阅读试题

Franz Kafka wrote that "a book must be the ax (斧子) for the frozen sea inside us". I once shared this sentence with a class of seventh graders, and it didn't seem to require any explanation.

We'd just finished John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. "Are you crying?" one girl asked, as she got out of her chair to take a closer look. "I am," I told her, "and the funny thing is I've read it many times."

But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I've taught kids with imprisoned parents, abusive parents, irresponsible parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless; kids who grew up in violent neighborhoods. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel's terrible logic—the giving way of dreams to fate (命运).

For the last seven years, I have worked as a reading enrichment teacher, reading classic works of literature with small groups of students from grades six to eight. I originally proposed this idea to my headmaster after learning that a former excellent student of mine had transferred out of a selective high school—one that often attracts the literary-minded children of Manhattan's upper classes—into a less competitive setting. The daughter of immigrants, with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates. I thought additional "cultural capital" could help students like her develop better in high school, where they would unavoidably meet, perhaps for the first time, students who came from homes lined with bookshelves, whose parents had earned Ph. D.'s.

Along with Of Mice and Men, my groups read: Sounder, The Red Pony, Lord of the Flies, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. The students didn't always read from the expected point of view. About The Red Pony, one student said, "it's about being a man, it's about manliness." I had never before seen the parallels between Scarface and Macbeth, nor had I heard Lady Macbeth's soliloquies (独白) read as raps (说唱), but both made sense; the interpretations were playful, but serious. Once introduced to Steinbeck's writing, one boy went on to read The Grapes of Wrath and told me repeatedly how amazing it was that "all these people hate each other, and they're all white." His historical view was broadening, his sense of his own country deepening. Year after year, former students visited and told me how prepared they had felt in their first year in college as a result of the classes.

Year after year, however, we are increasing the number of practice tests. We are trying to teach students to read increasingly complex texts, not for emotional punch (碰撞) but for text complexity. Yet, we cannot enrich (充实) the minds of our students by testing them on texts that ignore their hearts. We are teaching them that words do not amaze but confuse. We may succeed in raising test scores, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them.

阅读试题

66. The underlined words in Paragraph 1 probably mean that a book helps to __________.

A. realize our dreams 　

B. give support to our life

C. smooth away difficulties

D. awake our emotions

67. Why were the students able to understand the novel Of Mice and Men?

A. Because they spent much time reading it.

B. Because they had read the novel before.

C. Because they came from a public school.

D. Because they had similar life experiences.

68. The girl left the selective high school possibly because__________.

A. she was a literary-minded girl

B. her parents were immigrants

C. she couldn't fit in with her class

D. her father was then in prison

69. To the author's surprise, the students read the novels__________.

A. creatively

B. passively

C. repeatedly

D. carelessly

70. The author writes the passage mainly to__________.

A. introduce classic works of literature

B. advocate teaching literature to touch the heart

C. argue for equality among high school students

D. defend the current testing system

参考译文

弗兰兹·卡夫卡写道:“书必须是用来凿破人们心中冰封海洋的一把斧子。”我曾经与七年级的学生分享了这句话，而且似乎不需要任何解释。

我们刚刚完成约翰·斯坦贝克的小说《人鼠之间》。当我们在课堂上一起大声地朗读小说的结尾时，我最坚强的男生，一个篮球明星，哭了，而我也哭了。女孩问“你在哭吗？”，说着她就从她的椅子上下来，近距离看看。我告诉她“是的。有趣的是我已经读过很多次了。”

但是他们是理解的。当乔治射击伦尼时，悲剧的是我们都能够意识到它总是会发生的。我在纽约市公立中学教学的14年中，我教的孩子们，有父母被监禁的，有拥有虐待型父母的，有拥有不负责任的父母的，有本身就是父母的，有无家可归的，有在暴力的社区长大的。他们比曾经的我更加明白，小说可怕的逻辑，那就是梦想给命运让路。

过去7年，我一直是一个阅读广泛的老师，与一群来自六到八年级的学生一起阅读经典的文学作品。我最初向校长提出这个想法时，借鉴了我以前的一个优秀学生的意见，他曾经从一所常常吸引曼哈顿上层阶级爱好文学的孩子的名校转入了一所较为一般的学校。，她是一位外来移民者的女儿，父亲又在监狱里，那么她与新同学在一起就可能觉得不舒服。我想额外的“文化资本”就是帮助像她一样的学生在高中阶段发展得更好，他们将不可避免地相遇，也许第一次，那些靠在书架上的来自不同家庭的孩子们，他们的父母已经获得了博士学位。

除了《人鼠之间》外，我们小组还阅读了《测深仪》、《红色的小马》、《蝇王》、《罗密欧与朱丽叶》和《麦克白》。学生们并不总以预期的观点来读。比如《红色的小马》，一个学生说:“这与成为一个男人有关，这是男子汉气概。”我从未听说过疤面人和麦克白之间的相似之处，也没有听说过说唱版的麦克白夫人的独白，但都是有意义的，解释是随意的，但确是严肃的。曾经一个男孩引用斯坦贝克的作品，他一边阅读《愤怒的葡萄》，一边反反复复地告诉我那是多么地不可思议，“这些人彼此讨厌，而且他们都是白人。”他的历史观点是广泛的，他对自己国家的感情在加深。年复一年，以前的学生来拜访我并告诉我正是由于这个课程，他们在大学第一年里感觉如此的游刃有余。

然而，年复一年，我们不断增加练习测试的数量。我们正努力教学生阅读日益复杂的文本，不是情感的碰撞而是阅读文本的复杂性。并且，我们不能通过文本测试来充实学生的大脑，而忽略他们的心。我们教他们的单词不奇怪但易混淆。我们可能成功地提高了考试分数，但是我们却无法教他们阅读是变化无穷的，这确实的靠他们自己。

答案解析

66. D 考查句意推测。这句话的字面意思是”一本书一定是破开我们内心冰封海面的一把斧子”，再结合文中的实例我们不难推出，一本书能够唤醒读者内心深处的情感，故D项正确。

67. D 考查细节理解。根据第三段的内容可知，他们能理解是因为他们有相似的经历。

68. C 考查细节理解。根据第四段中的”The daughter of immigrants, with a father in prison, she perhaps felt uncomfortable with her new classmates."可知，C项正确。

69. A 考查推理判断。根据第五段中的”The students didn't always read from the expected point of view. "和”I had never before seen...nor had I heard Lady Macbeth's soliloquies（独白）read as raps（说唱）”可推知，学生在阅读过程中表现出了非凡的创造力。

70. B 考查写作意图。通读全文内容，尤其是最后一段，可知，作者旨在提倡教学生阅读文学作品以触动其心灵。故B项正确。