Rae Armantrout, who has been a poetry professor at the University of California San Diego(UCSD)for two decades, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in the poetry category for her most recent book, Versed.

“I’m delighted and amazed at how much media recognition that the Pulitzer brings, as compared to even the National Book Critics Award, which I was also surprised and delighted to win, ”said Armantrout.“For a long time, my writing has been just below the media radar, and to have this kind of attention, suddenly, with my 10th book, is really surprising.”

Armantrout, a native Californian, received her bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley, where she studied with noted poet Denise Levertov, and her master’s in creative writing from San Francisco State University.She is a founding member of Language Poets, a group in American poetry that analyzes the way language is used and raises questions to make the reader think.

In March, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Versed.

“This book has gotten more attention, ” Armantrout said, “but I don’t feel as if it’s better.”The first half of Versed focuses on the dark forces taking hold of the United States as it fought the war against Iraq. The second half looks at the dark forces casting a shadow over her own life after Armantrout was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.

Armantrout was shocked to learn she had won the Pulitzer but many of her colleagues were not.“Rae Armantrout is a unique voice in American poetry, ” said Seth Lerer,head of Arts and Humanities at UCSD.

Versed, published by the Wesleyan University Press, did appear in a larger printing than her earlier works, which is about 2, 700 copies. The new edition is scheduled to appear in May.

1.According to Rae Armantrout, ____.

A．her 10th book is much better

B．her winning the Pulitzer is unexpected

C．the media is surprised at her works

D．she likes being recognized by her readers

2.Which of the following is TRUE about Rae Armantrout?

A．She published a poetry textbook.

B．She used to teach Denise Levertov.

C．She started a poets’ group with others.

D．She taught creative writing at UC Berkeley.

3. What can we learn about Versed?

A．It consists of three parts.

B．It is mainly about the American army.

C．It is a book published two decades ago.

D．It partly concerns the poet’s own life.

4.Rae Armantrout’s colleagues think that she ____.

A．should write more

B．has a sweet voice

C．deserves the prize

D．is a strange professor

5. What can we learn from the passage?

A. About 2, 700 copies of Versed will be printed.

B. Cancer made Armantrout stop writing.

C. Armantrout got her degrees at UCSD.

D. Versed has been awarded twice.

 

More than three years after moving from Australia to this remote part of England, we are still learning how things are done here.

　　Not too long after we arrived and unpacked, we were invited for “a drink on Sunday morning” by a retired couple nearby. We got there about noon, to find the living-room crowded — lots of chat and discussions, and in all a very jolly occasion.

　　Trouble was, there was no food — no self-respecting Australian would regard a tray of crisps as food. In Sydney, when you are invited for a drink any time after midday on a Sunday, you know you will be fed as well as watered and you plan accordingly. Meaning the hardworked little woman makes no plans to cook lunch because you are eating out.

　　By one-fifteen my stomach was sending up “please explain” to me. Even the crisps had gone. There was nothing we could do except wait, and wonder if the hostess was going to perform some magic and feed us fashionably late. Then, as quickly as if word had spread that there was free beer at the local pub, the room emptied. By one-forty-five there were only a few guests left, so we decided to go home. Tinned soup for lunch that day because the little woman was not really interested in real cooking for us.

　　A few weeks ago we were invited out for “supper” and the hostess suggested 8:15. Ah, we thought greedily, “this is going to be the real thing.”

　　We dressed with some care — I putting on a dark suit — and arrived on time. My wife looked pretty good, I thought, a little black dress and so on. But when we walked in I had a terrible feeling we had got the night wrong because the hostess was dressed in a daytime kind of way and the husband was in jeans and an open-neck shirt. But no, we were greeted and shown into the sitting-room.

　　After a drink I looked around and saw that this was indeed a superior cottage because it had a (more or less) separate dining-room. But there were no signs of a table-setting. Not again! I thought. Were we meant to eat before we came? I decided that in future my wife and I would always carry a chocolate bar. About 9:28 our hostess went out of the room, saying something about food. Ten minutes later she returned and asked us to follow. We were led out to the kitchen. There on the table were country style plates and a huge bowl of soup, rough bread and all the makings of a simple meal. And that is what it was. In other words we had not read the signals right when we were invited for “supper”. If they want you to come to dinner, they say so, and you know that means dark suits and so on. If they mean supper, they say it, and you get fed in the kitchen.

When the author and his wife were invited out for “a drink on Sunday morning”, they thought _______.

       A. they would be the only people there

       B. they would be given lunch as well

       C. they would be taken to a restaurant for lunch

       D. they would be asked to take some food with them

The “party” had been going on for about an hour and three quarters when _________.

       A. the hostess decided to feed her guests      B. everyone had tinned soup for lunch

       C. most of the guests went to lunch at the pub     D. the author realized he would go home hungry

When invited out for “supper” a few weeks later, the writer _________.

       A. expected to be served a proper dinner

       B. arrived on the wrong evening

       C. interpreted the invitation correctly this time

       D. realized there was no dining-room in the cottage

As the evening went on, the writer became aware that _________.

       A. no one used their dining-rooms in the countryside

       B. he should have had a meal before going out

       C. “supper” meant a simple, informal meal

　    D. he should, in future, eat only chocolate in the evening

Homeownership has let us down. For generations, Americans believed that owning a home was undoubtedly good. Our political leaders hammered home the point. Franklin Roosevelt held that a country of homeowners was “unconquerable.” Homeownership could even save babies, save children, save families and save America. A house with a lawn and a fence wasn’t just a nice place to live in or a risk-free investment; it was a way to shape a nation. No wonder leaders of all political types wanted to spend more than $100 billion a year on subsidies（补助）and tax breaks to encourage people to buy.

