George Nakashima always insisted that he was a simple woodworker, not an artist. Even though major museums exhibited his works and the director of the American Craft Museum called him a national treasure, Mr Nakashima rejected the label of artist. For almost fifty years he simply went on shaping wood into beautiful chairs, tables, and cabinets.
Nakashima had a clear goal. He intended each piece of furniture he made to be as perfect as possible. Even making a box was an act of creation, because it produced an object that had never existed before. Initially Nakashima used local wood, sometimes from his own property. Later, he traveled to seek out English oak, Persian walnut, African zebra wood and Indian teak. He especially liked to find giant roots that had been dug out of the ground after a tree was taken down. Nakashima felt that making this wood into furniture was a way of allowing the tree to live again.
Most furniture makers prefer perfect boards, but Nakashima took pleasure in using wood with interesting knots (节疤) and cracks. These irregularities gave the wood personality and showed that the tree had lived a happy life.
He never failed to create an object that was both useful and beautiful. One early piece Nakashima designed was a three-legged chair for his small daughter Mira to use when she sat at the table for meals. The Mira chair became so popular that Nakashima later made both low and high versions. Another famous piece, the Conoid chair, has two legs supported by blade-like (刀片似的) feet. Always, Nakashima's designs were precise and graceful, marked by a simplicity that revealed his love for the wood.
As the years passed, Nakashima's reputation grew and his works received many awards. His children Mira and Kevin, now adults, joined the team of craftspeople in their father's studio. Nakashima's dream of integrating (整合) work and family had come true.
1. Which of the following best describes Nakashima?| A．Generous and outgoing. | B．Creative and modest. |
| C．Capable and friendly. | D．Honest and simple. |
| A．He only made chairs for his family. |
| B．He made chairs of the same style. |
| C．He loved his daughter Mira most. |
| D．Most of his works were simple but beautiful. |
| A．They had an art studio of their own. |
| B．They lacked the ability to create art works. |
| C．They took over their father's work. |
| D．They had a common interest in woodwork. |
| A．he loved both his work and family |
| B．the wood materials he used were precious |
| C．his works were of great artistic value |
| D．he spent most of his life making furniture |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Teachers and students at Herbert Slater Middle School in Santa Rosa, California are used to seeing 7th grader Raquel Zuniga holding a stuffed Kermit the Frog doll as she goes about her school day.
Raquel, aged 12, attends classes for students with mild to serious disabilities. Having her favorite frog doll Kermit by her side makes school life much easier for her, yet there are still times when Kermit’s cheery presence isn’t enough to help her through her anxiety.
One day Raquel was having a hard time changing halfway from inside the classroom to outside. Several teachers approached Raquel as she held Kermit tight and walked back and forth in the hallway, yet none could get through to the child. After nearly an hour, school resource officer Chris Morrison happened to wander by to see if she could help.
Chris herself was a teacher for high-risk students in Los Angeles for twelve years before joining the Santa Rosa Police. She’s now been on the job as a cop for eighteen years, but those teaching wisdoms still run deeply through her mind.
Without hesitation Chris approached the student and bean to speak to her in a comforting voice. Chris did something simple yet extraordinary: she began to sing. Not only does music have a calming effect on its own but also the song she selected was especially meaningful: “Rainbow Connection”, the 1997 song made famous by Kermit the Frog himself.
Raquel’s face lights up in a beautiful smile as she turns to her teacher as if to say, “She’s singing my song!”
“The three of us were standing there in awe,” said Assistant Principal Jessica Romero, adding that she wasn’t the least bit surprised that this kind act came from Officer Morrison. “She’s a very special soul,” Jessica explained. “She comes to everything she does with heart, with empathy, and is able to build close relationship with students.”
