托福阅读真题与答案：新艺术风格
托福阅读真题的训练，可以让考生掌握托福阅读的调查內容及其考题难度系数，进而更为有策略地整体规划备考。文中小编为诸位中国考生产生了托福阅读真题与回答：新艺术风格，期待对大伙儿的备考有一定的协助。
托福阅读真题与答案：新艺术风格
The end of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century were marked by the development of an international Art Nouveau style, characterized by sinuous lines, floral and vegetable motifs, and soft evanescent coloration. The Art Nouveau style was an eclectic one, bringing together elements of Japanese art, motifs of ancient cultures, and natural forms. The glass objects of this style were elegant in outline, although often deliberately distorted, with pale or iridescent surfaces. A favored device of the style was to imitate the iridescent surface seen on ancient glass that had been buried. Much of the Art Nouveau glass produced during the years of its greatest popularity had been generically termed "art glass." Art glass was intended for decorative purposes and relied for its effect upon carefully chosen color combinations and innovative techniques.
France produced a number of outstanding exponents of the Art Nouveau style; among the most celebrated was Emile Galle (1846-1904). In the United States, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1843-1933) was the most noted exponent of this style, producing a great variety of glass forms and surfaces, which were widely copied in their time and are highly prized today. Tiffany was a brilliant designer, successfully combining ancient Egyptian, Japanese, and Persian motifs.
The Art Nouveau style was a major force in the decorative arts from 1895 until 1915, although its influence continued throughout the mid-1920's. It was eventually to be overtaken by a new school of thought known as Functionalism that had been present since the turn of the century. At first restricted to a small avant-garde group of architects and designers, Functionalism emerged as the dominant influence upon designers after the First World War. The basic tenet of the movement — that function should determine form — was not a new concept. Soon a distinct aesthetic code evolved: form should be simple, surfaces plain, and any ornament should be based on geometric relationships. This new design concept, coupled with the sharp postwar reactions to the styles and conventions of the preceding decades, created an entirely new public taste which caused Art Nouveau types of glass to fall out of favor. The new taste demanded dramatic effects of contrast, stark outline and complex textural surfaces.
题型：
1. What does paragraph 1 mainly discuss?
(A) Design elements in the Art Nouveau style
(B) The popularity of theArt Nouveau style
(C) Production techniques for art glass
(D) Color combinations typical of the Art Nouveau style
2. The word "one" in line 4 refers to
(A) century
(B) development
(C) style
(D) coloration
3. Paragraph 1 mentions that Art Nouveau glass was sometimes similar to which aspect of ancient buried glass?
(A) The distortion of the glass
(B) The appearance of the glass surface
(C) The shapes of the glass objects
(D) The size of the glass objects
4. What is the main purpose of paragraph 2?
(A) to compare different Art Nouveau styles
(B) to give examples of famous Art Nouveau artists
(C) to explain why Art Nouveau glass was so popular in the United States
(D) to show the impact Art Nouveau had on other cultures around the world
5. The word "prized" in line 16 is closest in meaning to
(A) valued
(B) universal
(C) uncommon
(D) preserved
6. The word "overtaken" in line 20 is closest in meaning to
(A) surpassed
(B) inclined
(C) expressed
(D) applied
7. What does the author mean by stating that "function should determine form" (lines 23-24)?
(A)A useful object should not be attractive.
(B) The purpose of an object should influence its form.
(C) The design of an object is considered more significant than its function.
(D) The form of an object should not include decorative elements.
8. It can be inferred from the passage that one reason Functionalism became popular was that it
(A) clearly distinguished between art and design
(B) appealed to people who liked complex painted designs
(C) reflected a common desire to break from the past
(D) was easily interpreted by the general public
9. Paragraph 3 supports which of the following statements about Functionalism?
(A) Its design concept avoided geometric shapes.
(B) It started on a small scale and then spread gradually.
(C) It was a major force in the decorative arts before the First World War.
(D) It was not attractive to architects and designers.
10.According to the passage , an object made in the Art Nouveau style would most likely include
(A) a flowered design
(B) bright colors
(C) modern symbols
(D) a textured surface
回答：ACBBA ABCBA
新托福阅读背景知识：吉他简史(英文版)
A Brief History of the Guitar
There is evidence that a four string, guitar-like instrument was played by the Hittites (who occupied a region now known as Asia Minor and Syria) around 1400 BC. It had characteristically soft, curved sides--one of the primary features of anything identifiable as a guitar or predecessor. The Greeks also produced a similar instrument which was later modified by the Romans, though both versions appear to have lacked the curved sides. What is interesting here is that it seems this Roman cithara appeared in Hispania (now known as Spain) centuries before the Moorish invasion.
