Arthur Miller(1915--2005)is universally recognized as one of the greatest dramatists (剧作家) of the 20th century. Miller’s father had moved to the USA from Austria-Hungary, drawn like so many others by the “Great American Dream”. However, in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 the family lost everything. As a teenager, Miller delivered bread every morning before school to help the family. At college he worked several jobs to pay for his tuition (学费).
Miller’s most famous play, Death of a Salesman, is a powerful attack on the American system, with its aggressive way of doing business and its insistence on money and social status as indicators of worth. In Willy Loman, the hero of the play, we see a man who has got into trouble with his worth. Willy is “burnt out” and in the cruel world of business there is no room for sentiment (多愁善感):If he can’t do the work, then he is no good to his employer, the Wagner Company, and he must go. Willy is painfully aware of this, and at a loss as to what to do with his lack of success. He refuses to face the fact that he has failed and kills himself in the end.
When it was staged in 1949, the play was greeted with enthusiastic reviews, and it won the Tony Award for Best Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was the first play to win all three of these major awards.
Miller died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, on the evening of February 10, 2005, the 56th anniversary of the first performance of Death of a Salesman on Broadway.
1. Why did Arthur Miller’s father move to the USA?A.He failed to manage his family business. |
B.He hoped his son would be well educated. |
C.He experienced severe financial difficulty. |
D.He was attracted by the “Great American Dream”. |
A.exposes the cruelty of the American business world |
B.focuses on the skills in performing successful business |
C.introduces employees’ proper behaviors in the company |
D.explains the reasons for the death of American salesman |
A.family | B.play |
C.death | D.marriage |
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【推荐1】After three quarters of an hour they reached the height where the hut(小屋)of the old man stood on a rock, exposed to every wind, but bathed in the full sunlight. From there you could see far down into the valley.
Overlooking the valley the old man had made himself a bench, by the side of the hut. Here he sat, with his pipe between his teeth and both his hands resting on his knees. He quietly watched the children climbing up with the goats and Aunt Deta behind them. Heidi reached the top first, and approaching the old man, she held out her hand to him and said, “Good evening, grandfather!”
“Well, well, what does that mean?” replied the old man in a rough voice. Giving her his hand for only a moment, he watched with a long and penetrating(穿透性的)look from under his bushy brows. Heidi gazed back at him and examined him, for he was strange to look at.
Deta had arrived in the meantime with Peter, who was eager to see what was going to happen.
“Good-day to you, uncle,” said Deta as she approached. “This is Tobias’s and Adelheid’s child. You won’t be able to remember her, because last time you saw her, she was only a year old.”
“Why do you bring her here?” asked the uncle, and turning to Peter, he said: “Get away and bring my goats. How late you are already!”
Peter obeyed and disappeared; the old man had looked at him in such a manner that he was glad to go.
“Uncle, I’ve brought the little girl for you to keep,” said Deta. “I have done my share these four years and now it’s your turn to provide for her.”
1. How did Heidi feel about the old man at first sight?A.Angry. | B.Afraid. | C.Curious. | D.Cheerful. |
A.He was Heidi’s brother. | B.He treated the old man’s visitors. |
C.He was one of Deta’s friends. | D.He took care of the old man’s goats. |
A.The old man expected Heidi’s coming. |
B.The old man saw Heidi several years ago. |
C.Heidi came to the old man’s hut for a holiday visit. |
D.Heidi had lived with her parents in the last four years. |
A.The old man decided whether to keep Heidi. |
B.Deta decided whether to leave Heidi or not. |
C.Peter decided whether to help Deta and Heidi. |
D.Heidi decided whether to stay with the old man. |
Invented a few years ago by students and seized upon by digital marketers, this festival for lonely hearts falls annually on the 11th day of the 11th month(since 1 is the loneliest number). It is like St Valentine's Day, only worse. Singletons show each other with tender gifts: a barrage of pearls; a storm of sweets.
This November 11th they spent a surprising 19 billion yuan on Alibaba's online platforms—a fourfold increase on a year ago, and more than double what Americans spent online last Cyber Monday(the Monday after Thanksgiving, when retailers urge Americans to shop online). About 100 million purchases were logged, accounting for 80% of the packages shipped that day. Couriers(快递员) were buried in parcels.
