镇江崇实女中高二英语学案
Module8 作家、名著阅读
A
Pride and Prejudice for the Modern Woman
Let us imagine how Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's most famous work, might be updated, 200 years on. Austen's popularity is rooted in her intelligence. But today she would certainly have had a very different life, as would her characters. Here's my own suggestion. . .
It is a truth finally and universally acknowledged that a single woman with brains deserves to have equal opportunities to men, however disadvantaged she may feel by sexism.
" My dear husband," said his hopeful wife one day, " have you heard that the local store, standing empty for so long, is taken over by a bright young businesswoman?"
Her dull and indifferent (漠不关心的) husband replied that he had not. "But it is, it is," she replied excitedly. Mr Dull-Husband made no reply.
"Don't you want to know her plans?" she cried with some impatience.
"Well, clearly you think it matters to your silly little head. .. so I'd better listen. "
"Well, my dear, the rumour (传言) is that she has already set up a string of successful businesses in northern England, though how a woman can know anything about that is beyond me”. She will move in herself next month. " "What is her name?" "Bingley. "
"Is she married or single?"
"What a question! And none of your business. But her coming will be a fine thing for our five boys. " "How so? How can it possibly affect them? "
"My dear love; those lazy boys need something to wake them up. There are bound to be jobs going. "
" Is that her point in settling here? Surely as a woman she has simply taken a fancy to the place. "
" Nonsense, my love, how little you've noticed the world has changed. She's got a first-rate degree and some sort of business qualification, I'm told. She surely needs one of our boys! Perhaps you might give her a call. "
"Me? No. Perhaps you can take an interest. You still have your looks, after all. She may even offer you a job. " "Oh, that's not likely. These new chances belong to the younger generation. But now you mention it, I think I'll go along all the same. "
And Mrs Bennet went along. That was 10 years ago. She is now managing director of a FTSE-listed company.
... It would remain the case, of course, that Mrs Bennet would be one of very few women on the company board, that her salary would be lower than her male colleagues, her bonus of a more "female" dimension and her lifespan (年限) among the city's business leaders shorter than theirs. Still, she'd no doubt have enjoyed Davos(达沃斯经济论坛)—and might even have hobnobbed (攀谈) with influential figures.
1.Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
A.Austen was born 200 years ago.
B. Austen rewrote Pride and Prejudice.
C.Austen's success lies in her wisdom.
D. Austen's updated work gains popularity.
- The underlined part in the passage suggests that Mrs Bennet ____.
A. had mixed feelings of admiration and surprise about Bingley
B. felt kind of worried and doubtful about Bingley
C. was extremely anxious to meet Bingley
D. had a great curiosity about Bingley
- In the eyes of Mrs Bennet, Bingley surely needed one of their boys to ____.
A. get married to B. work for her
C. help her move inD. take over her store
- What does the writer intend to tell us?
A. Women with brains can also be as successful as men.
B. Women have to pay a high price for success.
C. A judgment must be made free from prejudice.
D. Sex discrimination still exists nowadays.
B
(From 21st century)
SOMETIMES saying goodbye to a friend is as simple as reaching a fork in the road.
When the lives of the two leading characters of Fast & Furious, Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner, go in different directions during their final ride, with the latter’s car disappearing within a canyon, Toretto knows it is farewell to his best friend. And fans of the movie franchise (系列作品) know it is farewell (告别) to both O’Conner and beloved actor Paul Walker.
However, like its seemingly-indestructible (看似坚不可摧的) muscle cars, Furious 7 has been surprisingly unaffected, thanks to the dramatic use of CGI (电脑特效) and the late actor’s brother, Cody Walker, who stood in as a body double during filming. When Walker died in a high-speed road accident two years ago, the widespread shock at the news of his death was followed by speculation(推断)that the upcoming film may be doomed.
After 15 days in the Chinese mainland’s theaters, the sequel（结局）has made more than 2 billion yuan, surpassing the record set by fellow US blockbuster Transformers: Age of Extinction last summer, Xinhua News Agency reported.
Furious 7 begins with a violent mercenary (雇佣兵) called Deckard Shaw visiting his brother Owen Shaw – the defeated villain (大反派) from Furious 6 – in the hospital, promising revenge (复仇) against the brave team of main characters. Deckard Shaw attacks, succeeding in killing one team member, Han Lue. The rest – Toretto, O’Conner, Letty Ortiz, Roman Pearce, and Tej Parker – work together. Meanwhile, a secret government agent played by Kurt Russell offers the team help in getting Shaw, but only if they agree to rescue the important kidnapped hacker (被绑架的黑客), Kate Ramsey, who programmed the “God’s Eye”. It is the most powerful spying (监视) system in the world, using surveillance (监控) cameras, cell phones and other eyes in the sky to track people.