But the dark side of homeownership is now all too apparent: Indeed, easy lending stimulated（刺激）by the cult of homeownership may have triggered（引起）the financial crisis. Housing remains a drag on the economy. Existing-home sales in April dropped 27% from the previous month, worsening fears of a double-dip. And all that is just the obvious tale of a housing bubble and what happened when it popped. The real story is deeper and darker still.

For the better part of a century, politics, industry and culture lined up to create a fetish of the idea of buying a house. Homeownership has done plenty of good over the decades; it has provided stability to tens of millions of families. Yet by idealizing the act of buying a home, we have ignored the downsides. In the bubble years, lending standards slipped dramatically, allowing many Americans to put far too much of their income into paying for their housing. And we ignored longer-term phenomena too. Homeownership contributed to the hollowing out of cities and kept renters out of the best neighborhoods. It fed America’s overuse of energy and oil. It made it more difficult for those who had lost a job to find another. Perhaps worst of all, it helped us become casually self-deceiving: By telling ourselves that homeownership was a pathway to wealth and stable communities and better test scores, we avoided dealing with these frightening issues head-on.

Now, as the U.S. recovers from the biggest housing bust（破产）since the Great Depression, it is time to rethink how realistic our expectations of homeownership are—and how much money we want to spend chasing them. Many argue that homeownership should not be a goal pursued at all costs.

1.Political leaders wanted to spend money encouraging people to buy houses because______.

A．owning a home was undoubtedly good

B．homeownership could shape a country

C．houses could save families and America

D．homeownership was unconquerable

2.The underlined sentence in Para. 2 means ______.

A．homeownership has quite a lot of bad effects

B．there might be another housing breakdown in the U.S.

C．the existing-home sales will keep decreasing in the U.S.

D．the result of homeownership is much worse than it appears

3.It can be inferred from Para. 3 that ______.

A．Americans choose to live out of urban areas

B．it is the way to wealth to have one’s own house

C．it is hard for Americans to get a home loan

D．homeownership has made many people out of work

4.What is the author’s attitude towards homeownership?

A．Cautious.          B．Ambiguous.        C．Favorable.         D．Optimistic.

 

Only lately        about the dark secrets behind the seemingly-happy marriage of the golf star Tiger Woods.

A．the public have known                   B．were the public known

C．have the public known                   D．the public knew

 

Neatly putting an emphasis on his storytelling skill is how writer Mo Yan began his Nobel Lecture in Literature speech, “Storyteller”, on Friday （Saturday, Beijing time） in Stockholm.

For 40 minutes he talked about his mother’s   36  on him as a person and a writer, his literary inspirations, and how he   37  with the controversy（争论）that followed the announcement of his Nobel victory.

He told his audience that as a boy he told stories to cheer up his mother, and   38  that poverty and loneliness fueled his imagination as a writer after he grew up.   39 , authors such as William Faulkner and Gabriel Garcia Marquez   40  him, he said, especially their bold and unlimited writing style.

“A person should be   41  in daily life, but follow one’s instinct（本能）and take control when it   42  to literary creation.”

He said the soul of   43  all of his works is the boy in Transparent Carrot who has an almost superhuman ability to bear   44 . He added that he also tried to make his hometown of Gaomi in Shandong Province a microcosm（缩影）of China and even the   45 .

His greatest challenge, he said, was writing novels that deal with   46  realities.

“In writing about the dark aspects of society there is a（n）  47  that emotions and anger allow politics to limit literature.”

He said literature must be   48  on real life but go beyond it.

He also mentioned the   49  surrounding his selection as Nobel winner, saying he was showered with many flowers.   50  he was a target for “stone throwers”.

“At first I thought I was the   51  of the controversies, but over time I’ve come to realize that the real target was a person who had   52  to do with me.”

Mo   53  his lecture by saying he was made to feel like an actor in a play with all the attention he was   54 , but he had decided that the best way to communicate his thoughts was to   __55  writing.

1.                A．affection        B．influence       C．occasion  D．position

 

2.                A．agreed         B．fought          C．dealt D．did

 

3.                A．added          B．warned         C．reminded D．imagined

 

4.                A．However       B．Otherwise       C．Therefore D．Besides

 

5.                A．preserved      B．inspired        C．entertained   D．taught

 

6.                A．confident       B．certain         C．comfortable   D．modest

 

7.                A．goes           B．comes          C．turns D．gets

 

8.                A．nearly          B．hardly          C．scarcely  D．always

 

9.                A．danger         B．suffering        C．relieving  D．happiness

 

10.               A．city            B．village          C．world D．province

 

11.               A．social          B．economical      C．agricultural D．cultural

 

12.               A．encouragement  B．danger         C．advantage D．event

 

13.               A．insisted        B．spent          C．based D．passed

 

14.               A．contradiction    B．contest         C．contrary   D．controversy

 

15.               A．Meanwhile      B．Otherwise      C．However  D．Instead

 

16.               A．goal           B．intention       C．target D．purpose

 

17.               A．somebody      B．anything        C．nothing   D．anybody

 

18.               A．adopted        B．concluded      C．admitted  D．concerned

 

19.               A．throwing       B．accepting       C．offering   D．receiving

 

20.               A．carry on        B．take on         C．bring out  D．put out