Question

  For a 400-year-old art form,opera had a bad fame：overweight actresses singing the words which were hard to understand in one of those romance languages you were supposed to learn in high school. And with tickets costing as much as $ 145 a perform?ance,opera-goers also had a certain appearance in people's mind：rich,well-dressed and old.  But now opera companies around the country are loosening their ties and kicking off their ^hoes in an attempt to keep opera alive and take it to a younger and not so wealthy audience.

  Opera producers have found that to attract this crowd,they need to associate opera with common peo?ple. That means no formal suits,old-style theatre or bank-breaking ticket prices. And because young people don't or won't come to the opera,companies are bring?ing the opera to them,giving performances in such usual places as parks,libraries and public schools.

  The Houston Grand Opera's choice is the public library,where it performs "mobile operas", shortened version of child-friendly operas. This summer's production is Hansel CreteL By performing smaller ver?sions of large productions,producers are able to make people interested while keeping costs at a reasonable level. The San Francisco Opera,which will be celebra?ting its 75th anniversary this year,is staging Cinderel?la free of charge,keeping costs down by employing students from its Young Artists' Training Programme.

1. Which of the following is the main idea of this pas?sage?

   A. Opera is famous for its history.

   B. Opera is only for rich people.

   C. Opera companies are trying to keep operas alive.

   D. Young people are not interested in operas.

2. The underlined part in Paragraph 2 most probably means "      ”，

   A. breaking up the old rules

   B. changing the dresses

   C. making the audience at ease

   D. advertising themselves

3. The San Francisco Opera employs young students in order to        .

   A. attract young people

   B. reduce the cost

   C. celebrate its 75th anniversary

   D. make Cinderella popular

4. What can you infer from the passage?

   A. The tickets for opera are very expensive at present.

   B. Opera is performed in a language difficult to understand.

   C. Opera is not so popular an art form today.

   D. Students enjoy performing operas very much.

Answer 1

[文章大意]和中國(guó)的京劇一樣，西方的歌劇也面臨著如何吸引年輕觀眾的困惑。歌劇給人的傳統(tǒng)印象是晦澀難懂、票價(jià)昂貴，但是今天為了吸引年輕人的眼球，它不得不降低身價(jià)。

1.C主旨大意題。從第一段介紹的歌劇給人的傳統(tǒng)印象

和下文提出現(xiàn)在歌劇院為了吸引年輕觀眾采取的措施可以得出結(jié)論。

2. A語(yǔ)義猜測(cè)題。第一段介紹的是歌劇以前晦澀難懂、票價(jià)昂貴，是供貴族享用的，而再加上第二段的"take it to a younger and not so wealthy audience"，第三段的"to asso?ciate opera with common people"和最后一段的''staging Cinderella free of charge"可以推知A項(xiàng)正確。

3. B細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)最后一段的最后一句"...keeping costs down by employing students from its Young Artists' Training Programme."可知是為了降低成本。

4. C推理判斷題。由文中提到的各種各樣吸引年輕觀眾的做法可以判斷歌劇并不太受年輕人的歡迎。