Susan Sontag（1933-2004）was one of the most outstanding figures in the world of literature·For more than 40 years she made it morally necessary to know everything，to read every book worth reading，and to see every movie worth seeing. When she was still in her early 30s，she published essays in important magazines like Partisan Review.She appeared as the symbol of American culture life，trying hard to follow every new development in literature，film and art. With great effort and serious judgment，Sontag walked at the latest edges of world culture.
Seriousness was one of Sontag’s lifelong mottos,but at a time when the barriers between the well-educated and the poor-educated were obvious, she argued for a true openness to the pleasure of pop culture. In Notes on Camp, the 1964 essay that first made her name, she explained what was then a little-known set of difficult understandings, through which she could not have been more famous. “Notes on Camp”, she wrote, represents “ a victory of ‘form’ over ‘content’, ‘beauty’ over ‘morals’”.
By belief she was a sensualist（感觉论者）, but by nature she was a moralist, In Illness as Metaphor —published in 1978, after she suffered cancer—she argued against the idea that cancer was somehow a special problem of repressed personalities, a concept that effectively blamed the victim for the disease. In fact, re-examining old positions was her lifelong habit.
In America, her story of a19thcentury Polish actress who set up a perfect society in California, won the National Book Award in 2000.But it was as a all-purpose cultural view that she made her lasting fame. “Sometimes,” she once said, “I feel that, in the end, all I am really defending …is the idea of seriousness, of true seriousness.” And in the end, she made us take it seriously too.The underlined sentence in paragraph 1 means Sontag_________.
| A．was a symbol of American cultural life |
| B．developed world literature, film and art |
| C．published many essays about world culture |
| D．kept pace with the newest development of world culture |
Sontag first won her name through ___________.
| A．her story of a Polish actress |
| B．her book Illness as Metaphor |
| C．her explanation of a set of difficult understandings |
| D．publishing essays in magazines like partisan Review |
Which of the following statements is TRUE？
| A．Sontag looked down upon the pop culture· |
| B．Sontag was a sensualist as well as a moralist. |
| C．Sontag blamed the victim of cancer for the disease. |
| D．Sontag thought content was more important than form. |
What would be the best title of the text？
| A．Susan Sontag，a Leading Figure in Culture |
| B．Susan Sontag，a Productive and Tireless Writer |
| C．Susan Sontag，an Examiner of the Old Concepts |
| D．Susan Sontag，a Writer Defending Seriousness |
As a human being you may have the choice of three basic attitudes towards life. You may treat life with the philosophy (哲学) of the vegetable, in which case your life will include being born, eating, drinking, sleeping, marrying, growing old and dying.
The second basic attitude is to look at life as if it were a business. A great many so-called successful men and women believe that life is a business. If you believe so, your first question of life, naturally, is " What do I get out of it? " " How much is this worth to me?" In a word, based on this attitude, happiness becomes a matter of successful competition. The great majority of human beings today look at life as if it were a business.
The third attitude toward life is the way of the artist. Here the basic philosophy is "What can I put into it?". They value cooperation and contribution. This point of view has been proved by history; for history remembers best those who have contributed most richly to the interests of their fellow-men. The more we investigate(调查),the more we become certain that the artistic attitude is the only one which goes with human happiness.
5. From the passage we know people who take the second life attitude ________.
A. are mostly businessmen B. think of getting the interests (利益) first
C. find their happiness from hard work D. take competition as their whole life
6. People who are best remembered by history are probably
A. those living on vegetables B. successful men
C. artists D. businessmen
7. We may infer from this passage that ________.
A. some people are living only on vegetables
B. the artistic attitude is accepted by most people
C. the writer prefers the third life attitude
D. artists do most for the society in order to be remembered longer than others
There are various reasons why cancers appear to be on the increase. For one thing, though their sufferers are to be found in all age groups, cancers are particularly likely to attack persons in their middle and advanced years. Naturally, since people live longer these years, there are more cancer sufferers than before. Again, with better methods of diagnosis (诊断), doctors can more easily recognize cancerous growths that would formerly have passed unnoticed or that would have been wrongly diagnosed. It is also believed that certain habits and conditions of modem living, including heavy smoking and the pollution of the air, may leave people living in more cancer-causing conditions than before.