It had long been assumed that it was only after this invasion and the introduction of the Arabic due in the South that a guitar-like instrument first appeared in Spain. But with the Roman cithara arriving centuries prior, we might say that although the due influenced the development of the guitar it is not the true ancestor. According to this theory, the Spanish guitar derived from the tan bur of the Hittites, kithara with a "k" of the Greeks and then the cithara with a "c" of the Romans.
However, following the arrival of the Moors, the Roman cithara and the Arabic due must have mixed and exerted mutual influences on one another for many centuries. Although there is no specific documentation, it is likely that makers of us and cithara’s would have seen each other's work, if only through presentation by traveling troubadours. By 1200 AD, the four string guitar had evolved into two types: the guitars maraca (Moorish guitar) which had a rounded back, wide fingerboard and several sound holes, and the guitars Latina (Latin guitar) which resembled the modern guitar with one sound hole and a narrower neck.
In the late 1400's, the visual was born by adding doubled strings and increasing its size. It was a large plucked instrument with a long neck (vibrating string length: 72 to 79 cm) with ten or eleven frets and six courses. It was the visual which became the preferred instrument of the Spanish and Portuguese courts and remained so until the late 1600's when orchestral and keyboard instruments became more prominent.
Although the guitar existed concurrently during this period, the visual and lute had overshadowed it until the end of the 17th century when the lute had acquired too many strings, was too hard to play and tune, and the visual was slowly replaced by the four and five course guitars (which had seven and nine strings respectively: one single high string, and three or four remaining courses--or pairs--of strings). It was perhaps the addition of the fifth course in the late 16th century that gave the guitar more flexibility and range and thus improved the potential of the repertoire that led to its ascent.
By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, some guitars already used six single strings and employed fan struts under the soundboard. These struts were added for structural support to allow thinning of the top for greater resonance and for better distribution of sound across the board. Other contemporaneous developments included the use of a reinforced, raised neck using ebony or rosewood for the fingerboard, and the appearance of machine tuners in place of the wooden pegs. (It is noteworthy that the raised fingerboard had a great impact on the technique of the instrument since the strings were then too far from the soundboard to rest one's finger on the face for support.) These guitars would be unmistakably recognized by us as early classical guitars.
Beginning with the early 19th century, in the works of Agustin Caro, Manuel Gonzalez, Antonio de Lorca, Manuel Gutierrez from Spain and other European makers including Rene Lakota, and Johann Stauffer, we find the direct predecessors of the modern classical guitar. By 1850, the guitar was prepared for its most important breakthrough since its inception, the work of Antonio Torres Jordon. With the encouragement of Julian Arcos and his own brilliant intuitions, Torres refined the strutting of the guitar to include as many as seven struts spread out like a fan under the soundboard. He increased the body size and the width of the neck considerably. These improvements allowed for greater volume and bass response as well as the development of a left hand technique for richer repertoire. The guitar was now prepared for the demands of the solo performer and the concert stage.
Although there have been continued developments since the middle 1800's, our modern guitar retains most of what was developed nearly 150 years ago. No one can say if we have reached the end of the evolution of the guitar, but until now, many of the best guitars from the point of view of volume, projection and sheer beauty of tone were made by the great makers, Torres, Ramirez and Arias from the second half of the last century!
