Irving's background provides little to explain his literary achievements. A gifted but delicate child, he had little schooling. He studied law, but without zeal, and never did practice seriously. He was immune to his strict Presbyterian home environment, frequenting both social gatherings and the theater.
The main point of the first paragraph is that Washington Irving was ______
A.America' s first man of letters
B.a writer who had great success both in and outside his own country
C.a man who was able to move from literature to politics
D.a man whose personal charm enabled him to get by with basically inferior work
That's a far different image from the cherry-tree-chopping George most people remember from their history books. But recently, many historians have begun to focus on the roles slavery played in the lives of the founding generation. They have been spurred in part by DNA evidence made available in 1998, which almost certainly proved Thomas Jefferson had fathered at least one child with his slave Sally Hemings. And only over the past 30 years have scholars examined history from the bottom up. Works of several historians reveal the moral compromises made by the nation's early leaders and the fragile nature of the country's infancy. More significantly, they argue that many of the Founding Fathers knew slavery was wrong—and yet most did little to fight it.
More than anything, the historians say, the founders were hampered by the culture of their time. While Washington and Jefferson privately expressed distaste for slavery, they also understood that it was part of the political and economic bedrock of the country they helped to create.
For one thing, the South could not afford to part with its slaves. Owning slaves was "like having a large bank account," says Wiencek, author of An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. 'The southern states would not have signed the Constitution without protections for the "peculiar institution," including a clause that counted a slave as three fifths of a man for purposes of congressional representation.
And the statesmen's political lives depended on slavery. The three-fifths formula handed Jefferson his narrow victory in the presidential election of 1800 by inflating the votes of the southern states in the Electoral College. Once in office, Jefferson extended slavery with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803; the new land was carved into 13 states, including three slave states.
Still, Jefferson freed Hemings's children—though not Hemings herself or his approximately 150 other slaves. Washington, who had begun to believe that all men were created equal after observing the bravery of the black soldiers during the Revolutionary War, overcame the strong opposition of his relatives to grant his slaves their freedom in his will. Only a decade earlier, such an act would have required legislative approval in Virginia.
George Washington's dental surgery is mentioned to
A.show the primitive medical practice in the past.
B.demonstrate the cruelty of slavery in his days.
C.stress the role of slaves in the U.S. history.
D.reveal some unknown aspect of his life.
That's a far different image from the cherry-tree-chopping George most people remember from their history books. But recently, many historians have begun to focus on the roles slavery played in the lives of the founding generation. They have been spurred in part by DNA evidence made available in 1998, which almost certainly proved Thomas Jefferson had fathered at least one child with his slave Sally Hemings. And only over the past 30 years have scholars examined history from the bottom up. Works of several historians reveal the moral compromises made by the nation's early leaders and the fragile nature of the country's infancy. More significantly, they argue that many of the Founding Fathers knew slavery was wrong - and yet most did little to fight it.
More than anything, the historians say, the founders were hampered by the culture of their time. While Washington and Jefferson privately expressed distaste for slavery, they also understood that it was part of the political and economic bedrock of the country they helped to create.
For one thing, the South could not afford to part with its slaves. Owning slaves was "like having a large bank account," says Wiencek, author of An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. The southern states would not have signed the Constitution without protections for the "peculiar institution," including a clause that counted a slave as three fifths of a man for purposes of congressional representation.
And the statesmen's political lives depended on slavery. The three-fifths formula handed Jefferson his narrow victory in the presidential election of 1800 by inflating the votes of the southern states in the Electoral College. Once in office, Jefferson extended slavery with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803; the new land was carved into 13 states, including three slave states.
Still, Jefferson freed Hemings's children - though not Hemings herself or his approximately 150 other slaves. Washington, who had begun to believe that all men were created equal after observing the bravery of the black soldiers during the Revolutionary War, overcame the strong opposition of his relatives to grant his slaves their freedom in his will. Only a decade earlier, such an act would have required legislative approval in Virginia.
第36题:George Washington\\\'s dental surgery is mentioned to
A.show the primitive medical practice in the past.
B.demonstrate the cruelty of slavery in his days.
C.stress the role of slaves in the U.S. history.
D.reveal some unknown aspect of his life.
What is the most proper comment on Irving?
A.His works were very popular in England and the United States.
B.He was respected by many fellow writers.
C.He gained international fame by his personality and his works.
D.He is a gentleman.
(46)
A.business
B.action
C.life
D.search
Which country's way of communication made use of visible signs?
