1 . Artist Susan Shepherd is best known for her flower paintings, and the large garden that surrounds her house is the source of many of her subjects. It is full of her favourite flowers, most especially vancties of tulips and poppies. Some of the plants are unruly and seed themselves all over the garden. There is a harmony of colour, shape and structure in the two long flower borders that line the paved path which crosses the garden from east to west. Much of this is due to the previous owners who were keen gardeners, and who left plants that appealed to Susan. She also inherited the gardener, Danny. “In fact, it was really his garden,” she says. “We got on very well. At first he would say, “Oh, it’s not worth it” to some of the things I wanted to put in, but when I said I wanted to paint them, he recognized what I had in mind.”

Susan prefers to focus on detailed studies of individual plants rather than on the garden as a whole, though she will occasionally paint a group of plants where they are. More usually, she picks them and then takes them up to her studio. “I don’t set the whole thing up at once,” she says. “I take one flower up at once,” she says. “I take one flower out and paint it, which might take a few days, and then I bring in another one and build up the painting that way. Sometimes it takes a couple of years to finish.”

Her busiest time of year is spring and early summer, when the tulips are out, followed by the poppies. “They all come out together, and you’re so busy,” she says. But the gradual decaying process is also part of the fascination for her. With tulips, for example, “you bring them in and put them in water, then leave them for perhaps a day and they each form themselves into different shapes. They open out and are fantastic. When you first put them in a vase, you think they are boring, but they change all the time with twists and turns.”

1. In the first paragraph, the author describes Susan’s garden as ________.

A．being only partly finished

B．having a path lined with flowers

C．having caused problems for the previous owners

D．needing a lot of work to keep it looking attractive

2. What does Susan say about Danny?

A．He felt she was interfering in his work.

B．He immediately understood her feelings.

C．He was recommended by the previous owners.

D．He was slow to see the point of some of her ideas.

3. What is Susan’s approach to painting?

A．She creates her paintings in several stages.

B．She spends all day painting an individual flower.

C．She likes to do research on a plant before she paints it.

D．She will wait until a flower is ready to be picked before painting it.

4. Susan thinks that tulips ________.

A．look best some time after they have been cut.

B．should be kept in the house for as long as possible.

C．are not easy to paint because they change so quickly.

D．are more colourful and better shaped than other flowers.

2 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. Why was Stan Laurel chosen to act together with Oliver Hardy?

A．He had a funny look.

B．He was thinner than Hardy.

C．He was a very famous writer.

2. When did Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy gain the Academy Award?

A．In 1920.

B．In 1926.

C．In 1932.

3. What did Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel have in common?

A．They were Americans.

B．They worked at the Hal Roach studios.

C．They once worked with Charlie Chaplin.

3 . 听下面一段独白，回答以下小题。
1. Which date was Van Gogh born on?

A．March 30.

B．March 20.

C．March 13.

2. What did Van Gogh do when he was 15?

A．He began to learn French.

B．He decided to be an artist.

C．He started to work.

3. Which country did Van Gogh move to in 1886?

A．France.

B．Germany.

C．Britain.

4. How did Theo support Van Gogh according to the talk?

A．He made paintings for Van Gogh.

B．He sold Van Gogh’s paintings to others.

C．He bought Van Gogh’s works from others.

4 . 阅读短文，按照题目要求用英语回答问题。

“I never lied to my father. When I was young, my father told me that if I tried to lie to him, he would always know. My body would tell him the truth because the body’s movement never lies.”, said Martha Graham, an influential American dancer and teacher, fascinated with the ideal that “movement never lies”. Martha realized that the body is its own storyteller. She just wanted to find ways to tell those stories through dance.

She began by studying ballet, but soon realized that it wasn’t right to her. From the very beginning of her dancing career, Martha saw dance differently. She was tiny, not tall like ballerinas (芭蕾舞女演员) at that time. But she had a strong, powerful body and dark, soulful (热情的) eyes. So she developed a style of movement different from traditional romantic ballet and called it modern dance. She brought modern dance to a new level of popularity in American culture.

Unlike ballet, which took place in a fairylike world, Martha’s modern dance expressed real emotions. Martha believed that it was important that the audience see themselves within her dances. She created and arranged many dances that showed emotions such as anger, jealousy, love or hate of common people.

Martha loved to wear long, dark, flowing robes when she performed. In the dances she used her robes in many different ways. Martha’s most important prop (支撑物) was the floor. She always danced in her bare feet, and her feet worked hard to tell their stories. The technique catching on, she founded the Dance Repertory Theater, and later, the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.