新托福阅读背景知识：吉他的历史
吉他的history
根据格罗夫(Grove)音乐辞典记载，古典吉他为鲁特琴族(Lute family)中具有琴格的拨弦乐器。关于吉他起源及其形成之研究，可说是众说纷纭﹔这些理论包括了：
1.从古希腊齐特琴(Kithara)及吉他之语源学说(Etymology)中研究得来。
2.部分学者推论认为吉他是从美索不达米亚(Mesopotamia)， 及安娜多利亚(Anatolia)发现的长颈鲁特琴(Lute)所演变而来。
3. 另一部分学者研究发现吉他是由阿拉伯传入欧洲，因为在埃及发现平扁琴背之哥普鲁特琴(Coptic Lute)，或可认为是吉他的前身。由于以上大部分均为推论，且早期音乐文献多半失散，以至于在缺乏直接证据的状况下，目前对于吉他真正的起源尚未形成定论，只能从非古典吉他及其他音乐历史文献中寻找可靠而相关的蛛丝马迹。
在中世纪文学中出现和吉他有关的乐器名称，法国称之为Interne，英国则是gesturer。法国诺曼底公爵(Duke of Normandy)所拥有乐师名单中，有赫特马(Jean Haut mar)弹奏Gutierrez Latina及拉贝(Richard Labe)弹奏Gutierrez Porsche等古吉他琴族乐器之记载。马肃(Guillaume de Mac haut)亦列出Moriches et Gutierrez为鲁特琴族之一。由于当时古吉他琴族中的拉丁吉他Guitars Latina，吉他Gutierrez及摩尔吉他uiterreMoresche等音量不能和鲁特琴相抗衡，因此在欧洲大陆吉他无法广为流传，直到文艺复兴时期西班牙出现了比维拉琴(Visual)及四弦吉他(Four-Course Guitar)之后，吉他的地位才开始奠定了雏形。
一般称古典吉他为西班牙吉他，因为从16世纪以后，比维拉琴及四弦吉他首先在伊比利半岛上萌芽发展，随后才发展成巴罗克时期五弦吉他，六弦吉他，最后六弦吉他亦在西班牙境内孕育出吉他第一黄金时期，到了现代古典吉他大师塞戈维亚(Andres Segovia)手中，更进一步将古典吉他艺朮推广到欧洲之外的亚洲及美洲，形成古典吉他史上的第二黄金期。在古典吉他的演变时期中，虽然也正是音乐史上巴罗克、古典、浪漫时期，器乐己成为主流﹔然而当时吉他却因为无法和交响乐团整体音量匹敌，加上其本身之特殊风格，与乐团乐器之配置有所隔阂，因此成为一独奏乐器。
至于六弦吉他的出现，虽然大部分学者均相信是在法国以及义大利所开始，但却没有任何当代文献证明是由谁最早开始制作。反而有一位德国的小提琴与吉他制琴家雅寇﹒奥古斯特。奥图(Jacob Augustus Otto)自称是他在接受了德勒司登的乐团指挥纽曼先生(Herr Neumann)的一张六弦吉他订单之后，特别为他所设计制造的。这似乎表示六弦吉他是在德国首先出现的，但是有件事绝对不能忽略，这位制琴师奥图早年均在义大利学习制琴，很有可能当时他就已经在学习过程中见过这种吉他的雏形了。至于西班牙采用六弦吉他的起源，虽然没有书面的记载，但一般相信大约在1820年左右，因为著名的西班牙吉他作曲家兼演奏家阿瓜多(Dionysius Agued)为六弦吉他所写的教本于1825年在马德里出版，足以证明在此之前，六弦吉他已经有部分人开始使用，所以才会需要这样的教本。 在18世纪末至19世纪初，六弦吉他的发展也逐渐产生一些较为常见的特征，例如由于琴身上下较宽部分又加宽了些，使得曲线更为明显﹔琴桥固定琴弦的方式是将弦缠在本制插梢上，再插入琴桥上预先挖好的六个小孔中加以固定，取代了这之前直接缠绕在琴桥上的设计﹔到了19世纪早期，在琴桥又加上了狭长的骨片或象牙片，作为下弦枕。此外，指板也继续延伸到音孔旁。虽然无法查证何时开始采用这种设计，但可以将其归功于一位德籍制琴家乔治﹒史道弗(George Stauffer)，值得注意的是，他也是后来移民至美国纽约，并成为美国制琴工业先驱的著名制琴师马汀(Christian Friedrich Martin)的老师。马汀后来在美国研究发展出本土的钢弦吉他，也就是现在流行音乐界所广为使用的民谣吉他鼻祖，有别于当时在欧洲仍采用的羊肠弦吉他。
19世纪早期，吉他形状渐渐改变发展成接近现代吉他的外观：金属弦纽取代木制纽头﹔挖空的音孔取代玫瑰纹饰的音孔﹔琴桥提高了﹔扁平的背板变成标准形式﹔第十二琴格对准琴颈和音箱联结处，此外，华丽的装饰也几乎完全消失了。在这名家辈出的时代，必须提到这位被称为近代吉他制作之父的著名人物，西班牙制琴师安东尼奥﹒托雷斯(Antonio de Torres Jordon, 1817～1892)。他所设计出的吉他新形式，可说是凌驾于在这之前所有形态的吉他。他将弦长定为65公分，琴身内部构造以响孔为起点，在音箱内部配置有七根扇形力木，并将原本较为窄小的琴身扩大，这种设计大大地提高吉他的音响效果，引起各著名制琴师的仿效，成为现代古典吉他的制作典范。
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