1. Why does Raquel always hold the Kermit frog doll in her school days?| A．Because she is mentally disabled. | B．Because students are used to seeing it. |
| C．Because it gives her a sense of safety. | D．Because the teachers there encourage it. |
| A．She has been a teacher for high-risk students in Los Angeles for 12 years. |
| B．She is working both as a teacher at the middle school and a policewomen. |
| C．She is understanding and knows what to do to comfort the children in anxiety. |
| D．She is warm-hearted and always surprises the teachers around with her wisdom. |
| A．it is a song meaningful to Raquel |
| B．it is a song popular among children |
| C．it is a song familiar to Chris |
| D．it is a song to calm children |
| A．The satisfying ending of the warm story. | B．Teacher’s impression about Chris Morrison. |
| C．Teachers’ reaction to Chris Morrison’s method. | D．The unique method to get through to a child. |
【推荐2】About 15 years ago, I taught A Problem from Hell, a book on genocides (大屠杀), to a group of 18- and 19-year-olds in a mid-west university in the US. In my class there was a young man who had spent his boyhood in Bosnia as NATO bombed his hometown. My other students, amazed by his connection to the genocide in the textbook, asked him what it was like to grow up in a war-zone. “A pretty normal childhood as you had here,” he said. “We played cards inside a lot, and when there was no bombing we kicked a ball in the street.”
In the past few years, the world has seen a rapid increase in refugees (难民), with the number hitting 60 million. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s story collection The Refugees reminds us that literature is news that stays news. Set in the Vietnamese communities in California as well as in Vietnam, the stories do not aim to surprise us with new twists or shock us with wonderful details, as war and refugee stories could easily choose to do. Rather, like the young man from Bosnia, Nguyen’s characters tell these stories because they are the only ones known to them.
Included in the collection are two of the most touching pieces, both about siblings (兄弟或姊妹) separated by geography and history. In “Black-Eyed Women”, the narrator (讲述人), a young Vietnamese woman, is visited by the ghost of her elder brother, who died young on the boat when the family took flight from the war. The tale of love and loss, violence and violation, may not be unfamiliar to the reader, but the determination of the brother’s ghost (he has taken decades to swim across the Pacific to reach America) and the sister’s abandoning herself to a half death make the story lasting.
As an echo, the closing story, “Fatherland”, explores a more complex situation between two siblings. The narrator, a young Vietnamese woman, meets her half-sister, visiting from the US for the first time. Adding to the tension is the fact that her father has named the narrator and her siblings after his first set of children. Two sisters, one American and one Vietnamese, yet named the same by the father – it may sound strange, but isn’t it the fate many refugees have to face: a life left behind, that could have been theirs; and a life in an adopted country.
The theme of doubleness – choice and inevitability (不可避免性), home and homelessness, starting afresh and being stuck – is present not only in the stories of Vietnamese refugees, but also of those who have become refugees from their own homes and loved ones. “Smiling at your relatives never got you very far, but smiling at strangers and acquaintances sometimes did.” So a pilot, who fought in the Vietnam war and is now revisiting the country for the first time, thinks while waving at the locals from a tour bus. He’s distant from his daughter, just as a Mexican American in the collection is distant from his wife, or a young man from Hong Kong is distant from his father.
The collection is full of refugees, whether from external or from a deeper, more internal conflict between even those who are closest to each other. With anger but not despair, with reconciliation (和解) but not unrealistic hope, and with genuine humour that is not used to insult anyone, Nguyen has breathed life into many unforgettable characters.
1. The first paragraph is intended to .| A．describe the boring life of war victims |
| B．appeal to the readers to help war victims |
| C．criticize NATO’s killing of innocent people |
| D．introduce the story collection The Refugees |
| A．It tells the news in a literary form. |
| B．It is full of surprising twists and plots. |
| C．The author experiences the stories himself. |
| D．Its characters narrate their own stories. |
| A．By giving examples. |
| B．Bymaking contrasts. |
| C．By providing evidence. |
| D．By making classifications. |
| A．relatives hate their loved ones for being left behind |
| B．separation from loved ones tends to make them distant |
| C．people become refugees due to their double character |
| D．smiling is a good way to keep loved ones together |
| A．Despair, suffering, and regret. |
| B．Anger, humour and hope. |
| C．Sympathy, regret, and reconciliation. |
| D．Dream, hope, and expectation. |
| A．the problems of identity, love, and family for refugees |
| B．the miserable lives of refugees in the adopted countries |
| C．the refugees’ reunion with their families after separation |
| D．the various reasons for people’s being reduced to refugees |
【推荐3】A couple had a son eleven years after they married. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eye. When the boy was around four years old, one day the father was very tired after work so he asked his wife to pick up their son. The mother, who was very busy in the kitchen, totally forgot about it.
