题目内容
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
The title of the biography The American Civil War Fighting for the Lady could hardly be more provocative. Thomas Keneally, an Australian writer, is unapologetic. In labeling a hero of the American civil war a notorious scoundrel be switches the spotlight from the brave actions of Dan Sickles at the battle of Gettysburg to his earlier premeditated murder, of the lover of his young and pretty Italian-American wife, Teresa. It is not the murder itself that disgusts Mr. Keneally but Sickles's treatment of his wife afterwards, and how his behavior. mirrored the hypocritical misogyny of 19th-century America.
The murder victim, Philip Barton Key, Teresa Sickles's lover, came from a famous old southern family. He was the nephew of the then chief justice of the American Supreme Court and the son of the writer of the country's national anthem. Sickles, a Tammany Hall politician in New York turned Democratic congressman in Washington, shot Key dead in 1859 at a corner of Lafayette Square, within shouting distance of the White House. But the murder trial was melodramatic, even by the standards of the day. With the help of eight lawyers, Sickles was found not guilty after using the novel plea of "temporary insanity". The country at large was just as forgiving, viewing Key's murder as a gallant crime of passion. Within three years, Sickles was a general on the Unionist side in the American civil War and, as a new friend of Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a frequent sleepover guest at the White House.
Mrs Sickles was less fortunate. She was shunned by friends she had made as the wife of a rising politician. Her husband, a serial adulterer whose many mistresses included Queen Isabella Ⅱ of Spain and the madam of an industrialized New York whorehouse, refused to be seen in her company. Laura, the Sickles's daughter, was an innocent victim of her father's vindictiveness and eventually died of drink in the Bowery district of New York.
Sickles's bold actions at Gettysburg are, in their own way, just as controversial. Argument continues to rage among scholars, as to whether he helped the Union to victory or nearly caused its defeat when he moved his forces out of line to occupy what he thought was better ground. James Longstreet, the Confederate general who led the attack against the new position, was in no doubt about the brilliance of the move.
Mr. Keneally is better known as a novelist. Here he shows himself just as adept at biography, and achieves both his main aims. He restores the reputation of Teresa Sickles, "this beautiful, pleasant and intelligent girl", and breathes full and controversial life into a famous military engagement.
Keneally's biography is intended mainly to
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A．separatelyB．simplyC．generallyD．broadly
A．dilutedB．dissolvedC．diffusedD．dispersed
A．offersB．marksC．showsD．reports
The valley's business ecology depends on failure the same way the tree-covered hills around us depend on fire—it wipes out the old growth and creates space for new life. The valley has always been in danger of drowning in the unwelcome waste products of success—too many people, too expensive houses, too much traffic, too little office space and too much money chasing too few startups. Failure is the safety valve, the destructive renewing force that frees up people, ideas and capital and recombines them, creating new revolutions.
Consider how the Internet revolution came to be. After half a decade of start-up struggles, for example, hundreds of millions of Hollywood dollars were going up in smoke. It all seemed like a terrible waste, but no one noticed that the collapse left one very important byproduct, a community of laid-off C++ programmers who were now expert in multimedia design, and out on the street looking for the next big thing.
These media geeks were the pioneer of the dot-com revolution. They were the Web's business pioneers, applying their newfound media sensibilities to create one little company after another. Most of these start-ups failed, but even in failure they advanced the new medium of cyberspace. A few geeks, like Silicon Graphics founder Jim Clark, succeeded and utterly changed our lives. In 1994 Clark was unemployed after leaving the company be founded, doggedly trying to develop a new interactive-TV concept. He approached Marc Andreessen, the co-developer of Mosaic, the first widely used Internet browser, in hope of persuading Andreessen to help him de-sign his new system. Instead, Andreessen opened Clark's eyes to the Web's potential. Clark promptly tossed his TV plans in the trash, and the two co-founded Netscape, the cornerstone of the consumer-Web revolution.
Like the interactive-TV refugees and generations of innovators before them, the dot-comers are already hatching new companies. Many are revisiting good ideas executed badly in the '90s, while others are striking out into entirely new spaces. This happy chaos is certain to mature into a new order likely to upset an establishment, as it delivers life changing wonders to the rest of us. But this is just the start, for revolutions give birth to revolutions. So let's hope for more of Silicon Valley's successful failures.
What is suggested in the first sentence？
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