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Test Five
1
It was a cold, rainy and wholly miserable afternoon in Washington, and a hot muggy night in Miami. It was Sunday, and three games were played in the two cities. The people playing them and the people watching them tell us much about the everchanging ethnic structure of the United States.
Professional football in the United States is almost wholly played by nativeborn American citizens, mostly very large and very strong, many of them black. It is a game of physical strength. Linemen routinely weigh more than 300 pounds. Players are valued for their weight and muscles, for how fast they can run, and how hard they can hit each other. Football draws the biggest crowds, but the teams play only once a week, because they get so battered.
The 67,204 fans were in Miami for the final game of the baseball World Series. Baseball was once America’s favourite game, but has lost that claim to basketball.Baseball is a game that requires strength, but not hugeness. Agility, quickness, perfect vision and quick reaction are more important than pure strength. Baseball was once a purely American game, but has spread around much of the New World.In that Sunday’s final, the final hit of the extra inning game was delivered by a native of Columbia. The Most Valuable Player in the game was a native of Cuba. The rosters of both teams were awash with Hispanic names, as is Miami, which now claims the World Championship is a game that may be losing popularity in America, but has gained it in much of the rest of the world. Baseball in America has taken on a strong Hispanic flavor, with a dash of Japanese added for seasoning.
Soccer, which many countries just call football, is the most widely enjoyed sport in the world, In soccer, which many countries just call football, the ethnic tide has been the reverse of baseball’s. Until recently, professional soccer in the United States have largely been an import, played by South Americans and Europeans. Now, American citizens in large numbers are finally taking up the most popular game in the world.
Basketball, an American invention increasingly played around the world, these days draws large crowds back home. Likewise, hockey, a game largely imported to the United States from neighbouring Canada. Lacrosse, a version of which was played by Native Americans before the Europeans arrived, is also gaining a keen national following.Sports of all kinds are winning support from American armchair enthusiasts from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.
1. Which of the following can reflect the everchanging ethnic structure of America?
A. Sportsman. B. Audience.
C. Both of them. D. None of them.
2. Who play professional football in the United States?
A. Nativeborn American citizens.
B. Europeans.
C. South Americans.
D. Both B and C.
3. What is America’s favourite game?
A. Baseball. B. Basketball.
C. Professional football. D. Soccer.
4. Which of the following statements about soccer is true?
A. In soccer and basketball, the ethnic tide is different.
B. Until recently, soccer becomes an important game, so many native Americans play it.
C. It is the most popular game in the world, so many American citizens take up it.
D. Although soccer is the most popular game in the world, American citizens in large numbers do not like it first.
5. The author of the passage wants to tell that ____.
A. Americans like sports and sports reveal much about the changing ethnic structure of the United States
B. in Washington, several games are played in one day
C. Americans like all kinds of games
D. the American games are watched by nativeAmericans and played by people from different countries
2
It may be the last book you’ll ever buy. And certainly, from a practical standpoint, it will be the only book you’ll ever need. No. It’s not the Bible or some New Age tome promising enlightenment—although it would let you carry around both texts simultaneously. It’s an electronic book—a single volume that could contain a library of information or, if your tastes run toward what’s current, every title on today’s bestseller list. And when you’re done with those, you could refill it with new titles.
Why an electronic book? Computers can store a ton of data and their laptop companions make all that information portable. True enough. But laptops(便携式电脑) and similar portable information devices require a lot of power—and heavy batteries—to keep their LCD screens operating. And LCDs are not easy to read in the bright light of the sun.
Fact is, when it comes to portability, easy viewing, and low power requirements, it’s hard to beat plain old paper.
So let’s make the ink electronic.