Martha Graham died in 1991, just short of 100 years old. During her life she never stopped dancing. A part of Martha Graham lives on in modern dancers everywhere who continue to study the “Graham technique”. They strive for her honesty, always remembering that movement never lies.

1. Why did Martha Graham never lied to her father when she was young?(no more than 12words)
__________________________________________________________________
2. What does the underlined word“ideal”mean in paragraph 1?(no more than 2 words)
__________________________________________________________________
3. For what reason did Martha Graham develop modern dance?(no more than 15 words)
__________________________________________________________________
4. What is unique of her modern dance?(no more than 20 words)
__________________________________________________________________
5. What impresses you most of Graham’s story? And why?(no more than 20 words)
__________________________________________________________________

5 . Pablo Ruiz Picasso’s family moved to Barcelona in the autumn of 1895, and Pablo entered the local art academy, where his father had assumed his last post as professor of drawing. The family hoped that their son would achieve success as an academic _____ , and in 1897 his eventual _____ in Spain seemed assured; in that year his painting Science and Charity, for which his father modelled for the doctor, was _____ an honourable mention in Madrid at the Fine Arts Exhibition.

The Spanish capital was the _____ next stop for the young artist intent on gaining recognition and _____ family expectations. Pablo duly set off for Madrid in the autumn of 1897 and entered the Royal Academy of San Fernando. But finding the teaching there _____ , he increasingly spent his time recording life around him, in the cafes, on the streets, and in the Prado, where he discovered Spanish painting. Works by those and other _____ would capture Picasso’s imagination at different times during his long career.

Picasso fell _____ in the spring of 1898 and spent most of the _____ year convalescing(逐步康复) in the Catalan village of Horta de Ebro in the company of his Barcelona friend Manuel Pallares. When Picasso ______ Barcelona in early 1899, he was a changed man: he had put on weight; he had learned to live on his own in the open countryside; he spoke ______ ; and, most importantly, he had made the decision to break with his art-school training and to reject his family’s plans for his future. He even began to show a ______ preference for his mother’s surname, and more often than not he signed his works P. R. Picasso; by late 1901 he had dropped the Ruiz altogether.

In Barcelona Picasso moved among a circle of Catalan artists and writers whose eyes were turned ______ Paris. Those were his friends at the café Els Quatre Gats (“The Four Cats”, styled after the Chat Noir (“Black Cat”) in Paris), where Picasso had his first Barcelona exhibition in February 1900, and they were the ______ of more than 50 portraits in the show. In addition, there was a dark, moody “modernista” painting, Last Moments (later painted over), showing the visit of a ______ to the bedside of a dying woman, a work that was accepted for the Spanish section of the Exposition Universelle in Paris in that year. Eager to see his own work in place and to experience Paris firsthand, Picasso set off in the company of his studio mate Carles Casagemas (Portrait of Carles Casagemas, 1899) to conquer, if not Paris, at least a corner of Montmartre.

1.

A．painter

B．writer

C．professor

D．critic

2.

A．works

B．success

C．power

D．fame

3.

A．offered

B．sold

C．awarded

D．presented

4.

A．necessary

B．obvious

C．favourite

D．interesting

5.

A．achieving

B．obeying

C．seeking

D．fulfilling

6.

A．academic

B．stupid

C．indifferent

D．satisfying

7.

A．travellers

B．teachers

C．artists

D．archaeologists

8.

A．ill

B．upset

C．down

D．asleep

9.

A．permitting

B．recovering

C．remaining

D．struggling

10.

A．moved to

B．settled in

C．lived in

D．returned to

11.

A．Barcelona

B．Catalan

C．French

D．British

12.

A．welcomed

B．planned

C．decided

D．covered

13.

A．on

B．over

C．up

D．toward

14.

A．subjects

B．characters

C．spectators

D．painting

15.