Later the boy lost his way on the street. When the son was found missing, the mother hurried to look for him, but she didn’t find him. The mother felt very sad and didn’t know how to face her husband.
When the father went to the police station after hearing that the son was missing, he looked at his wife and said just four words. What do you think the four words were? The husband just said "I love you, darling."
The son was missing. If he had picked him up earlier, this would not have happened. There is no point in blaming (责备) anyone. His wife had also lost her only child. What his wife needed at that moment was comfort and understanding from her husband. That is what the husband gave his wife. Several weeks later, with the help of the police, the couple finally found their lost son. The family’s relationship became stronger over that time.
Sometimes we spend lots of time asking who is to blame. We miss many chances to give each other support and let each other feel the warmth of human relationships. Get rid of all your unwillingness to forgive, selfishness, and fears and you will find the world is much more wonderful.
1. The underlined part means a person who __________.| A．always has a sweet smile | B．is as pretty as an apple |
| C．is loved more than anyone else | D．looks like an apple |
| A．was very lazy | B．thought the mother had done that |
| C．forgot to do so | D．was too tired to do so |
| A．Be careful in everything you do. | B．Love is the most important. |
| C．Learn to forgive others | D．Everyone can make mistakes. |
| A．Warm-hearted. | B．Careful. |
| C．Hard-working | D．Broad-minded. |
【推荐1】Maria Sibylla Merian-drawing from life
In 17th-century Europe, it was unheard of for a woman to travel by herself, but that didn’t stop Maria Sibylla Merian. In 1699, she and her 2l-year-old daughter Dorothea sailed from Amsterdam to Suriname in South America. The three-month voyage was dangerous but she was determined to go. Besides, she was on a bold mission. She would be the first person to go to a foreign country to study and paint insects directly from nature.
When they arrived in Suriname, Maria and Dorothea started working. Day after day, they took their painting materials into the hot and humid rainforest to collect and draw insects and plants. Artists had never done such a thing before. Still life painters drew from dead specimens. But Maria had always been interested in painting living animals and plants, and her favourite subjects were insects.
In the rainforest, she climbed ladders to study and collect insects. She had trees cut down so she could see what lived at the top level of the forest more than a hundred feet overhead. Maria combined both art and science in her work. As a skilled observer, she kept detailed notes.
Maria planned to stay in Suriname for five years, painting and collecting insects and plants that Europeans had never seen. She learnt about the medicinal plants of the area and expanded her interest to spiders, birds, lizards and snakes. She planned to publish a book of her new work on her return to Amsterdam.
After two years, she had to leave Suriname. The heat was unbearable and she was ill with malaria. But she had more than enough material for a book. In June 1701, Maria and Dorothea sailed back to Amsterdam with many paintings and specimens—butterflies preserved in brandy, bottles with crocodiles and snakes, lizards’ eggs and boxes of pressed insects.
Four years later, in 1705, Maria published the book, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, for which she is best known. The paintings of insects and plants in their natural habitats revolutionized scientific illustration and advanced the scientific study of insects.
1. Why did Maria make the voyage in 1699?| A．To sail with her daughter. | B．To study and draw life from nature. |
| C．To experience the danger. | D．To show her courage and determination. |
| A．Plants. | B．Samples. | C．Animals. | D．Insects. |
| A．Keen and ambitious. | B．Risky and careless. |
| C．Kind and aggressive. | D．Brave and creative. |
| A．Drawing from dead specimens. |
| B．Studying and collecting enough material. |
| C．Staying in Suriname for five years. |
| D．Learning and working along with her daughter. |
【推荐2】Before Douglas Engelbart, computers were as big as rooms and used mostly for handling numbers. But in the late 1960s, Engelbart invented almost everything your personal computer has today: a mouse, hypertext, screen sharing and more. Engelbart was adding real-time edits, graphics, hyper-linking and sharing screens — all before the birth of the World Wide Web. “The digital revolution is far more significant than the invention of writing or even of printing,” said Engelbart, and as it turns out, he held all the right cards.