We all look forward to the day when a simple medical test can find cancer while it is still small. Researchers around the world are working on such a test. Most of their work deals with the examination of the blood.
Researchers in Boston have found something in the blood of cancer patients that does not appear in healthy persons. The test showed which persons had cancer and which did not. It was correct more than 90 percent of the time.
The researchers believe the test may be able to show cancer very clearly in its development. Cancers discovered early usually can be treated successfully.
The test examines very small bits of fat in the blood called lipids (脂质). Cancers seem to change lipids although doctors do not know why. The test showed differences between the lipids of the persons with cancer and the lipids of those without cancer.
The researchers say the new test could be a step to develop a simple way to check patients for cancer before the disease shows on an X-ray.
1. Who will fail cancer from the study of the researchers?
A. The young.B. The middle age and the older.
C. The man.D. The woman.
2. The underlined words "such a test" refer to________.
A. the test that shows which persons have cancer and which don’t .
B. the test that may be able to show cancer very early in its development,.
C. a simple medical test that cannot find cancer when it is -small
D. a new test that could be a step to develop a difficult way
3. Which of the following statements is true according to the passage?
A. Cancers have much to do with something in patients’ blood.
B. People living in better conditions are most likely to be attacked by cancer.
C.X-raying is the best way to determined whether a person has cancer or not.
D. Cancers have nothing to do with a person’s habits and living conditions.
4. What would be the best title for the passage?
A. A simple way to cancer B. Cancers can be cured
C. How to find cancerD. Early discovery of cancer
The Western has been the favorite type for American adventure story since the nineteenth century. While the American West was being settled, newspapers and "dime novels" could depend on stories of the frontier settlements and tell tales about living in the untamed wilderness to sell. The public back East was eager to read about the West, even if the stories were more fiction than fact.
In 1902, Owen Wister published his novel The Virginian, which was one of the first novels to treat the Western as a serious literary form; the novel still sold well and had inspired several movies and a television series. In 1905, Bertha H. Bower and Zane Grey published their first novels, and the popular Western novels had continued to flourish from that day on, with current novels by Luke Short, Max Brand, and Louis L’ Amour carrying on the tradition.
The first Western movie appeared even earlier than these serious Western novels. Before the turn of the century, an associate of Edison’s had filmed Cripple Creek Barroom Scene, a few seconds of film showing the inside of a saloon, to help publicize the invention of the movie camera. In 1903 the Edison’ company filmed the first "full-length" Western — The Great Train Robbery. The film lasts less than fifteen minutes, but a story is told its entirety. In the movie, bandits (强盗) rob a train and its passengers, killing the engineer, and find themselves tracked down by a posse. Audiences loved the movie. Some theaters were actually opened for the single purpose of showing The Great Train Robbery and only later realized that they could do equally well showing other movies. The film was so successful that other companies, and finally even the Edison company itself, began producing copies and other versions of The Great Train Robbery. Ironically, in" an era when the West was still very real —-Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma were all territories rather than states in 1903 — The Great Train Robbery was filmed in New Jersey.
9. The purpose of this passage is to________.
A. discuss the making of the movie The Great Train Robbery
B. discuss the early Western novels
C. discuss the art of movie making
D. trace the development of the Western as an American adventure story tradition
10. We can conclude from this passage that________.
A. people lost interest in the West after 1903
B. Owen Wister was an ex-cowboy
C. New Jersey was still "untamed wilderness" in 1903
D. films were fairly uncommon at the time The Great Train Robbery was made
11. The passage suggests that________.
A. Edison’s invention of the movie camera happened;by accident
B. movie houses didn’t make much-money in the early days
C. Easterners were fascinated by the " wild West"
D. The Great Train Robbery was poorly received by the public because it lacked a plot
12. As used in this passage, the word “literary” means________.
A. humorous B. financial C. appropriate to literature D. amateur
Bill Javis took over our village’s news-agency at a time of life when most of us only wanted to relax. He just thought he would like something but not too much to do, and the news-agency was ready-made. The business produced little enough for him, but Bill was a man who only wanted the simplicity and order and regularity of the job. He had been a long-serving sailor, and all his life had done everything by the clock.
