单选题   Eleven summers ago I was sent to a management program at the Wharton School to be prepared for bigger things. Along with lectures on finance and entrepreneurship and the like, the program included a delightfully out-of-place session with Al Filreis, an English professor at the University of Pennsylvania, on poetry.
    For three hours he talked us through 'The Red Wheelbarrow' and 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.' The experience—especially when contrasted with the horrible prose of our other assigned reading—sent me fleeing to the campus bookstore, where I resumed a long-interrupted romance with meter and rhyme (韵).
    Professor Filreis says that he is 'a little shocked' at how intensely his Wharton students respond to this unexpected deviation from the businesslike, not just as a relief but as a kind of stimulus. Many write afterward asking him to recommend books of poetry. Especially now.
    'The grim economy seems to make the participants keener than ever to think 'out of the box' in the way poetry encourages, ' he told me.
    Which brings me to Congress, an institution stuck deeper inside the box than just about any other these days. You have probably heard that up on Capitol Hill (美国国会山), they're very big on prayer breakfasts, where members gather over scrambled eggs and ask God for wisdom. You can judge from the agonizing debt spectacle we've watched this summer how well that's working. Well, maybe it's time to add some poetry readings to the agenda.
    I'm not suggesting that poetry will guide our legislators to wisdom any more than prayer has. Just that it might make them a little more human. Poetry is no substitute for courage or competence, but properly applied, it is a challenge to self-certainty, which we currently have in excess. Poetry serves as a spur to creative thinking, a reproach to dogma and habit, a remedy to the current fashion for pledge signing.
    The poet Shelley, in defense of poetry nearly two centuries ago, wrote, 'A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.' Shelley concludes that essay by calling poets 'the unacknowledged legislators of the world, ' because they bring imagination to the realm of 'reasoners and mechanists.'
    The relevance of poetry was declared more concisely in five lines from the love poem 'Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, ' by William Carlos Williams..
    It is difficult
    to get the news from poems
    yet men die miserably every day
    for lack
    of what is found there.
单选题     Why did the author participate in the Wharton School management program?______
 
 
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由题干中的Wharton School management program定位到首段第一句。 细节推断题。定位句明确指出，作者去沃顿商学院学习是为以后的重任作准备，也就是说作者是在为更重要的工作岗位接受培训，故答案为B。 [参考译文] 11年前的一个夏天，我被送去沃顿商学院参加一个管理培训项目，为以后的重任作准备。该培训项目除了金融、企业家能力之类的讲座以外，还包括了宾夕法尼亚大学的英语教授Al Filreis讲授的一门令人愉快而又格格不入的诗歌课程。 他花了3个小时，口若悬河地为我们讲解了《红色手推车》和《雪夜林边小驻》。课堂上的体验——尤其是和那些给我们指定的其他阅读作业中可怕的散文比起来——让我飞快跑到了校园书店，在那里我可以重温那已被长期中断的对格律、韵律的喜爱。 Filreis教授说，看到他的沃顿学员们对这门出乎意料的、偏离商业课程之外的课程反应如此强烈，他感到“有些震惊”，他们不仅把这门课程看作一种放松，也把它当作一种刺激。之后很多人写信让教授推荐诗歌书籍。尤其是现在。 他告诉我，“惨淡的经济使得学员们比以往更渴望突破固定的思维模式，以诗歌鼓励的方式进行思考。” 这让我想到了国会——当今比其他任何机构都深陷固定思维模式中的一个机构。你也许听说过在美国国会山，他们热衷于早餐祈祷，议员们聚在炒鸡蛋周围，向上帝祈求智慧。从我们今年夏天目睹的痛苦的债务情景中，你可以判断出祈祷究竟有多大作用。嗯，也许是时候在议程里加入一些诗歌阅读了。 我并不是在暗示诗歌比祈祷更能够引导我们的立法者成为智者。我只是想说诗歌也许会让他们变得更人性化一点。诗歌代替不了勇气或者能力，但是如果应用得当，它就可以挑战自负，当前我们太自负了。诗歌是创造性思维的刺激因素，是对教条和习惯的谴责，是遏制当前流行的空口白话的良方。 诗人雪莱在将近两个世纪之前为诗歌辩护，写道，“一个人若要成就真正的伟大，必须具备强大而全面的想象力；他必须懂得和他人换位思考；必须把别人的疾苦哀乐视为自己的疾苦哀乐。”在这篇杂记的总结部分，雪莱称诗人是“不被承认的立法者”，因为他们将想象力带入了“推理者和机械论者”的领域。 (美国诗人)William Carlos Williams的一首情诗《常春花，那绿色的花》中有五行文字，更加简洁地表明了诗歌的重要性： 难以 从诗歌中读到新闻 然而每天都有人们可悲地死去 因为缺少 诗歌里才有的东西
单选题     What did the author think of Professor Filreis's poetry session?______
 
 
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】由题干中的Filreis's poetry session定位到第二段第二句和第三段第一句。 观点态度题。由文章第二段第二句可知，Filreis教授的诗歌课让作者重温了对诗歌的喜爱，说明作者很喜欢教授的诗歌课。第三段第一句提到，学生们对这门课的反应都很热烈，因此得出作者认为Filreis教授的诗歌课对学生很有吸引力，故答案为C。
单选题     What was the impact of the poetry session on the program participants according to Professor Filreis?______
 
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】根据题干中的participants定位到第四段。 推理判断题。定位段指出，惨淡的经济使得学员们比以往更渴望突破固定的思维模式，他们以诗歌鼓励的方式进行思考，也就是说诗歌课鼓励学员们从更广阔的角度思考问题，故答案为A。
单选题     What does the author think of Capitol Hill's prayer over breakfast?______
 
 
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】由题干中的prayer over breakfast定位到文章第五段。 观点态度题。定位段指出，你可以从我们今年夏天目睹的痛苦的债务情景判断出祈祷究竟有多大作用。既然我们看到的是令人痛苦的债务景象，那么早餐祈祷应该是没有作用的，即解决不了经济问题，故答案为B。
单选题     What do we learn from Shelley's essay?______
 
 
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】由题干中的Shelley定位到文章第七段的引文部分。 推理判断题。定位部分指出，人们必须拥有强大而全面的想象力，还必须懂得换位思考，体会别人的疾苦哀乐，也就是在强调想象力和同情心的重要性，故答案为D。