Pride and Prejudice for the Modern WomanLet us imagine how Pride and Prejudice，J
题型：不详难度：来源：
Pride and Prejudice for the Modern Woman
Let us imagine how Pride and Prejudice，Jane Austen’s most
famous work，might be updated，200 years on.
Austen’s popularity is rooted in her intelligence.But today she would certainly have had a very different life，as would her characters.Here’s my own suggestion...
It is a truth finally and universally acknowledged that a single woman with brains deserves to have equal opportunities to men，however disadvantaged she may feel by sexism.
“My dear husband，”said his hopeful wife one day，“have you heard that the local store，standing empty for so long，is taken over by a bright young businesswoman？”
Her dull and indifferent (漠不关心的) husband replied that he had not.
“But it is，it is，”she replied excitedly.
Mr DullHusband made no reply.
“Don’t you want to know her plans？”she cried with some impatience.
“Well，clearly you think it matters to your silly little head...so I’d better listen.”
“Well，my dear，the rumour (传言) is that she has already set up a string of successful businesses in northern England，though how_a_woman_can_know_anything_about_that_is_beyond_me.She will move in herself next month.”
“What is her name？”
“Bingley.”
“Is she married or single？”
“What a question! And none of your business.But her coming will be a fine thing for our five boys.”
“How so? How can it possibly affect them? ”
“My dear love：those lazy boys need something to wake them up.There are bound to be jobs going.”
“Is that her point in settling here? Surely as a woman she has simply taken a fancy to the place.”
“Nonsense，my love，how little you’ve noticed the world has changed.She’s got a firstrate degree and some sort of business qualification，I’m told.She surely needs one of our boys! Perhaps you might give her a call.”
“Me? No.Perhaps you can take an interest.You still have your looks，after all.She may even offer you a job.”
“Oh，that’s not likely.These new chances belong to the younger generation.But now you mention it，I think I’ll go along all the same.”
And Mrs Bennet went along.That was 10 years ago.She is now managing director of a FTSElisted company.
...It would remain the case，of course，that Mrs Bennet would be one of very few women on the company board，that her salary would be lower than her male colleagues，her bonus of a more“female”dimension and her lifespan (年限) among the city’s business leaders shorter than theirs.Still，she’d no doubt have enjoyed Davos—and might even have hobnobbed (攀谈) with influential figures.
小题1:Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?| A．Austen was born 200 years ago. | | B．Austen rewrote Pride and Prejudice. | | C．Austen’s success lies in her wisdom. | | D．Austen’s updated work gains popularity. |
小题2:The underlined part in the passage suggests that Mrs Bennet ________.| A．had mixed feelings of admiration and surprise about Bingley | | B．felt kind of worried and doubtful about Bingley | | C．was extremely anxious to meet Bingley | | D．had a great curiosity about Bingley |
小题3:In the eyes of Mrs Bennet，Bingley surely needed one of their boys to ________.| A．get married to | | B．work for her | | C．help her move in | | D．take over her store |
小题4:What does the writer intend to tell us?| A．Women with brains can also be as successful as men. | | B．Women have to pay a high price for success. | | C．A judgment must be made free from prejudice. | | D．Sex discrimination still exists nowadays. |
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答案
小题1:C
小题2:A
小题3:B
小题4:D |
解析
本文是关于英国著名女性小说家简·奥斯汀的《傲慢与偏见》的一篇文章。号召读者通过对本文的研读，对当今社会上仍然存在的性别歧视观念加以纠正，从而鼓舞当代女性勇于和男性竞争以获得平等地位。
小题1:解析：选C。细节理解题。A项错误，因为文章中并没有提及奥斯汀的出生日期；B项“奥斯汀重写了《傲慢与偏见》”，很明显文章也没有提及；D项“奥斯汀的更新的著作受到人们的欢迎”，这种观点与文章不符。由第一段第一句“Austen’s popularity is rooted in her intelligence.”可知奥斯汀的成功在于她的智慧(wisdom)，故C项正确。
小题2:解析：选A。推理判断题。由上文中的excitedly和cried不难推断贝内特夫人的感情既有羡慕又有吃惊的成分，所以A项符合文意；B项“对Bingley感到担忧和怀疑”，与原文不符，因为上文的话题是贝内特夫人自己提出的，因而不会产生怀疑心理，如果说她丈夫怀疑还可以接受；C项“她急切想见到Bingley”，与下文中的丈夫让她给Bingley打电话，她却拒绝相矛盾，故排除C项；D项“对Bingley很好奇”，不全面，实际上更多的是羡慕和吃惊。
小题3:解析：选B。细节理解题。根据文章中提到的“那些懒惰的男孩子需要一些东西唤醒自己”以及“There are bound to be jobs going.”可知Bingley需要贝内特夫人的一个孩子为她工作，所以B项正确。根据上文中贝内特夫人的丈夫问及Bingley的婚姻状况时，她告诉丈夫“不关你的事”可知A项错误；由“She will move in herself next month.”可知C项错误；D项“接管她的店铺”与原文矛盾，所以应排除。
小题4:解析：选D。主旨大意题。根据文章内容可以看出，作者写这篇文章的目的是号召人们消除性别歧视的观念，故D项正确。A项“智慧的女人同样可以像男人一样成功”，而文章只是对《傲慢与偏见》的内容进行引述，这不是全文要表达的主旨；B项“女人要成功必须付出巨大的代价”，文章没有提及；C项“对事物进行判断不应有偏见”，这只是文章主旨大意的一部分，太笼统。 |
举一反三
One might expect that the evergrowing demands of the tourist trade would bring nothing but good for the countries that receive the holidaymakers.Indeed，a rosy picture is painted for the longterm future of the holiday industry.Every month sees the building of a new hotel somewhere.And every month another rockbound Pacific island is advertised as the ‘last paradise(天堂) on earth’．
However，the scale and speed of this growth seem set to destroy the very things tourists want to enjoy.In those countries where there was a rush to make quick money out of seaside holidays，overcrowded beaches and the concrete jungles of endless hotels have begun to lose their appeal.