That’s the deceptively simple premise behind a project currently coming to fruition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Some hurdles—mostly having to do with largescale manufacturing—remain, so it will be a few years before you see an electronic book for sale in stores. But the basic technology already exists, developed at the Institute’s Media Lab by a team led by physicist Joe Jacobson.Thanks to electronic ink, the book essentially typesets itself, receiving instructions for each page via electronics housed in the spine. From a power standpoint, this process makes the electronic book very efficient. Unlike an LCD screen, which uses power all the time, energy is no longer needed to view the electronic book’s pages once they are typeset. Only a small battery would be required, as opposed to the large ones needed to power laptop computers and their LCDs.
Convenience, though, is still the main attraction—and that means more than simple portability. Because the information is in electronic form, it can be easily manipulated.
Jacobson thinks an electronic book will be affordable—around $200 for a basic readonly model to about $400 for one that would record your margin scribbles. Some hurdles remain, though, before you can take an electronic book with you anywhere. Paper is produced in long sheets, and Jacobson is still working on the best method to integrate electronic ink into that process. To avoid having to use thousands of tiny wires on each page, the ink itself must be conductive. Such ink was recently demonstrated in the lab but has yet to be produced in volume. “Essentially,” notes Jacobson, “We’re trying to print chips.”
Jacobson is confident, however, that this can be done on a large scale. If Jacobson succeeds, he will have made the book for the 21st century.
6. According to the passage, which book is the only book you’ll ever need?
A. The Bible. B. A single volume.
C. New Age tome. D. An electronic book.
7. About electronic book, which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. It can contain a library of information or every title on today’s bestseller list.
B. Although we know the basic technology, we can’t see it for sale now.
C. The laptop needs a lot of power to keep LCD screens work, and those screens have shortcoming.
D. You can change the title and the content in the electronic book as you like.
8. What is the premise behind a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?
A. Electronic ink. B. Electronic book.
C. Laptop. D. LCD screen.
9. What is the main difference between an electronic book and a LCD screen?
A. The power they need.
B. The portability they come to.
C. The convenience they make.
D. The content they store.
10.It will be a few years before we can see electronic book for sale because ____.
A. we haven’t mastered the manufacturing technology yet
B. the electronic ink which must be conductive couldn’t be produced in large scale
C. the electronic book will be too expensive to buy
D. you can’t take an electronic book with you anywhere
3
The centenary of the birth of William Faulkner, one of the great modern novelists, was celebrated in September, 1997. Faulkner wrote about the southern states of the United States of America where he grew up, and where his family had an important part to play in the history of that region. His work became a touchstone for insights into the troubled issues of southern American identity, race relations, and the family interrelationships of the oldtime southern gentry.
Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi on September 25, 1897. Despite his interest in writing, he left Oxford High School, Mississippi, without graduating. After World War Ⅰ, he entered the University of Mississippi as a special student, a right to study which was granted to war veterans, although Faulkner had only finished training with the Air Force in Canada, and not entered combat.
Faulkner began to write poems, a verse play, short stories and finished his first novelSartoris in 1928. His fiction was centred for 14 of the 19 novels published during his lifetime in a fictional region called Yoknapatawpha County. The name is said to stem from the Indian Chickasaw word meaning split land.
In December 1950, Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. When he accepted it in Stockholm, his speech emphasized that he wished to continue writing, but in a positive way that affirmed the power of humanity to prevail over adverse circumstances. As he said in his speech, he still felt that, despite the threat of nuclear war then hanging over the world, the central concern of the writer should be “the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself”. He wanted the tensions and problems that he had cast the spotlight on in the southern states of America to be resolved by the lifeaffirming attitudes and action of his characters.Like playwright Tennessee Williams, Faulkner was a major voice who spoke for the troubled heart of the southern states of America. His achievement is all the more remarkable because, as a schoolboy, he was not only a frequent truant but also reportedly failed to reach pass grades in English class. His collected short stories, novels, poems, allegorical stories and other writings form a legacy of literature which casts profound illumination on the special culture of the South, a culture which developed from a history and social circumstances that were often tumultuous and always unique.
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