（The Tragedy of Old Age in America) Old people who are poor have been poor all their l

tes. In a sense, the elderly (conventionally, those aged sixty-five and over) are a "newly-discovered" minority group. Like other minority groups, the old are subjected to job discrimination; they suffer nigh rates of poverty; they face prejudice founded on inaccurate stereotypes; they are excluded from the mainstream of American life on the basis of supposed group characteristics; and they are offered few meaningful roles in their society. In addition, the aged may face such problems as nigh rates of victimization by criminals, a heavy, burden of chronic illness and medical expenses, and psychological problems that result from their loss of independence and their sense of being unwanted. In America, childhood is romanticized, youth is idolized, middle age does the work, wields the power and pays the bills, and old age gets little or nothing for what it has already done. For many elderly Americans old age is a tragedy, a period of quiet despair, deprivation, desolation and muted rage. The tragedy of old age is not that each of us must grow old and die but that the process of doing so has been made unnecessarily painful, humiliating and isolating through insensitivity, ignorance, and poverty.

ent in the drama (46) By the date of his birth Europe was witnessing the passing of thereligious drama， and the creation of new forms under the incentive of classical tragedy andcomedy. These new forms were at first mainly written by scholars and performed by amateurs，but in England， as everywhere else in western Europe， the growth of a class of professionalactors was threatening to make the drama popular， whether it should be new or old， classicalor medieval， literary or farcical Court， school organizations of amateurs， and the travelingactors were all rivals in supplying a widespread desire for dramatic entertainment；

and （47）no boy who went a grammar school could be ignorant that the drama was a form. of literaturewhich gave glory to Greece and Rome and might yet bring honor to England. When Shakespeare was twelve years old， the first public playhouse was built in London For a time literature showed no interest in this public stage Plays aiming at literary distinctionwere written for school or court， or for the choir boys of St Paul’s and the royal chapel， who，however，

gave plays in public as well as at court （48）but the professional companies prosperedin their permanent theaters， and university men with literature ambitions were quick to turn to these theaters as offering a means of livelihood. By the time Shakespeare was twenty-five， Lyly，Peele， and Greene had made comedies that were at once popular and literary；

Kyd had writtena tragedy that crowded the pit； and Marlowe had brought poetry and genius to triumph on thecommon stage - where they had played no part since the death of Euripides （49）A nativeliterary drama had been created， its alliance with the public playhouses established， and atleast some of its great traditions had been begun . The development of the Elizabethan drama for the next twenty-five years is of exceptionalinterest to students of literary history， for in this brief period we may trace the beginning，growth， blossoming， and decay of many kinds of plays， and of many great careers We areamazed today at the mere number of plays produced， as well as by the number of dramatistswriting at the same time for this London of two hundred thousand inhabitants.

（50）To realizehow great was the dramatic activity， we must remember further that hosts of plays have beenlost， and that probably there is no author of note whose entire work has survived.

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请帮忙给出每个问题的正确答案和分析，谢谢！

It was the worst tragedy in maritime history, six times more deadly than the Titanic.

When the German cruise ship Wilhelm Gustloff was hit by torpedoes fired from a Russian submarine in the final winter of World War Ⅱ, more than 10,000 people--mostly women, children and old people fleeing the final Red Army push into Nazi Germany--were packed aboard. An ice storm had turned the decks into frozen sheets that sent hundreds of families sliding into the sea as the ship tilted and began to go down. Others desperately tried to put lifeboats down. Some who succeeded fought off those in the water who had the strength to try to claw their way aboard. Most people froze immediately. "I'll never forget the screams," says Christa Ntitzmann, 87, one of the 1,200 survivors. She recalls watching the ship, brightly lit, slipping into its dark grave—and into seeming nothingness, rarely mentioned for more than half a century.

Now Germany's Nobel Prize-winning author Guenter Grass has revived the memory of the 9,000 dead, including more than 4,000 children--with his latest novel Crab Walk, published last month. The book, which will be out in English next year, doesn't dwell on the sinking; its heroine is a pregnant young woman who survives the catastrophe only to say later. "Nobody wanted to hear about it, not here in the West (of Germany) and not at all in the East. " The reason was obvious. As Grass put it in a recent interview with the weekly Die Woche: "Because the crimes we Germans are responsible for were and are so dominant, we didn't have the energy left to tell of our own sufferings. "

The long silence about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was probably unavoidable--and necessary. By unreservedly owning up to their country's monstrous crimes in the Second World War, Germans have managed to win acceptance abroad, marginalize the neo-Nazis at home and make peace with their neighbors. Today's unified Germany is more prosperous and stable than at any time in its long, troubled history. For that, a half century of willful forgetting about painful memories like the German Titanic was perhaps a reasonable price to pay. But even the most politically correct Germans believe that they've now earned the right to discuss the full historical record. Not to equate German suffering with that of its victims, but simply to acknowledge a terrible tragedy.