Those countries with little experience of tourism can suffer most.In recent years，Nepal set out to attract foreign visitors to fund developments in health and education.Its forests，full of wildlife and rare flowers，were offered to tourists as one more untouched paradise.In fact，the nature all too soon felt the effects of thousands of holidaymakers traveling through the forest land.Ancient tracks became major routes for the walkers，with the consequent exploitation of precious trees and plants.
Not only can the environment of a country suffer from the sudden growth of tourism.The people as well rapidly feel its effects.Farmland makes way for hotels，roads and airports；the old way of life goes.The onetime farmer is now the servant of some multinational organization；he is no longer his own master.Once it was his back that bore the pain；now it is his smile that is exploited.No doubt he wonders whether he wasn’t happier in his village working his own land.
Thankfully，the tourist industry is waking up to the responsibilities it has towards those countries that receive its customers.The protection of wildlife and the creation of national parks go hand in hand with tourist development and in fact obtain financial support from tourist companies.At the same time，tourists are being encouraged to respect not only the countryside they visit but also its people.
The way tourism is handled in the next ten years will decide its fate and that of the countries we all want to visit.Their needs and problems are more important than those of the tourist companies.Increased understanding in planning worldwide tourism can preserve the market for these companies.If not，in a few years’ time the very things that attract tourists now may well have been destroyed.
小题1:What does the author indicate in the last sentence of Paragraph 1?| A．The Pacific island is a paradise. | | B．The Pacific island is worth visiting. | | C．The advertisement is not convincing. | | D．The advertisement is not impressive. |
小题2:The example of Nepal is used to suggest________.| A．its natural resources are untouched | | B．its forests are exploited for farmland | | C．it develops well in health and education | | D．it suffers from the heavy flow of tourists |
小题3:What can we learn about the farmers from Paragraph 4?| A．They are happy to work their own lands. | | B．They have to please the tourists for a living. | | C．They have to struggle for their independence. | | D．They are proud of working in multinational organizations. |
小题4:Which of the following determines the future of tourism ?| A．The number of tourists. | | B．The improvement of services. | | C．The promotion of new products. | | D．The management of tourism. |
小题5:The author’s attitude towards the development of the tourist industry is________.| A．optimistic | B．doubtful | | C．objective | D．negative |
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In Africa, listening is a guiding principle .It’s a principle that’ been lost in the constant chat of the Western world .From my own past experience , I noticed how much faster I had to answer a question during a TV interview .It is as if we have completely lost the ability to listen .We talk and talk , and we end up frightened by silence .
Everywhere, people on the African continent write and tell stories. Even the nomads(流浪者)who still live in the Kalahari Desert are said to tell one another stories on their daylong wanderings, during which they search for roots and animals to hunt.
A number of years ago I sat down on a stone bench outside the Teatro Avenida in Maputo, Mozambique, where I worked as an artistic consultant. It was a hot day, and we were taking a break, hoping that a cool gentle wind would move past. Two old African men were sitting on that bench, but there was room for me, too. In Africa people share more than just water. Even when it comes to shade, people are generous.
I heard the two men talking about a third old man who had recently died. One of them said, “I was visiting him at his home. He started to tell me an amazing story about something that had happened to him when he was young. But it was a long story. Night came, and I decided that I should come back the next day to hear the rest. But when I arrived, he was dead.”
The man fell silent. I decided not to leave that bench until I heard how the other man would respond to what he’d heard. Finally he, too, spoke. “That’s not a good way to die—before you’ve told the end of your story.”
