Autumn means different things to different people. It all depends on your personality, said British naturalist Richard Mabey. “Personality shapes your view of the reason,” he said. “ You may see it as a fading away, a packing up, or as a time of packing in another sense- the excited gathering of resources before a long journey.”
If this is true, perhaps it tells us a little about, for instance, Thomas Hood, the 19th Century English poet. About November, he wrote:
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees
November!
On the other hand, another English poet John Keats, already sensing he was seriously ill, was inspired by a late September day to open one of the greatest poems in the English language, To Autumn. He wrote to a friend afterwards, saying there was something comforting about autumn.
According to Richard Mabey, Keats has the biological evidence on his side. Autumn is not a time of slowing down, but a time of new beginnings and great movements of creatures. For example, just at the moment that Keats’ “gathering swallows(燕子)” (in To Autumn) are leaving for America, millions of creatures from the frozen north are fleeing into Britain. Wild geese arrive from Iceland, Greenland and Russia to winter along the east and south coasts. People might argue that it is the coloring of the leaves and their eventual falls that make people feel sad about autumn. But no one is sure why trees drop their leaves in the first place. It may be to rid the poisonous material trees collect over the summer. More likely, it is a way of reducing the loss of water, which tree roots find hard to take in from cold soil.
A century after Keats, the American poet Loren Eiseley wrote:
Suppose we saw ourselves burning like maples in a golden autumn And suppose we could disintegrate(消逝) like autumn leaves
Would not our attitude towards death be different?
1.The best title of the passage would be________.
A.Autumn’s many faces
B.Poems about autumn
C.Autumn-the only theme of poems
D.Not a time of slowing down
2.Which of the following is more likely to make people sad?
A.Swallows leaving for Africa B.Wild geese arriving Britain
C.The fall of tree leaves D.Their lack of knowledge of trees
3.Because of his personality, Keats felt________ when autumn came.
A.excited B.comfortable C.disappointed D.sad
4.We can infer from the last paragraph that___________
A.Loren Eiseley was also a botanist
B.nobody can avoid death
C.Loren Eiseley would like to be a maple leaf in autumn
D.we should take a positive attitude towards death
ACBD
A. Profits enlarging B. Technology developing C. Education investing D. Benefits transferring E. Dominance disappearing F. A nation rising |
The following is an imaginary diary entry written by US president. This diary is part of Global Trends 2025, which was written by the US National Intelligence Council
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The
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The
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Global wealth and economic power will shift from West to East.
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The transition from old fuels to new will be slow, as will the development of new technologies that present feasible alternatives to fossil fuels or help eliminate food and water problems. All current technologies are inadequate, and new ones will probably not be commercially possible by 2025