So life is good for China's etailers. Then? Not exactly. The number of digital marketers is increasing and online sales are booming. Consumers are enjoying lower prices, better service and more variety. The problem? The pressure on profits in Chinese ecommerce is worse than in America, reckons Elinor Leung of CLSA, a broker. “Almost no one makes money,” she says.
The fiercest battles are being fought between online retailers and their bricksandmortar(实体的) rivals. Dangdang, a firm that resembles Amazon, and 360buy, another online retailer, have cut prices fiercely. Tencent, a cashrich online giant known for its instantmessaging software, is splashing out to win market share. 360buy has also just raised $400 millon from investors to do the same. But it is unclear how much longer such firms can burn through capital.
1. What's the best title of this passage?
A.The Ambition of Alibaba |
B.Fierce Competition between Retailers |
C.A New Festival for the Singles |
D.Chinese Booming Ecommerce |
A.outweigh Amazon and eBay in worldwide influence |
B.rank top among all the Internet firms |
C.have more than 159 billion dollars' sale |
D.create another sales miracle just like the one on Singles Day |
A.About 80 million. | B.About 100 million. |
C.About 125 million. | D.About 180 million. |
A.Optimistic. | B.Concerned. |
C.Sympathetic. | D.Indifferent. |
【推荐3】Every day since early July, 2018, Tiffany Wong has painted a small watercolor of one woman and then shared the painting on Instagram, providing background information about each woman. Wong started the project to give more people a chance to learn about the different roles of women in society and history. “We don’t really get to learn about them in our school as much,” Wong said. “I wanted to make women’s history more available for people so that they wouldn’t have to do the research.”
Wong's interest in women’s history started young. As a child in California, she read books about women, including scientist Barbara McClintock, doctor Elizabeth Blackwell and other fields.
The idea to develop her own women’s history project was inspired in part by a free course through Harvard X, Harvard University’s developer of online courses. Wong has worked there for the past five years after learning international education policy from the university. The Schlesinger Library provided another inspiration for Wong. In 2018, she visited the library’s 75th-anniversary exhibit, which told women’s stories through 75 documents and objects.
As an artist since childhood, Wong decided her project would include both paintings and research about women. “The written part of the post often takes longer than the painting,” Wong said. Whenever possible, she uses original sources and quotes, often referring to papers and other documents.
None of the paintings includes the women’s facial features, a style that makes the paintings easier to do, while giving people an opportunity to see themselves in the image. “I wanted something open,” Wong said. “I wanted people to feel like they could also be these people.”
Her subjects occasionally notice her posts. In February, Wong wrote about the career of Merritt Moore, a physicist and dancer with an undergraduate degree from Harvard. Moore shared the post with her own Instagram followers and left a comment for Wong.
“Wow! I’m so touched! Thank you! I love this!” Moore wrote.
1. What did Wong begin to do since early July, 2018?A.Learn to draw with watercolors. | B.Share a painting of herself on Instagram. |
C.Paint famous women in history. | D.Collect information about each woman. |
A.When Wong began to tell women’s stories. |
B.How long Wong has studied international education. |
C.What Wong learned from Harvard X’s online courses. |
D.Where Wong got her inspiration for her project. |
A.Writing the background for the women. | B.Drawing the women’s facial features. |
C.Finding a quote of the famous women. | D.Selling her paintings on social websites. |
A.To win equal payment for women at work. | B.To get more fans for her Instagram. |
C.To remember the women’s contribution to society. | D.To show her skills of mixing art and women history. |
【推荐1】Holding the large and heavy “brick” cellphone he’s credited with inventing 50 years ago,Martin Cooper talks about the future.
Little did he know when he made the first call on a New York City street from a heavy Motorola prototype(原型)that our world would come to be encapsulated on a sleek glass sheath where we search,connect,like and buy.
Cooper says he is an optimist. He believes that advances in mobile technology will continue to transform lives but he is worried about risks smartphones pose to privacy and young people.