What separates us from animals is the fact that we are storytelling creatures and we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats—and they in turn can listen to ours.
Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
Many words will be written on the wind and the sand, or end up in store. But the storytelling will go on until the last human being stops listening. Then we can send the great record of human out into the endless universe.
Who knows? Maybe someone is out there, willing to listen…
小题1:From the very beginning of the passage, we can know Europeans ________.| A．actually lose the ability to listen | | B．seldom chat constantly with each other | | C．feel frightened when they are alone and silent | | D．tend to talk more and listen less |
小题2: It can be inferred from the passage that if you are in Africa, you will _______.| A．suffer hot weather and lack of water | | B．be certainly helped when in trouble | | C．often hear the stories told by strangers | | D．have no choice but to listen during a talk |
小题3:According to the last three paragraphs, we can know _________.| A．no one knows exactly why Africans are willing to listen | | B．information is hard to understand without interpretation | | C．listening makes the difference between information and knowledge | | D．the existence of humans’ recordings totally depends on the way of storytelling |
小题4:The passage mainly talks about __________.| A．the experience of the author | | B．the art of listening in Africa | | C．the importance of storytelling | | D．the life styles of Africans |
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People often say that money talks. They mean that a person with a lot of money can say how he or she wants things done. But it is not easy to earn enough money to gain this kind of power. Ask anyone in a business, they will tell you that it is a jungle out there. The expression probably began because the jungle is filled with wild animals and unknown dangers that threaten people. Sometimes people in business feel competing businesses are as dangerous as wild animals. And they feel that unknown dangers in the business world frighten the survival of their business.
People in business have to be careful, if they are to survive the jungle out there. They must not be led into making bogus investments. Bogus means something that it is not real. Nobody is sure how the word got started. But it began to appear in a American newspapers in 1800s. A newspaper in Boston Massachusetts said the word came from a criminal whose name was Bogazy. The newspaper said Bogazy wrote checks to people, although he did not have enough money in the bank. After he wrote the checks, he would flee from town. So people who were paid with his checks received nothing. The newspaper said Americans shortened and changed to the criminal"s name Bogazy to bogus.
People try to earn money also must be aware of being ripped off. A person who is ripped off has had something stolen or at least has been treated very unfairly. A writer for the magazine American Speech said he first saw the expression used in 1971. It was on a sign that a student carried during a protest demonstration at a university. The message on the sign was that the student felt ripped off or cheated. Perhaps the best way to prevent getting ripped off in business is to not try to get rich quickly.
To be successful, a person in business works hard and tries to get down to brass tacks. This expression means to get to the bottom or most important part of something. For example, a salesman may talk and talk about his product without saying the price. You get down to brass tacks when you say it sounds good but how much does it cost？
Word expert Charles Funk thinks the expression comes from sailors on ships. They clean the bottom of a boat. When they have removed all the dirt, they are down to the brass tacks, the copper pieces that hold the boat together. So if we get down to brass tacks, we can prevent rip-offs and bogus ways of earning money in that jungle out there. And some good luck will help too.
小题1:This passage is mainly written to________.| A．explain several expressions related to money | | B．tell us some skills of learning English words | | C．tell us the secret of how to do business | | D．tell us the power of money |
小题2:People compare doing business to being in a jungle because________.| A．doing business is as exciting as living in a jungle | | B．businessmen are as dangerous as animals in a jungle | | C．doing business is as difficult as living in a jungle | | D．businessmen are as careful as people living in a jungle |
小题3:If we say something is bogus, we probably mean it is not________.| A．real | B．beautiful | C．good | D．new |
小题4:According to Paragraph 2,where did the word "bogus" come from? _________| A．The name of a very successful businessman. | | B．The name of a criminal who cheated others. | | C．The name of a famous newspaper in Boston. | | D．The name of a check written by a criminal. |
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阅读下面短文，从短文后各题所给的四个选项(A、B、C和D)中，选出可以填入空白处的最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。
Generally speaking, a British is widely regarded as a quiet, shy and conservative (保守) person who is only among those with whom he is familiar. When a stranger is present, he often seems nervous, embarrassed. You have to take a commuter train (通勤车) any morning or evening to the truth of this. Serious-looking businessmen and women sit reading their newspapers or off in a corner; hardly anybody talks, since to do so would be considered quite offensive (冒犯的).
, there is an unwritten but clearly understood code of behavior, which, once , makes the offender immediately the object of .
One of the few things we can say about the British with certainty is that a British takes a(n) to the discussion of their weather and that, if given a chance, he will talk about it . Some people argue that it is because the British weather follows forecast and thus becomes a source of interest to everyone. This may be so. Certainly a British cannot have much in the weathermen, whose predictions, in many cases, to be wrong! The man in the street seems to be as accurate – or as inaccurate – as the weathermen in his .
