单选题 Questions 57 to 61 are based on the following passage.
Film is a medium that might have been especially made for America, a vast country which, by the beginning of the twentieth century, had a large immigrant population, many of whom could hardly speak English. These people would have had little use for the theatre, even if they lived within easy distance of one, or for most of the books they could buy because they did not have enough English. But themovies--the silent movies--these they could all understand, so what America had more than any European country was a huge captive audience, a large proportion of them pretty well uneducated. And what these people wanted were simple stories in which, irrespective of the fact they couldn't understand the captions, the action told all.
In feeding the growing demand for screen entertainment, America was greatly helped by the First World War. Between 1874 and 1918 the making of films was not exactly high on the list of any European country's priorities. Films continued to be made but not to the same extent as before, and to fill the gap in foreign imports, America had to increase its Own production. By the end of the decade, with Hollywood now firmly established as the center of the industry, America was well on its way to monopolizing the world market.
But if by the beginning of the 1920s America was the world leader in film production, it was not then—nor has it been since—in the lead when it came to developing film as an art form. Hollywood is not interested in art; it is interested in money and the two rarely go together. To Hollywood film is, and really always has been, and industry. There is nothing about this attitude that should make us look down on it. Hollywood quickly recognized film as an entertainment medium with a unique ability to put people onto seats and money in the pockets of producers, distributors and cinema managers and, mostly, let it to others to develop its potential as an art form.
Generally speaking, the efforts to extend the boundaries of film to--show that it could do more than car chases, romance and clowning--were being made elsewhere. In the 1920s in Germany, for example, expressionism was an artistic movement which used fihn as a medium. Expressionism is described in the Oxford Companion to Film as "a movement woes main aim " was to show in images man's inner world and in particular the emotions of fear, hatred, love and anxiety. " These days, most serious--and sometimes not so serious--films attempt to do something like that as a matter of course.
Meanwhile Russian film-makers were developing advanced techniques in editing and montage—using scenes to give background information, ideas and intellectual points. Hollywodd was not slow to learn from its foreign competitors or to take on and adapt their ideas, but with regard to the style and content of film-making, it was and still is far more in business of learning than of teaching.
单选题 Why did the immigrants in America prefer cinema to other entertainment media?
  • A. They did not have theatres close enough to their homes.
  • B. They could not afford to buy books.
  • C. The movies were easier to understand.
  • D. The film captions were in simple English.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】
单选题 What do we learn about the American film industry around 1920?
  • A. American art films were not as successful as those from other countries.
  • B. More films were made in America that anywhere else.
  • C. More American films catered for the immigration population.
  • D. The Americans were the first to develop film as an art form.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】
单选题 What does the author think about Hollywood as an industry?
  • A. He despise Hollywood's interest in making money.
  • B. He wishes Hollywood would make decent films.
  • C. He thinks Hollywood films are no better than European ones.
  • D. He sees nothing wrong with Hollywood's attitude.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】
单选题 What do we learn about expressionism in film?
  • A. It has become a less serious element in films nowadays.
  • B. It is no longer limited to German films.
  • C. In the 1920s, most serious films were expressionist.
  • D. It was about trying to show strange emotions.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】
单选题 How has Hollywood responded to its foreign competitors in film-making?
  • A. It has maintained a more businesslike attitude.
  • B. It has learned a lot from them about what to put in films.
  • C. It has responded quickly by copying foreign films.
  • D. It has tried to teach as much as it has learned.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】