A．doctor

B．priest

C．policyholder

D．policeman

6 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. inspired            B. detail          C. art          D. marker          E. sculptor        F. stared G. considerably     H. approach       I. worthy     J. gradually       K. widened

Tom Friedman

Those who believe that art is simply handicraft taken to the extreme might find confirmation upon a first glance at     1     and installation artist Tom Friedman’s work. He creates sculptures and drawings with obsessive attention to     2     and handiwork, and then combines them to make installations. His materials can be picked up at any supermarket: paper, wire, cardboard, foam, foil and     3     pens. Friedman is influenced by 1960s conceptual art and minimalism. The Fluxus movement is     4     of special mention here, as its humorous, art-conscious work    5     him for pieces such as 1000 Hours of Staring (1992-1997). an empty sheet of paper that — as the title suggests — the artist     6     at for 1000 hours. In his new collages and sculptures (see his 2008 Monsters and Stuff exhibition), Friedman has stayed true to his choice of materials and painstakingly elaborate production process, but the gulf between the banality of the material and the spectacular forms that emerge from it has    7     , for example in the sculpture Green Demon (2008). The field of reference is also     8     broader here, with Frankenstein and voodoo associations slotting in easily next to African sculpture, Miro and Picasso. However, the question remains as to whether the harmless material removes the horror aspect or whether the artist has drawn hidden horror out of the material. And thus the question of art as handicraft comes full circle. As soon as handicraft is supported by a conceptual    9     and — in the true spirit of the surrealist idea of the miraculous-mundane everyday material is transformed to something astounding, then you have     10     .

7 . How Did Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die?

On November 20th, 1791, Mozart suddenly came down with fever and was wracked with pain. His arms and legs were severely swollen. In the following days his health significantly deteriorated. He died on December 5 after lapsing into a coma. The death certificate states he died of “severe miliary fever”. Exactly which disease led to Mozart’s death has been a mystery for the last 200 years.

Speculations

Many myths —some more plausible than others — entwine (缠绕) Mozart’s early demise. One of the most popular myths — that Mozart was poisoned by his rival Antonio Salieri — rose to prominence due to the popularity of the film Amadeus. This theory is supported by the fact that Mozart had been living through a phase of depression before his death, suffering from paranoia and existential fear. Mozart himself suspected that the cause of his deteriorating health was being poisoned over a long time. However, it is highly likely that this was just his subjective view of reality.

Many other speculations circulate. Syphilis and trichinellosis are frequently mentioned. In 1905, a French physician assumed uric acid poisoning due to a never fully healed nephritis. In 1961, lead poisoning was suggested as a possible cause of death.

Scientific attempts to explain Mozart’s death

In 2000, a group of American scientists proposed rheumatic fever caused by a strep infection after conducting meticulous detective work. The symptoms stated in literature and the reports of Mozart’s contemporaries yielded the clues. Without antibiotics, such an infection would inevitably lead to death. Rheumatic fever causes a weakening of the heart, which could explain Mozart’s swollen limbs.

In 2009, the Dutch scientist Richard Zegers extensively studied surviving documents and concluded that Mozart had been suffering from pharyngitis, a throat infection with symptoms including cramps, fever, rashes and a swollen neck. Mozart’s sister-in-law Sophie Haibel had described these symptoms. The death registry of Vienna for winter 1791 lists several deaths caused by this disease.

Whatever the cause of Mozart’s death, it came far too early. Let us thank him for his manic urge to create art and remember him on December 5th!

1. Which of the following is similar in meaning to the underlined word “deteriorate” (Paragraph 1)?

A．To become worse.	B．To change greatly.
C．To recover quickly.	D．To be harmed rapidly.

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to the passage?

A．It is generally believed that Mozart was poisoned by his friend.

B．Mozart’s depression paranoia and existential fear led to his death.

C．Mozart had been poisoned sustainably for a long time before he died.

D．Mozart once got a nephritis and it was never healed.

3. What can we infer from Paragraph 4?

A．Mozart’s disease was recorded in contemporary literature and reports.

B．Antibiotics were not discovered at that time.

C．Rheumatic fever can only be caused by strep infection.

D．Mozart’s illness cannot be cured even today.

4. What is the author’s purpose mentioning Mozart’s sister-in-law’s words?

A．To back up the Dutchman’s study.

B．To prove they were common symptoms causing death in 1791.

C．To prove Mozart did have such symptoms before his death.

D．To emphasize her special identify as a witness to Mozart’s death.

8 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

China’s Explosive Artist

Cai Guoqing’s practice spans from gunpowder drawings to ephemeral sculptures and monumental installations, all of     1     are rich with references to Chinese history, Taoist cosmology and current political events. Cai deals with the latter in a spectacular installation for I Want to Believe, his 2008 retrospective in New York, from the centre of the Guggenheim rotunda the artist —a     2    (train) set designer, by the way —suspended Inopportune: Stage One (2004), consisting of a series of nine cars     3     (hover) in mid air to represent in cinematic progression the effect of a car bomb.

