The greatest city of the world exercises a strong power of attraction over ____.

A.constitution

B.regulation

C.construction

D.convention

Ancient Greece

The Greeks were the greatest (great) sailors of their time. Greece has one excellent_ 41_ (nature) feature-- the coastline. That's why many Greeks left the mountains and_ 42_ (take) to the sea.

The ancient Greeks have __43_ (give) the world many ideas about life and how to live it. The idea of democracy (民主) started in Greece. So did many ideas of science, religion and_44 (govern). But these ideas did not come out of Greece as a whole. Instead, they grew up in_ 45___ (differ) cities throughout the Greek Empire.

The cities of Greece grew up in valleys near the sea. Each city was_ 46__ (separate) from the others by mountains. The roads _ 47 _ (connect) the cities were narrow and winding. Each city governed itself in its own way. And the_ 48__ (citizen) of each city were very proud of its way of life. In fact, each city was_ 49_ (real) an independent state. Such places are called city-states by_ 50_ (politics) scientists.

Which of the following statements about coffee was false？

A.With 2.5 coffee shops for every 1,000 citizens, Seattle has the greatest concentration of coffee houses in America.

B.The world’s first Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971.

C.To encourage the creativity in making better coffee, a monthly competition is held by the Specialty Coffee Association of America for the people who prepare coffee drinks.

D.It is hard to walk down a street in an American city without coming across a coffee shop.

dle, and light bulb, gradually drawing back the curtain of darkness. But a brighter world has its drawbacks.

An estimated 30 percent of outdoor lighting—plus even some indoor lighting—is wasted. Inefficient lighting costs U. S. about ＄10. 4 billion a year, according to Bob Gent of the International Dark-Sky Association, a nonprofit that aims to control light pollution.

Last year in Sydney, an estimated 2. 2 million Australians switched off their lights during “Earth Hour”, briefly reducing that city’s energy use by more than 10 percent. Motivated by such trends, more than two dozen cities worldwide went dim on March 29 this year in an hour-long demonstration.

A number of groups are trying to measure light pollution and assess its effects on the environment in the hope that people will reduce their own contribution to the problem. Scientists are trying to report how many stars we can see. In dark rural areas, about 2, 000 stars are typically visible at night, compared with“maybe five”in a bright city square—and about 5, 000 in centuries past.

People who are working while others are star-gazing may face the greatest risks. Nighttime exposure to white light can cause the growth of tumors (肿瘤) , experiments show. Two decades of research indicate that women who work night shifts have unusually high rates of breast cancer.

The word“drawbacks”in the first paragraph probably means_______.

A．benefits

B．interests

C．effects

D．problems

es felt in the United States. American artists became acquainted with the new art on their trips to Paris and at the exhibitions in the famous New York gallery "291" (named after its address on Fifth Avenue) of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. But most important in the spread of the modern movements in the United States was the sensational Armory Show of 1913 held in New York, in which the works of many of the leading European artists were seen along with the works of a number of progressive American painters.

2 Several of the American modernists who were influenced by the Armory Show found the urban landscape, especially New York, an appealing subject. Compared with the works of the realist painters, the works of American modernists were much further removed from the actual appearance of the city, they were more interested in the "feel" of the city, more concerned with the meaning behind appearance. However, both the painters of the "Ash Can School" and the later realists were still tied to nineteenth-century or earlier styles, while the early modernists shared in the international breakthroughs of the art of the twentieth century.

3 The greatest of these breakthroughs was Cubism, developed most fully in France between 1907 and 1914, which brought about a major revolution in Western painting. It overturned the rational tradition that had been built upon since the Renaissance. In Cubism, natural forms were broken down analytically into geometric shapes. No longer was a clear differentiation made between the figure and the background of a painting., the objects represented and the surface on which they were painted became one. The Cubists abandoned the conventional single vantage point of the viewer, and objects depicted from multiple viewpoints were shown at the same time.

The passage primarily concerned with ______.

