单选题 Signs of deafness had given him great anxiety as early as 1778. For a long time he successfully concealed it from all but his most intimate friends. The touching document addressed to his brothers in 1802, and known as his "Will" should be read in its entirety. He reproached men for their injustice in thinking and calling him pugnacious, stubborn, and misanthropical when they did not know that for six years he had suffered from an incurable condition aggravated by incompetent doctors. He dwelled upon his delight in human society from which he had had so early to isolate himself, but the thought of which now filled him with dread as it made him realize his loss, not in music — but in all finer interchange of ideas. He requested that after his death his present doctor shall be asked to describe his illness and to append it to his document in order that at least then the world might be as far as possible reconciled with him He left his brothers property, such as it was, if more conventional than the rest of the document.
During the last twelve years of his life, his nephew was the cause of most of his anxiety and distress. His brother, Kaspar Karl died in 1815, leaving a widow and a son. The boy turned out utterly unworthy of his uncle's persistent devotion and gave him every cause for anxiety. He failed in all his examinations, including an attempt to learn some trade in the polytechnic school, whereupon he fell into the hands of the police for attempting suicide, and after being expelled from Vienna, joined the army. Beethoven's utterly simple nature could neither educate nor understand a human being who was not possessed by the wish to do his best. His nature was passionately affectionate, and he has suffered all his life from the want of a natural outlet for it. He had often been deeply in love and made no secret of it; there was no one that was not honorable and respected by society as showing the truthfulness and self-control of a great man. Beethoven's orthodoxy in such matters has provoked the smiles of Philistines, especially when it showed itself in his objections to Mozart, Don Giovanni and the grounds for selecting the subject of Fidelio for his own opera. The last thing that Philistines will never understand is that genius is far too independent of convention to abuse it; and Beethoven's life, with all its mistakes, its grotesqueness, and its pathos, is as far beyond the shafts of Philistine wit as his art.

单选题 The sentence "genius is far too independent of convention to abuse it" implies that______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】句意推测题。本题关键在于理解句中too…to…这一结构表示的是“太…而不能…”,far修饰和强调这一结构。此外,由文章对贝多芬的描述也可知这里指的是他恪守传统道德,因此答案是[C]。
单选题 Beethoven's contemporaries thought that he was ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。短文第一段第四句说,贝多芬指责人们不公正地认为他 pugnacious、stubborn、misanthropical (好争吵、固执和孤僻厌世),而在第五句中又明确指出了isolate himself,因此本题选[A]。
单选题 Beethoven was distressed by his nephew's ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。文章第二段说明了贝多芬对自己侄子的关心。其中第五句话指出:Beethoven's utterly simple nature…to do his best(贝多芬天性率真,无法教育和理解一个不求上进的人),也就是说他侄子的不求上进让他苦恼,因此本题选[B]。
单选题 According to the passage, what was the loss to Beethoven when he was deaf?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】细节题。答案信息对应于第一段第五句后半部分:…his loss,not in music—but in all finer interchange of ideas,即他耳聋给他带来的损失不是音乐,而是不能(与别人)进行思想交流,即[D]的意思。
单选题 The word "append" in Paragraph 1 means ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】词义推测题。由其后的宾语it(指医生对他的疾病的描述)和介词结构to his document可知append应当是“加入”之意,即[C]。