Agnes Miller was one of the earliest leaders of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the United States. She was born on a farm in Missouri in 1892. Strangely enough she had a very happy life as a child. She was the only daughter and the youngest child of five. Her parents and her brothers always treated her as their favorite.

In 1896 the family moved to Chicago. Three years later they moved back to St. Louis where Agnes spent the rest of her childhood. She enjoyed her years in school and was an excellent student of mathematics. She also was quite skillful as a painter.

It was when Agnes went off to college that she first learned that women were not treated as equals. She didn’t like being treated unequally but she tried not to notice it. After graduating from college she tried to get a job in her major field―physics. She soon found it was almost impossible for a woman.

Agnes spent a full year looking for a job. Finally she gave up in anger. She began writing letters of anger to various newspapers. An editor in New York liked her ideas very much. He specially liked her style. He asked her to do a series of stories on the difficulties that women had in finding a job. And there she began her great fight for equal rights for women.

61. Where did Agnes spend her childhood?

  A. Missouri.           B. Chicago.

  C. New York.        D. St. Louis and Chicago.

62. At school, Agnes was good at      .

  A. physics and painting

  B. maths and painting

  C. writing and maths

  D. physics and writing

63. What happened in Agnes’s life when she was in college?

  A. She learned to accept the fact that men and women were unequal.

  B. She learned that it was impossible for a woman to be a scientist.

  C. She came to know of the inequality between men and women.

  D. She developed her personal way of writing.

Agnes Miller was one of the earliest leaders of the Women’s Liberation Movement in the United States. She was born on a farm in Missouri in 1892. Strangely enough she had a very happy life as a child. She was the only daughter and the youngest child of five. Her parents and her brothers always treated her as their favorite.
In 1896 the family moved to Chicago. Three years later they moved back to St. Louis where Agnes spent the rest of her childhood. She enjoyed her years in school and was an excellent student of mathematics. She also was quite skillful as a painter.
It was when Agnes went off to college that she first learned that women were not treated as equals. She didn’t like being treated unequally but she tried not to notice it. After graduating from college she tried to get a job in her major field—physics. She soon found it was almost impossible for a woman.
Agnes spent a full year looking for a job. Finally she gave up in anger. She began writing letters of anger to various newspapers. An editor in New York liked her ideas very much. He specially liked her style. He asked her to do a series of stories on the difficulties that women had in finding a job. And there she began her great fight for equal rights for women.
【小题1】
Where did Agnes spend her childhood?

Prison Break（《越狱》） is a huge hit thanks to its handsome star, Wentworth Miller. His character, Michael Scofield, is the engine that drives the show．

Having committed a crime to get into prison and broke out his innocent elder brother, Michael Scofield is one of the most interesting personalities on television today. But what about the man behind the character?

Miller, 35, is a hard guy to figure out. He does not come from a normal background and has never lived his life in a typical way．

Miller didn’t take a direct path to fame and fortune. He graduated from Princeton University in 1995, not with a degree in theatre or film, but in English．He didn’t even act when he was in college. His only performance experience was in his university’s singing group. Yet, at graduation Miller still decided to make the move to Hollywood．

Miller has always been different. Although he is American, he was born in Britain when his father was studying there. His family background is also a special mix of cultures．“My father is black and my mother is white. That means I have always been caught in the middle．I could be either one, which can make you feel out of place，”Miller says．

Following his unusual path, Miller did not start trying out for films and TV shows when he first got to Hollywood．Instead, he worked as a lowly production assistant, not what you would expect from a Princeton graduate. However, it all paid off for Miller in the end．

In 2002, Miller played a role in the drama Dinotopia．He starred as a thoughtful and shy man．Producers remembered his performance when they were casting Prison Break two years later. With a golden globe nomination(提名) and another season of Prison Break on his resume(履历), Miller seems ready to take over all of Hollywood．                                               

What do you think the text is mainly about?

A. What kind of person Michael Scofield is．

B. Miller’s unusual path to fame and fortune．

C. Why Prison Break became a huge hit．

D. How special Miller is in the entertainment field．

The author thinks “Miller is a hard guy to figure out” because           ．

A. it’s difficult to tell him from others

B. he is a shy man and hard to work with

C. he always has ideas hard for people to understand

D. his family background and life experience are very special

Which of the following can best explain “pay off” in the underlined sentence?

A. to be successful and bring good results

B. to give someone all the money you owe them

C. to pay someone their wages and tell them to leave their job

D. to pay someone to keep quiet about something illegal or dishonest

Which of the following statements is TRUE?

A. Miller succeeded in the field that he had never majored in．

B. Miller had lots of movie performance experiences when he was in college．

C. Miller’s only performance experience in university made him move to Hollywood．

D. Miller was chosen to play a role in Prison Break because he is a thoughtful and shy guy.

It is very likely that Miller will ____________.