A. French
B. Roman
C. African
D. American
The murder victim, Philip Barton Key, Teresa Sickles's lover, came from a famous old southern family. He was the nephew of the then chief justice of the American Supreme Court and the son of the writer of the country's national anthem. Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician in New York turned Democratic congressman in Washington, shot Key dead in 1859 at a corner of Lafayette Square, within shouting distance of the White House. But the murder trial was melodramatic, even by the standards of the day. With the help of eight lawyers, Sickles was found not guilty after using the novel plea of "temporary insanity". The country at large was just as forgiving, viewing Key's murder as a gallant crime of passion. Within three years, Sickles was a general on the Unionist side in the American civil War and, as a new friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a frequent sleepover guest at the White House.
Mrs. Sickles was less fortunate. She was shunned by friends she had made as the wife of a rising politician. Her husband, a serial adulterer whose many mistresses included Queen Isabella Ⅱ of Spain and the madam of an industrialized New York whorehouse, re fused to be seen in her company. Laura, the Sickles's daughter, was an innocent victim of her father's vindictiveness and eventually died of drink in the Bowery district of New York.
Sickles's bold actions at Gettysburg are, in their own way, just as controversial. Argument continues to rage among scholars, as to whether he helped the Union to victory or nearly caused its defeat when he moved his forces out of line to occupy what he thought was better ground. James Longstreet, the Confederate general who led the attack against the new position, was in no doubt about the brilliance of the move.
Mr. Keneally is better known as a novelist. Here he shows himself just as adept at Biography, and achieves both his main aims. He restores the reputation of Teresa Sickles, "this beautiful, pleasant and intelligent girl", and breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement.
Keneally's biography is intended mainly to
A.launch a surprise attack on Democratic congressman.
B.show sympathy for an abused but reputed lady, Teresa.
C.curse bitterly at the hypocrisy of notorious heroes.
D.expose the true character of a civil war general.
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
"Making money is a dirty game", says the Institute of Economic Affairs, summing up the attitude of British novelists towards business. The IEA, a free market think-tank, has just published a collection of essays (The Representation of Business in English Literature) by five academics chronicling the hostility of the country's men and women of letters to the sordid business of making money. The implication is that Britain's economic performance is retarded by an anti-industrial culture.
Rather than blaming rebellious workers and incompetent managers for Britain's economic worries. Then, we can put George Orwell and Martin Amis in the dock instead. From Dickens's Scrooge to Amis's John Self in his 1980s novel Money, novelists have conjured up a rogue's gallery of mean, greedy, amoral money-men that has alienated their impressionable readers from the noble pursuit of capitalism.
The argument has been well made before, most famously in 1981 by Martin Wiener. an American academic, in his English Culture and the Decline of the Industrial Spirit. Lady Thatcher was an admirer of Mr. Wiener's, and she led a crusade to revive the "entrepreneurial culture" which the liberal elite had allegedly trampled underfoot. The present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, sounds as though he agrees with her. At a recent speech to the Confederation of British Industry, he declared that it should be the duty of every teacher in the country to "communicate the virtues of business and enterprise".
Certainly, most novelists are hostile to capitalism, but this refrain risks scapegoating writers for failings for which they are not to blame. Britain's culture is no more anti-business than that of other countries. The Romantic Movement. which started as a reaction against the industrial revolution of the 21st century, was born and flourished in Germany, but has not stopped the Germans from being Europe's most successful entrepreneurs and industrialists.
Even the Americans are guilty of blackening business's name. SMERSH and SPECTRE went our with the cold war, James Bond now takes on international media magnates rather than Rosa Kleb. His films such as Erin Brockovich have pitched downtrodden, moral heroes against the evil of faceless corporatism. Yet none of this seems to have dented America's lust for free enterprise.
The irony is that the novel flourished as an art form. only after, and as a result of the creation of the new commercial classes of Victorian England, just as the modern Hollywood film can exist only in an era of mass consumerism. Perhaps the moral is that capitalist societies consume literature and film to let off steam rather than to change the world.
In the first paragraph, the author introduces his topic by______.
A.posing a contract
B.justifying an assumption
C.making a comparison
D.explaining a phenomenon
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
The title of the biography The American Civil War Fighting for the Lady could hardly be more provocative. Thomas Keneally, an Australian writer, is unapologetic. In labeling a hero of the American civil war a notorious scoundrel he switches the spotlight from the brave actions of Dan Sickles at the battle of Gettysburg to his earlier premeditated murder, of the lover of his young and pretty Italian-American wife, Teresa. It is not the murder itself that disgusts Mr. Keneally but Sickles's treatment of his wife afterwards, and how his behavior. mirrored the hypocritical misogyny of 19th-century America.
