1 . Claude Monet spent the winters of 1899, 1900 and 1901 freezing on a balcony of London’s Savoy Hotel, painting a series of famous images of Waterloo Bridge and Charing Cross Bridge.

Now, scientists at Birmingham University have used solar geometry and historical weather data to figure out exactly which balcony Monet was standing on, and what time of day he was likely working.

“We know that Monet, in the mornings, used to work on the sun rising over Waterloo Bridge,” John Thornes says. “By midday, the sun would be shining directly along the Thames, and Monet usually moved on to Charing Cross Bridge, before finishing the day watching the sun set over the Houses of Parliament.”

The sun occupies the same position in the sky today as it did in 1900 and 1901, which helped Thornes figure out the time of day. Monet also included another London landmark, the obelisk (方尖纪念碑) known as Cleopatra’s Needle, in some of his paintings of Charing Cross Bridge. Thornes says that examining the position of the needle relative to the bridge helped him determine that Monet stayed in rooms 610 and 611 at the Savoy during the winter of 1899, and one floor down at 510 and 511 a year later.

“The Savoy Hotel actually advertises theMonet Suite, which they sell to the public,” Thornes says. “And they in fact use the suite farther down from where Monet actually was.”

But the hotel is upgrading, and when it reopens, it will have the correct rooms as the Monet Suite —thanks in part to his research.

Monet’s images of London aren’t just great art. Thornes says they also provide an accurate record of the city’s fogs, which were common in the days before clean-air law was passed in the 1950s.

“That’s one of the things we’re very interested in,” he says, “Maybe, the visibility (能见度) in Monet’s painting will help me to study how the air quality has improved since those days.”

1. What has helped the researchers to determine Monet’s rooms?

A．The hotel’s historical documents.	B．The weather records about London.
C．The signatures in some of the paintings.	D．The visibility in Claude Monet’s paintings.

2. Which building is most probably in the image painted in the morning?

A．Waterloo Bridge.	B．Cleopatra’s Needle.
C．Charing Cross Bridge.	D．the Houses of Parliament.

3. What can be inferred about the new Monet Suite?

A．It is open for the public now.

B．Claude Monet didn’t stay in it.

C．It consists of more than four rooms.

D．It should be on the sixth or fifth floor.

4. What was the purpose of the research?

A．To help the Savoy Hotel redesign the Monet Suite.

B．To study the effects of the clean-air law passed in the 1950s.

C．To find out when and where Claude Monet worked on some of his paintings.

D．To analyze if Claude Monet honestly recorded the air quality in London.

2 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Tang Yin, better     1    (know) by his other name Tang Bohu, was a Chinese scholar, painter, calligrapher, and poet of the Ming Dynasty,     2    life has become a popular legend.

Tang Yin is one of the most famous     3    (painter) in the history of Chinese art. In 1499, he went to the capital to attend the     4    (nation) examinations. However, he     5    (suspect), perhaps unfairly, of bribing(贿赂) the servant of one of the chief examiners to give them the examination questions in advance,     6    (make) him lose his government job.

Denied further official progress, he pursued a life of pleasure and made     7    living by selling his paintings. That mode of living brought him a bad fame with a later generation of artist-critics who felt that financial independence was important     8    (enable) an artist to follow his own style and inspiration. While Tang is linked     9     paintings of female beauty, his paintings, especially landscapes, also exhibit a man of both artistic skill     10     profound insight.

3 . Throughout history, there have been sculptors who are prized for their willingness to push boundaries. Without their contributions, it would be difficult to imagine visual art as we now know it. Here are some of the pioneers.

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598~1680)

As a master of materials, Italian artist Gianlorenzo Bernini is known for his astonishing ability to create movement and bring forth emotion with his work. In his masterpiece, Pluto and Perse, the rough and cold stone has been turned into flesh that looks so real and soft that you just want to reach out and touch it.

Alberto Giacometti (1901~1966)

Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti is perhaps most recognized for his slim and small sculptures, like Seated Man, with each piece measuring no more than 2.75 inches in height. Many scholars have suggested that his slim figures relate to a lack of meaning in 20th-century life.

Henry Moore (1898 ~ 1986)

Known for his abstract public sculpture, British artist Henry More's works most often focus on the theme of mother and child, who usually sit or lie in a relaxed way, with their bodies leaning backwards Moore's figures are often composed of multiple pieces, yet his clean lines allow viewers to effectively see the figures within the abstract form. Such features are very obvious in his master piece Mother and Child.

