Nelle Harper Lee, better known by her pen name Harper Lee, was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960. Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modem American literature. In 1991 an organization conducted a survey that made readers identify books that had “made a difference” in their lives. The result? Lee’s book trailed only The Bible. Alongside the works of Shakespeare and Twain, this novel remains one of the most widely taught books nationwide, reaching about 70% of American public schools. What makes it such a typical read for young people?
English class is a place where young Americans come to know themselves. In the folds of dusty books, students can make contact with humanity beyond the shallow small talk of the school hallways. Disturbed by hormones (荷尔蒙)and anxiety, teenagers get through school with confusion and frustration. Literature is a safety valve (安全阀) 一 it promises relief, a place to figure out one's problems and get to know oneself better.
The novel particularly distinguishes itself in this aspect. It speaks in a child’s voice without treating its readership as children. Some critics have called it an “impossible” achievement, a children's book penned by a well-educated adult — it’s unlikely that a child like Scout could exist in the real world. But that’s exactly what makes it such a charming, attractive read for young people. It indicates the consciousness of a well-educated adult facing difficult realities, but describes it through the light and playful voice of a curious little girl.
Gaby Hick, a third-year student focused on English literature at Brown University, calls it “one of the first books that kids and young adults read that deals with serious issues —rape, race, mental issues”. She adds, “The story makes these adult themes accessible because of Scout.” The book’s setting, a small town in Alabama affected by the Great Depression of the 1930s, may appear very different from the experience of most kids reading it today. But Lee’s words make her story feel alive and present.
In 2006, however, critic Thomas Mallon expressed his regret about the book’s avoiding complexity in The New Yorker. But her novel makes a great teaching tool for teenagers precisely because its moral view is as clear as that of one of Aesop's Fables. That absence of ambiguity (含糊其辞) in this novel doesn’t mean the novel is free of challenging ideas, either. Will Serratelli, another literature student at Brown says, “There aren’t many hard moral questions being asked …but it opens up all these other questions that 1 hadn’t thought about before. My English teachers always asked, ‘Do you sympathize (同情) with this character? Would you want to hang out with them?’ When you give a kid a book where those questions don’t even need to be asked, it forces them to dig deeper.”
Mallon's criticism is accurate in that this novel may present too limited a view of racism in America. That's especially problematic because it is one of the only books consistently assigned to American students that acknowledges (承认) racial discrimination (歧视) at all. However, To Kill a Mockingbird may owe some of its popularity as a teaching text to the fact that the narrative voice is a white one. Naomi Vamis, an African Studies student at Brown says, “It’s another practice of telling stories about black people through white central characters,” she says.
While the novel is undoubtedly worth its place in the classroom, English teachers may do well to consider that it is a white author’s perspective — and ought to be the only beginning of a dialogue about race and never the final word. But as a gateway to more mature ideas, and as a YA (young adult) distillation (提炼) of complex concepts young people may not have grasped before, Lee’s novel is invaluable.
1. According to the passage, the novel To Kill a Mockingbird can help us .| A．reduce much anxiety for fear of losing ourselves |
| B．understand what the real personality of human is |
| C．know more about the past U.S. economic situation |
| D．find and deal with some other complicated questions |
| A．Was as good as. | B．Tried hard to defeat. |
| C．Went along the same route as. | D．Had a lower score than. |
| A．The kids are unwilling to answer challenging questions. |
| B．The kids have to face more moral questions. |
| C．The kids tend to sympathize with the characters. |
| D．The kids are motivated to think further. |
| A．Because it reveals racial discrimination in America. |
| B．Because a white author tells the stories about black people. |
| C．Because it makes some serious adult issues accessible. |
| D．Because it is widely used as a tool for moral judgments in society. |
| A．To tell us about the content of the novel. |
| B．To explain the reasons for its popularity. |
| C．To introduce some different comments. |
| D．To approve of the creative writing style. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】International students seeking a medical degree in the United States face serious difficulties.
First, there is often a language barrier. Students from non-English speaking countries could have a hard time understanding their work or communicating with professors.
Also, a medical education is very costly. First, students must complete an undergraduate degree (本科学历). Then, most medical schools require at least four years of study. After medical school, students do at least three more years of training in their specific medical fields. They do receive some pay for this work.
In addition, many medical programs at public universities in the U.S. do not accept international students. And private universities have fewer openings, creating a great deal of competition.
However, receiving a medical education in the U.S. is not impossible. Fatima Ismail is proof. The 32-year-old from Dubai says she knew she wanted to be a doctor at a very early age.
“I was always fascinated by the brain and how it functions. And I love working with children. There is a huge population of children with developmental disabilities that are not taken care of very well in Middle East in general and my home country, in particular.”