Every day he opened his shop at 6:00 a. m. to catch the early trade; the papers arrived on his doorstep before that. Many of Bill’s customers were city workers, and the shop was convenient for the station. Business was tailing off by 10 o’clock, so at eleven sharp Bill closed for lunch. It was hard luck on anybody who wanted a paper or magazine in the afternoon, for most likely Bill would be down on the river bank, fishing, and his neatest competitor was five kilometers away. Sometimes in the afternoon-, the evening paper landed on the doorway, and at 4 o’ clock Bill reopened his shop. The evening rush lasted till seven, and it was worthwhile.
He lived in a flat above the ship, alone. Except in the very bad weather, you always knew where to find him in the afternoon, as I have said. Once, on a sunny afternoon, I walked home along the river bank from a shopping trip to the village. By my watch it was three minutes past four, so I was astonished to see Bill sitting there on his little chair with a line in the, water. He had no luck, I could, see, but he was making no effort to move. “What’s wrong, Bill?” I called out from the path.
For answer, he put a hand in his jacket and took out a big, golden object. For a moment I had no idea what it could be, and then it suddenly went off with a noise like a fire engine. Stopping the bell, Bill held the thing up and called back, "Ten to four, you see, and this is dead right. "
I had never known anyone carrying a brass alarm clock round with him before.
5. Bill Javis became a news-agent when ________.
A. he need the money. B. he decided to take things easy
C. he was quite an old man D. he gave up clock-repairing
6. Bill opened the shop so early in the day because ________.
A. he liked to do as much as possible before he went to work
B. the shop had to be open when the morning papers came
C. he was never sure of time
D. it was then that he did a lot of business
7. On that sunny afternoon, the writer was surprised when he saw Bill because ________.
A. he thought it was late for Bill to be still fishing
B. he thought Bill was ill, since he was not moving at all
C. Bill had not caught anything, and that seemed strange
D. Bill stayed in his flat
8. From the information given in the passage, who or what do you think was wrong?
A. The bell was; it must have gone off at the wrong time.
B. Bill was; he had dropped off to sleep.
C. The writer’s watch was fast.
D. Bill’s clock was wrong; it was old.
America is growing older. Fifty years ago, only 4 out of every 100 people in the United States were 65 or older. Today, 10 out of every 100 Americans are over 65. The aging of the population will affect American society in many ways — education, medicine, and business. Quietly, the aging of America has made us a very different society — one in which people have a quite different idea of what kind of behavior is suitable at various ages.
A person’s age no longer tells you anything about his/ her social position, marriage or health. There’s no longer a particular year in which one goes to school or goes to work or gets married or starts a family. The social clock that kept us on time and told us when to go to school, get a job, or stop working isn’t as strong as it used to be. It doesn’t surprise us to hear of a 29-year-old university president or a 35-year-old grandmother, or a 70-year-old man who has become a father for the first time. Public ideas are changing.
Many people say, “I am much younger than my mother or my father was at my age.” No one says “Act your age” any more. We’ve stopped looking with surprise at older people who act in youthful ways.
1. It can be learned from the text that the aging of the population in America ________.
A. has made people feel younger B. has changed people’s social position
C. has changed people’s understanding of age D. has slowed down the country’s social development
2. The underlined word “one” refers to ________.
A. a society B. AmericaC. a place D. population
3. “Act your age” means people should ________.
A. be active when they are old B. do the right thing at the right age
C. show respect to their parents young or old D. take more physical exercises suitable to their age
4. If a’ 25-year-old man becomes general manager of a big firm, the writer of the text would most probably consider it _________.
A. normal B. wonderful C. unbelievable D. unreasonable