The American screen has long been a smoky place, at least since 1942"s Now, Voyager, in which Bette Davis and Paul Henreid showed how to make and seal a romantic deal over a pair of cigarettes that were smoldering as much as the stars. Today cigarettes are more common on screen than at any other time since midcentury: 75% of all Hollywood films—including 36% of those rated G or PG—show tobacco use, according to a 2006 survey by the University of California, San Francisco. Audiences, especially kids, are taking notice. Two recent studies, published in Lancet and Pediatrics, have found that among children as young as 10, those exposed to the most screen smoking are up to 2.7 times as likely as others to pick up the habit. Worse, it"s the ones from nonsmoking homes who are hit the hardest. Now the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)—the folks behind the designated-driver campaign—are pushing to get the smokes off the screen. "Some movies show kids up to 14 incidents of smoking per hour", says Barry Bloom, HSPH"s dean. "We"re in the business of preventing disease, and cigarettes are the No. 1 preventable cause". Harvard long believed that getting cigarettes out of movies could have as powerful an effect, but it wouldn"t be easy. Cigarette makers had a history of striking product-placement deals with Hollywood, and while the 1998 tobacco settlement prevents that, nothing stops directors from incorporating smoking into scenes on their own. In 1999 Harvard began holding one-on-one meetings with studio execs trying to change that, and last year the Motion Picture Association of America flung the door open, inviting Bloom to make a presentation in February to all the studios. Harvard"s advice was direct: Get the butts entirely out, or at least make smoking unappealing. A few films provide a glimpse of what a no-smoking or low-smoking Hollywood would be like. Producer Lindsay Doran, who once helped persuade director John Hughes to keep Ferris Bueller smoke-free in the 1980s hit, wanted to do the same for the leads of her 2006 movie Stranger Than Fiction. When a writer convinced her that the character played by Emma Thompson had to smoke, Doran relented, but from the way Thompson hacks her way through the film and snuffs out her cigarettes in a palmful of spit, it"s clear the glamour"s gone. And remember all the smoking in The Devil Wears Prada? No? That"s because the producers of that film kept it out entirely—even in a story that travels from the US fashion world to Paris, two of the most tobacco-happy places on earth. "No one smoked in that movie", says Doran, "and no one noticed". Such movies are hardly the rule, but the pressure is growing. Like smokers, studios may conclude that quitting the habit is not just a lot healthier but also a lot smarter.
单选题
What"s the author"s purpose of the second paragraph?
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】解析:考查对第二段的理解。本题难度不大,细读选项再稍加推理就可选出正确答案。第二段写观众、尤其是儿童很容易受到银幕吸烟场面影响,作者列举了研究结果来证明这一点,而这些都是为什么要消除银幕上的烟雾的原因。第二段说观众尤其是小观众们十分注意这些场面。Lancet and Pediatrics上发表的两个最近的研究表明:常看到吸烟场面的10岁的孩子染上吸烟的比率上升到其他孩子的2.7倍。更糟的是,那些无烟家庭孩子受到的影响最严重。A是文中表明的现象,不是深层原因,B、C是其中事实细节,不是整段话想要表明的内容。
单选题
It"s hard to get cigarettes out of Hollywood because _____.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】解析:第三段前两句Harvard long believed..., but it wouldn"t be easy. Cigarette makers had a history of striking product-placement deals with Hollywood...nothing stops directors from incorporating smoking into scenes on their own。第二句说虽然"1998烟草协议"阻止烟草商与好莱坞进行交易,但导演们依然我行我素,继续把吸烟镜头搬上荧幕,所以好莱坞电影的吸烟场面很难消除。故B正确。文中虽提到烟草商与好莱坞有很深的渊源和瓜葛,但后来烟草协议阻止他们继续这样做,虽如此,导演们仍那样做是出于他们自己的意愿,on their own"主动地、独立地"就能体现出这点,故排除D。A是事实但非问题答案,C说法文中未提及,且其正确与否尚有待商榷,故均排除。
单选题
Which of the following statements is true according to the author?
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】解析:文章倒数第二段。由第二句Lindsay Doran, who once helped persuade director John Hughes to keep Ferris Bueller smoke-free in the 1980s hit可知:Lindsay Doran曾经说服导演John Hughes不让Ferris Bueller在20世纪80年代大卖的电影里吸烟,故B正确,注意smoke-free意思是"无烟的,禁止吸烟的",而非自由吸烟的。倒数第二句说电影The Devil Wears Prada中并没有出现香烟,所以D不对。该选项迷惑性较大,需要考生仔细分析。第三句说Doran的态度变温和了,让Emma Thompson在电影中吸烟了,但并未提及在下一部影片中她是否还会吸烟,故C不正确;由第一句A few films provide a glimpse of what a no-smoking or low-smoking Hollywood would be like.可知是"一些"而非"大部分",故A不对。
单选题
What"s the author"s attitude toward getting cigarettes out of screen?
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】解析:文章最后一段:Such movies are hardly the rule, but the pressure is growing. Like smokers, studios may conclude that quitting the habit is not just a lot healthier but also a lot smarter.这段话意思是"公众压力在增加,吸烟者和制片厂也将得出结论:戒烟健康得多,而且也明智得多"。作者隐含的意思是吸烟场面迟早会被消除,A正确。作者也介绍了"银幕戒烟"的难度,但最后一句话表明了他认为戒烟是不可避免的、必然的,而不是怀疑的,排除D。作者的分析是一种对趋势冷静的预测,并没有表现出乐观,排除B;作者是赞成"银幕戒烟"的,其态度并不是冷漠的,排除C。