So, Ismail completed medical school in her home country. Then, she applied to a residency (住院实习) program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Ismail spent time as an exchange student at Johns Hopkins during her time in medical school.
She says many of her fellow students applied to more than 10 or even 20 different programs.
“It’s a very competitive process. Being an international medical school graduate you ... have less chances to be accepted because the priority would be for the U.S. graduates. Having said that, it’s not impossible. All that you need to do is, basically, early planning...”
Planning is highly important for foreign students seeking admission to U.S. medical schools. Paul White is the director for medical school admissions at Johns Hopkins. He says some schools do accept students with undergraduate degrees from their home countries. But most, he says, require U.S. study.
“So we say we want to see at least one year of additional coursework in any area in the U.S. just so we can see the kinds of courses they are capable of taking and how well they may perform in those courses. And there’s no question that if they do well in the U.S., and they do well on the medical college’s admissions test, then they’ll be eligible (合格的) for admission...”
1. Fatima Ismail is cited as an example to ________.| A．show the possibility of being accepted as a medical major in the U.S. |
| B．discourage students from applying for medical schools in the U.S. |
| C．share with readers her enthusiasm for medical education |
| D．show her terrible living conditions in her own county |
| A．One’s money status. | B．A strong character. |
| C．Early planning. | D．More applications. |
| A．To prepare applicants for medical college admission test. |
| B．To test applicants’ competence as a medical major. |
| C．To urge applicants to apply for residency program. |
| D．To relieve the pressure of international students. |
【推荐2】Shortage of Primary Care Threatens Health Care System
Increasing health care bills, long emergency-room waits and the inability to find a primary care physician just scratch the surface of the problems that patients face daily.
Primary care should be the support of any health care system. Countries with appropriate primary care resources score highly when it comes to health outcomes and cost. The U.S. takes the opposite approach by emphasizing the specialist rather than the primary care physician.
A recent study analyzed the providers who treat Medicare beneficiaries. The surprising finding was that the average Medicate patient saw a total of seven doctors - two primary care physicians and five specialists - in a given year.
Contrary to popular belief, the more physicians taking care of you doesn't guarantee better care. Actually, increasing fragmentation of care results in a corresponding rise in cost and medical errors.
How did we take little care of primary care? The key is how doctors are paid. Most physicians are paid whenever they perform a medical service. The more a physician does, regardless of quality or outcome, the better he's reimbursed. Moreover, the amount a physician receives leans heavily toward medical or surgical procedures.
A specialist who performs a procedure in a 30-minute visit can be paid three times more than a primary care physician using that same 30 minutes to discuss a patient's disease. Combine this fact with annual government threats to randomly cut reimbursements, physicians are faced with no choice but to increase quantity to boost income.
Primary care physicians who refuse to compromise quality are either driven out of business or to cash-only practices, further contributing to the decline of primary care.
Medical students aren't blind to this action. They know how heavily the reimbursement is against primary care. The recent numbers show that since 1997, newly graduated U.S. medical students who choose primary care as a career have declined by 50%. This trend results in emergency rooms being overwhelmed with patients without regular doctors.
How do we fix this problem?
It starts with reforming the physician reimbursement system. Remove the pressure for primary care physicians to squeeze in more patients per hour, and reward them for optimally managing their diseases and practicing evidence-based medicine. Make primary care more attractive to medical students by forgiving student loans for those who choose primary care as a career and reconciling the marked difference between specialist and primary care physician salaries.
We’re at a point where primary care is needed more than ever. Within a few years, the first wave of the 76 million Baby Boomers will become eligible for Medicare. Patients older than 85, who need chronic care most, will rise by 50% this decade.
Who will be there to treat them?
1. The author’s chief concern about the current U.S. health care system is _________.| A．the ever-rising health care costs | B．the declining number of doctors |
| C．the inadequate training of physicians | D．the shrinking primary care resources |
| A．the more doctors taking care of a patient, the better |
| B．visiting doctors on a regular basis ensures good health |
| C．seeing more doctors may result in more diagnostic errors |
| D．the more costly the medicine, the more effective the cure. |
| A．make various deals with specialists | B．improve their expertise and service |
| C．see more patients at the expense of quality | D．increase their income by working overtime |
| A．Extend primary care to patients with chronic diseases. |
| B．Recruit more medical students by offering them loans. |
| C．Reduce the tuition of students who choose primary care as their major. |
| D．Bridge the salary gap between specialists and primary care physicians. |
【推荐3】Carpenter is the lead author of a paper in Nature Reviews Psychology that examined more than 100 years of research on learning.
“The benefits of spacing and retrieval practice have been confirmed over and over in studies in labs, classrooms, workplaces, but the reason why we’re presenting this research is that these two techniques haven’t fully caught on. If they were employed all the time, we’d see big increases in learning,” said Carpenter.