After six sequels in the last 14 years, the franchise is still enjoying massive success because of the popularity of the street-racing genre – as The New York Times put it: “Gasoline (汽油) is thicker than blood.”
Meanwhile, the theme of brotherhood has been another key factor in its success. “Toretto is the boss, but everyone in the team is organized in a mutually-supportive division of labor,” explained the newspaper.
Fans’ strong feelings about the passing of Walker have also contributed to Furious 7’s impressive achievements.
In fact, the actor was a fan of cars in real life. As O’Conner in the franchise, which Walker called a “dream job”, he performed many of his own stunts (特技). O’Conner lost car races several times to Toretto in the movies, but Walker was, no doubt, the most skilled driver among the cast.
As Walker told Entertainment Tonight: “You only live one time – I want to get it all in.” And he certainly lived up to that.
5.What does the ending scene of the latter’s car disappearing within a canyon imply?
- it is the end of the furious ride.
- The two friends have broken up and will never meet again.
- it is farewell to both O’Conner and beloved actor Paul Walker.
- They have different tasks to complete in the future.
6.“the upcoming film may be doomed.” in the 3rd paragraph probably means_____.
A. a success B. a failure C. a surprise D. a decline
7. Which is not the key factor to the success of Furious 7?
A. the popularity of the street-racing genre
B. the theme of brotherhood
C. the dramatic use of CGI
D.Fans’ strong feelings about the passing of Walker
8. What does The New York Times’ comment ‘Gasoline (汽油) is thicker than blood.’ really mean?
A. American people like the adventurous street-racing genre.
B. American people care less about brotherhood.
C. American people like driving at the risk of their lives.
D. To American people , gasoline is more expensive than life
C
Mark Twain has been called the inventor of the American novel. And he surely deserves additional praise: the man who popularized the clever literary attack on racism.
I say clever because anti-slavery fiction had been the important part of the literature in the years before the Civil War. H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is only the most famous example. These early stories dealt directly with slavery. With minor exceptions, Twain planted his attacks on slavery and prejudice into tales that were on the surface about something else entirely. He drew his readers into the argument by drawing them into the story.
Again and again, in the postwar years, Twain seemed forced to deal with the challenge of race. Consider the most controversial, at least today, of Twain’s novels, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Only a few books have been kicked off the shelves as often as Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s most widely read tale. Once upon a time, people hated the book because it struck them as rude. Twain himself wrote that those who banned the book considered the novel “trash and suitable only for the slums (贫民窟).” More recently the book has been attacked because of the character Jim, the escaped slave, and many occurrences of the word nigger. (The term Nigger Jim, for which the novel is often severely criticized, never appears in it.)
But the attacks were and are silly—and miss the point. The novel is strongly anti-slavery. Jim’s search through the slave states for the family from whom he has been forcibly parted is heroic. As J. Chadwick has pointed out, the character of Jim was a first in American fiction—a recognition that the slave had two personalities, “the voice of survival within a white slave culture and the voice of the individual: Jim, the father and the man.”
There is much more. Twain’s mystery novel Pudd’nhead Wilson stood as a challenge to the racial beliefs of even many of the liberals of his day. Written at a time when the accepted wisdom held Negroes to be inferior (低等的) to whites, especially in intelligence, Twain’s tale centered in part around two babies switched at birth. A slave gave birth to her master’s baby and, for fear that the child should be sold South, switched him for the master’s baby by his wife. The slave’s lightskinned child was taken to be white and grew up with both the attitudes and the education of the slave-holding class. The master’s wife’s baby was taken for black and grew up with the attitudes and intonations of the slave.
The point was difficult to miss: nurture (养育), not nature, was the key to social status. The features of the black man that provided the stuff of prejudice—manner of speech, for example— were, to Twain, indicative of nothing other than the conditioning that slavery forced on its victims.
Twain’s racial tone was not perfect. One is left uneasy, for example, by the lengthy passage in his autobiography (自传) about how much he loved what were called “nigger shows” in his youth—mostly with white men performing in black-face—and his delight in getting his mother to laugh at them. Yet there is no reason to think Twain saw the shows as representing reality. His frequent attacks on slavery and prejudice suggest his keen awareness that they did not.
Was Twain a racist? Asking the question in the 21st century is as wise as asking the same of Lincoln. If we read the words and attitudes of the past through the “wisdom” of the considered moral judgments of the present, we will find nothing but error. Lincoln, who believed the black man the inferior of the white, fought and won a war to free him.
Twain, raised in a slave state, briefly a soldier, and inventor of Jim, may have done more to anger the nation over racial injustice and awaken its collective conscience than any other novelist in the past century.