A．the development of Cubism

B．modern art movements in the United States

C．contemporary artists in the United States

D．the influence of photography on landscape painters

ls were made of iron. But iron rails were not strong enough to support heavy trains running at high speeds. Railroad executives wanted to replace them with steel rails because steel was ten or fifteen times stronger and lasted twenty times longer. Before the 1870's, however, steel was too expensive to be widely used. It was made by a slow and expensive process of heating, stirring, and reheating iron ore.

Then the inventor Henry Bessemer discovered that directing a blast of air at melted iron in a furnace would burn out the impurities that made the iron brittle (易碎的). As the air shot through the furnace, the bubbling metal would erupt in showers of sparks. When the fire cooled, the metal had been changed, or converted, to steel. The Bessemer Converter made possible the mass production of steel. Now three to five tons of iron could be changed into steel in a mater of minutes.

Just when the demand for more and more steel developed, prospectors, discovered huge new deposits of iron ore in the Mesabi Range, a 120-mile-long region in Minnesota near Lake Superior. The Mesabi deposits were so near the surface that they could be mined with steam shovels.

Barges and steamers carded the iron ore through Lake Superior to depots (车站) on the southern shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie. With dizzying speed, Gary, Indiana, and Toledo, Youngstown, and Cleveland, Ohio, became major steel-manufacturing centers. Pittsburgh was the greatest steel city of all.

Steel was the basic building material of the industrial age. Production skyrocketed from seventy-seven thousand tons in 1870 to over eleven million tons in 1900.

According to the passage, the railroad industry preferred steel to iron because steel was ______.

A．cheaper and more plentiful

B．lighter, and easier to mold

C．cleaner, and easier to mine

D．stronger and more durable

lves felt in the United States. American artists became acquainted with the new art on their trips to Paris and at the exhibitions in the famous New York gallery “291”(named after its address on Fifth Avenue) of the photographer Alfred Stieglitz. But most important in the spread of the modern movements in the United States was the sensational Armory Show of the 1913 held in New York, in which the works of many of the leading European artists were seen along with the works of a number of progressive American painters. Several of the American modernists who were influenced by the Armory Show found the urban landscape, especially New York, an appealing subject. Compared with the works of the realist painters, the works of American modernists were much further removed from the actual appearance of the city; they were more interested in the “feel “ of the city, more concerned with the meaning behind appearance. However, both the painters of the Ash Can School” and the later realists were still tied to nineteenth-century or earlier styles, while the early modernists shared in the international breakthroughs of the art of the twentieth century.The greatest of these breakthroughs was Cubism, developed most fully in France between 1907 and 1914, which brought about a major revolution in Western painting. It overturned the regional tradition that had been built upon since the Renaissance. In cubism, natural forms were broken down analytically into geometric shapes. No longer was a clear differentiation made between the figure and the background of a painting: the objects represented and the surface on which they were painted became one. The Cubists abandoned the conventional single vantage point of the viewer, and objects depicted from multiple viewpoints were shown at the same way.

51.What’s the main topic of the passage？

A. Modern art movements in the United States.

B. The great influence of Cubism.

C. Several American modernists found urban landscape an appealing subject.

D. Contemporary artists in the United States.

52.Which of the following is not mentioned as a means through which American artists learned about new movements？

A. Trips to Paris.

B. Lectures by European artists.

C. The exhibitions in the famous New York gallery “291”.

D. The sensational Armory Show in 1913.

53.What was exhibited on the sensational Armory Show of 1913 in New York？

A. Works of many leading European artists as well as works of many progressive American painters.

B. Works of all the European artists and American painters.

C. Works of a number of American modernists and painters of the “Ash Can School”.

D. Works of European artists only.

54.According to the author, which of the following was a major new movement in twentieth-century art？

A. Impressionism.

B. Cubism.

C. The rational tradition.

D. Realism.

55.What do we know about Cubism？

A. It made a clear differentiation between the figure and the background of a painting.

B. Natural forms were broken down analytically into shape of a square.

C. The object represented and the surface on which they were painted became one.

D. The Cubists preserved the conventional single vantage point of the viewer.

A．have never discussed who is the world's greatest poet and greatest dramatist

B．never discuss about the world's greatest poets or dramatists

C．are sure who is the world's greatest poet and greatest dramatist

D．do not care who is the world's greatest poet and greatest dramatist