The garden city was largely the invention of Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928). After immigrating from England to the USA, and an unsuccessful attempt to make a living as a farmer, he moved to Chicago, where he saw the reconstruction of the city after the disastrous(灾难性的) fire of 1871. In those days, it was nicknamed “the Garden City”, almost certainly the source of Howard’s name for his later building plan of towns. Returning to London, Howard developed his design in the 1880s and 1890s, drawing on ideas that were popular at the time, but creating a unique combination（结合） of designs.
The nineteenth-century poor city was in many ways a terrible place, dirty and crowded; but it offered economic and social opportunities. At the same time, the British countryside was in fact equally unattractive: though it promised fresh air and nature, it suffered from agricultural depression(萧条) and it offered neither enough work and wages, nor much social life. Howard’s idea was to combine the best of town and country in a new kind of settlement, the garden city. Howard’s idea was that a group of people should set up a company, borrowing money to establish a garden city in the depressed countryside; far enough from existing cities to make sure that the land was bought at the bottom price.
Garden cities would provide a central public open space, radial avenues and connecting industries. They would be surrounded by a much larger area of green belt, also owned by the company, containing not merely farms but also some industrial institutions. As more and more people moved in, the garden city would reach its planned limit-----Howard suggested 32,000 people; then, another would be started a short distance away. Thus, over time, there would develop a vast planned house collection, extending almost without limit; within it, each garden city would offer a wide rang of jobs and services, but each would also be connected to the others by a rapid transportation system, thus giving all the economic and social opportunities of a big city.
【小题1】How did Howard get the name for his building plan of garden cities?

A．Through his observation of the country life.

B．Through the combination of different ideas.

C．By taking other people’s advice.

D．By using the nickname of the reconstructed Chicago.

【小题2】The underlined phrase “drawing on ”in Paragraph 1 probably means______.

A．making use of	B．making comments on
C．giving an explanation of	D．giving a description of

【小题3】According to Howard, garden cities should be built______.

A．as far as possible from existing cities

B．in the countryside where the land was cheap

C．in the countryside where agriculture was developed

D．near cities where employment opportunities already existed

【小题4】What can we learn about garden cities from the last paragraph?

A．Their number would continue to rise

B．Each one would continue to become larger

C．People would live and work in the same place

D．Each one would contain a certain type of business

【小题5】What could be the best title for the passage?

A．City and Countryside	B．The Invention of the Garden City
C．A New City in Chicago	D．A Famous Garden City in England

I lost my sight when I was four by falling off a box car in a freight（货物）yard in Atlantic City. Now I am thirty two. I can slightly remember what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a disaster can do strange things to people. I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

         Life, I believe, asks constant adjustments to reality. The adjustment is never easy. I was totally confused and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me—a potential to live, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

         The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. If I hadn’t been able to do that, I would have become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself, I mean: an assurance that I am, despite imperfections, a real, positive person; that somewhere in the intricate（错综复杂的） pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

         It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was making fun of me and I was hurt. “I can’t use this.” I said. “Take it with you,” he urged me, “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around!” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. At Philadelphia’s Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a new kind of baseball. We called it ground ball.

         All my life I have set a series of goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good trying for something that I knew at the start was out of reach. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

1.We can learn from the beginning of the passage that _______

A. the author lost his sight because of a car crash.             

B. the author wouldn’t love life if the disaster didn’t happen.

C. the disaster made the author appreciate what he had.

D. the disaster strengthened the author’s desire to see.

2.What’s the most difficult thing for the author?

A. How to adjust himself to reality.

B. Building up assurance that he can find his place in life.

C. Learning to manage his life alone.

D. How to invent a new kind of baseball.

3.According to the context, “a chair rocker on the front porch” in paragraph 3 means that the author _________.

A. would sit in a rocking chair and enjoy his life.        

B. would be unable to move and stay in a rocking chair.

C. would lose his will to struggle against difficulties.

D. would sit in a chair and stay at home.

4.What is the best title for the passage?

A. A Miserable Life                           B. Struggle Against Difficulties

C. A Disaster Makes a Strong Person          D. An Unforgettable Experience

 

Photos that you might have found down the back of your sofa are now big business!

In 2005,the American artist Richard Prince’s photograph of a photograph,Untitled (Cowboy),was sold for $1 248 000.

Prince is certainly not the only contemporary artist to have worked with so-called “found photographs”—a loose term given to everything from discarded(丢弃的)prints discovered in a junk shop to old advertisements or amateur photographs from a stranger’s family album.The German artist Joachim Schmid,who believes “basically everything is worth looking at”,has gathered discarded photographs,postcards and newspaper images since 1982.In his on-going project,Archiv,he groups photographs of family life according to themes:people with dogs;teams;new cars;dinner with the family;and so on.

Like Schmid,the editors of several self-published art magazines also champion(捍卫)found photographs.One of them,called simply Found,was born one snowy night in Chicago,when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper(雨刷)an angry note intended for someone else:“Why’s your car HERE at HER place?”The note became the starting point for Rothbard’s addictive publication,which features found photographs sent in by readers,such as a poster discovered in your drawer.

