Essays, however, hang somewhere on a line between two sturdy poles: this is what I think, and this is what I am. Autobiographies which aren't novels are generally extended essays, indeed. A personal essay is like the human voice talking, its order being the mind's natural flow, instead of a systematized outline of ideas. Though more changeable or informal than an article or treatise, somewhere it contains a point which is its real center, even if the point couldn't be uttered in fewer words than the essayist has used. Essays don't usually boil down to a summary, as articles do, and the style. of the writer has a "nap" to it, a combination of personality and originality and energetic loose ends that stand up like the nap (绒毛) on a piece of wool and can't be brushed flat. Essays belong to the animal kingdom, with a surface that generates sparks, like a coat of fur, compared with the flat, conventional cotton of the magazine article writer, who works in the vegetable kingdom, instead. But, essays, on the other hand, may have fewer "levels" than fiction, because we are not supposed to argue much about their meaning. In the old distinction between teaching and storytelling, the essayist, however cleverly he tries to conceal his intentions, is a bit of a teacher or reformer, and an essay is intended to convey the same point to each of us.
An essayist doesn't have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he can shape or shave his memories, as long as the purpose is served of explaining a truthful point. A personal essay frequently is not autobiographical at all, but what it does keep in common with autobiography is that, through its tone and tumbling progression, it conveys the quality of the author's mind. Nothing gets in the way. Because essays are directly concerned with the mind and the mind's peculiarity, the very freedom the mind possesses is conferred on this branch of literature that does honor to it, and the fascination of the mind is the fascination of the essay.
According to the passage the changes in readers' taste ______.
A.contribute to the incompatibility of essays with stories
B.often result in unfavorable effect, to say the least
C.sometimes come to something undesirable, of course
D.usually bring about beneficial outcome, so to say
According to the passage, visitors from space may have landed on the earth ______.
A.long before man had dreamed of it
B.long before there were human beings
C.in the last few hundred years
D.after the space age began
听力原文: Edgar Poe, an American writer, was born in 1809. His parents were actors. Edgar was a baby when his father left the family. He was two years old when his mother died. He was taken into the home of a wealthy business man named John Allen. He then received his new name, Edgar Allen Poe. As a young man, Poe attended the University of Virginia. He was a good student, but he liked to drink alcohol and play card games for money. As an unskilled game player, he often lost money. Since he couldn't pay his gambling losses, he left the university and began working for magazines. He worked hard, yet he was not well paid, or well known. At the age of 27, he got married. For a time it seemed that Poe would find happiness, but his wife was sick for most of their marriage, and died in 1847.
Through all his crises, Poe produced many stories and poems which appeared in different publications, yet he didn't become famous until 1845, when his poem, The Raven, was published. There is a question, however, about Poe's importance in American Literature. Some critics say Poe was one of America's best writers, and even had a great influence on many French writers. But others disagree. They my Poe's work is difficult to understand and most of his writing de scribes very unpleasant situations and events. Edgar Allen Poe died in 1849 when he was 40 years old. It is said that he was found dead after days of heavy drinking.
(33)
A.His father caught a serious disease.
B.His mother passed away.
C.His mother left him to marry a rich businessman.
D.His father took to drinking.
"To me he is not dead at all. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of him or speak of him. Once, just before he died, when he was sick with the flu, I took him a sack full of oranges. The joy I felt in giving that simple gift is never decreased by time. He said he like oranges, too."
What is the main topic of the passage?
A.Alice Walker's reflections on Langston Hughes
B.The influence of Alice Walker on the writing of Langston Hughes
C.Langston Hughes book about Alice Walker
D.A comparison of the children of Alice Walker and that of Langston Hughes
B. doesn’t believe a word of the stories
C. is not sure whether the stories are true
D. is telling the stories just for fun
According to the first story, the term “OK”________________.A.was approved of by President Jackson
B.was the title of some official documents
C.was first used by President Jackson
D.was an old way to spell “all correct”
According to the passage, President Jackson________________.A.couldn’t draw up any documents at all
B.didn’t like to read important papers by himself
C.often had his assistants sign documents for him
D.wasn’t good at reading or spelling
According to the second story, the term “OK”______________.A.was the short way to say “Old Kinderhook Club”
B.meant the place where President Van Buren was born
C.was the name of Van Buren’s club
D.was used to call Van Buren’s supporters in the election
According to the second story, the term “OK” was first used____________.A.by Van Buren
B.in a presidential election
C.to organize the Old Kinderhook Club
D.by the members of the “Old Kinderhook Club”
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When Chekhov entered the Moscow University Medical School in 1879 , he started to publish hundreds of comic short stories to support his family. After he graduated, he wrote regularly for a local daily newspaper.
As a writer he was extremely fast, often producing a short story in an hour or less. Chekhov's medical and science experience can be seen through the indifference (冷漠) many of his characters show to tragic events. In 1892, he became a full-time writer and published some of his most memorable stories.