Why does the author say the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff was the worst tragedy in maritime history？ ______

A．It was attacked by Russian torpedoes.

B．Most of its passengers were frozen to death.

C．Its victims were mostly women and children.

D．It caused the largest number of casualties.

d. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old hemlocks of primeval growth stood in their forest shadows, their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapour make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such tenderness to Italian scenery.

The funeral was over, -- the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back again, -- each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful of Life.

The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal "tick-tock, tick-tock," in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that can be felt, -- such as settles down on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a little heart- shaped hole in the window-shutter, -- for except on solemn visits, or prayer-meetings or weddings, or funerals, that room formed no part of the daily family scenery.

The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old-fashioned splint-bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy whiteness, and a little work-stand whereon lay the Bible, the Missionary Herald, and the weekly Christian Mirror, before named, formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be forgotten, -- a great sea- chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and, indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done when a woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing-smack was run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage a family of orphans, -- in all such cases, the opening of this sea-chest was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have been looked on with more reverence than the neighbours usually showed to Captain Pennel's sea-chest.

The author describes Orr's Island in a(n) _______ manner.

A．emotionally appealing, imaginative

B．rational, logically precise

C．factually detailed, objective

D．vague, uncertain

and. Tall, kingly spruces wore their regal crowns of cones high in air, sparkling with diamonds of clear exuded gum; vast old hemlocks of primeval growth stood darkling in their forest shadows, their branches hung with long hoary moss; while feathery larches, turned to brilliant gold by autumn frosts, lighted up the darker shadows of the evergreens. It was one of those hazy, calm, dissolving days of Indian summer, when everything is so quiet that the faintest kiss of the wave on the beach can be heard, and white clouds seem to faint into the blue of the sky, and soft swathing bands of violet vapor make all earth look dreamy, and give to the sharp, clear-cut outlines of the northern landscape all those mysteries of light and shade which impart such tenderness to Italian scenery.

The funeral was over, --the tread of many feet, bearing the heavy burden of two broken lives, had been to the lonely graveyard, and had come back again, -- each footstep lighter and more unconstrained as each one went his way from the great old tragedy of Death to the common cheerful of Life.

The solemn black clock stood swaying with its eternal “tick - tock, tick -tock,” in the kitchen of the brown house on Orr's Island. There was there that sense of a stillness that can be felt, -- such as settles down on a dwelling when any of its inmates have passed through its doors for the last time, to go whence they shall not return. The best room was shut up and darkened, with only so much light as could fall through a little heart-- shaped hole in the window - shutter, -- for except on solemn visits, or prayer- meetings or weddings, or funerals, that room formed no part of the daily family scenery.

The kitchen was clean and ample, with a great open fireplace and wide stone hearth, and oven on one side, and rows of old - fashioned splint - bottomed chairs against the wall. A table scoured to snowy whiteness, and a little work - stand whereon lay the Bible, the Mixssionary Herald, and the Weekly Christian Mirror, before named, formed the principal furniture. One feature, however, must not be forgotten, -- a great sea - chest, which had been the companion of Zephaniah through all the countries of the earth. Old, and battered, and unsightly it looked, yet report said that there was good store within of that which men for the most part respect more than anything else; and, indeed, it proved often when a deed of grace was to be done -- when a woman was suddenly made a widow in a coast gale, or a fishing - smack was run down in the fogs off the banks, leaving in some neighboring cottage a family of orphans, -- in all such cases, the opening of this sea - chest was an event of good omen to the bereaved; for Zephaniah had a large heart and a large hand, and was apt to take it out full of silver dollars when once it went in. So the ark of the covenant could not have been looked on with more reverence than the neighbors usually showed to Captain Pennel's sea - chest.

The author describes Orr's Island in a(n) _______ manner.

A．emotionally appealing, imaginative

B．rational, logically precise

C．factually detailed, objective

D．vague, uncertain

Which is not a tragedy in the following？

A Hamlet

B Romeo and Juliet

C King Lear

Which of the following is a tragedy written by Shakespeare？

A.Twelfth Night

B.Othello

C.The Tempest

D.Richard II