Over the centuries Shakespeare’s plays have gained a reputation for being difficult to understand. But if his work is experienced on stage as Shakespeare intended, then it can become much clearer. In fact 95% of the words used in Shakespeare’s plays are the same words we use today.
The meanings of some words have altered significantly, _________, because Shakespeare was writing at a time of great linguistic change. This gave him a certain amount of _________ license in his language.
So what can Shakespeare’s plays tell us about how people really spoke at this time? And did anyone really speak like his characters? The lines spoken by Corin to Rosalind and Celia in As You Like It probably weren’t _________ of an Elizabethan shepherd.
The first thing to remember about Shakespeare’s work is that he wrote plays to entertain. They are _________ works, and the dialogue was exploited to suit the stage. Therefore his characters’ language did not always _________ how real people would have spoken.
For instance, in As You Like It when Corin, the shepherd, talks of love, his lines are beautiful and poetic – but _________ unrealistic. The lines Shakespeare gave Corin probably wouldn’t have been used by an Elizabethan shepherd – instead they _________ to highlight the drama.
Another example of how the theatrical style enriched Shakespeare’s text can be seen in the structure of his lines. According to the practice of the time, Shakespeare wrote his poems in iambic pentameter(抑扬格五音步) so it was _________ for his actors to learn. When Shakespeare was writing, new plays were performed every day so this 10-beat structure was a great help for anyone having to learn a lot of lines for the next day’s play.
_________ this structure meant that, on occasion, Shakespeare made up or adapted words to fit. __________, on several occasions Shakespeare changed the word “vast” to “vasty” when “vast” did not fit the __________ of the line. But if we look beyond the dialogue to the words themselves we can find out a little of how people really spoke.
We can come close to this thanks to “original pronunciation” which is a system of __________ that reproduce how the Elizabethans are believed to have spoken. Today it sounds like a West Country accent, with echoes of other parts of the country. When we __________ this to Shakespeare’s dialogue, rhymes and puns(押韵与双关) that are not heard in modern English are suddenly revealed.
So through Shakespeare’s plays we can __________ a great deal about how people really spoke. His dialogue was on the whole representative of the language of the time and area and now provides us with invaluable insight into a(n) __________ language.
1.A.otherwise B.furthermore C.however D.hence
2.A.creative B.significant C.limited D.practical
3.A.critical B.typical C.proud D.afraid
4.A.valuable B.outstanding C.efficient D.dramatic
5.A.reflect B.mean C.sign D.signal
6.A.luckily B.essentially C.generally D.naturally
7.A.construct B.produce C.function D.illustrate
8.A.easier B.worse C.wiser D.slower
9.A.Falling into B.Varying from C.Agreeing to D.Sticking to
10.A.By contrast B.For example C.What’s more D.In consequence
11.A.structure B.style C.rhythm D.form
12.A.speech B.writing C.communication D.symbol
13.A.fit B.devote C.apply D.input
14.A.keep up B.find out C.take on D.bring about
15.A.lost B.difficult C.ongoing D.global
Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word. For the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.
“Melting pot” means a place where people from many different ethnic groups or cultures form a united society. The idea comes from 1. (heat) metals in a container. When they melt, the metals unite and become 2. new and stronger. This term has been used to describe the United States as a nation created from people who came here from many different countries.
A Frenchman who was living in America expressed the idea more than 200 years ago. J. Hector de Crevecoeur 3. (publish) a book called Letters From an American Farmer in 1782. He wrote that America had people from many different countries. He said that they would become a new people 4. work would one day change the world.
For many years, Americans generally accept the idea 5. their country is a melting pot. They welcome immigrants from many nations. Yet some of those immigrants criticize the melting pot idea. They feel they are forced to lose their culture and language 6. (accept) in America. Other people also criticize the idea. They say the aim of the melting pot is to make different cultures disappear into the one 7. (represent) the largest group.
New groups of immigrants from Asia and Latin America are changing the United States today. Some are resisting learning American culture and language. Reports say some Americans fear that the nation is separating into many groups that have no 8. (share) purpose. Others say the melting pot is no longer changing the nation’s immigrants, but the immigrants are changing America.
Some experts who study immigration say they now compare American society 9. a salad bowl. A salad is made of many different foods. They each keep their own taste 10.being part of a successful product. In this way, cultural groups keep their customs and language and are still part of American society.