In the paper, Carpenter and her co-authors describe spacing as a strategy to learn in small amounts over time. It’s the opposite of cramming (塞满) the night before an exam. In one study, medical students who received repeated surgery training over three weeks performed better and faster on tests 2 weeks and 1 year later compared to medical students who had the same training all on one day.
Carpenter says there isn’t a universal rule about how much time to schedule between practice sessions. But research shows returning to the material after forgetting some—but not all—of the content is effective.
Retrieval practice is a strategy that involves recalling what was learned previously. It can take many forms, including flash cards, practice tests and open-ended writing prompts, and helps learners recognize what they do and don’t know. The paper’s authors emphasize that people who check their responses for errors or get feedback right away learn even better. More than 200 studies show people generally maintain more information for longer periods of time with retrieval practice compared to strategies that do not involve retrieval (e.g., re-reading a textbook.)
The authors argue people who combine spacing and retrieval practice have the best chance of remembering information.
“Forgetting is a very natural thing; you can’t stop forgetting even if you try, but you can slow down forgetting by using retrieval practice and spacing,” said Carpenter.
Carpenter says she uses digital tools (e.g., online practice quizzes, clicker questions) to incorporate retrieval practice and spacing into her university courses, but there are other ways to bring these strategies into the classroom.
1. Why do the author and his group present this research?| A．Because people don’t accept the two techniques. |
| B．Because the two techniques haven’t popularized. |
| C．Because people have much difficulty in learning. |
| D．Because the two techniques are taking little effect. |
| A．By studying some cases. | B．By receiving some training. |
| C．By applying some rules. | D．By scheduling some time. |
| A．Self assessment. | B．Wide recognition. |
| C．Positive response. | D．General strategies. |
| A．The benefits of spacing and retrieval practice. |
| B．Potential ways used to slow down forgetting. |
| C．Arguments about what to do to stop forgetting. |
| D．Other university courses worth remembering. |
into each of the numbered gaps. There are TWO which do not fit in any of the gaps.
The Museum of Innocence
Love and Madness in Istanbul
It’ s all an elaborate (详尽的) and precisely constructed lie: a museum built to tell the story of a self-referential book created around the contents of the soon-to-finish museum. A tale of love and loss, but mainly madness, which is entirely fictional but in which the very real author plays a central narrative role. It is the Museum of Innocence.
The story focuses on the character of Kemal (凯末尔) and his love for a beautiful shop girl and distant cousin Fusun (芙颂). Kemal’s story is one of lust, obsession and eventual ruin. Were the character real? I expect that most of us would distance ourselves from him in the same way that Istanbul’s high society do in the novel.
The museum follows the narrative of the book precisely presenting 83 displays that each reflects one of the book’s 83 chapters to accompany the storyline
Though it’s hard to match the visual appeal of that first display, representing chapter 68 of the book, the combination of sights and sounds throughout the three-story museum evokes (换起) the story in a way that reading alone couldn’t hope to do.
If, like Kemal, you find yourself longing for some tangible physical reminder of the experience? Not to worry, there’s a well-stocked gift shop full of small souvenirs and Orhan Pamuk’s other works.
| A．The museum of Innocence is a novel written by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel-laureate Turkish novelist published on August 29, 2008. |
| B．However, it’s hard not to feel sorry for the poor soul and empathize somewhat with what has been lost. |
| C．these exhibits convey an idea that when one realizes that he or she is about to lose his or her lover, one tends to seize onto the closest thing related to that person. |
| D．Similarly, the written narrative of the book offers more detailed insights into the characters and their thoughts than can be conveyed just by viewing the museum. |
| E．The Museum of Innocence itself, though not particularly noteworthy from the outside, is visually arresting from the first glance inside. |
| F．Compared with those ho haven’t read the novel, people who have read it will better grasp the many hidden meanings of the museum. |
【推荐2】Since it was first published in 1843, the novella (短篇故事）A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has been loved by millions of people, and perhaps has inspired them to love more and give more. It has been adapted for theatre, television and film. Dickens is known as the best author of the Victorian times writing on social issues affecting his times, such as poverty, child labour and urban development, especially in London where he lived.
Charles Dickens was no strangers to poverty. His father had been thrown in prison for debt in 1824, and he had been removed from school and put to work as the second oldest child of eight children.
Only 12 years old and no longer able to attend school, he spent his time putting labels on pots of black polish. ①
How lonely and worthless he felt there! All his hopes and dreams of making something of his life were ended. It seemed not an adult in the world cared for his hopes or his abilities, not even his own parents.He wondered "how he could be so easily thrown away at such a young age"②
Dickens' father was set free from prison after a year,and Dickens was put back into school for three years until he had to leave again to work as an office boy. Eventually, he started writing stories for the papers.With money coming in and then children,Charles had taken a mortgage(抵押贷款）on a big house.His next novel was not as well received and his future payments were cut. Charles needed to make money and he needed to make it fast. Criticism (批评） of his new novel hurt his confidence;it is not easy to write when you are down and struggling. He needed new ideas and inspiration,but he was running out of time.
