I. Reading Comprehension: 內(nèi)部資料 翻印必究

    　Text 1 [2006, RC Text 4]

　　Many things make people think artists are weird. But the weirdest may be this: artists’ only job is to explore emotions, and yet they choose to focus on the ones that feel bad.

　　This wasn’t always so. The earliest forms of art, like painting and music, are those best suited for expressing joy. But somewhere from the 19th century onward, more artists began seeing happiness as meaningless, phony or, worst of all, boring, as we went from Wordsworth’s daffodils to Baudelaire’s flowers of evil.

　　You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen so much misery. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.

　　After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.

　　People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked until exhausted, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in danger and that they would someday be meat for worms. Given all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.

　　Today the messages the average Westerner is surrounded with are not religious but commercial, and forever happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. And since these messages have an agenda -- to lure us to open our wallets -- they make the very idea of happiness seem unreliable. "Celebrate!" commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.

　　But what we forget -- what our economy depends on us forgetting -- is that happiness is more than pleasure without pain. The things that bring the greatest joy carry the greatest potential for loss and disappointment. Today, surrounded by promises of easy happiness, we need art to tell us, as religion once did, Memento mori: remember that you will die, that everything ends, and that happiness comes not in denying this but in living with it. It’s a message even more bitter than a clove cigarette, yet, somehow, a breath of fresh air. (433 words)

　　Notes: weird adj. 不可思議的，離奇古怪的。phony (=phoney) 假裝的，冒充的，偽造的。Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) 英國詩人。daffodil n.水仙花。Baudelaire (1821 – 1867) 法國詩人及散文家。damn adj. （表示不滿、憤怒、不耐煩等）：Where is that damn book? 那本該死的書在哪里？My damn car has broken down! 我的混賬汽車壞了。memento 紀(jì)念品。Memento mori人總有一死。

　　1. By citing the examples of poets Wordsworth and Baudetaire, the author intends to show that

　　[A] poetry is not as expressive of joy as painting or music.

　　[B] art grows out of both positive and negative feelings.

　　[C] poets today are less skeptical of happiness.

　　[D] artists have changed their focus of interest.

　　2. The word "bummer" (Line 4, Paragraph 5) most probably means something

　　[A] religious. [B] unpleasant. [C] entertaining. [D] commercial.

　　3. In the author's opinion, advertising

　　[A] emerges in the wake of the anti-happy art. [B] is a cause of disappointment for the general public.

　　[C] replaces the church as a major source of information. [D] creates an illusion of happiness rather than happiness itself.

　　4. We can learn from the last paragraph that the author believes

　　[A] happiness more often than not ends in sadness. [B] the anti-happy art is distasteful but refreshing.

　　[C] misery should be enjoyed rather than denied. [D] the anti-happy art flourishes when economy booms.

　　5. Which of the following is true of the text?

　　[A] Religion once functioned as a reminder of misery. [B] Art provides a balance between expectation and reality.

　　[C] People feel disappointed at the realities of modem society [D] Mass media are inclined to cover disasters and deaths.

　　Text 2 [2005, RC Text 4]

　　Americans no longer expect public figures, whether in speech or in writing, to command the English language with skill and gift. Nor do they aspire to such command themselves. In his latest book, Doing Our Own Thing. The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care, John McWhorter, a linguist and controversialist of mixed liberal and conservative views, sees the triumph of 1960s counter-culture as responsible for the decline of formal English.

　　Blaming the permissive 1960s is nothing new, but this is not yet another criticism against the decline in education. Mr. McWhorter's academic specialty is language history and change, and he sees the gradual disappearance of "whom", for example, to be natural and no more regrettable than the loss of the case-endings of Old English.

　　But the cult of the authentic and the personal, "doing our own thing", has spelt the death of formal speech, writing, poetry and music. While even the modestly educated sought an elevated tone when they put pen to paper before the 1960s, even the most well regarded writing since then has sought to capture spoken English on the page. Equally, in poetry, the highly personal, performative genre is the only form that could claim real liveliness. In both oral and written English, talking is triumphing over speaking, spontaneity over craft.