Louise Bourgeois (1911 ~ 2010)

Most well-known for her public art, French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois rose to international lame in 1982 after the Museum of Modern Art held her first exhibit. By this time, she was already in her 70s. Drawing from her own life experience, her sculptures often explore themes of family and death. In her representative work, Maman, Bourgeois has used a spider to stand for her mother, who died when she was a child, to show her strength and protection over her family.

1. When did Alberto Giacometti pass away?

A．In 1689.

B．In 1966.

C．In 1986.

D．In 2010.

2. Which one belongs to realistic sculpture?

A．Maman.

B．Mother and Child.

C．Seated Man.

D．Pluto and Persephone.

3. What do the last two artists have in common?

A．They became famous in their 70s.	B．They are known for their public sculptures.
C．They are from the same country.	D．They explored the themes of family and death.

4 . In a northern Italian city, a Polish pianist sits down at an instrument that looks like an old-fashioned piano. As his hands float over the keyboard, the sound reaching his audience is remarkably beautiful, reminding people of a string quartet (弦乐四重奏). The amazing instrument is actually based on the design drafts Leonardo da Vinci made in his notebooks with the dream of reproducing a cooperative musical performance played from a keyboard.

The concert was a reminder that, even in an age of the Know-It-All, the breadth (广度) of Leonardo's interests was extraordinary. It covers not only painting, architecture, mathematics, engineering and numerous branches of science, but music too. “How many specialists would we need today to attempt Leonardo's researches?” asks Martin Kemp, professor of Oxford University. “At least 13. Maybe more.”

Leonardo da Vinci had astonishing powers of observation, and an exceptional talent for making connections between different areas of knowledge. From iconic paintings — “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper” — to designs for flying machines, Leonardo combined science and art to create works that have become part of humanity's story. However, the endless list of unpublished studies and unfinished artworks highlighted the fact that, outside the field of painting, his legacy (遗产) — as distinct from his genius — was modest. Because he failed to publish his theories and findings, hundreds of years were to pass before they were discovered by someone else.

Thankfully, with Leonardo's notebooks making their way to the greater public. people come to see his glory and realize how much we still have to learn. In his notebooks, we find such questions as, describe the tongue of the woodpecker. Why do people yawn? Why is the sky blue? He is passionately curious about everyday phenomenon that most of us quit questioning once we get out of our wonder years.

Being curious about everything and curious just for curiosity's sake, not simply because it's useful, is the defining trait (品质) of Leonardo. It's how he pushed himself and taught himself to be a genius. We'll never emulate Einstein's mathematical ability. But we can all try to learn from, and copy, Leonardo's curiosity.

1. What is the function of Paragraph One?

A．To describe how a string quartet works.

B．To introduce a concert performed by a Polish pianist.

C．To show the pianist's talent in designing the instrument.

D．To serve as an example of how diverse Leonardo's interests were.

2. What does the underlined word “modest” imply in Paragraph Three?

A．Leonardo's legacy was limited only to the field of painting.

B．Leonardo's artworks were not as good as those of other geniuses'.

C．Leonardo was humble and didn't want to show off his achievements.

D．People didn't have much knowledge of Leonardo's legacy before his works were discovered.

3. What does the last two paragraphs mainly talk about?

A．Why curiosity makes a difference to us.

B．What quality defines Leonardo da Vinci.

C．What distinguishes Leonardo from Einstein.

D．How the public discovered Leonardo's notebooks.

4. In which column will you possibly read the article?

A．Entertainment.

B．Science Fiction.

C．Art & Artists.

D．Breaking News.

5 . Xu Beihong was born in 1895 in Yixing, Jiangsu province. When he was only six, he began to learn the Chinese classic works and calligraphy under the direction of his father, who was a local portrait painter. At the age of nine, his father taught him art. His family was poor and at the age of eleven, young Xu had to leave home with his father and sell paintings to make a living. After several years, Xu achieved local success and recognition, but his father developed a serious illness and died shortly afterwards. Xu's early experiences of hardship and loss became the basis of the realism in his artistic creations.

In 1917, he went to Japan and studied art in Tokyo, and later, he was able to spend eight years studying art in Europe. He then returned to China to teach. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Xu became president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and chairman of the Chinese Artists' Association.

Xu was primarily known for his Chinese ink paintings of horses and birds. However, his experiences in Europe drove his desire to create a new form of national art that combined the traditional Chinese paintings techniques with Western perspective and methods of composition to reflect a modern China. His talent and hard work led to the development of a new style of Chinese painting and an approach to art that is still taken by art institutions across China.

1. What has shaped Xu Beihong's realistic artistic creations?

A．His overseas study.	B．His talent in art.
C．His boyhood experiences.	D．His father's instructions.