③
As he walked the streets after dark, through what he called the “black streets”of London, he again saw the poor ,who had little food or warmth in the cold weather , and the closed-up houses, like the doors of the hearts of many who do not want to love and give. ④
He happened to find the idea of a Christmas story that could show this-and warm the hearts of the poor and open the hearts of the selfish. He needed to write fast and that is probably why we only have a novella, but a novella was enough to share his story. He filled the story with character and scenes which he had already written about in his other stories, Scrooge, the main character,is a selfish self-centred man who hates Christmas the tine of giving . His late business partner, also a greedy man, comes back from the dead as a ghost to warn Scrooge.You will need to read the story yourself to see how Scrooge finally changes his ways.
The plan to rescue himself financially also rescued Dickens emotionally. As he wrote about Christmas and the wonderful time of gift giving,family gathering,carol singing and feast sharing, his own heart was cheered and he remembered those things that really mattered to him He loved writing the book and produced a special story,which is still loved around the world. New inspiration and fresh confidence set Dickens on a new path to success.
1. What difficulties was Dickens faced with when writing A Christmas Carol?| A．Lack of time and education. |
| B．Lack of love and confidence. |
| C．Lack of patience and ideas |
| D．Lack of inspiration and confidence. |
| A．① | B．② | C．③ | D．④ |
| A．Dickens got his inspiration by visiting he poor people on the "black street". |
| B．It is impossible for the readers to know the characters before reading the book. |
| C．Scrooge becomes a generous and kind man in the end. |
| D．The book is only meant to criticize the selfishness of the rich. |
| A．It is very popular among readers. |
| B．It serves as a turning point in Dickens' writing career. |
| C．It helped Dickens earn a great deal of money. |
| D．Its theme is about a wonderful time full of love and giving. |
| A．To show the greatness of Charles Dickens. |
| B．To recommend some great works of Charles Dickens. |
| C．To present how poor Dickens' life was. |
| D．To introduce the book A Christmas Carol. |
【推荐3】My favorite novel is Albert Camus's The Plague(鼠疫). It was published in 1947, after Word WarⅡ.
On the surface, it's a story about an Algerian coastal town threatened by a mysterious plague. But the symbolic idea works on the concrete presentation of a metaphysical(形而上学的) problem, which is the cruel fact of suffering. Like the plague, it's just a thing that happens in the world whether we want it to or not. Camus's novel asks if we can think of suffering not as an individual burden but as a shared experience—and maybe turn it into something positive.
The key is to recognize the universality of suffering. A plague is an extraordinary event and the horror it results in is extraordinary, too. But suffering is anything but extraordinary. Every day you leave the house, something terrible could happen. The same is true for all. All of us are subject to forces over which we have no control.
A pandemic(大流行病) forces us to think about our responsibilities to the people around us. The hero of The Plague is a committed doctor named Rieux. From the very beginning, Rieux devotes himself to resisting the plague that united its victims. Each character in the story is defined(刻画) by what they do when the plague comes. No one escapes it, but those who reduce the suffering of others are the most fulfilled. The only villains are those who cannot see beyond themselves. The plague, for these people, is either an excuse to flee or an opportunity to make profits. Because they can't see that their condition is shared, a spirit of unity is completely foreign to them. And that blindness makes community impossible.
At the very end of The Plague, Camus stated his philosophy that the struggle against suffering is never over for good. The plague will return, and so will everything else that upsets humans. But the point of the book is that a shared struggle is what makes community possible in the first place.
A pandemic, terrible though it is, highlights our mutual interdependence in a way that only tragedy can. The beauty of The Plague is that it asks the reader to map the lessons of the pandemic onto everyday life. The principles that drive the hero, Rieux, are the same principles that make every society worthwhile—understanding, love and unity.
If we learn these lessons, in a moment of crisis, we'll all be better off on the other side of it.
1. What is the symbolic idea of The Plague?| A．An individual burden. | B．A positive experience. |
| C．A universal suffering. | D．An extraordinary event. |
| A．The blind. | B．Businessmen. |
| C．Foreign victims. | D．Wrongdoers. |
| A．We should think of unity more than individual calculation. |
| B．The pandemic cannot be defeated as it will make a comeback. |
| C．Understanding, love and unity rid the society of struggle. |
| D．We'll be better off in a moment of crisis if listening to a doctor. |
| A．To introduce a book. |
| B．To solve a social problem. |
| C．To remember a writer. |
| D．To express an opinion. |