Chekhov often wrote about the sufferings of life in small town Russia. Tragic events control his characters who are filled with feelings of hopelessness and despair.
It is often said that nothing happens in Chekhov's stories and plays. He made up for this with his exciting technique for developing drama within his characters. Chekhov's work combined the calm attitude of a scientist and doctor with the sensitivity (敏感) of an artist.
Some of Chekhov's works were translated into Chinese as early as the 1940s. One of his famous stories, The Man in a Shell (《装在套子里的人》) , about a school teacher's extraordinarily orderly life, was selected as a text for Chinese senior students.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov ______.
A.had a lawful lover
B.was an illegal writer
C.used to be a lawyer
D.was a competent doctor
A.the overtreatment for dying patients
B.the different attitude of doctor and patients toward death
C.the disproportionately high medicare expenditure in America
D.the unequal and non.transparent doctor—patient relationship
News stories give facts, not the author's opinions. Editorials do the opposite, you can expect an editorial to take sides. Some newspaper editorials have a by-line with the author's name, but many newspapers have unsigned editorials. These reflect the opinions of the publisher or editor.
You can be a better reader if you know what to expect in a newspaper. For example, you can expect headlines to omit unnecessary words. You can expect to find the most important facts in the lead paragraph(the first paragraph) of a news story. You can expect important news items to be on the front page. You can expect less important items to be on the inside pages.
Most of all, the more you know about the current news, the more you will understand what is in the newspaper; important stories are generally presented one day and followed up on following days. So, an important way for reading newspapers is reading one frequently.
A good way to read a large newspaper is______.
A.to do some paper-cutting
B.to read it from cover to cover
C.to find separate sections
D.to predict what is inside the newspaper
Yet, 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 tries to look as rich and as successful as his neighbors.
The expression was first used in 1913 by a young American by the name of 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. Young Momand was very proud of his riches. He got married and moved with his wife to a very wealthy neighborhood outside New York City. But just moving there was not enough. When he saw that rich people rode horses, Momand went horse 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 this race because one was always trying to keep up. Momand and his wife could not do that.
The race ended for them when they could no longer pay for their new way of life. They left their wealthy neighborhood and 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 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 the people around you. Momand’s series appeared in different newspapers across the country for over 28 years.
Every city has an area where people want to live because others will think better of them if they do. 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.
6. The writer of the selection believes().
A. many people in the United States think anyone can become rich if he works hard and has some good luck
B. anyone in the United Sates can become rich if he works hard and has some good luck
C. he can become rich in the future
D. anyone in the United States can become rich
7. Some people want to keep up with the Joneses because().
A. they want to be as rich as their neighbors
B. they want others to know or to think that they are rich
C. they don’t want others to know they are rich
D. they want to be happy
8. It can be inferred from the story that rich people().
A. like to live in apartments
B. like to live in New York City
C. like to live outside New York City
D. like to have many neighbors
9. Arthur Momand used the name “Jones” in his series of short stories because Jones is().
A,. an important name
B. a popular name in the United States
C. his neighbor’s name
D. not a good name
10. According to the writer, it is().
A. correct to keep up with the Joneses
B. impossible to keep up with the Joneses
C. interesting to keep up with the Joneses
D. good to keep up with the Joneses
Although trains were a popular means of travel for some time, automobiles slowly began to take their place. Automobile travel caused problems for city hotels, which did not have enough parking space for so many cars.
People who traveled by automobile needed a different kind of hotel. They needed places to stay that were near highways and had room to park. Motorists did not like to drive in heavy city traffic to reach a hotel. The answer to the motorists' problems came when a new kind of hotel was built. These new buildings were called motels, a word made from the first part of MOTORIST and the last part of HOTELS.
Motels were much smaller than hotels. Built on ground level, often in separate units, they were more convenient for people traveling. The separate units also made them quieter than hotels, best of all, there was more than enough room for cars to park. ,
Now, many big hotels in the cities are being torn down. They can no longer make enough money to stay in business. In their place, many small motels have been built on the outskirts(近郊) of cities. Motels have become a big business in the United States.
The first hotels were built______.
A.with hundreds of rooms
B.around the city centers
C.near railway stations
D.quite close to roads.
During 65________ (it) busiest period, the Silk Road allowed people from many different cultures and countries 66 ________(meet) each other and mix. The Silk Road allowed the sharing of 67 ________(value) things and new ideas. While 68 ________(travel) the Silk Road, people shared goods, stories, languages and cultures.
In modern times, the old Silk Road routes are still used, but now they 69________ (cross) by trains instead of camels and horses. There is even a silk route museum in Jiuquan in China. It has over 35,000 70 ________(object) from all along the Silk Road. In this way, China protects the history of many countries and peoples.
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68
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