题目内容

Dr. Farid employed a technique called wavelet analysis to examine 13 drawings that had at one time or another been attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a 16th-century Flemish painter. He also looked at Perugino's "Madonna with Child", a 15th-century Italian -masterpiece lodged in the college's Hood Museum of Art. He concluded, in agreement with art historians, that eight of the putative Bruegels are authentic, while the other five are imitations. In the case of "Madonna with Child", he analysed the six faces in the painting (Mary, the infant Jesus and several saints) and found that three of them were probably done by the same painter, while the other three were each done by a different hand. The view that four different painters worked on the canvas is, he says, consistent with the view of some art historians that Perugino's apprentices did much of the work, although there is no clear consensus among art historians.
As sceptics will doubtless point out, this is a small number of images. Furthermore, Dr. Farid knew before performing the analysis what results he expected. But he is the first to acknowledge that it is early days for his methodology. He hopes to study many more paintings. By looking at large numbers of paintings that are universally believed to be authentic, Dr. Farid hopes to be able to examine doubtful cases with confidence in the future.
Even with the Bruegels—real and imitation—though, Dr. Farid's results are persuasive. It is tricky to describe exactly what it is that distinguishes the real ones from the imitations, but Dr. Farid says that it can be thought of as the nature of the artist's brushstroke. Unlike some analyses of Jackson Pollock's work that have been done over the past few years by Richard Taylor of the University of Oregon, Dr. Farid says his technique could, in principle, be used for any artist.
What Dr. Farid did was to convert each work of art into a set of mathematical functions. These so-called wavelets describe particular parts of the image as a series of peaks and troughs of variable height and wavelength. By expressing an image this way, it is possible to compress that image while losing very little information. The sums of the wavelets from different images can then be compared. Once he did this, Dr. Farid found that the types of wavelets used to express authentic Bruegels were noticeably different from those used to express the imitations. (The Perugino was analysed by treating the six faces as distinct paintings.) It seems that curators may s6on be able to add another weapon to their anti-forgery arsenal.
The message Dr. Farid's work focuses on is close to ______.

A. what the artwork intends to tell
B. the style. and form. of the work
C. the common factor of science
D. the quality of the artwork

查看答案
更多问题

It is implied in the third paragraph that ______.

A. computer users care a lot about the security of the operating system
B. programmers are disappointed about the shift of the firm's focus
C. more resources are being engaged in the development of Longhorn
D. patches and enhancements are perfect and popular with the users

Which of the following does not belong to the "regulators"(Para. 4)?

A. European Commission.
B. EU's competition directorate.
ContentGuard.
D. America's trusthusters.

Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
Until recently, the main villains of the piece had seemed to be the teachers' unions, who have opposed any sort of reform. or accountability. Now they face competition from an unexpectedly destructive force: the court. Fifty years ago, it was the judges who forced the schools to desegregate through Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Now the courts have moved from broad principles to micromanagement, telling schools how much money to spend and where -right down to the correct computer or textbook.
Twenty four states are currently stuck in various court cases to do with financing school systems, and another 21 have only recently settled various suits. Most will start again soon. Only five states have avoided litigation entirely.
Nothing exemplifies the power of the courts better than an 11-year-old case that is due to be settled (sort of) in New York City, the home of America's biggest school system with 1.lm students and a budget nearing $13 billion. At the end of this month, three elderly members of the New York bar serving as judicial referees are due to rule in a case brought By the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, a leftish advocacy group, against the state of New York: they will decide how much more must Be spent to provide every New York City pupil with a "sound basic" education.
Rare is the politician willing to argue that more money for schools is a bad thing. But are the courts doing any good? Two suspicions arise. First, judges are making a lazy assumption that more money means better schools. As the international results show, the link between "inputs" and "outputs" is vague—something well documented by, among others, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York. Second, the courts are muddling an already muddled system. Over time, they have generally made it harder to get rid of disruptive pupils and bad teachers.
The current case could be even worse. The courts have already said that, in order to determine the necessary spending, they may consider everything from class size to the availability of computers, textbooks and even pencils. This degree of intervention is all the more scandalous because the courts have weirdly decided to ignore another set of "inputs"—the archaic work practices of school teachers and janitors. David Schoenbrod and Ross Sandier of New York Law School reckon the demands of the court will simply undermine reform. and transform. an expensive failure into a more expensive one.
And of course, the litigation never ends. Kentucky, for example, is still in court 16 years after the first decision. A lawsuit first filed against New Jersey for its funding of schools in 1981 was "decided" four years later—but it has returned to the court nine times since, including early this year, with each decision pushing the court deeper into the management of the state's schools. Bad judges are even harder to boot out of school than bad pupils.
The author seems to believe that ______.

A. the courts' intervention of the school micromanagement is undesirable
B. it is inappropriate for the courts to shift from principles to daily management
C. teachers used to support the school reform. and assume the responsibility
D. schools were usually at a loss how and where to spend their money

Why did Dr. Farid examine Perugino's "Madonna with Child"?

A. To indicate it was a creation of cooperative work.
B. To illustrate the consistency of historian's judgments.
C. To demonstrate the validity of wavelet analysis.
D. To prove the authenticity of this painting.

答案查题题库