If he’d been British, Engelbart would have been knighted (授爵), but the Portland, Oregon, native instead lived out the rest of his years as an unsung hero, trying to fry even bigger fish in Silicon Valley. His blueprint of the Internet was totally different from today’s profit-driven, streamlined version. Engelbart imagined an information system built on the backbones of cooperation and education, all meant to enhance the collective human mind. He wanted a computerized network of real-time, human-wide cooperation, with the open-source spirit of Wikipedia and the purposefulness of Change.org.
By the late 70s and early 80s, Engelbart and his ideas were cast aside in favour of Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, along with their profit-generating vision for personal computing, and a user-friendly approach to the Internet. Engelbart’s team of researchers abandoned him, and he had a lesser position at a company called Tymshare while still battling with his pie-in-the-sky visions of a better world. Even worse, when Engelbart’s mouse invention gained widespread use years later, he never gained the profits — it had been licensed to Apple for around $40,000, Engelbart revealed.
And if Engelbart had won? “Hard to say,” says Jefferson of the Internet Archive in San Francisco. “The Web was bound to grow in ways its founders never intended,” he says. He notes his belief that the same spirit of knowledge-sharing and cooperation Engelbart tirelessly pushed for will one day become part of our fast-evolving Internet, even if a commercial layer clouds the original vision. But even so, fame is difficult to achieve; it often ridicules great thinkers like Galileo or Tesla, only to meet them decades after death. Granted, Engelbart was eventually allowed into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1998, and into the Pioneers Circle in the Internet Hall of Fame after his death, but the heart of his dream has yet to be realized.
1. The expression “his pie-in-the-sky visions of a better world” in Para 3 refers to ________.| A．the function of computer data processing |
| B．a real-time video chat on the Internet |
| C．a user-friendly approach to the Internet |
| D．an Internet of knowledge-sharing and cooperation |
| A．he was too crazy about his vision of the Internet when totally ignored |
| B．he was not profitably rewarded for his landmark inventions of computer |
| C．he was admitted to the U. S. National Inventors Hall of Fame too late |
| D．the Internet was commercially oriented against his original intention |
| A．Engelbart rose and fell in his all-out battle over the future of the Internet. |
| B．Engelbart could have succeeded in the Internet with his landmark inventions. |
| C．Engelbart’s achievements have never been recognized. |
| D．Engelbart didn’t get any profit for his mouse invention. |
| A．Who Benefits from the Internet? |
| B．Who Lost the Internet Wars? |
| C．Who pioneered the World Wide Web? |
| D．Who Commercialized the Internet? |
【推荐3】Susan Brownell Anthony was a lady ahead of her time. She fought for women's rights long before it became a popular event.
Susan was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. At that time, women had few rights. They could not own property（财产）. Money earned by a married woman belonged to her husband. Major decisions involving children were made by the fathers. Women could not vote.
At the age of 15, Susan became a schoolteacher. She taught for 15 years. Then she began organizing women's groups to promote rights that were important to women. She helped gain better educational rights for women. She helped give married women possession of their earnings.
After the Civil War, Susan became very involved in the women's voting movement. After years of lecturing, writing, and appealing by Susan and other women, some parts of the United States changed their laws to give women the right to vote. The first state was Wyoming in 1869. Other areas and states gradually followed Wyoming's decision. It was not until 1920 that the U. S. Constitution（宪法）was changed to give all women voting rights.
Susan Brownell Anthony died in 1906 at the age of 86. She was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1950. She was the first American woman to have a likeness（肖像）of her face on a coin. It was the 1979 Susan Brownell Anthony dollar.
1. What was the situation of American women like when Susan was born？| A．They had low social place. |
| B．They could vote after getting married. |
| C．They managed money for their husbands. |
| D．They were responsible for decision-making. |
| A．Susan's teaching experiences. |
| B．Susan's educational background. |
| C．Susan's efforts to stop slavery. |
| D．Susan's fighting for women's rights. |
| A．Promoting the social movement. |
| B．Changing the U. S. Constitution. |
| C．Giving women voting rights. |
| D．Uniting other areas and states. |
| A．The first American woman to invent coins |
| B．The problem of women's rights in the U. S. |
| C．The most popular women organization |
| D．A pioneer in fighting for women's rights |