Since the 1980s, Cai has been working on drawings realized by     4     (ignite)explosive powder on large sheets of paper. These works possess an aura     5     evokes both the vivid gestures of abstract expressionism and the quieter surfaces of Chinese traditional painting. Gunpowder is also at the centre of a series of environmental works, begun in 1989,     6     combine the tradition of Land Art with     7     of Chinese fireworks. For his explosion events, Cai stages pyrotechnical choreographies that sketch temporary drawing space.

Cai’s     8    (participate) in many international events, imposes himself as one of the strongest in the sky. These events are also meant to act as social, festive collective experiences that the artist— not without irony— believes could be perceived even from outer artists to emerge from China. At the Venice Biennale 1999 he     9    (award) the Golden Lion for Venice’s Rent Collection Courtyard (1999), a series of unfired clay sculptures    10    (depict)heroes in history. Cai also organized the opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

9 . 语法填空

Since the     1    (emerge) of the Italian Renaissance, the history of Western art began a fascinating course through different     2    (style) genres. While 15th-century painting focused on portraying     3     ideal, the subsequent movements explored many other aesthetics and ideas, often in reaction to their historical predecessor. Although there are many remarkable paintings to study from these different art movements, we     4    (narrow) down the expansive list to 30 iconic     5    (work) that span from the end of the 15th century all the way to the first half of the 1900s.

Among this list of masterpieces are some that are so well known that they’ve become a part of popular culture, as well as others that,     6     famous in art circles, may not be as familiar. For instance, René Magritte’s Surrealist painting Treachery of Images, which features a rendering of a brown pipe     7    (accompany) by the recognizable phrase “This is not a pipe,” has been referenced in film as well as video games.     8    (similar), Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa continues to inspire authors and filmmakers from around the world. On the other hand, some paintings that have eluded the same attention     9    (inclusion) Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Impressionist gem, Bal du Moulin de la Galette,     10     Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase.

10 . Ask an art historian about 15th-century Italian art and they’ll probably bring up Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera, Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper or the early career works of Michelangelo. Meanwhile, assessments of the Florentine sculptor Donatello often pale in comparison with praise of his superstar contemporaries. Donatello deserves better, argues an ambitious new exhibition. On view through July 31 at two museums in Florence, Italy, “Donatello: The Renaissance” tries to place the sculptor at the center of the era, writes reporter Elisabetta Povoledo for The NewYork Times.

“This is an extremely unusual exhibit, since Donatello is a father of the Renaissance,” Donatello scholar Francesco Caglioti tells The Times. Arturo Galansino, director of the Palazzo Strozzi, takes the argument one step further, telling The Wall Street Journal’s J. S. Marcus that the exhibition identifies Donatello as “the inventor of the Renaissance.”

Donatello’s masterpieces we repaired with works by Filippo Brunelleschi, Giovanni Bellini, Michelangelo and Raphael to showcase his significant impact on generations of Italian artists. “Some exhibitions are once in a lifetime, but this show is the first time in history,” said Galansino earlier this month.

While some people think of Michelangelo’s marble (大理石) David (1501―1504) as an incomparable work, Donatello actually sculpted one of the statue’s key inspirations: a bronze (青铜) David. Created between 1435 and 1450, likely for the Medici family, the sculpture was conceived (构思) independently of any architectural surroundings. Scholars, therefore, consider Donatello’s David the first of such a style in Renaissance history.

Besides, Donatello’s Madonna influenced similar works by Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Just as Donatello has been relatively overlooked in favor of his contemporaries, Gentileschi and a handful of other Renaissance women artists are just starting to get their due—a trend evidenced by a recent exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

“Donatello: The Renaissanc” follows the artist’s life and work, moving through his early years in his native city and a long-term residency in Padua. By the end of his life, Donatello’s work was primarily financed by the powerful Medici family.

1. What does the new exhibition intend to do?

A．Restress Leonardo da Vinci’s achievements.

B．Retell the stories of artists in the Renaissance.

C．Rediscover Italian art in the contemporary context.

D．Rethink the key role Donatello played in his time.

2. What does Galansino say about the exhibition?

A．It is historically significant.	B．It is more comprehensive than others.
C．It has met with lots of criticism.	D．It has presented a completely new art form.

3. What can be inferred about the bronze David?

A．It disappointed the Medici family.	B．It was a copy of the marble David
C．It was created two hundred years ago.	D．It inspired Michelangelo to some extent.

4. What do the underlined words “get their due” mean in paragraph 5?

A．Fall into disfavor.	B．Receive recognition.
C．Reshape their styles.	D．Suffer discrimination.