1. When did the magician first perform professionally?
| A．In 1964. | B．In 1968. | C．In 1972. |
| A．His TV show. | B．His global tours. | C．His teaching job. |
| A．Project Magic. | B．Box office records. | C．The Magic of ABC. |
| A．He practises hard. | B．He believes in wonder. | C．He started his career early. |
2 . For Vishwanath Mallabadi from Bangalore, India, there is no such thing as a useless object or “waste”. Give him anything—abandoned metal or plastic items, old devices, dysfunctional printed circuit boards — and he’ll create art out of it.
Vishwanath’s passion is particularly relevant in the current age, where India generates more e-waste than it can recycle. From 2019 to 2020, the country generated a total of more than 1 million tonnes of e waste. Of this, only 22.7 percent was collected, taken apart and recycled. The eco-artist has upcycled and transformed nearly 200 kg of e-waste into usable products and proposes eco-art as a means to deal with waste management.
Vishwanath’s father, D M Shambhu, was a famous sculptor and painter, but he wanted his son to choose medicine and become a doctor. However, Vishwanath, who was interested in upcycling second-hand objects right from childhood, decided to pursue a BFA in Applied Art. He later went on to work in a company as a high-level administrator and retired two years ago. “In my free time and during the weekends. I used to conduct experiments in e-waste and try to develop something unique,” he recalled.
So far, the eco-artist has created more than 500 objects. These include a six-foot tall sculpture made from upcycled computer keyboard keys, and a painting inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, using upcycled resistors (电阻器) on wood. Among his other artworks are a 42×38 inch figure statue created from upcycled keyboard keys on a sun board finished with plastics, a deer made of colorful used wires, plants and flowers from computer parts, and eco jewellery from upcycled digital wrist watch parts.
“The work involves selecting the e-waste objects—the texture, shape, and colour etc, and visualising and conceptualising the final product. It might take weeks and months for sculptures. However, sustainable initiatives and upcycled art are nowadays in demand in multinational companies opting for a sustainable culture,” he said.
1. What does the author try to convey in paragraph 2?| A．The seriousness of e-waste in India. |
| B．Vishwanath’s passion for environment protection. |
| C．The achievements of waste management in India. |
| D．Vishwanath’s attitude towards dealing with e-waste. |
| A．A passionate eco-artist. | B．A private doctor. |
| C．A famous sculptor. | D．A senior manager. |
| A．The deer and the plants. | B．The sculpture and the figure statue. |
| C．The painting and the flowers. | D．The deer and the eco jewellery. |
| A．Exciting but unprofitable. | B．Creative but useless. |
| C．Demanding but worthwhile. | D．Efficient but costly. |
3 . To create “Washed Up: Transforming a Trashed Landscape”. Alejandro Duran gathers plastic trash that is washed up on the beaches of Sian Karan, Mexico’s largest federally-protected reserve. The site is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Yet every day, plastic pollution from around the world is washed up onto its shores. These materials inspired Duran to create a series of environmental art pieces, which he re-cords with photos and videos.
Duran was born in Mexico City and is now based in Brooklyn. He said that he had been collecting materials and creating photographs for the past five years, and the work was ongoing. “The project will tell me when to stop.”
Each piece can convey a vastly different mood, from the calm greens of soda bottles to the playful rainbows of toothbrushes. “I’m making art,” said Duran. “It comes from the context and my moods. You can’t say only something dark.” The work reflects and plays with natural forms, exploring how humans influence the environment. The colorful and playful images can be much attention-grabbing. “Beauty is a hook (钩子) to attract people’s attention,” said Duran.
In addition to promoting awareness of the plastic pollution problem, Duran is also involved in educational programs and helps to organize beach clean-ups. He has also made a study of the types of products that are washed ashore in Sian Ka’an, and has identified objects from 50 different countries. Although there’s no way to know where or how these objects were dropped into the sea, their labels show the global nature of the problem.
1. What does Alejandro Duran do with the trash?| A．He moves it away. | B．He collects and burns it. |
| C．He turns it into a form of art. | D．He puts it together for people to see. |
| A．He will stop the project soon. | B．It’s hard to carry on the project. |
| C．He will go on with the project. | D．The project is important to him. |
| A．recycle the trash | B．change his career |
| C．clean up the beach | D．raise public awareness of pollution |
| A．Plastic pollution in the ocean. |
| B．An artist creating environmental art. |
| C．The global nature of the pollution problem. |
| D．Mexico’s largest federally-protected reserve. |
4 . This painting Spring Bouquet has a precise structure. The flowers spill over into the lower left-hand corner, with an imbalance as free and as wild as nature. But at once the artist responds to this unbalance. To the right of the vase, Renoir has developed a heavy shadow area, rich in purples and sharply contrasted with the light below it. The placing of the straight line in the lower right side is necessary. If the reader covers this line, he will see that the composition becomes unbalanced.
The Impressionist technique had not yet developed when Renoir painted this picture. Yet the painting with light and color indicates Impressionism is around the corner; there is something of that school in the feeling of the out-of-doors that Renoir has acquired. The texture (纹理) of the flowers is described. Above all, one can’t help saying the very nice smell of the flowers is there, too.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in 1841. He began working as a young painter of porcelain and textiles. At age 21, Renoir entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and went on to study under the instructions of painter Charles Gleyre’s. Even though his paintings had been initially rejected by the Academy and the public, with time he became one of the most admired artists of his generation.
Unfortunately, in 1899, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (风湿性关节炎). It is a disease that causes a lot of pain. In addition, the person affected by it may also have deformities (畸形). Consequently, his movements became very limited and each movement was a big and certainly painful effort.
His son, Jean Renoir, writes in the book Renoir, My Father after his father passed away, the reaction of the people to the painting of the father, after seeing his hands:
Visitors who were unprepared for this could not take their eyes off his deformity. Though they did not dare to mention it, their reaction would be expressed by some such phrase as “It isn’t possible!” With hands like that, how can he paint those pictures? There’s some mystery somewhere.
1. What can readers see in the painting?| A．A vase in the left corner. | B．A shadow to the vase’s right. |
| C．A straight line at the bottom. | D．A natural light in the middle. |
| A．The painting material. | B．The color choice. |
| C．The smelly flower taste. | D．The impressive feeling. |
| A．Renoir, My Father. | B．Spring Bouquet. |
| C．Rheumatoid arthritis. | D．Renoir’s bravery. |
| A．Patience Is a Lifetime Practice | B．Pain Passes, but Beauty Remains |
| C．Impressionism Is a Unique Technique | D．Work hard, and You Will Catch Up |
