大学英语三级课程学习指导资料（二）

3. 阅读能力

Passage 1

1 On November 19,1863, Abraham Lincoln went to Gettysburg in Pennsylvania to speak at the National Soldiers Cemetery. The Civil War was still going on. There was much criticism of President Lincoln at the time. He was not at all popular. He had been invited to speak at Gettysburg only out of courtesy. The principal speaker was to be Edward Everett, a famous statesman and speaker of the day. Everett was a handsome man and very popular everywhere.
2 It is said that Lincoln prepared his speech on the train while going to Gettysburg. Late that night, alone in his hotel room and tired out, he again worked briefly on the speech. The next day Everett spoke first. He spoke for an hour and 57 minutes. His speech was a perfect example of the rich oratory of the day. Then Lincoln rose. The crowd of 15,000 people at first paid little attention to him. He spoke for only nine minutes. At the end there was little applause. Lincoln turned to a friend and remarked, “I have failed again.” On the train back to Washington he commented sadly, “That speech was a flat failure, and the people are disappointed.”
3 Some newspapers at first criticized the speech. But little by little, as people read the speech, they began to understand better. They began to appreciate its simplicity and its deep meaning. It was a speech which only Abraham Lincoln could have made.
4 Today, every American school child learns Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address by heart. Now everyone thinks of it as one of the greatest orations ever given in American history.
1. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln was _______.
A. unpopular B. very critical C. very popular D. very courteous
2. Lincoln was invited to speak at the National Soldiers Cemetery because he was ______.
A. a famous orator B. President of the United States at the time
C. very handsome D. A popular statesman
3. It can be inferred from the text that ______.
A. Lincoln prepared his speech very carefully before he went to Gettysburg
B. Lincoln’s speech was full of rich oratory
C. Lincoln was very busy at the time and didn’t have much time to prepare his speech
D. Lincoln’s speech was very long
4. Lincoln’s speech was ______.
A. an immediate success B. warmly applauded
C. a total failure D. not well-received at first
5. Which of the following statements is NOT true?
A. Lincoln’ Gettysburg Address is one of the greatest speech ever delivered in the United States.
B. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is simple in style.
C. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is memorized by every American school child.
D. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address has deep meaning.

Passage 2

1 When I was about six years old, my mother came home one day and found that I had collected half a dozen babies of the neighborhood—all of them too young to walk—and had them sitting before me on the floor while I was teaching them to wave their arms. When she asked the explanation of this, I informed her that it was my school of dance. She was amused, and placing herself at the piano, she began to play for me. This school continued and became very popular. Later on, little girls of the neighborhood came and their parents paid me a small sum to teach them. This was the beginning of what afterwards proved a very lucrative occupation.
2 My mother took me to a famous ballet teacher, but his lessons did not please me. When the teacher told me to stand on my toes I asked him why, and when he replied “Because it is beautiful,” I said that it was ugly and against nature and after the third lesson I left his class, never to return. This stiff and commonplace gymnastics which he called dancing only disturbed my dream. I dreamed of different dance. I did not know just what it would be, but I was feeling out towards an invisible world into which I guessed I might enter if I found the key.
2 My art was already in me when I was a little girl, and it was owing to the heroic and adventurous spirit of my mother that it was not stifled. I believe that whatever the child is going to do in life should be begun when it is very young. I wonder how many parents realize that by the so-called education they are giving their children, they are only driving them into the commonplace, and depriving them of any chance of doing anything beautiful or original.
6. When her mother came home one day, the narrator of the story _____
A. was teaching half a dozen babies to dance
B. was teaching half a dozen babies to walk
C. was collecting babies of the neighborhood
D. was making babies of the neighborhood sit before her on the floor
7. The attitude of the narrator’s mother toward her school of dance was one of ________
A. despise B. contempt C. indifference D. support
8. The narrator thought that ballet was ________
A. stiff, ugly and unnatural B. the most graceful dance
C. a dance that she had dreamed of