“My most negative opinion is we don’t have any privacy anymore because everything about us is now recorded someplace and accessible to somebody who has enough intense desire to get it,” the 94-year-old said in an interview in Barcelona at MWC, the Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest wireless trade show, where he was getting a lifetime award.
Cooper sees a dark side to the advances, including the risk to children. One idea, he said, is to have“various Internets intended for different audiences.”
Cooper made the first public call from a handheld portable telephone on a Manhattan street on April 3,1973,using a prototype device his team at Motorola had started designing just five months earlier.
Cooper used the Dyna-TAC phone to famously call his opponent at Bell Labs, owned by AT&T. It was literally the world’s first brick phone,weighing 2.5 pounds and measuring 11 inches.
Cooper spent the best part of the next decade working to bring a commercial version of the device to market.
The call helped kick-start the cellphone revolution (革命).
Cooper said he’s “not crazy” about the shape of modern smartphones. He thinks they will develop so that they’ll be “distributed on your body,” possibly as sensors“measuring your health at all times.”
Batteries, he said, might be replaced by human energy.The body makes energy from food,he argues, so it could possibly also power a phone.Instead of holding the phone in the hand, for example, the device could be placed under the skin.
1. What does the underlined part “a sleek glass sheath” in paragraph 2 refer to?A.A smartphone. | B.A Motorola prototype. |
C.A “brick” cellphone. | D.An original cellphone. |
A.Most negative. | B.Very subjective. |
C.Doubtful and Disapproving. | D.Optimistic but also concerned. |
A.They should be provided with a different Internet from adults. |
B.They should have easy access to various Internets. |
C.They should be introduced to different audiences. |
D.They should use various Internets for learning materials. |
A.By body sensors. | B.By human body. |
C.By solar energy. | D.By advanced batteries. |
【推荐2】Satellites are an important part of our ordinary lives. For example, the information for weather forecasts is sent by satellite. Some satellites have cameras which take photographs of the earth to show how clouds are moving. Satellites are also used to connect our international phone calls.
Computer connections of the World Wide Web and Internet also use satellites. Many of our TV programmes come to us through satellites. Airplane pilots also sometimes use a satellite to help them find their exact location.
We use satellites to send television pictures from one part of the world to another. They are usually 35,880 kilometers above the equator. Sometimes we can see a satellite in the sky and it seems to stay in the same place. This is because it is moving around the world at 11,000 kilometers an hour —exactly the same speed that the earth rotates. A satellite must orbit the earth with its antennae(天线) facing the earth. Sometimes, it moves away from its orbit. So there are little rockets on it which are used to put the satellite back in the right position. This usually happens about every five or six days.
Space is not empty! Every week, more and more satellites are sent into space to orbit the earth. A satellite usually works for about 10~12 years. Satellites which are broken are sometimes repaired by astronauts or sometimes brought back to earth to be repaired. Often, very old or broken satellites are left in space to orbit the earth for a very long time. This is very serious because some satellites use nuclear power and they can crash into each other.
1. Which of the following is NOT done by satellites according to the passage?A.Sending information for weather forecast. |
B.Taking photographs of the earth. |
C.Sending TV pictures. |
D.Providing food for airplane pilots. |
A.35,880 kilometers per hour. | B.335,880 kilometers per hour. |
C.11,000 kilometers per hour. | D.110,000 kilometers per hour. |
A.A satellite. | B.A little rocket. |
C.A satellite seems to stay in the same place in the sky. | D.The satellite puts the rockets in the right position. |
A.A satellite usually works for about 10~12 years. |
B.Every time a satellite gets broken, it is brought back to the earth to be repaired. |
C.A broken satellite is never left in space. |
D.They often crash into each other. |
【推荐3】The effects of noise can reach organisms (生物体) without ears. Because of the way living things rely on each other, noise pollution may actually stop some forests from growing, a new study suggests. In a New Mexico woodland of pine trees, researchers found far fewer tree seedlings (小苗) in noisy sites than they did in quiet ones.
