题目内容

Until 1965 Cantonese-speaking immigrants, mainly from the county of Toisan, dominated the industry and menus reflected a standard repertory of tasty but bland Americanizations of Cantonese dishes. But loosening immigration restrictions that year brought a flood of people from many different regions of China, starting "authenticity revolution," said Ed Schoenfeld, a restaurateur and Chinese food consultant.
Top chefs who were trained in spicy and more unusual regional specialties, like Hunan and Sichunan cooking, came to New York then, Mr. Schoenfeld said.
President Richard M. Nixon's trip to China in 1972 awakened interest in the country and accounts of his meals helped whet diners' appetites for new dishes. An illustration of a scowling Nixon with a pair of chopsticks glares down from the wall at the exhibition.
Hunan and Sichuan restaurants in New York influenced the taste of the whole country, Mr. Schoenfeld said. Dishes like General Tso's chicken and crispy orange beef caught on everywhere.
But as with the Cantonese food before it, Mr. Schoenfeld said, the cooking degraded over time, as it became mass produced. Today's batter-fried, syrup-laden version of Chinese food, he said, bears little resemblance to authentic cuisine.
The real explosion of Chinese restaurants that made them ubiquitous came in the 1980's, said Betty Xie, editor of Chinese Restaurant News. "Now you see there are almost one or two Chinese restaurants in every town in the United States," she said.
There are signs that some have tired of Chinese food. A 2004 Zagat survey showed that its popularity has ebbed somewhat in New York City.
But the journey of the Chinese restaurant remains the story of the American dream, as experienced by a constant but evolving stream of Chinese immigrants who realized the potential of 12-hour days, borrowed capital and a willingness to cook whatever Americans wanted. Sales margins are tight, and wages are low.
Restaurants are passed from one family member to the next, or sold by one Chinese family to another. Often a contingency written into Sales contracts is that the previous owners train the new owners.
"The competition in Chinese communities is cutthroat," Mr. Chen, the co-curator, said. "What people realize is you can make much, much better profit in places like Montana."
From the first paragraph we know that by the 1950's and 60's Chinese food was a favorite of______.

A. the suburban dwellers
B. New Yorkers
C. ethnic immigrants
D. Jewish immigrants

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When the author smelled cut grass again for the first time, she______.

A. cried out loudly
B. wept in silence
C. couldn't help bursting into tears
D. was in the American Museum of Natural History

Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
If you see a diamond ring on the fourth finger of a woman's left hand, you probably know what it means: in America, this has long been the digit of choice for betrothal jewelry, and the lore of the trade traces the symbolism back to ancient times. But if you see a diamond ring on the fourth finger of a woman's right hand, you may or may not know that it signifies an independent spirit, or even economic empowerment and changing gender mores. "A lot of women have disposable income," Katie Couric said recently on the "Today" show after showing viewers her Change right-hander. "Why wait for a man to give her a diamond ring?"
This notion may be traced back, approximately, to September. That's when the Diamond Information Center began a huge marketing campaign aimed at articulating the meaning of right-hand rings-and thus a rationale for buying them. "Your left hand says 'we'," the campaign declares. "Your right hand says 'me'." The positioning is brilliant: the wearer may be married or unmarried and may buy the ring herself or request it as a gift. And while it can take years for a new jewelry concept to work itself thoroughly into the mainstream, the tight-band ring already has momentum.
At the higher end of the scale, the jewelry maker Kwiat, which supplies stores like Saks, offers a line of Kwiat Spirit Rings that can retail for as much as $5,000, and "we're selling it faster than we're manufacturing it," says Bill Gould, the company's chief of marketing. At the other end of the stale, mass-oriented retailers that often take a wait-and-see attitude have already jumped on the bandwagon.
Firms like Kwiat were given what Gould calls "direction" from the Diamond information Center about the new ring's attributes-multiple diamonds in a north-south orientation that distinguishes it from the look of an engagement ring, and so on. But all this is secondary to the newly minted meaning. "The idea," Morrison says, "is that beyond a trend, this could become a sort of cultural imperative."
A tall order? Well, bear in mind that "a diamond is forever" is not a saying handed down from imperial Rome. It was handed down from an earlier generation of De Beers marketers. Joyce Jonas, a jewelry appraiser and historian, notes that De Beers, in the 40's and 50's, took advantage of a changing American class structure to turn diamond rings into an (attainable) symbol for the masses. By now, Jonans observes, the stone alone "is just a commodity". And this, of course, is what makes its invented significance more Crucial than ever.
A diamond ring on the fourth finger of a woman's left hand suggests that______.

A. she is married
B. she is engaged
C. she may choose her jewelry
D. she has independent spirit

We may infer from the context that the author was______.

A. very weak and delicate
B. a near-sighted person
C. a college student
D. a white-collar clerk

Judging from the context "savvying" in Line 1, Paragraph 3 probably means______.

A. seeing
B. learning
C. studying
D. knowing.

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