单选题 I was taken by a friend one afternoon to a theatre. When the curtain was raised, the stage was perfectly empty save for tall grey curtains which enclosed it on all sides, and presently through the thick folds of those curtains children came dancing in, singly, or in pairs, till a whole troop of ten or twelve were assembled. They were all girls; none, I think, more than fourteen years old, one or two certainly not more than eight. They wore but little clothing, their legs, feet and arms being quite bare. Their hair, too, was unbound; and their fates, grave and smiling, were so utterly dear and joyful, that in looking on them one felt transported to some Garden of Hesperides, a where self was not, and the spirit floated in pure ether. Some of these children were fair and rounded, others dark and elf-like; but one and all looked entirely happy, and quite unself-conscious, giving no impression of artifice, though they had evidently had the highest and most careful training. Each flight and whirling movement seemed conceived there and then out of the joy of being—dancing had surely never been a labour to them, either in rehearsal or performance. There was no tiptoeing and posturing, no hopeless muscular achievement; all was rhythm, music, light, air, and above all things, happiness. Smiles and love had gone to the fashioning of their performance; and smiles and love shone from every one of their faces and from the clever white turnings of their limbs.
Amongst them—though all were delightful—there were two who especially riveted my attention. The first of these two was the tallest of all the children, a dark thin girl, in whose every expression and movement there was a kind of grave, fiery love.
During one of the many dances, it fell to her to be the pursuer of a fair child, whose movements had a very strange soft charm; and this chase, which was like the hovering of a dragonfly round some water lily, or the wooing of a moonbeam by the June night, had in it a most magical sweet passion. That dark, tender huntress, so full of fire and yearning, had the queerest power of symbolising all longing, and moving one's heart. In her, pursuing her white love with such wistful fervour, and ever arrested at the very moment of conquest, one seemed to see the great secret force that hunts through the world, on and on, tragically unresting, immortally sweet.
The other child who particularly enhanced me was the smallest but one, a brown-haired fairy crowned with a half moon of white flowers, who wore a scanty little rose-petal-coloured shift that floated about her in the most delightful fashion. She danced as never child danced. Every inch of her small head and body was full of the sacred fire of motion; and in her little pas seul she seemed to be the very spirit of movement. One felt that Joy had flown down, and was inhabiting there; one heard the rippling of Joy's laughter. And, indeed, through all the theatre had risen a rustling and whispering; and sudden bursts of laughing rapture.
I looked at my friend; he was trying stealthily to remove something from his eyes with a finger. And to myself the stage seemed very misty, and all things in the world lovable; as though that dancing fairy had touched them with tender fire, and made them golden.
God knows where she got that power of bringing joy to our dry hearts: God knows how long she will keep it! But that little flying Love had in her the quality that lie deep in colour, in music, in the wind, and the sun, and in certain great works of art—the power to see the heart free from every barrier, and flood it with delight.

单选题 From this passage, it can be inferred that
[A] the dancing girls are all very beautiful.
[B] the girls come from all over the world.
[C] the two tallest girls are the outstanding dancers.
[D] the girls' performance is very successful.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[定位] 应从全文的总体理解中得出答案。
[解析] 文章的主题是关于女孩们的舞蹈，而对此作者一直持赞赏的态度，第4段最后一句还提到了观众的反应——响起了一片啧啧之声，继而欢声雷动，由此可以看出，她们的演出非常成功，选项D正确。
[点睛] 推理题。第1段指出那些跳舞的人都是一些小女孩，年龄都不过十三四岁，尽管第2段首句提到她们都很讨人喜欢(delightful)；但这些都不能推出她们都很漂亮，故A错；文章也未提及她们来自哪里，故B不对；而在第2段中谈到，所有女孩中有两个非常引作者注目，其中一个是最高的、而在第4段中谈到另一个是个子倒数第二小的，因此C不正确。

单选题 Which of the following statements contains a metaphor?
[A] ..., and smiles and love shone from every one of their faces...
[B] ..., which was like the hovering of a dragonfly round some water lily...
[C] That dark, tender huntress, so full of fire and yearning had...
[D] In her, pursuing her white love with such wistful fervour...

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[定位] 根据各个选项定位至原文，或者根据选项直接判断。
[解析] metaphor(隐喻)是比喻的一种，它把要说明的事物比喻成另外一种具有鲜明的同一特点的事物，从而更形象、更深刻地说明事理，增强语言的表现力和感染力。隐喻往往没用of结构等说明本体和喻体的相关性；有时本体甚至不出现在话语中。C项的喻体是女猎手，本体为未出现在该句中的高个子女孩扮演的追求者，故答案是C。
[点睛] 修辞手法判断题。这类题型往往可以直接根据各选项给出的内容进行判断，无须一一定位原文。B项为明喻，明喻多用as，like来联系本体和喻体；A和D没有用到比喻的手法。