The study area is dotted with gas wells, some of which are quiet and some of which have compressors (压缩机) that create a constant noise. This allowed Jennifer Phillips, a behavioral ecologist at Texas A&M University-San Antonio and her colleagues to compare sites that were similar except for noise level. In areas that had been noisy for at least 15 years, the researchers found only about 13 pine seedlings, compared with 55 pine seedlings per hectare (公顷) in quiet areas.
The differences in plant growth were probably caused by changes in animal behavior, said Phillips. For example, noise might drive away certain pollinators (传粉昆虫) such as bees, bats and moths. In the case of pine trees, the problem was likely a lack of animals to disperse seeds. Pines depend on birds to carry their seeds away from the parent tree, and birds are known to avoid noise. The differences between the sites aren’t yet obvious to someone walking through them, said Sarah Termondt, a botanist (植物学家) with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who helped conduct the study. That’s probably because pines are slow-growing, with most of the mature trees in such woodlands being over a century old.
The study raises questions about the future of the area. “If the noise stays there long term, are we going to lose this important ecosystem of the pine which supports so much wildlife?” said Phillips. The study was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.
1. What does the new study focus on?A.The influence of noise pollution on plants. |
B.The way the organisms receive noise. |
C.The harm of noise pollution to insects. |
D.The effects of noise pollution on humans . |
A.Gas wells dotted in the area provide favorable conditions for the study. |
B.The study sites are different in many ways including their noise level. |
C.It is difficult for plants to live without noise and animals. |
D.People can easily find the difference between the noisy and the quiet sites. |
A.Seedling. | B.Thin. |
C.Grown-up. | D.Tall. |
A.Noise pollution is obviously a trouble that can be avoided. |
B.Noise pollution could be a threat with the power to change ecosystems. |
C.The pine forest is important because it supports so much wildlife. |
D.Wildlife should be well protected for the future of this area. |
【推荐1】Toni Morrison was an American writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her novels——Beloved, Song of Solomon and others explored the way African-Americans search for freedom and identity in a country obsessed with skin color. Morrison was nearly 40 when she published her first novel The Bluest Eye in 1970. The Nobel Prize committee described her writing as language itself, a language she wants to liberate (解放) from race. Her novels discussed America’s past, focusing on black history and the effects of slavery and racism. She called her characters “the unfree at the heart of the democratic experiment”.
In 1988, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved, the story of a mother who kills her baby daughter rather than permit her to be born into slavery. It became a best-seller and was later made into a film with Oprah Winfrey. Many Americans admired her as the country’s greatest living writer, including former President Barack Obama.
She was born in 1931. She attended Howard University, an all-black university in Washington, D.C. At Howard, she read African, British and American literature, including writers William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. After a short marriage, she became a single mother of two sons and worked as a book editor in New York.
Several publishers rejected her first book The Bluest Eye, but it impressed The New York Times book critic John Leonard, who believed Morrison was an important new voice. He said her writing was “so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry”.
Morrison enjoyed her literary fame and was proud of her Nobel Prize.
1. What are Toni Morrison’s novels mainly about?
A.The literature of America. | B.The development of America. |
C.American history and racism. | D.American freedom and democracy. |
A.To show Barack Obama’s support in literature. |
B.To prove Toni Morrison’s greatness as a writer. |
C.To stress Toni Morrison’s contribution to America. |
D.To remind readers of the skin color of Barack Obama. |
A.She graduated from Harvard University. |
B.She knew literature from three areas. |
C.She was a friend of Virginia Woolf. |
D.She worked as a writer after divorce. |
A.He praised Toni Morison’s book very highly. |
B.He rejected the bookThe Bluest Eye. |
C.The book The Bluest Eye made him painful. |
D.Toni Morrison’s books were hard to understand. |
【推荐2】Mark Twain,the famous American writer,was once traveling in France.He went by train to Dijon.He was very tired and wanted to sleep.He therefore asked the conductor to wake him up when the train came to Dijon.
But first he explained he was a very heavy sleeper,“I may possibly protest(抗议)loudly when you try to wake me up,” he said to the conductor.“But don’t take any notice of what I say.Just put me off the train anyway.”