　　Illustrated with an entertaining array of examples from both high and low culture, the trend that Mr. McWhorter documents is unmistakable. But it is less clear, to take the question of his subtitle, why we should, like, care. As a linguist, he acknowledges that all varieties of human language, including non-standard ones like Black English, can be powerfully expressive -- there exists no language or dialect in the world that cannot convey complex ideas. He is not arguing, as many do, that we can no longer think straight because we do not talk proper.

　　Russians have a deep love for their own language and carry large chunks of memorized poetry in their heads, while Italian politicians tend to elaborate speech that would seem old-fashioned to most English-speakers. Mr. McWhorter acknowledges that formal language is not strictly necessary, and proposes no radical education reforms -- he is really grieving over the loss of something beautiful more than useful. We now take our English "on paper plates instead of china". A shame, perhaps, but probably an inevitable one. (391 words)

　　Notes: aspire to (after) 渴望成就…。degradation n. 退化；墮落，貶低，降低。permissive 放任的。specialty (=speciality)專業(yè)。no more … than …與…一樣都不…。cult n. 膜拜。authentic adj. 真實(shí)的。spell vt. 招致；意味著。elevated adj. 高架的；有修養(yǎng)的。put pen to paper（開始）寫信。performative 有表演力的。genre 種類；風(fēng)格，體裁。triumph over勝過。spontaneity 自發(fā)性。craft工藝性。 entertaining adj. 令人感興趣的。array n. 系列；大量。subtitle 副標(biāo)題。dialect 方言。think straight 有條理地思維。talk proper 說話規(guī)范。chunk n. 相當(dāng)數(shù)量。

　　1. According to McWhorter, the decline of formal English

　　[A] is inevitable in radical education reforms. [B] is but all too natural in language development.

　　[C] has caused the controversy over the counter-culture. [D] brought about changes in public attitudes in the 1960s.

　　2. The word "talking" (Line 4, Paragraph 3) denotes

　　[A] modesty. [B] personality. [C] liveliness. [D] informality.

　　3. To which of the following statements would McWhorter most likely agree?

　　[A] Logical thinking is not necessarily related to the way we talk.

　　[B] Black English can be more expressive than standard English.

　　[C] Non-standard varieties of human language are just as entertaining.

　　[D] Of all the varieties, standard English can best convey complex ideas.

　　4. The description of Russians' love of memorizing poetry shows the author's

　　[A] interest in their language. [B] appreciation of their efforts.

　　[C] admiration for their memory. [D] contempt for their old-fashionedness.

　　5. According to the last paragraph, "paper plates" is to "china" as

　　[A] "temporary" is to "permanent". [B] "radical" is to "conservative".

　　[C] "functional" is to "artistic". [D] "humble" is to "noble".

　　Word Study

　　command [k m nd] v. 1.命令，吩咐：I command you to start at once.(我命令你立即出發(fā)。) She commanded that we (should) attack at once.(她命令我們立即進(jìn)攻。) He commanded silence.(他吩咐安靜。) 2.指揮（部隊(duì)），控制:General Smith commanded the army. (史密斯將軍指揮軍隊(duì)。) 3.掌握，支配: He commands a large vocabulary. (他掌握大量詞匯。) 4.得到，值得（尊敬，同情等）：This great man is able to command everyone’s respect. (這位偉人能得到人人尊敬。) 5.俯瞰（因而可以控制）：The castle commanded the whole town. (這個(gè)城堡俯瞰整個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)。) n. 命令；指揮；掌握，控制；司令部，指揮部。成語 at sb’s command 聽候差遣[吩咐]，由…掌握：I’m at your command. (我聽你的差遣。) by sb’s command 根據(jù)…的命令：It was done by the Queen’s command. (這是按女王命令辦的。) in command (of) 指揮，控制：Who is in command here?(誰在這里指揮？) take command of (開始)指揮：When the major was killed, the senior captain took command of the company. (當(dāng)少校陣亡了，大尉開始指揮步兵連。)

　　aspire (after or to) vi. (=direct one’s hopes and efforts to some great aims)渴望（得到或成為…），有…的雄心［野心］：He aspired after knowledge/to the highest positions/to be come president. (他渴望知/爬上比較高職務(wù)/成為總統(tǒng)。)