American has always been a land of beginnings. After Europeans "discovered" America in the fifteenth century, the mysterious New World became for many people a genuine hope of a new life, an escape from poverty and persecution, a chance to start again. We can say that, as nation, America begins with that hope. When, however, does American literature begin? American literature begins with American experiences. Long before the first colonists arrived, before Christopher Columbus, before the Northmen who "found" America about the year 1,000, Native Americans lived here. Each tribe's literature was tightly woven into the fabric of daily life and reflected the unmistakably American experience of lining with the land. Another kind of experience, one filled with fear and excitement, found its expression in the reports that Columbus and other explorers sent home in Spain, French and English. In addition, the journals of the people who lived and died in the New England wilderness tell unforgettable tales of hard and sometimes heartbreaking experiences of those early years. Experience, then, is the key to early American literature. The New World provided a great variety of experiences, and these experiences demanded a wide variety of expressions by an even wider variety of early American writers. These writers included John Smith, who spent only two-and-a-half years on the American continent. They included Jonathan Edwards and William Byrd, who thought of themselves as British subjects, never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America with a literature of its own. American Indians, explorers, Puritan ministers, frontier wives, plantation owner--they are all the creators of the first American literature.
单选题
What does "that hope': in the first paragraph refer to?
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】这里的that hope就是指上一句中的a genuine hope of a new life。
单选题
What can we learn from the literature of the tribes of the native Americans?
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】答案在第2段的第3句，从美洲土著部落的文学中，我们可以找到他们日常生活的写照。
单选题
The main purpose of the last paragraph is to tell the readers that ______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】这一段的第1句是本段的主题句，而D则是该主题句的释义。
单选题
According to the last paragraph, which of the following statements is true about American literature?
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】本题答案的依据是下面这句话：They included Jonathan Edwards and William Byrd，who thought of themselves as British subjects，never suspecting a revolution that would create a United States of America with a literature of its own(这两位自认为是大英帝国臣民的英国作家对一场将会创造出一个拥有自己文学的美利坚合众国的革命从来没有任何怀疑。)