Hey, Mr.and Ms.Unluckiness and Unhappiness! Terrorism, the war, the economic crisis and unemployment are at your door.Are you afraid of them? Well, don’t be! America is a happy land.The Smiley Face icon proves this in towns all over the country.
The tallest structure—the steel water tower—is often painted bright yellow, in a circle containing a pair of black dots for eyes and an upturned(朝上的)line for a mouth: the unforgettable smile.Most towns decorated their spheroid (or cylindrical) water storage tanks in the 1970s, when Smiley was still conceptually fresh.As a "safe" counterculture symbol, with absolutely no bite, the Smile Face water tower was a low cost way to radiate sunny greetings to travelers and locals.Calumet City, Illinois claims to have been the first, when 8-year old resident Kim Fornero sent a letter to the city council in late 1972 suggesting a smile face would be more fun to look at than a plain old water tower.
In the 1980s, with the paint on the water tower fading, residents of Calumet City decided to make the face their own.They repainted the tower, and a Happy Cook Restaurant and Smiley Face Inn appeared on the highway outside the town, ready to make you smile! Local businessmen printed the Smiley icon on their business cards, and displayed Smiley Face souvenirs in shop windows.
By the late 1990s, the survival of the Smiley Face water tower was assured.It didn’t matter why the face had been painted there—it was now a part of history.In May 2009, the town again celebrated its Smiley Face water tower as a symbol of hope for a better tomorrow.
60.The author mainly wants to tell readers that the symbol asks them to_________
A.greet people politely B.deal with their problems
C.enjoy themselves D.forget the past
61.The underlined word “icon ” in the first paragraph probably means________.
A.beautiful picture B.building C.image D.valuable painting
62.Why did Calumet residents accept the tower happily?
A.It set a good example to them.
B.It made them work harder.
C.They wanted to think it for supplying water.
D.They wanted to make the Smiley Face their own.
63.From the text we learn that the Smiley Face water tower________
A.was based on a painter’s inspiration
B.is a symbol of the prosperity of the town
C.is meant to give people hope for a better future
D.was created in 1972 by the city council, just for fun
科目:高中英语 来源:选修导学英语译林8 译林版 题型:050
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科目:高中英语 来源:2013-2014学年四川省成都市毕业班第一次诊断性检测英语试卷(解析版) 题型:阅读理解
"Gangnam Style" by singer Psy from Korea, is a popular song, but its extraordinary global success is really the result of its music video, which is a great piece of genius. On September 22nd, Guinness World Records listed "Gangnam Style" as the most-liked video in the history of YouTube. It's been performed at West Point (West-Point Style), and Google's CEO, has done the "Gangnam Style" horse dance at the company's office in Seoul. Even Samsung is trying to make Psy the new model for the latest type of fridge.
The song's global popularity is such that the vast majority of people who enjoy it don't speak Korean, and have no idea what it is about. That's fine --- part of what makes "Gangnam Style" so fun is, like international pop music, the difficulty in understanding it. When we sing along, "Hey, sexy lady", we don't really know what we're singing about.
The joy of incomprehensibleness is familiar to anyone who loves pop music from elsewhere. Anthony Lane, in his 2010 review of the Eurovision Song Contest, Only Mr. God Knows Why, used "Eurovision English" as one of its chief pleasures. It's "a complex tongue, spoken nowhere else, which raises the heartfelt poetry (???) but absolute nonsense to a level of what sci-fi writers could only have dreamed. " In similar ways, "Gangnam Style" is just an over-the-top video where a fat man does a funny dance and sings repetitive words that don't make sense to most of us.
But on the other, the magic of the song also lies in its funny dance, which reflects not just cultural morals specific to Korea, but cultural values easily recognizable to western viewers. This song's words may be in Korean, but its scenes are in clear American. The dance moves are simple enough to copy.
Nonsense, in other words, forces us to let down our guards. It makes us relax, and asks us to let in all sorts of feelings from which, otherwise, we might distance ourselves. "Gangnam Style" happens to be so interesting because of its incomprehensibleness.
1.Some complex languages are used in pop music because _______.
A. singers regard it as one of the chief pleasures at the concert
B. they make the music hard to understand but poetic and attractive
C. the music can sound more pleasant and beautiful to the audience
D. people like listening to the music which makes special sense to them
2.What is true about the popularity of "Gangnam Style"?
A. It was considered as the most popular video on the Internet.
B. It makes people amused and removes their emotional guards.
C. Its dance only reflects cultural and morals specific to Korea.
D. Psy, its singer, has been the new model for Samsung .
3.What does the underlined word "incomprehensibleness" mean in Paragraph 3?
