复合题

Directions: Please read the following passages and then answer IN COMPLETE SENTENCES the questions which follow each passage. Use only the information from the passage you have just read and write your answer in the corresponding space in your Answer Sheet.

(1) Why should anyone buy the latest volume in the ever- expanding Dictionary of National Biography? I do not mean that it is bad, as the reviewers will agree.
(2) But it will cost you 65 pounds. And have you got the rest of volumes? You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. Of course, it will be answered, public and academic libraries will want the new volume. After all, it adds 1, 068 lives of people who escaped the net of the original compilers. Yet in 10 years’ time a revised version of the whole caboodle, called the New Dictionary of National Biography, will be published, Its editor, Professor Colin Matthew, tells me that he will have room for about 50, 000 lives, some 13, 000 more than in the current DNB. This rather puts the 1, 068 in Missing Persons in the shade.
(3) When Dr. Nicholls wrote to The Spectator in 1989 asking for name of people whom readers had looked up in the DNB and had been disappointed not to find, she says that she received some 100, 000 suggestions. (Well, she had written to ‘ other quality newspapers’ too. ) As soon as her committee had whittled the numbers down, the professional problems of an editor began. Contributors didn’ t file copy on time: some who did send too much: 50, 000 words instead of 500 is a record, according to Dr. Nicholls.
(4) There remains the dinner-party game of who’ s in, who’ s out. That is a game that the reviewers have played and will continue to play. Criminals were my initial worry. After all, the original edition of the DNB boasted: Malefactors whose crimes excite a permanent interest have received hardly less attention than benefactors. Mr. John Gross clearly had similar anxieties, for he complains that, while the murderer Christie is in. Crippen is out. One might say in reply that the injustice of the hanging of Evans instead of Christie was a force in the repeal of capital punishment in Britain, as Ludovie Kennedy (the author of Christies entry in Missing Persons) notes. But then Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy (he had tried to escape by ship to America) .
(5) It is surprising to find Max Miller excluded when really not very memorable names get in. There has been a conscious effort to put in artists and architects from the Middle Ages. About their lives not much is always known.
(6) Of Hugo of Bury St Edmunds, a 12th-century illuminator whose dates of birth and death are not recorded, his biographer comments “Whether or not Hugo was a wall- painter, the records of his activities as carver and manuscript painter attest to his versatility” . Then there had to be more women, too (12 percent, against the original DBN’ s 3) , such as Roy Strong’ s subject, the Tudor painter Levina Teerlinc, of whom he remarks “Her most characteristic feature is a head attached to a too small, spindly body. Her technique remained awkward, thin and often cursory(草率的) . ” Doesn’ t seem to qualify her as a memorable artist. Yet it may be better than the record of the original DNB, which included lives of people who never existed (such as Merlin) and even managed to give thanks to J. W. Clerke as a contributor, though, as a later edition admits in a shamefaced footnote, “except for the entry in the List of Contributors there is no trace of J. W. Clerke” . 

问答题 What does the author suggest about buying the latest volume in the ever-expanding Dictionary of National Biography?  
【正确答案】The author suggests that there is no sense in buying the latest volume unless one has all the volumes in his collection.
【答案解析】由第二段第一句“And have you got the rest of volumes?You need the basic 22 plus the largely decennial supplements to bring the total to 31. ” 可知, 这一整套书共有31册, 只买一册就没什么意义了。
问答题 According to the author, how did the editors decide who should be included in the DNB? 
【正确答案】The editors asked for readers’ suggestions on newspapers.
【答案解析】由第三段“she had written to ‘ other quality newspapers’ too” 可知, 编辑们在报纸上向 读者询问还有哪些人没有收录。 
问答题 According to the passage, why was Crippen absent from the DNB?  
【正确答案】The reasons why Crippen is absent from the DNB is not clarified.
【答案解析】文章在第四段谈到了Crippen未被收录进名人词典, 该段的最后一句说“Butthen Crippen was reputed as the first murderer to be caught by telegraphy. ” 没有说明Crippen未被收录进词典的原因。
问答题 Why does the author quote a few entries in the last paragraph? 
【正确答案】The author quotes a few entries in the last paragraph to give emphasis to his argument.
【答案解析】在短文的最后一段作者先以收录的名人Hugo为例, 没有记录其“dates of birth and death are not recorded” ; 接着说对于画家Levina Teerlinc的描述也不能让人觉得她是位值得纪念的艺术家。 从以上内容可知, 作者引用一些条目是为了强调说明自己的观点: DNB的编纂方法与内容存在问题。
问答题 What is the writer’ s tone towards the DNB throughout the passage? 
【正确答案】The writer’ s tone towards the DNB is sarcastic.
【答案解析】作者在文章一开始便指出买最近一册的DNB毫无意义, 并分析了相关原因。 接着作者在第三、 四段讽刺说DNB在选择收录哪些名人的问题上就像“dinner-party game” 一样, 毫无原则, 极不合理。 最后一段作者引用了几个名人条目强调说明了DNB的编纂方法与内容存在的问题。 由此可见作者的语气是讽刺的。