【推荐1】Walt Whitman was born in 1819 in New York City. During his long life, he watched America grow from a young nation to the strongest industrial power in the world. Whitman was influenced by events around him. But his poetry speaks of the inner self. He celebrated great people like President Abraham Lincoln. He also celebrated common people.

As a young man, Whitman worked as a school teacher, printer and newspaper reporter. He was 36 years old when his first book of poetry was published. He called it Leaves of Grass. It had only twelve poems. The poems were written in free verse. The lines did not follow any set form. Some lines were short and some were long. The words at the end of each line did not have a similar sound. They did not rhyme.

One of America’s greatest thinkers and writers immediately recognized the importance of Leaves of Grass. Ralph Waldo Emerson praised Whitman’s work. But most other poets and writers said nothing or denounced it.

The American Civil War began in 1861. During the war, Whitman worked without pay at army hospitals. He helped care for wounded and dying soldiers. He sat beside these men for hours. He brought them food and wrote letters for them. After the Civil War, Whitman worked for government agencies. He watched the United States try to heal itself and increase democracy (民主)To Walt Whitman, democracy was more than a political system or idea. It was the natural form of government for free people. Whitman believed democracy was meant to honor the rights of every person and the equality of all people.

In 1873, Walt Whitman suffered a stroke (中风). He spent the last years of his life in Camden, New Jersey and wrote more poems. Whitman was poor and weak during the last years of his life. He died in 1892.

1. Walt Whitman expressed his feelings by ________.

A．singing songs	B．celebrating great people
C．writing poems	D．praising common people

2. Leaves of Grass was published in ________.

A．1819

B．1855

C．1861

D．1873

3. The underlined sentence in Paragraph 3 means “________”.

A．many great writers liked Whitman’s poems very much

B．a lot of people agreed with Emerson

C．many poets and writers didn’t praise or even thought ill of Whitman’s poems

D．many poets and writers thought highly of Whitman

4. It can be inferred from the fourth paragraph that Whitman was a(n)________.

A．brave soldier	B．man of devotion
C．honest official	D．great politician

【推荐2】Unusual Things that Famous People Did

Leonardo Da Vinci And His Sleep Schedule

Da Vinci was a painter, an engineer, a writer, a sculptor, an inventor, an architect, a pioneer in exploring human anatomy, an eager animal lover and possibly one of the most famous vegetarians who ever lived. It seems that there’s nothing that this man did not do. Yet there was, it was sleeping. He wasn’t a fan of it and after conducting careful research and building up his knowledge, he started following the multiphase sleep cycle. To put it in other words, Da Vinci’s sleep would consist of several short naps every 24 hours. Being The Renaissance man is not so easy.

Leo Tolstoy And His Shoes

The giant of the Russian literature, Lev Tolstoy not only wrote historically accurate books, but he himself became of historical importance while still being alive. Despite coming from the highest layers of society, Tolstoy eventually started questioning the moral of society that he lived in and started following his own path. He became a vegetarian, started following a vigorous daily routine and denounced the looks of a rich man. He started wearing peasant clothes and shoes, which, despite not being too skilled, were made by himself.

Ludwig Van Beethoven And The 60 Coffee Beans

Ludwig van Beethoven did write the glorious “Symphony No. 9”, which is now the anthem of European Union, while being already deaf, but, of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of his input into musical history. Yet stellar results require astronomic discipline. Each morning Beethoven counted by hand 60 coffee beans from which he would make his perfect cup of coffee. Also, in order to restart his creative muscles after writing too much music, he would pour cold water on his head.

1. When did Leonardo Da Vinci sleep?

A．He stayed up late everyday.

B．He followed strict sleep cycle.

C．He went to sleep every twenty-fourth hour.

D．He had a rest from time to time every twenty-four hours.

2. What did Leonardo Da Vinci and Leo Tolstoy have in common?

A．They didn’t eat any meat or fish.

B．They were both dressed in their own style.

C．They were both the giant of the European literature.

D．They were both the experts in historical exploration.

3. How did Ludwig Van Beethoven get his creative inspiration?

A．He would avoid showering.

B．He would count 60 coffee beans.

C．He would stay astronomic discipline.

D．He would pour cold water on his head.

【推荐3】Jules Verne, the “Father of Science Fiction”, lived in the era of steamships and telegraphs, but was able to imagine technologies that wouldn’t be invented for over a century. Reading Verne’s novels made me wonder how he was able to predict so much and write so technically when he wasn’t a trained scientist, physicist or engineer. How did he do it?

Like a lot of people, Verne’s parents had their own ideas about his future. They had their hearts set on Verne becoming a lawyer. He knew he wanted to be a writer, but played along and went to school to become a lawyer like his father.

Verne was mostly pretending to study law in Paris while holing up in the National Library of France and digging into articles on discoveries in geology and science. Eventually, he came clean with his family that he wanted to write in a new genre (风格) that combined travel and science.

While he studied scientific journals and let all of the age’s cutting-edge discoveries feed the fires of his imagination, Verne surrounded himself with people who could be useful for his writing.

His brother was a naval officer, and Verne would often ask him to double-check what he had written about ships and maritime travel. He also asked his cousin, a math professor, to look at his equations (等式) and a mining engineer friend to help him with physics, according to author Walter James Miller, who wrote annotations (评注) to Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.

“He predicted a lot of things that have happened, but that’s because he was reading a lot and talking with people who knew what was going on in the world around him, so why should we be surprised?” according to Rosalind Williams, a historian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It wasn’t magic. He was just paying attention to things,” she said.

1. What is the purpose of the first paragraph?

A．To lead in the topic.	B．To explain a phenomenon.
C．To present an argument.	D．To introduce a concept.

2. What did Verne’s parents expect him to be?

A．A scientist.

B．A writer.

C．An engineer.

D．A lawyer.

3. What does the underlined phrase “came clean with” in paragraph 3 probably mean?

A．Agreed excitedly with.	B．Admitted honestly to.
C．Talked hopefully with.	D．Complained impatiently to.

4. What made Verne succeed in science fiction according to Rosalind Williams?

A．His genius.	B．His law study.
C．His devotion to writing.	D．His parents’ support.