The murder victim, Philip Barton Key, Teresa Sickles's lover, came from a famous old southern family. He was the nephew of the then chief justice of the American Supreme Court and the son of the writer of the country's national anthem. Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician in New York turned Democratic congressman in Washington, shot Key dead in 1859 at a corner of Lafayette Square, within shouting distance of the White House. But the murder trial was melodramatic, even by the standards of the day. With the help of eight lawyers, Sickles was found not guilty after using the novel plea of "temporary insanity". The country at large was just as forgiving, viewing Key's murder as a gallant crime of passion. Within three years, Sickles was a general on the Unionist side in the American civil' War and, as a new friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a frequent sleepover guest at the White House.
Mrs. Sickles was less fortunate. She was shunned by friends she had made as the wife of a rising politician. Her husband, a serial adulterer whose many mistresses included; Queen Isabella II of Spain and the madamof an industrialized New York whorehouse, refused to be seen in her company. Laura, the Sickles's daughter, was an innocent victim of her father's vindictiveness and eventually died of drink in the Bowery district of New York.
Sickles's bold actions at Gettysburg are, in their own way, just as controversial. Argument continues to rage among scholars, as to whether he helped the Union to victory or nearly caused its defeat when he moved his forces out of line to occupy what he thought was better ground. James Longstreet, the Confederate general who led the attack against the new position, was in no doubt about the brilliance of the move.
Mr. Keneally is better known as a novelist. Here he shows himself just as adept at biography, and achieves both his main aims. He restores the reputation of Teresa Sickles, "this beautiful, pleasant and intelligent girl", and breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement.
Keneally's biography is intended mainly to ______.
A.launch a surprise attack on Democratic congressman.
B.show sympathy for an abused but reputed lady, Teresa.
C.curse bitterly at the hypocrisy of notorious heroes.
D.expose the true character of a general in civil war.
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
The title of the biography The American Civil War Fighting for the Lady could hardly be more provocative. Thomas Keneally, an Australian writer, is unapologetic. In labeling a hero of the American civil war a notorious scoundrel be switches the spotlight from the brave actions of Dan Sickles at the battle of Gettysburg to his earlier premeditated murder, of the lover of his young and pretty Italian-American wife, Teresa. It is not the murder itself that disgusts Mr. Keneally but Sickles's treatment of his wife afterwards, and how his behavior. mirrored the hypocritical misogyny of 19th-century America.
The murder victim, Philip Barton Key, Teresa Sickles's lover, came from a famous old southern family. He was the nephew of the then chief justice of the American Supreme Court and the son of the writer of the country's national anthem. Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician in New York turned Democratic congressman in Washington, shot Key dead in 1859 at a corner of Lafayette Square, within shouting distance of the White House. But the murder trial was melodramatic, even by the standards of the day. With the help of eight lawyers, Sickles was found not guilty after using the novel plea of "temporary insanity". The country at large was just as forgiving, viewing Key's murder as a gallant crime of passion. Within three years, Sickles was a general on the Unionist side in the American civil War and, as a new friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a frequent sleepover guest at the White House.
Mrs Sickles was less fortunate. She was shunned by friends she had made as the wife of a rising politician. Her husband, a serial adulterer whose many mistresses included Queen Isabella Ⅱ of Spain and the madam of an industrialized New York whorehouse, refused to be seen in her company. Laura, the Sickles's daughter, was an innocent victim of her father's vindictiveness and eventually died of drink in the Bowery district of New York.
Sickles's bold actions at Gettysburg are, in their own way, just as controversial. Argument continues to rage among scholars, as to whether he helped the Union to victory or nearly caused its defeat when he moved his forces out of line to occupy what he thought was better ground. James Longstreet, the Confederate general who led the attack against the new position, was in no doubt about the brilliance of the move.
Mr. Keneally is better known as a novelist. Here he shows himself just as adept at biography, and achieves both his main aims. He restores the reputation of Teresa Sickles, "this beautiful, pleasant and intelligent girl", and breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement.
Keneally's biography is intended mainly to
A.launch a surprise attack on Democratic congressman.
B.show sympathy for an abused but reputed lady, Teresa.
C.curse bitterly at the hypocrisy of notorious heroes.
D.expose the true character of a general in civil war.