Question

    In a career that lasted more than half a century, Tom Wolfe wrote fiction and nonfiction best-sellers including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and The Bonfire of the Vanities. Along the way, he created a new type of journalism and coined phrases that became part of the American vocabulary.

Wolfe began working as a newspaper reporter, first for The Washington Post, then the New York Herald Tribune. He developed a literary style in nonfiction that became known as the “New Journalism.” “I’ve always agreed on a theoretical level that the techniques for fiction and nonfiction are interchangeable,” he said. “The things that work in nonfiction would work in fiction, and vice versa.”

“When Tom Wolfe’s voice broke into the world of nonfiction, it was a time when a lot of writers, and a lot of artists in general, were turning inwards,” says Lev Grossman, book critic for Time magazine. “Wolfe didn’t do that. Wolfe turned outwards. He was a guy who was interested in other people.” Wolfe was interested in how they thought, how they did things and how the things they did affected the world around them.

In 1979, Wolfe published The Right Stuff, an account of the military test pilots who became America’s first astronauts. Four years later, the book was adapted as a feature film. “The Right Stuff was the book for me,” says Grossman. “It reminded me, in case I’d forgotten, that the world is an incredible place.”

In The Right Stuff, Wolfe popularized the phrase “pushing the envelope.” In a New York magazine article, Wolfe described the 1970s as “The ‘Me’ Decade.” Grossman says these phrases became part of the American idiom because they were accurate.

“He was an enormously forceful observer, and he was not afraid of making strong claims about what was happening in reality,” Grossman says. “He did it well and people heard him. And they repeated what he said because he was right.” All those words started a revolution in nonfiction that is still going on.

1.The “New Journalism” is a style of journalism that    .

A. changes its news writing techniques frequently

B. popularizes new American idioms in a literary way

C. combines novelistic techniques with traditional reporting

D. reports various news events from a theoretical perspective

2.It can be learned from the passage that The Right Stuff    .

A. is a film directed by Lev Grossman B. is an influential book by Tom Wolfe

C. accounts for popular American phrases D. deals with incredible places in the world

3.According to the passage, Tom Wolfe    .

A. was good at reporting news from a realistic perspective

B. preferred making claims about events to writing books

C. was fond of commenting on other people’s thoughts

D. liked analyzing social problems from the outside

4.Which of the following is the best title for the passage?

A. Tom Wolfe: A Professional Phrase Coiner

B. Tom Wolfe: A Forceful Observer and Novelist

C. Tom Wolfe: A Theoretical Creator in Literature

D. Tom Wolfe: An Innovative Journalist and Writer

Answer

1.C

2.B

3.A

4.D

【解析】

这是一篇说明文。文章介绍了Tom Wolfe，一位富有创新的记者和作家。他将小说技巧与传统报道相结合创造出了一种非虚构文学风格，被称为“新新闻”。

1.推理判断题。第二段中He developed a literary style in nonfiction that became known as the “New Journalism.” “I’ve always agreed on a theoretical level that the techniques for fiction and nonfiction are interchangeable,”可知他将小说和非小说的技巧结合形成了一种新的文体。即“新新闻”是一种将小说手法与传统报道相结合的新闻文体，故选C。

2.细节理解题。倒数第二段第一、二句In The Right Stuff, Wolfe popularized the phrase “pushing the envelope.” In a New York magazine article, Wolfe described the 1970s as “The ‘Me’ Decade.”可知在The Right Stuff书中，Wolfe普及了短语“推信封”。在纽约杂志的一篇文章中，Wolfe将20世纪70年代描述为“自我”的十年。即可知The Right Stuff是Tom Wolfe写的一本很有影响力的书，故选B。

3.推理判断题。根据最后一段第一句“He was an enormously forceful observer, and he was not afraid of making strong claims about what was happening in reality,”可知Tom Wolfe是一个非常有说服力的观察者，他不害怕对现实中正在发生的事情做出强有力的断言。即Tom Wolfe善于从现实的角度报道新闻，故选A。

4.主旨大意题。根据文章主要内容为介绍了发明了“新新闻”文体的Tom Wolfe，他是一位创新的记者和作家。故选D。