2. What is the most distinctive feature of Xu's works?

A．The traditional Chinese style of painting.

B．Reflecting Chinese theme in traditonal national style.

C．Painting horses in the Western painting techniques.

D．Joining Chinese art techniques with Western skills.

3. Which of the following words can best describe Xu Beihong?

A．Determined.	B．Creative.
C．Old-fashioned.	D．Imaginative.

4. What type of writing is this text?

A．A biography.	B．A news report.
C．A book review.	D．A short story.

6 . In real life Joanna Garcia Swisher, 41, is happily married to former Major League Baseball player Nick Swisher, 40, and raising daughters Sailor, 4, and Emerson, 7. On TV she needs the help of a matchmaker to find love in the new Hallmark Channel romance As Luck Would Have It. She opens up about raising strong girls, how her parents’ recent deaths affected her and which roles fans recognize her for the most.

You haven’t needed a matchmaker — but if life had turned out differently, would you use one?

I would totally have been game for it. I was set up by a friend of ours to meet my husband, but I think it sounds so fun.

You star opposite Allen Leech — were you a Downton Abbey fan?

I’m a huge Downton fan, but I know Allen personally very well. He happened to marry my best friend’s little sister. His mom actually cooked me dinner a couple of times while I was shooting!

You’ve been on TV since you were a teen. Which role gets you recognized most?

Sweet Magnolias now. But overall I would say Reba. I also get recognized for being Amy Adams more than I get recognized for being myself.

You lost your mother, father and grandmother in the past year and a half. How are you and your family doing?

My daughters have watched me go through so much in the last year, from the highs of the success of Sweet Magnolias to the lowest of lows, losing my parents and my grandmother. I really believe that it’s not what happens to you, it’s what happens for you. Even in their passing, as tragic as it was ... I know that it’s not for nothing. My mom was such a strong, capable, amazing woman; my father was the ultimate father and feminist and just huge source of support — and I think that solidified my strength. So I only hope that I’m modeling that same strength for my girls.

1. How does the text develop?

A．By questions and answers.	B．By listing examples.
C．By narrating life stories.	D．By comparison and contrast.

2. What does Joanna Garcia Swisher think of a matchmaker in marriage?

A．It’s strange.

B．It’s acceptable.

C．It’s terrible.

D．It’s necessary.

3. What does the underlined part in the last paragraph imply?

A．Joanna was just playing on words.	B．Joanna missed her parents much.
C．Joanna submitted herself to her fate.	D．Joanna faced the tragedy positively.

4. What can best describe Joanna Garcia Swisher according to the text?

A．Simple and talkative.	B．Stubborn and influential.
C．Strong and easy-going.	D．Negative and sensitive.

7 . “Sunday Morning”honored the creative, inspiring and newsworthy men and women who passed away in 2020, who'd touched our lives in unforgettable ways.

Pain and sorrow - the calling cards of 2020. “Lean on Me” by Bill Withers provided us reassurance（保证） that tomorrow may be better. Although Withers left us at 81, his notes of comfort helped during a year that wasn't even a month old before grief was already setting in.

The death of 41-year-old Kobe Bryant, along with his 13-year-old daughter and seven others because of an air crash, astonished everyone-basketball fans or not.

“My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get". COVID was certainly the box we all wished we never got. But Winston Groom, who created Forrest Gump, reminded us through that character that challenges exist, to be overcome.

Dignity for Black Americans remained an unfinished struggle in 2020. The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor-just to name a few-restarted a movement for equality and justice not seen since the 1960s.

Gender equality lost some of its superheroes, too. Helen Reddy, who was inspired to retire after “I Am Woman” became her most popular song in 1974, offered the soundtrack for the fight that she herself engaged in. But there were few champions for women as influential as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In her 27 years on the Supreme Court，she expanded rights for women as well as men. Small in stature（个子）,a giant for us all. The only thing tougher than Justice Ginsburg was the cancer that took her at age 87.

While the sun isn't out just yet, the hope is that it's just over the horizon.

1. What did Winston Groom want to tell us through Forrest Gump?

A．Forrest Gump had a box of chocolates.	B．A person's character determines his fate.
C．We didn't expect to get Covid-19 in 2020.	D．We are living through difficulties in our life.

2. Who died of a serious disease?

A．Kobe Bryant.

B．Forest Gump.

C．George Floyd.

D．Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

3. What can be learned about Helen Reddy?

A．She was a racist.	B．She died from an accident.
C．She was a musician.	D．She didn't retire until her death.