单选题
Everyone has been trying to understand Michael Jackson's death this summer. While medics are still picking at his slender corpse, cultural authorities argue like vultures over his reputation. Should he be remembered as a great singer, a man possibly sexually attracted to children, an emblematic black artist who tried to bleach his face white, the Fred Astaire(a major founder of stage dance)of the 1980s, the first to master the MTV pop video, or a troubled victim of a domineering father? His difficult journey from unhappy childhood, to weird quasi-adulthood has been told and re-told frequently and annoyingly across the world. Yet Jackson's current crisis is an extreme version of a process that will happen to us all. For, as Jean Paul Sartre(French existentialist philosopher)put it, at death we become prey to the "Other" — our identity dissipating into the sum total of what is thought about us. While we are alive, Sartre explained, we can resist this pressure; we can defy the options that other people try to project onto us. We can't erase our pasts, but we can always overturn future expectations. It's a struggle Sartre saw as central to our existence as moral beings: we must do more than act out the roles others have scripted for us. This is the existential condition of humanity—we are the artists of our own lives, although with the anguish that comes from being condemned to be free. Given the weight of expectations heaped on his shoulders, it's something Michael Jackson felt more crushingly than most: a burden reflected in his lifelong modifications of his own appearance. The human body, Ludwig Wittgenstein(an Austrian-British philosopher)once declared, is the best picture we have of the human soul. And Jackson's body in his last days legibly expressed something very revealing. Death, of course, takes everything away. The back catalogue of Jackson's songs is now the complete catalogue. Yet, according to Sartre, death is not the final chord of a 4 melody that suddenly resolves and makes sense of what went before. Instead, it merely begins an endless new argument over meanings from which the core—the real person—is perpetually absent. Michael Jackson is no longer with us. Instead, "Michael Jackson" is becoming the sum of what others hope to make of him.
单选题
Paragraph 1 mainly tells that people have been trying to______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】解析:本题是主旨题。根据第一段的“Everyone has been trying to understand MichaelJackson’s death this summer.”可知,人们一直想知道迈克尔·杰克逊的死因。但是下文“While medics are still picking at his slender corpse,cultural authorities argue like vultures over hisreputation.…His difficult journey from unhappy childhood…”指出社会各界一直对迈克尔·杰克逊的生活感兴趣。由此可知A正确。
单选题
According to Sartre, everybody at his death will surely______.
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】解析:本题是细节题。根据关键词Sartre和death可找到第二段的对应原句“Jean PaulSartre(French existentialist philosopher)put it,at death we become prey to the“Other”一ouridentity dissipating into the sum total of what is thought about us.”,由此可知D符合此意。
单选题
Sartre held that, as a moral being, one should NOT______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】解析:本题是细节题。由第二段的最后一句“Sartre saw as central to our existence asmoral beings:we must do more than act out the roles others have scripted for us.”可知,我们一定要做比别人期望更多的事。由此可知A正确。
单选题
As claimed by Wittgenstein, Jackson's dead body revealed that he______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】解析:本题是推理题。根据关键词Wittgenstein和body可找到第三段的对应原句“AndJackson’s body in his last days legibly expressed something very revealing.”,以及本段的“…it’s something Michael Jackson felt more crushingly than most:a burden reflected in his lifelongmodifications of his own appearance”,排除选项后可知B正确。
单选题
In the last paragraph, the "back catalogue" refers to Jackson's______.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析:本题是词意理解题。根据关键词back catalogue可找到对应原句“The backcatalogue of Jackson’s songs is now the complete catalogue.”,这里的back catalogue指的是未录制的音乐,由此可知C正确。
单选题
It can be concluded that today what we hear about Michael Jackson may NOT be______.