一、阅读理解
(A)
Are you interested in country music? I like it very much! It will take me away for a while after I am tired. The guitars and songs will take me to mountains and fields.
Country music usually talks of everyday life and feelings. It’s the spiri t of America, easy to understand, slow and simple.
Country music developed in the Southern United States. It was the folk music of American countryside. Most of the songs tell about the lives of farmers. They talk about love, crops or death.
The life of the countryside can be hard, so the words in the country music are often sad. At first, people played the music only at family parties. But it became more popular later. In the 1920s, people played country songs on the radio, and they made them into records.
When people in the countryside moved to towns and cities to look for work, they took their music with them. Country music continued to change and became popular across America.
初三英语John Denver was one of America’s most famous country singers in the 1970s. His song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” is well-known and people still like it today.
( ) 1. Country music is usually about .
A. everyday life and feelings
B. farmers’ feelings
C. the lives of workers
D. workers’ feelings
( ) 2. Country music developed .
A. in John Denver’s country
B. in the Southern United States
C. in the Northern United States
D. in Africa
( ) 3. People began to make country song records .
A. in the 1920s
B. in 1920
C. in the 1970s
D. in the 1980s
( ) 4. Why did country music become popular in America?
A. Because city people liked the music.
B.Because farmers moved to cities with their music and it continued to change.
C.Because country music talked about city people’s lives.
D.Because farmers kept it in the country.
(B)
Music is a necessity of life, especially in the life of a college student. In American universities and colleges, you see the majority of students walking around campus with earphones on and fingers searching through iPods and mp3s for songs. Music is incorporated into the lives of many young adults through simple gadgets（小器械）such as iPods, mp3 players and cellphones.
Every semester, USC tries its hardest to provide concerts of various genres for the students to enjoy. This ranges from classical music to jazz to hip-hop. The biggest event is Spring Fest. Students can enjoy famous bands and artists who perform consecutively, one after another, for over 12 hours during that day.
Many famous musicians enjoy performing for the students and the concert becomes a str
ess-free environment for everyone. However, not only do college students enjoy listening to music, they also enjoy being part of a music club as well. The USC Music School helps to provide a great musical environment for students to participate in.
( ) 1. How do the American students think of the music?
A. It is unimportant in the life.
B.They don’t care about the music gadgets.
C .Music is a necessity in the life of a college student.
D. All the students dislike music because of hard work.
( ) 2. What does USC hold every year?
A. A famous movie fest.
B. Concerts, the biggest event is Spring Fest.
C. An English speech contest.
D. Art Fest.
( ) 3. USC Music school provides ________.
A. anxious listening environment.
B. a stress-free environment for everyone to participate in.
C. some music lessons
D. high scholarship
(C)
When students and parents are asked to rate subjects according to their importance, the arts are unavoidably at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is viewed as mere entertainment, but certainly not an education pri
ority（优先）. This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is beneficial and important for all students.
Music tells us who we are. Because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it reflects their thinking and values, as well as the social environment it came from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity as a society.
Music provides a kind of perception（感知）that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts explore the emotive（情感的）meaning of the same phenomenon. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.
The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other. They are the lan
guage of civilization through which we express our fears, our curiosities, our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children access to an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.
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