假定你是李华，曾交换去英国学习，现已回国三个月。你想念在英国的老师Mrs. Smith，请根据以下要点给她写一份封信：
1. 感谢他曾经对你的帮助；
2. 介绍自己现在的学习情况；
3. 邀请他端午节来中国感受中国文化。
注意：1. 词数100左右；
2. 可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。
Dear Mrs. Smith,
I'm writing to
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
假定英语课上老师要求同桌之间交换修改作文，请你修改你同桌的以下作文。文中共有10处语言错误，每句中最多有两处。每处错误仅涉及一个单词的增加，删除或修改。
增加：在缺词处加一个漏字符号（/\）,并在其下面写出该加的词。
删除：把多余的词用斜线（\）划掉。
修改：在错词下划一横线，并在该词下面写出修改后的词。
注意：1. 每处错误及其修改均限一词。
2. 只允许修改10处，多者（从第11处起）不计分。
Nowadays in China, either in the morning nor after dinner, people, especial elderly women, gather in squares to dance to popular music. More and more young people are also participating the square dance now.
There are many reasons for their popularity. First of all, China has made a great progress in the social and economic development in the past decades, and people had more time and energy to enjoy their lives. Besides, do the square dance is a good way for people to get fit.
However, dancers play loud music and occupy lots of public places, where makes many people annoying. Maybe square dancers need to make some change.
阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当的内容（一个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式。
Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge is one of the most challenging constructions of its kind as well as the world’s 1.（long) sea-crossing bridge. Its life span 2.(set) at 120 years. It3. (reported) can stand magnitude-8 earthquake, scale-16 typhoon as well as the collision with 4.300,000-ton ship. The bridge is the national key project featured with strategic significance, large involvement, highly difficult level of construction, long construction time, high 5. (require) on technical design and environmental protection, many participant parties, complex management and coordination. Due to the long distances6.the cities, the project is actually a series of bridges and tunnels,7.(connect) by artificial islands. British newspaper “The Guardian” named the mega-structure one of 8. (it) “seven wonders of the modern world.”
It will be the first new land transport link between the east and west coasts of the Pearl River. The bridge will benefit the economic development of the whole of the Delta and create a regional transport network,9.(improve) upon 10.is considered to be a weak land transport network currently in place.
My story is about love and loss.
I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I _______Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard and in 10 years Apple had _______from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 _______.
We just released our finest creation—the Macintosh a year earlier. And I had just turned 30 and then I got fired. How can you get _______ from a company you started. Well as Apple grew we hired someone ,who I thought was very _______, to run the company with me. And for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge(分歧). And _______we had a _______. When we did, our Board of Directors _______ with him. So at 30, I was out and very _______out. What had been the ________of my entire adult life was gone. And it was destructive. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt I was a very public ________ and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved ________I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been ________ but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then. But it________ that getting fired from Apple, was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the ________of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It ________me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next 5 years, I started a company named NeXT and created the world's first computer animated feature film "Toy Story". And it is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable ________of events, Apple bought NeXT. And I returned to Apple.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened, if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was ________ tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's gonna hit you in the head ________a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm ________that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.
1.A.started B.began C.set D.made
2.A.learnt B.separated C.grown D.benefited
3.A.volunteers B.employees C.assistants D.players
4.A.unemployed B.paid C.promoted D.hurt
5.A.optimistic B.generous C.confident D.talented
6.A.suddenly B.particularly C.eventually D.fortunately
7.A.falling out B.letting out C.breaking out D.giving out
8.A.faced B.sided C.headed D.shouldered
9.A.publicly B.secretly C.simply D.merely
10.A.memory B.lack C.basis D.focus
11.A.success B.failure C.loss D.figure
12.A.how B.that C.which D.what
13.A.admitted B.accepted C.rejected D.persuaded
14.A.turned down B.turned out C.turned up D.turned over
15.A.loneliness B.happiness C.lightness D.darkness
16.A.advised B.enriched C.forbade D.freed
17.A.turn B.procedure C.development D.process
18.A.awesome B.awful C.effective D.fearful
19.A.over B.on C.by D.with
20.A.amazed B.satisfied C.convinced D.inspired