Foreigners may be surprised at the number of references weather that the British make to each other in the course of a single day. Very often conversational greetings are by comments on the weather. “Nice day, isn’t it?” “Beautiful day!” may well be heard instead of “Good morning, how are you?” the foreigner may consider this exaggerated (夸大) and comic, it is worthwhile pointing out that it could be used to his . If he wants to start a conversation with a British but is to know where to begin, he could do well to mention the state of the weather. It is a(n) subject to which a response may well be of even the most reserved of the British.
| 小题1: | | A．relaxed | B．frustrated | C．amused | D．exhausted |
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| 小题2: | | A．yet | B．otherwise | C．even | D．so |
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| 小题3: | | A．experience | B．witness | C．watch | D．undertake |
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| 小题4: | | A．whispering | B．murmuring | C．nodding | D．laughing |
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| 小题5: | | A．Hopefully | B．Exactly | C．Frequently | D．Obviously |
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| 小题6: | | A．developed | B．observed | C．followed | D．broken |
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| 小题7: | | A．doubt | B．argument | C．criticism | D．praise |
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| 小题8: | | A．emotion | B．fancy | C．likeliness | D．judgment |
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| 小题9: | | A．atlength | B．at last | C．at most | D．at least |
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| 小题10: | | A．always | B．often | C．constantly | D．seldom |
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| 小题11: | | A．faith | B．relief | C．honor | D．credit |
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| 小题12: | | A．put out | B．make out | C．turn out | D．find out |
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| 小题13: | | A．consideration | B．prediction | C．approval | D．appreciation |
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| 小题15: | | A．started | B．conducted | C．replaced | D．Proposed |
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| 小题16: | | A．Since | B．Although | C．However | D．Onlyif |
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| 小题17: | | A．benefit | B．advantage | C．disadvantage | D．favor |
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| 小题18: | | A．ataloss | B．in detail | C．in groups | D．onoccasion |
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| 小题19: | | A．avoidable | B．steady | C．optional | D．safe |
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| 小题20: | | A．expected | B．asked | C．wished | D．reminded |
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J.K. Rowling set children’s imaginations on fire. Can the creator of Harry Potter do the same for a grown-up audience? The British author will find out on September 27, when more than 2 million hardcover(精装书) copies of her first novel for adults hit bookstores in the UK and the US, along with the digital edition. Set in a little English town, The Casual Vacancy is about an election held after an unexpected death.
Michael Pietsch, Rowling’s US publisher, says the novel reminded him of Dickens “because of the humanity, the humor, the social concerns, the intensely real characters”. No magic though, apparently: “This book isn’t Harry Potter”, says Pietsch. “It is a completely different concern”. As with Harry Potter, there are no advance copies for the media, no early reviews. To date, the seven-book series has sold more than 450 million copies worldwide, and it became one of the most successful movie franchises in July 21, 2007.
Back then, fans could buy books at midnight parties hosted by bookstores. But recent years have seen a great challenge for brick-and-mortar(实体的) bookstores. People are still buying books, indeed more books than in 2007, according to figures released by the Association of American Publishers. But they are reading them in a new format(样式)—the e-book. The Harry Potter series just became available digitally for the first time in April. It will be different for The Casual Vacancy, with the publisher simultaneously releasing an e-book. For Rowling fans who once queued up for Harry Potter, this means that instant satisfaction is now only a click away.
Moving from children’s books to adult literature is a big transition. Will Rowling’s new book be successful? Arthur Levine, the US co-editor of the Harry Potter books, seems confident: “If you read or re-read the Harry Potter books, you can see that Rowling has all the strengths she needs for great success as a fiction writer –you have great characters, an involving plot, a sense of humor and great empathy”.
小题1:In Paragraph 2, what Michael Pietsch says means that_____.| A．Dickens’ works are too impressive to forget. | | B．J.K. Rowling has all the strengths of Dickens. | | C．The new book is similar to Dickens’ works in some way. | | D．The new book is quite different from the works of Dickens. |
小题2:The underlined word “simultaneously” has the closest meaning with“______”.| A．willingly | B．meanwhile | C．especially | D．eventually |
小题3:What’s the main purpose of Paragraph 3?| A．To explain why the new book will have a digital edition. | | B．To show the Harry Potter series are popular with readers. | | C．To compare J.K. Rowling’s old books and her new book. | | D．To clarify the great challenges for brick-and-mortar bookstores. |
小题4:What do the Harry Potter series and The Casual Vacancy have in common?| A．They are both intended for children. | | B．They both show the author’s great talent. | | C．Their characters both have magical power. | | D．Both of them won’t be read on the Internet. |
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