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| 文章出处：学生大考试站 发布时间：2005-10-22 |
READING COMPREHENSION
As many as one thousand years ago in the Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni Indians of North America were building with adobe -- sun-baked brick plastered with mud. Their homes looked
remarkably like modem apartment houses. Some were four stories high and contained quarters
for perhaps thousand people, along with storerooms for grain and other goods. These
buildings were usually put up against cliffs, both to make construction easier and for defense
against enemies. They were really villages in themselves, as later Spanish explorers must have
realized since they called them "pueblos", which is Spanish for town.
The people or the pueblos raised what are called "the three sisters" -- corn, beans, and
squash. They made excellent pottery and wove marvelous baskets, some so fine that they could
hold water. The Southwest has always been a dry country, where water is scarce. The Hopi and
Zuni brought water from streams to their fields and gardens through irrigation ditches. Water
was so important that it played a major role in their religion. They developed elaborate
ceremonies and religious rituals to bring rain.
The way of life of less-settled groups was simpler and more strongly influenced by nature.
Small tribes such as the Shoshone and Ute wandered the dry and mountainous lands between
the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. They gathered seeds and hunted small animals
such as rabbits and snakes.In the Far North the ancestors of today s Inuit hunted seals, walruses,
and the great whales. They lived right on the frozen seas in shelters called igloos built of blocks
of packed snow. When summer came, they fished for salmon and hunted the lordly caribou.
The Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Sioux tribes, known as the Plains Indians, lived on the
grasslands between the rocky mountains and the Mississippi River. They hunted bison
commonly called the buffalo. Its meat was the chief food of these tribes, and its hide was used
to make their clothing and the covering of their tents and tipis .
1.What does the passage mainly discuss?
(A) The architecture of early American Indian buildings
(B) The movement of American Indians across North America
(C) Ceremonies and rituals of American Indians
(D) The way of life of American Indian tribes in early North America
2. According to the passage the Hopi and Zuni typically built their homes
(A) in valleys
(B) next to streams
(C) on open plains
(D) against cliffs
3. The word "They" in line 6 refers to
(A) goods
(B) buildings
(C) cliffs
(D) enemies
4.It can be inferred from the passage that the dwellings of the Hopi and Zuni were
(A) very small
(B) highly advanced
(C) difficult to defend
(D) quickly constructed
5.The author uses the phrase "the three sisters" in line8 refer to
(A) Hopi women
(B) family members
(C) important crops
(D) rain ceremonies
6. The word "scarce" in line10 is closest in meaning to
(A) limited
(B) hidden
(C) pure
(D) necessary
7.Which of the following is true of the Shoshone and Ute?
(A) They were not as settled as the Hopi and Zuni.
(B) They hunted caribou.
(C) They built their home with adobe.
(D) They did not have many religious .
8. According to the passage which of the following tribes lived in the grasslands?
(A) The Shoshone and Ute
(B) The Cheyenne and Sioux
(C) The Hopi and Zuni
(D) The Pawnee and Inuit
9. Which of the following animals was most important to the Plains Indians?
(A) The salmon
(B) The caribou
(C) The seal
(D) The buffalo
10. Which of the following is NOT mentioned by the author as a dwelling place of early
North Americans?
(A) Log cabins
(B) Adobe houses
(C) Tipis
(D) Igloos
11 . The author gives an explanation for all of the following words EXCEPT
(A) adobe
(B) pueblos
(C) caribou
(D) bison
12. The author groups North American Indians according to their
(A) tribes and geographical regions
(B) arts and crafts
(C) rituals and ceremonies
(D) date of appearance on the continent
Marianne Moore (1887-1972) once said that her writing could be called poetry only
because there was no other name for it. Indeed her poems appear to be extremely compressed
essays that happen to be printed in jagged lines on the page. Her subjects were varied: animals,
laborers, artists, and the craft of poetry. From her general reading came quotations that she
found striking or insightful. She included these in her poems, scrupulously enclosed in quotation
marks, and sometimes identified in footnotes. Of this practice, she wrote, " Why the many
quotation marks? I am asked......When a thing has been said so well that it could not be said
better, why paraphrase it? Hence my writing is, if not a cabinet of fossils, a kind of collection
of flies in amber." Close observation and concentration on detail are the methods of her poetry.
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