2014年5月托福考试模拟试题及答案(第四套)_第3页

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　　Reading Passage 1

　　The Life and Work of J.D. Salinger

　　Writer J.D. Salinger will always be remembered for his most famous character, Holden Caufield. The protagonist of the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Caufield became the voice of the disaffected youth not only for his generation those coming of age in the early 1950s but for generations to come. The struggle to reconcile innocence and youth with the pressures and expectations of the wider world is a theme that run not only through Salinger’s work, but his life as well. [A]

　　Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919 to an upper middle class family. His father was a manager in a successful cheese and meat importing company. As an adolescent, Salinger attended public schools as well as military academy. He dropped out of several colleges in New York, opting instead to immerse himself in the Greenwich Village literary scene. [B] This route paid off for Salinger; he had his first work published in 1940 in Story magazine, after making the acquaintance of some of New York’s most prestigious editors.

　　Salinger’s literary career, however, soon took a back seat to events overseas. Despite a mild heat condition, Salinger volunteered to fight in World War II and was sent to Europe. [C] One of the few bright spots during his time in Europe was meeting the writer Ernest Hemingway, with whom Salinger developed a lasting correspondence

　　While Salinger’s experience of the war certainly left him traumatized, when he returned to New York, he more or less picked up where he left off. [D] Before the war, he had started writing a series of stories about a young man who suffers a nervous breakdown in the middle of Manhattan. These would later form the basis for Salinger’s first and only novel, The Catcher in the Rye, published in 1951.

　　→Parallels Holden Caufield’ s and Salinger’s lives are evident, especially as far as their educational careers are concerned. The Catcher in the Rye begins with Caufield on the verge of expulsion from boarding school, after having been kicked out of two previous schools. He leaves his prestigious New England prep school for a two day adventure in New York City, and meets characters from walks of life he had never encountered within his privileged milieu.

　　What drew the acclaim of critics and readers alike was the authenticity of Caufield’s inner monologue. He is shown to be not just a rebel without a cause, but a thoughtful and clever young man, astutely critical of society and its thorniness, yet at the same time, desiring acceptance from it. Some critics have gone so far as to suggest that Holden Caufield was the archetype for modern ‘bad boy’ culture heroes such as James Dean.

　　Salinger would go on to publish numerous other stories in The New York over the next decades. The most famous of them, published in book form in 1961, was Franny and Zooey, about the relationship between a gifted brother and sister, who, each in their own way, struggle with the expectations of maturity. Other noteworthy stories, written in this period include: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and seymore, an Introduction.

　　After Hapsworth 16,1924 was published in 1965, Salinger mysteriously withdrew from the public eye. Living more or less as a recluse in rural New Hampshire, Salinger has ceased to submit anything for publication and rarely, if ever, gives interviews.

　　Some observers suspect that Salinger’s withdrawal from society is indicative of a mental breakdown of some sort; in this respect, at least, perhaps Salinger has much more in common with his maladjusted characters than most people may have realized.

　　A. condemned B. alienated C. complicated

　　A. disdain B. criticism C. interest

　　A. shrewdly B. unnecessarily C. silently D. significantly

　　4. According to the passage, one of the main themes that concerned J. D. Salinger was

　　A. the difficulties young people faced as they entered adulthood

　　B. the pressures society placed on individuals to conform

　　C. the ability of a single individual to change a society

　　D. the importance of serving those in need

　　5. According to the passage, Salinger

　　A. graduated from New York University

　　B. attended a private high school

　　C. dropped out of high school

　　D. did not finish college

　　6. According to the passage, Holden Caufield is similar to J. D. Salinger in that

　　A. he is about the same age

　　B. he wants to be a writer

　　C. he has attended several different schools

　　D. he is interested in popular culture.

　　7. It can be inferred that Salinger was considered

　　A. unstable B. rebellious C. a model citizen D. a hero for youth

　　8. The author recounts the plot of The Catcher in the Rye in paragraph 5 in order to

　　A. make the passage more entertaining

　　B. illustrate a similarity between Caufield and Salinger

　　C. demonstrate how unconventional the novel was

　　D. support the claim that the novel’s protagonist revolutionized popular culture.

　　9. There are four squares [ ] in the passage. These squares represent places where the sentence below could be added to the passage.

　　The horrors and tragedies of what he saw there affected him deeply.

　　Where would be the sentence best fit?

　　10. The word These in the passage refers to

　　A. Salinger’s war experiences

　　B. Salinger’s literary influences

　　C. Stories Salinger began writing before the war

　　D. Publishers to whom Salinger submitted his work

　　11. Which of the following best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the 2 D. despised D. Praise

　　passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

　　A. After The Catcher in the Rye, popular culture became more appreciative of rebellious, troubled figures

　　B. Despite the example set by Holden Caufield, youth heroes became more rebellious

　　C. Holden Caufield was inspired by figures like James Dean.

　　D. The Catcher in the Rye was based loosely on events in the life of James Dean.

　　12. Which of the following statements most accurately reflects the author’s opinion about J. D. Salinger?

　　A. He is the most important author of the twentieth century

　　B. He imitated the style of Ernest Hemingway

　　C. His short stories are much stronger than his novels

　　D. His troubled characters are based on his own experiences.

　　13. Directions: The sentence below is an introductory sentence for a short summary of the passage. Select THREE answer choices from the chart the represent important ideas in the passage. Some sentences are incorrect because they contain information that was not in the passage or contain information that is a minor detail. This question is worth 2 points.

　　J. D. Salinger is an important figure in American literature.

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　　Answer Choices

　　A. He created a memorable character who defined a generation

　　B. He is considered the founder of a new genre of literature.

　　C. The life of his most famous character paralleled that of his own.

　　D. The language used by his characters became the language of youth culture.

　　E. Contemporary critics considered his use of inner monologue as a literary device revolutionary. F. After a prosperous writing career, he withdrawal from public life.