The whole found-photograph phenomenon has raised some questions.Perhaps one of the most difficult is:can these images really be considered as art?And,if so,whose art?Yet found photographs produced by artists,such as Richard Prince,may raise endless possibilities.What was the cowboy in Prince’s Untitled doing?Was he riding his horse hurriedly to meet someone?Or how did Prince create this photograph?It’s anyone’s guess.In addition,as we imagine the back-story to the people in the found photographs artists,like Schmid,have collated(整理),we also turn toward our own photographic albums.Why is memory so important to us?Why do we all seek to freeze in time the faces of our children,our parents,our lovers,and ourselves?Will they mean anything to anyone after we’ve gone?

In the absence of established facts,the vast collections of found photographs give our minds an opportunity to wander freely.That,above all,is why they are so fascinating.

The first paragraph of the passage is used to_______.

A.remind readers of found photographs

B.advise readers to start a new kind of business

C.ask readers to find photographs behind sofas

D.show readers the value of found photographs

According to the passage,Joachim Schmid_______.

A.is fond of collecting family life photographs

B.found a complaining note under his car wiper

C.is working for several self-published art magazines

D.wondered at the artistic nature of found photographs

The underlined word “them”in Paragraph 4 refers to“_______”.

A.the readers

B.the editors

C.the found photographs

D.the self-published magazines

By asking a series of questions in Paragraph 5,the author mainly intends to indicate that_______.

A.memory of the past is very important to people

B.found photographs allow people to think freely

C.the back-story of found photographs is puzzling

D.the real value of found photographs is questionable

The author’s attitude toward found photographs can be described as_______.

A.critical                                                         B.doubtful

C.optimistic                                                     D.satisfied

请认真阅读下列短文，并根据所读内容在文章表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意：每个空格只填一个单词。请将答案写在答题卡上相应的横线上。
Each year there is an increasing number of cars as millions of new cars are produced in America . Americans will not live without cars ! However , some have realised the serious problem of air pollution by cars . It is necessary to find ways to solve the problem of air pollution .
One way to clean the air is to build a new kind of clean car . That’s what several of the large car factories are trying to do . But to build a clean car is easier said than done . Progress in this field has been slow .
Another way is to take the place of the car engine by something else . Engineers are now working on it . Many makers believe that it will take years to develop a practical model that can please man .
To prevebt the world being polluted by cars , They have to cut down on the number of their cars and are encouraged to travel and go to work by bike . But this change doesn’t close down ---- many workers may find themselves without jobs if a car factory closes down . And the problem of their pollution would become less important than that of unemployment.
Title : (1) _____ and Pollution in America

 

1826, a Frenchman named Niepce needed pictures for his business .But he was not a good artist.So he invented a very simple camera (照相机).He put it in a window of his house and took a picture of his garden .That was the first photo.
The next important date in the history of photography was 1837. That year, Daguerre, another Frenchman, took a picture of his studio. He used a new kind of camera and a different processs. In his pictures, you could see everything very clearly, even the smallest details. This kind of photograph was called a daguerreotype.
Soon, other people began to use Daguerre's process. Travellers brought back daguerreotypes from all around the world. People photographed famous buildings, cities and mountains.
In about 1840, the process was improved. Now photographers could take pictures of people and moving things. The process was not simple. The photographers had to carry lots of film and processing equipment. But this did not stop the photographers, especially in the United States, where from the 1840s daguerreotype artists were popular in most cities.
Mathew Brady was a well-known American photographer. He took many pictures of famous people. The pictures were unusual because they were very life-like and full of personality.
Brady was also the first person to take pictures of war. His 1862 Civil War pictures showed dead soldiers and ruined cities. They made the war seem more real and more terrible
In the 1880s, new inventions began to change photography. Photographers could buy film readymade in rolls. So they did not have to make the film immediately. They could bring it back to their studios and develop it later, meaning that they did not have to carry lots of equipment. And finally, the invention of the small handheld camera made photography less expensive.
With the small camera, anyone could be a photographer. People began to use cameras just for fun. They took pictures of their families, friends and favourite places. They called these pictures "snapshots".
Photographs became very popular in newspapers in the 1890s. Soon magazines and books also used documentary photographs. These pictures showed true events and people. They were much more real than drawings.
Photography had turned into a form of art by the beginning of the 20th century. Some photographs were not just copies of the real world. They showed ideas and feelings, like other art forms.
【小题1】The passage is mainly about______________.

A．the invention of cameras

B．a kind of new art -- photography

C．the development of photography

D．the different uses of cameras in history

【小题2】 The first pictures of a war were taken by ____________.

A．a French photographer in the 1840s

B．an American photographer in the 1860s

C．a German reporter in the 1880s

D．a French artist in the 1890s

【小题3】 Which of the following statements is TRUE about the photography in the 19th century?

A．It was mainly based on the invention of the first photograph.

B．Photographers were popular in the United States because they carried lots of equipment.

C．Photographers used to make film themselves and developed it immediately after taking a photo.

D．Small handheld cameras made it possible for anyone to become a gifted photographer.

【小题4】In which order are the following statements mentioned in the passage?
a. Photographs became popular in newspapers.
b. Photographers carried processing equipment when taking pictures.
c. The invention of small handheld cameras made photography easier.
d. Daguerre invented a kind of photograph called daguerreotype.
e. Brady took pictures of famous people.

A．e,a, d, b, c	B．d, b, e, c, a
C．b, e, c, a, d	D．d, c, e, a , b

【小题5】 Photography can also be an art form because artists can ____________.

A．take anything they like

B．keep a record of real life

C．take photos of the famous

D．show ideas and feelings in pictures