A. pay off all his debts in the end

B. not star in another season of Prison Break

C. make greater achievements in his career

D. move to Hollywood and settle down there

Arthur Miller was born on October 17th, 1915 and died on February 10th, 2005.Over the course of seven decades(十年) of literature career(文学生涯), Arthur Miller created some of the most memorable stage plays(舞台剧) in American Literature. He is the author of DeathofaSalesmanandTheCrucible. Born and raised in Manhattan, Miller went through the best and the worst of American society.

Arthur Miller's childhood：His father was a productive shop­keeper and clothing manufacturer(制造商) until the Great Depression(大萧条时期) dried up nearly all business opportunities.Yet, despite being faced with poverty, Miller made the best of his childhood. He was a very active young man, in love with such sports as football and baseball. When he wasn't playing outside, he enjoyed reading adventure stories. He was also kept busy by his many boyhood jobs. He often worked alongside his father. During other times in his life, he delivered bakery goods and worked as a clerk in a car parts warehouse.

College life: In 1934, Miller left the east coast to attend the University of Michigan. He was accepted into their school of journalism. His experiences during the Depression made him skeptical (怀疑的) about religion. Politically, he began leaning towards the "Left”.And since the theater was the cutting edge way for socio­economic liberals (自由主义者) to express their views, he decided to enter the Hopwood Drama competition. His first play, NoVillain, received an award from the university.It was an impressive beginning for the young playwright; he had never studied plays or playwriting, and he had written his play in just five days!

Miller's later years: In 1987, his autobiography was published. Many of his later plays dealt with personal experience. In particular, his final play, FinishingthePicture mirrors the last days of his marriage to Marilyn Monroe.In 2005, Arthur Miller passed away at the age of 89.

1.What can we know about Arthur Miller from Paragraph 2?

A．He was born into a poor family.

B．His father wasn't good at business.

C．He couldn't adjust himself to poverty.

D．He had to do lots of jobs to make a living.

2.Arthur Miller began to write plays ________.

A．when he was in college

B．when he was a small boy

C．because his father encouraged him to do so

D．because it was one of his school assignments(作业)

3.We can infer from Paragraph 3 that ________.

A．the University of Michigan is on the east coast of the USA

B．Miller's university education made him doubt religion

C．Miller learned playwriting all by himself

D．socio­economic liberals were probably not politically "left”

4.Which of the following plays tells the story of Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe?

A．Death of a Salesman.

B．The Crucible.

C．No Villain.

D．Finishing the Picture.

5.The passage is intended to________.

A．introduce Arthur Miller's plays

B．tell us about Arthur Miller's childhood

C．explain how Arthur Miller started to write plays

D．give us a brief introduction to Arthur Miller's life

C
Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915. He died in 2005 at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. For sixty years, he created one dramatic work after another. Miller won many awards for his plays. Among them were a Pulitzer Prize, New York Drama Critics’ Circle Prizes and Tony Awards. In 1984, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. honored him for his lifetime work in drama.
Arthur Miller grew up in New York. His father, Isidore Miller, made clothing and operated a store. But the father lost his money in the great economic depression in the 1930s. So Arthur worked at many jobs to earn money for college. Miller won an award for writing plays while at school.
Miller returned home to New York after completing his studies. In 1944, Arthur Miller’s first major play was performed on Broadway. It was called The Man Who Had All the Luck. However, the play did not bring him good luck. It had only four performances. But his second Broadway play, All My Sons, was a major success. It won several awards in 1947.
Miller ‘s great play, Death of a Salesman, opened on Broadway in 1949. He was thirty-three years old when he wrote it. The play tells the story of the failure of a salesman, Willy Loman. The action opens on the last day of Willy’s life. He has been dismissed from his jobs as a traveling salesman. He also recognizes that he has failed as a father. He kills himself before the play is over. Death of a Salesman had a big influence on the American public. Many people saw their own lives in Willy Loman, the victim of broken dreams. It has been translated into about thirty languages and performed around the world.
Arthur Miller once wrote that when he was young he imagined that with the possible exception of a doctor saving a life, “Writing a worthy play was the most important thing a human being could do.” Theater owners on Broadway agreed. On the day after he died, the lights of Broadway theatres darkened for a minute in honor of him.
63. Miller began to show his talent in writing plays _______ .
A. in his teens                        B. when he was at school
C. after his marriage                   D. in New York
64. Which of the following is TRUE about Arthur Miller?
A. When he was young, Arthur Miller worked hard to be a doctor.         
B. The Man Who Had All the Luck brought Arthur Miller neither fame nor fortune.           
C. All My Sons was the first major work of Arthur Miller ever performed on Broadway.            D. The John F, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts honored Arthur Miller for his great play, Death of a Salesman.
65. The play Death of a Salesman ________.
A. won several awards in 1947          B. made the public know Miller first    
C. is thought highly of                 D. made Miller rich  
66. Death of a Salesman’s success lies in that______.
A. it has been translated into about thirty languages          
B. it has been performed around the world
C. although not all Americans are salesmen, most of them share Willy’s dream
D. theater owners on Broadway respected Arthur Miller