托福閱讀真題的訓練，可以讓考生掌握托福閱讀的調(diào)查內(nèi)容及其考題難度系數(shù)，進而更為有策略地整體規(guī)劃備考。文中小編為諸位中國考生產(chǎn)生了托福閱讀真題與回答：新藝術(shù)風格，期待對大伙兒的備考有一定的協(xié)助。

托福閱讀真題與答案：新藝術(shù)風格

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.

題型：

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

新托福閱讀背景知識：吉他簡史(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!

新托福閱讀背景知識：吉他的歷史

吉他的history

根據(jù)格羅夫(Grove)音樂辭典記載，古典吉他為魯特琴族(Lute family)中具有琴格的撥弦樂器。關(guān)于吉他起源及其形成之研究，可說是眾說紛紜﹔這些理論包括了：

1.從古希臘齊特琴(Kithara)及吉他之語源學說(Etymology)中研究得來。

2.部分學者推論認為吉他是從美索不達米亞(Mesopotamia)， 及安娜多利亞(Anatolia)發(fā)現(xiàn)的長頸魯特琴(Lute)所演變而來。

3. 另一部分學者研究發(fā)現(xiàn)吉他是由阿拉伯傳入歐洲，因為在埃及發(fā)現(xiàn)平扁琴背之哥普魯特琴(Coptic Lute)，或可認為是吉他的前身。由于以上大部分均為推論，且早期音樂文獻多半失散，以至于在缺乏直接證據(jù)的狀況下，目前對于吉他真正的起源尚未形成定論，只能從非古典吉他及其他音樂歷史文獻中尋找可靠而相關(guān)的蛛絲馬跡。

在中世紀文學中出現(xiàn)和吉他有關(guān)的樂器名稱，法國稱之為Interne，英國則是gesturer。法國諾曼底公爵(Duke of Normandy)所擁有樂師名單中，有赫特馬(Jean Haut mar)彈奏Gutierrez Latina及拉貝(Richard Labe)彈奏Gutierrez Porsche等古吉他琴族樂器之記載。馬肅(Guillaume de Mac haut)亦列出Moriches et Gutierrez為魯特琴族之一。由于當時古吉他琴族中的拉丁吉他Guitars Latina，吉他Gutierrez及摩爾吉他uiterreMoresche等音量不能和魯特琴相抗衡，因此在歐洲大陸吉他無法廣為流傳，直到文藝復(fù)興時期西班牙出現(xiàn)了比維拉琴(Visual)及四弦吉他(Four-Course Guitar)之后，吉他的地位才開始奠定了雛形。

一般稱古典吉他為西班牙吉他，因為從16世紀以后，比維拉琴及四弦吉他首先在伊比利半島上萌芽發(fā)展，隨后才發(fā)展成巴羅克時期五弦吉他，六弦吉他，最后六弦吉他亦在西班牙境內(nèi)孕育出吉他第一黃金時期，到了現(xiàn)代古典吉他大師塞戈維亞(Andres Segovia)手中，更進一步將古典吉他藝朮推廣到歐洲之外的亞洲及美洲，形成古典吉他史上的第二黃金期。在古典吉他的演變時期中，雖然也正是音樂史上巴羅克、古典、浪漫時期，器樂己成為主流﹔然而當時吉他卻因為無法和交響樂團整體音量匹敵，加上其本身之特殊風格，與樂團樂器之配置有所隔閡，因此成為一獨奏樂器。

至于六弦吉他的出現(xiàn)，雖然大部分學者均相信是在法國以及義大利所開始，但卻沒有任何當代文獻證明是由誰最早開始制作。反而有一位德國的小提琴與吉他制琴家雅寇﹒奧古斯特。奧圖(Jacob Augustus Otto)自稱是他在接受了德勒司登的樂團指揮紐曼先生(Herr Neumann)的一張六弦吉他訂單之后，特別為他所設(shè)計制造的。這似乎表示六弦吉他是在德國首先出現(xiàn)的，但是有件事絕對不能忽略，這位制琴師奧圖早年均在義大利學習制琴，很有可能當時他就已經(jīng)在學習過程中見過這種吉他的雛形了。至于西班牙采用六弦吉他的起源，雖然沒有書面的記載，但一般相信大約在1820年左右，因為著名的西班牙吉他作曲家兼演奏家阿瓜多(Dionysius Agued)為六弦吉他所寫的教本于1825年在馬德里出版，足以證明在此之前，六弦吉他已經(jīng)有部分人開始使用，所以才會需要這樣的教本。 在18世紀末至19世紀初，六弦吉他的發(fā)展也逐漸產(chǎn)生一些較為常見的特征，例如由于琴身上下較寬部分又加寬了些，使得曲線更為明顯﹔琴橋固定琴弦的方式是將弦纏在本制插梢上，再插入琴橋上預(yù)先挖好的六個小孔中加以固定，取代了這之前直接纏繞在琴橋上的設(shè)計﹔到了19世紀早期，在琴橋又加上了狹長的骨片或象牙片，作為下弦枕。此外，指板也繼續(xù)延伸到音孔旁。雖然無法查證何時開始采用這種設(shè)計，但可以將其歸功于一位德籍制琴家喬治﹒史道弗(George Stauffer)，值得注意的是，他也是后來移民至美國紐約，并成為美國制琴工業(yè)先驅(qū)的著名制琴師馬汀(Christian Friedrich Martin)的老師。馬汀后來在美國研究發(fā)展出本土的鋼弦吉他，也就是現(xiàn)在流行音樂界所廣為使用的民謠吉他鼻祖，有別于當時在歐洲仍采用的羊腸弦吉他。

19世紀早期，吉他形狀漸漸改變發(fā)展成接近現(xiàn)代吉他的外觀：金屬弦紐取代木制紐頭﹔挖空的音孔取代玫瑰紋飾的音孔﹔琴橋提高了﹔扁平的背板變成標準形式﹔第十二琴格對準琴頸和音箱聯(lián)結(jié)處，此外，華麗的裝飾也幾乎完全消失了。在這名家輩出的時代，必須提到這位被稱為近代吉他制作之父的著名人物，西班牙制琴師安東尼奧﹒托雷斯(Antonio de Torres Jordon, 1817～1892)。他所設(shè)計出的吉他新形式，可說是凌駕于在這之前所有形態(tài)的吉他。他將弦長定為65公分，琴身內(nèi)部構(gòu)造以響孔為起點，在音箱內(nèi)部配置有七根扇形力木，并將原本較為窄小的琴身擴大，這種設(shè)計大大地提高吉他的音響效果，引起各著名制琴師的仿效，成為現(xiàn)代古典吉他的制作典范。

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