding of nature.

任务三：阅读短文，回答问题。

【5】Which of the three paintings do you like best? Why? (List at least one reason.)

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（Λ），并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：

（1）每处错误及其修改均仅限一词；

（2）只允许修改10处，多者（从第l1处起）不计分。

I have always dreamt returning to my childhood. Just as many people say, childhood is the happier time in one’s life.

I grow up in the countryside. There are many high mountains, colorful flowers and different kind of trees. Often my parents took me to go hiking and caught insects. My grandma, whose seemed to be full of vivid memories, always shared his stories with me. She told me that I was such gentle and quiet that she never felt worrying about me. Now it is 5 years since that she passed away. I still miss her very much!

A. price of which B. the price of whom

C. of which price D. whose price

A. to argue B. arguing

C. argued D. having argued

内容要求：

1. 描述画面情景。

2. 分析故事中的寓意。

参考词汇 寓意 moral n.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（^），并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：吧多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均仅限一词。

2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分

Next Sunday, the twenty-five of October, we are have an open day at our school. It’s going to be about the environment, with kinds of fun things happen. Our geography teacher will show a documentary film about air pollute. Our science teacher is running a workshop with practical ideas on what to do with things can be recycled, like newspapers and box. Then in the evening Dr. Lynda Potter, a environmentalist, is going to give a talk. It will be about what everyone can do something to help the environment. They will also be books for sale about protecting the environment. I think it’s going to be a real good day.

— Yes. He has just been back, ________ like a dog.

A. to be tired B. is tired C. tiring D. tired

She is in a poor __________ of health. As a result, she has to give up her job.

A. position B. situation

C. state D. condition

增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（∧），并在其下面写出该加的词。

删除：把多余的词用斜线（＼）划掉。

修改：在错的词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。

注意：1.每处错误及其修改均限一词;

2.只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。

I’m angry to see some schoolmates throw away food in the school canteen, which make me very concerned. As is we all know, there are still a lot of people who don’t have enough food to eat. Even many people are suffering from hungry every day. In addition, food is a kind of limiting resource. To save food can better preserve our resource and protect the environment.

However, it’s high time that we should say no to those waste food and realize the importance of saving food. Don’t order too many next time! When you are eating, you should eat up all your food, try your best to reduce the waste. Let’s join our hands together to build a economized campus!

It is usually a common practice that journal websites offer readers their free online editions of articles and other information. However, America’s most popular newspaper website announced that the era of free online journalism is drawing to a 【1】. The New York Times has become the biggest publisher yet to set out plans for a pay wall around its digital offering, 【2】 the accepted practice that Internet users will not pay for news.

Struggling with a decline of advertising and a downward 【3】in street corner sales, The New York Times intends to introduce a “metered” model at the beginning of 2011. Readers will be required to pay when they have exceeded (超过) a set number of its online articles per month.

The decision puts the 159-year-old newspaper on the 【4】 side of an increasingly wide chasm (鸿沟) in the media industry. But others, including the Guardian, have said they will not charge Internet readers.

The New York Time’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, 【5】 that the idea was a gamble. 【6】 a print circulation of 995,000 on weekdays and 1.4 million on Sundays, The New York Times is the third bestselling American newspaper, behind the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. While most US papers focus on a single city, The New York Times is among the few that can 【7】national scope—as well as 16 bureaus (办事处) in the New York area, it has 11 offices around the US and 【8】 26 bureaus elsewhere in the world.

But like many in the publishing industry,the paper is in the grip of a serious financial crisis. Its parent company,the New York Times Company, has 15 papers, but 【9】 a loss of $70 million in the nine months to September and recently accepted a $250 million loan from a Mexican billionaire, Carlos Slim, to 【10】 its balance sheet.