A. Being interesting to listen to. B. Being simple enough to copy.
C. Being complex and repetitive. D. Being difficult to understand.
4.The text is mainly about ________.
A. how "Gangnam Style" becomes popular among the youths
B. why "Gangnam Style" is popular even if few people understand it
C. how Psy gains worldwide success through his talent and hard work
D. what emotions and cultural morals Psy wants to convey with his song
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Hey, Mr.and Ms.Unluckiness and Unhappiness! Terrorism, the war, the economic crisis and unemployment are at your door.Are you afraid of them? Well, don’t be! America is a happy land.The Smiley Face icon proves this in towns all over the country.
The tallest structure—the steel water tower—is often painted bright yellow, in a circle containing a pair of black dots for eyes and an upturned(朝上的)line for a mouth: the unforgettable smile.Most towns decorated their spheroid (or cylindrical) water storage tanks in the 1970s, when Smiley was still conceptually fresh.As a "safe" counterculture symbol, with absolutely no bite, the Smile Face water tower was a low cost way to radiate sunny greetings to travelers and locals.Calumet City, Illinois claims to have been the first, when 8-year old resident Kim Fornero sent a letter to the city council in late 1972 suggesting a smile face would be more fun to look at than a plain old water tower.
In the 1980s, with the paint on the water tower fading, residents of Calumet City decided to make the face their own.They repainted the tower, and a Happy Cook Restaurant and Smiley Face Inn appeared on the highway outside the town, ready to make you smile! Local businessmen printed the Smiley icon on their business cards, and displayed Smiley Face souvenirs in shop windows.
By the late 1990s, the survival of the Smiley Face water tower was assured.It didn’t matter why the face had been painted there—it was now a part of history.In May 2009, the town again celebrated its Smiley Face water tower as a symbol of hope for a better tomorrow.
60.The author mainly wants to tell readers that the symbol asks them to_________
A.greet people politely B.deal with their problems
C.enjoy themselves D.forget the past
61.The underlined word “icon ” in the first paragraph probably means________.
A.beautiful picture B.building C.image D.valuable painting
62.Why did Calumet residents accept the tower happily?
A.It set a good example to them.
B.It made them work harder.
C.They wanted to think it for supplying water.
D.They wanted to make the Smiley Face their own.
63.From the text we learn that the Smiley Face water tower________
A.was based on a painter’s inspiration
B.is a symbol of the prosperity of the town
C.is meant to give people hope for a better future
D.was created in 1972 by the city council, just for fun
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科目:高中英语 来源: 题型:阅读理解
Hey, Mr. and Ms.Unluckiness and Unhappiness! Terrorism, the war, the economic crisis and unemployment are at your door.Are you afraid of them? Well, don’t be! America is a happy land.The Smiley Face icon proves this in towns all over the country.
The tallest structure—the steel water tower—is often painted bright yellow, in a circle containing a pair of black dots for eyes and an upturned(朝上的)line for a mouth: the unforgettable smile.Most towns decorated their spheroid (or cylindrical) water storage tanks in the 1970s, when Smiley was still conceptually fresh.As a "safe" counterculture symbol, with absolutely no bite, the Smile Face water tower was a low cost way to radiate sunny greetings to travelers and locals.Calumet City, Illinois claims to have been the first, when 8-year old resident Kim Fornero sent a letter to the city council in late 1972 suggesting a smile face would be more fun to look at than a plain old water tower.
In the 1980s, with the paint on the water tower fading, residents of Calumet City decided to make the face their own.They repainted the tower, and a Happy Cook Restaurant and Smiley Face Inn appeared on the highway outside the town, ready to make you smile! Local businessmen printed the Smiley icon on their business cards, and displayed Smiley Face souvenirs in shop windows.
By the late 1990s, the survival of the Smiley Face water tower was assured.It didn’t matter why the face had been painted there—it was now a part of history.In May 2009, the town again celebrated its Smiley Face water tower as a symbol of hope for a better tomorrow.
1.The author mainly wants to tell readers that the symbol asks them to .
A.greet people politely B.deal with their problems
C.enjoy themselves D.forget the past
2.The underlined word “icon ” in the first paragraph probably means .
A.beautiful picture B.building C.image D.valuable painting
3.Why did Calumet residents accept the tower happily?
A.It set a good example to them.
B.It made them work harder.
C.They wanted to think it for supplying water.
D.They wanted to make the Smiley Face their own.
4.From the text we learn that the Smiley Face water tower .
A.was based on a painter’s inspiration
B.is a symbol of the prosperity of the town
C.is meant to give people hope for a better future
D.was created in 1972 by the city council, just for fun
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