Then Mark Twain went to sleep.Later,when he woke up it was night time and the train had reached Paris already.He realized at once that the conductor had forgotten to wake him up at Dijon.He was so angry that he ran to the conductor and began to shout at him.
“I have never been so angry in my life,” Mark Twain said.
The conductor looked at him calmly(平静地).“You are not half so angry as the American whom I put off the train at Dijon,” he said.
1. Mark Twain knew that he was a heavy sleeper,so ________.A.he protested loudly to the conductor |
B.he did not sleep before he arrived in Dijon |
C.he told the conductor to wake him up no matter how loudly he might protest |
D.he slept lightly that time |
A.he didn’t take Mark Twain’s words seriously |
B.he forgot Mark Twain’s words when the train came to Dijon |
C.he did not want to bear his protest |
D.he mistook another American traveler for Mark Twain |
A.did not want to get off at Dijon |
B.wanted to get off at Paris |
C.wanted to get off at Dijon |
D.did not want to get off at Paris |
A.The conductor didn’t take Mark Twain’s words seriously. |
B.The conductor did take Mark Twain’s words seriously. |
C.The conductor was a heavy sleeper. |
D.Mark Twain must get off at Paris. |
【推荐3】When the author opens his memoir with a scene of his mother pushing him from a moving vehicle, you know you’re in for a fascinating read. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, who is now a daily show host, is an autobiography about Trevor’s life in Africa.
Trevor, the son of a Xhosa (科萨人) mother and a Swiss-German father, was born a crime as it was illegal for different races to marry and have children in Africa. Growing up biracial in the post-apartheid era (后种族隔离时代), his mother is an influential partner at every step along his journey. She worked diligently to stay out of poverty and keep Noah in good schools. Trevor’s mom stressed independence and free thought as well as all the values of Judaism (犹太教). Even before they knew apartheid would end, she wanted him to live freely. She took him to places that black South Africans considered “white things,” like ice rinks and the suburbs, because even if he never left the ghetto (贫民区), he would know that the ghetto was not the world. It was her mother’s aim to keep him from internalizing his oppression, and to convince him that he was greater than social labels. His mom would take him to the library and museums, and local college campuses. For his mother, being a black woman didn’t mean he couldn’t achieve greatness. She gave him permission to dream beyond his circumstances.
In Trevor’s whole early life, being mixed-race, he often wasn’t allowed to go outside during apartheid because the police could have taken him away; he couldn’t be seen with his parents and his mother had to pretend to be his maid when they were in public. So, Trevor had to have his mother’s friends pose as his mother. Trevor struggled to fit in at school as he didn’t know which group to play with. Later in high school, Trevor had to start a lunch delivery business to move up and be accepted by his fellow classmates. After high school, he started getting into comedy in 2002 and has been on TV ever since. Trevor had a rough, but loving relationship with his mother as he was always getting in trouble. Trevor didn’t see his dad much and could only meet in secret. In the end, Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother. Noah writes: “I understood even from an early age that we weren’t just mother and son. We were a team.”
Born a Crime tells a really personal and yet universal story in many respects. It is undoubtedly a life-changing story which is powerful, honest, funny and dark at the same time, still it never turns to despair, self-pity or hopelessness. It’s a story of survival against the odds and the human ability to transcend the limits of their origin. At the end of the book, he explains this miracle that happened to his mother, where she survives a bullet to the head. These stories uncover new feelings towards loved-ones, and may influence you to sincerely reconsider connections to your family and their priorities.
1. It can be learnt that Born a Crime is ________.A.a book on slavery |
B.a story about criminals |
C.an autobiography of a show host |
D.a report about how to reduce crime |
A.He didn’t get along with his mother. |
B.He felt hard to fit in at school. |
C.He was wanted by the police. |
D.He got too much attention. |
A.pushed him to reach academic excellence |
B.encouraged him go beyond the present limits |
C.inspired him to speak for the minority as a TV host |
D.helped him determine which race he should side with |
A.Law and justice. | B.Hope and grit. |
C.Getting to the top. | D.Secrets of success. |