9.How do Twain’s novels on slavery differ from Stowe’s?
A. Twain was more willing to deal with racism.
B. Twain’s attack on racism was much less open.
C. Twain’s themes seemed to agree with plots.
D. Twain was openly concerned with racism.
10. Recent criticism of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn arose partly from its ______.
A. target readers at the bottom B. anti-slavery attitude
C. rather impolite language D. frequent use of “nigger”
11. What best proves Twain’s anti-slavery stand according to the author?
A. Jim’s search for his family was described in detail.
B. The slave’s voice was first heard in American novels.
C. Jim grew up into a man and a father in the white culture.
D. Twain suspected that the slaves were less intelligent.
11. The story of two babies switched mainly indicates that ______.
A. slaves were forced to give up their babies to their masters
B. slaves’ babies could pick up slave-holders’ way of speaking
C. blacks’ social position was shaped by how they were brought up
D. blacks were born with certain features of prejudice
12.What does the author mainly argue for?
A. Twain had done more than his contemporary writers to attack racism.
B. Twain was an admirable figure comparable to Abraham Lincoln.
C. Twain’s works had been banned on unreasonable grounds.
D. Twain’s works should be read from a historical point of view.
D
Ben walked quietly. He wanted to surprise the hunter. But then, what would he do?
Suddenly he heard a bird’s wings beating the dry grass. Ben moved quickly toward the sound. He saw a colored head ... the head of a beautiful bird. The bird did not move until Ben came close. Then it tried to fly away, but one wing was broken.
Ben lifted the bird and held it close against his body. The bird fought to escape, but soon lay quietly in Ben’s arms.
Ben decided to take the bird home and fix its broken wings so that it could fly again.
He was almost out of the woods when he heard the hunter behind him.
“You just found that bird?” the hunter asked.
“Yes,” Ben answered.
“It is mine!”
Ben was afraid and tried to answer, but his mouth was too dry to speak. Nevertheless, he wetted his lips and said, “No.”
“I shot him and I say he is mine!”
“But he is not dead yet,” Ben answered, “and besides, anything on my land belongs to me.”
The hunter looked down at the little man and smiled. “Say, who are you?”
Ben’s voice shook with both fear and anger. “I own this land. There are signs everywhere that say, ‘No hunting’.”
“No need to get angry, mister,” the hunter said. “Control yourself.”
There was something threatening in the man’s cool quiet voice. And he had a gun. His arms were free and Ben’s were not.
The hunter stepped closer and said, “Give me that bird!”
Ben was white with anger. “No!” he answered. His eye glasses became wet and he had to look over the top of them to see the other man.
“Give me the bird and I will go away,” the hunter said.
“You get off my land,” Ben told him. “Get off right now...you do not belong here!”
The man’s face got red. “Mister,” he said, “I have been hunting here all my life. I grew up here.”
“That is a thing of the past,” Ben said. “I do not know who you are and I do not care. I own this place now and I am telling you to leave. You go back through the woods and get off my land!”
“Now look, mister,” the hunter said, “be reasonable.”
The hunter raised his gun.
A cold wind blew across Ben’s face. He looked into the hunter’s gray eyes. Ben was frightened. It was not too late, he thought. He could still give the bird to the hunter and return safely home...that would end this whole ugly business.
The bird struggled weakly and made a wild, strange noise.
Then Ben knew he could never give this bird to the hunter. This feeling gave Ben great strength, and he was no longer afraid.
“I will never let you kill this bird,” he said. “Get away from here. If you try to take this bird, I will fight...you have a gun and you are bigger, but that does not worry me. You will never get this bird...you will have to kill me first.”
The two men looked at each other. Ben’s fear returned. His knees began to shake and he felt sick. Yet he stood straight, wondering what would happen next.
They stood close to each other for a long time. The woods were strangely quiet. Then the hunter’s rough voice broke the silence.
“You are a fool.” And then to Ben’s surprise, he slowly walked away.
Ben watched until he was gone. His arms hurt, his body felt wet and cold.
13. Why did the hunter smile when saying “Say, who are you”?
A. He wanted to confirm Ben’s identity in a friendly way.
B. He was amused at Ben’s reply and interested in him.
C. He looked down on Ben and thought his reply ridiculous.
D. He meant to be friendly enough to get the bird from Ben.
14. What strengthened Ben’s determination never to give the bird to the hunter?
A. His strong dislike of the hunter.
B. His firm confidence in himself.
C. His ownership of this piece of land.
D. His concern and sympathy for the bird.
15. Why did the hunter remark that Ben was a fool at the end of the story?
A. Ben tried to protect a bird at all costs.
B. Ben pretended to be fearless although scared.
C. Ben stood close to him saying nothing for long.