1 In the late nineteenth century, New York"s Lower East Side had the highest concentration of people in the world. Over one million residents lived in extreme poverty, with 300,000 of them packed into one square mile alone. Most were immigrants from Europe and Asia. Men, women, children, and the elderly all worked for low wages in the thousands of sweatshops that made clothing, cigars, furniture, and tinware. Few of the realist painters of the time wanted to paint this New York; it was a photographer and writer, Jacob Riis, who opened the subject to a wide public.
2 Jacob Riis was born in Denmark and immigrated to the United States in 1870, at the age of twenty-one. He landed in New York and got a job as a police court reporter for the New York Tribune. The police headquarters was located in the heart of the East Side slum district, and Riis came to know thousands of the local poor. What he saw inspired him to fight for the elimination of slums using the tools of journalism. At that time, American journalism was changing. The urban population was multiplying rapidly, and there was an explosion of newspapers. The papers aimed to reach larger audiences, which led them to increase the number of human-interest stories—stories not just about the comfortable classes, but about the "other half" and how it lived.
3 Jacob Riis became New York"s chief reporter of urban blight, making a name for himself with his detailed accounts of life in the Lower East Side. Today he is best known as a photographer. In the 1880s, photography was still at an early stage, and news photos were rare. As a good journalist, Riis was quick to see that recent developments in flashlight photography would enable him to dramatize his stories. Photography would be his means for drawing attention to the living conditions of the poor, particularly the immigrant population. He committed himself to this cause, knowing that the affluent and educated half of society could not ignore photographs of how the other half lived.
4 In 1890 he published his photographs in a book, How the Other Half Lives, his most famous work. The book was a bestseller and ran through several editions. The photographs exposed the appalling conditions of the time and were direct evidence of human misery in the immigrant enclaves, back alleys, and cheap lodging houses. Shocked readers saw images of ragged children playing in the street and old people toiling in dim sweatshops. They were horrified by the miserable existence of a million people, the powerless and destitute of America"s "other half."
5 Riis was a member of the new generation of "muckraking" journalists that investigated corruption, injustice, exploitation, and poverty. Like the other muckrakers, Riis made it his mission to seek out and expose the darker side of society. By today"s standards of journalistic etiquette, he was very intrusive, feeling no need to get permission from his subjects before photographing them. Riis and his assistants would burst into tenements and saloons, startling people with their cameras and flashlights. Many of the photographs were taken at night, requiring artificial lighting, which at the time consisted of flash cartridges fired from a revolver into a frying pan. The explosive noise caused terror and confusion. On two occasions, Riis accidentally set fire to rooms he was photographing when the flash cartridge exploded in flames.
6 Still, as a journalist and photographer, Jacob Riis had more of an influence on reforming living conditions than did any of the more conventional social workers of his day. One day Riis received a note that read, "I have read your book and I have come to help." The note was from the head of the New York Police Board of Commissioners, Theodore Roosevelt, who later went on to become president of the United States. Moved by the photographs Riis had taken, Roosevelt instituted a number of social reforms. The photographs in How the Other Half Lives are still prized for their historic value and stand out as proof of the power of pictures to bring about social change.

单选题 Why does the author describe New York"s Lower East Side in paragraph 1?

单选题 Which sentence below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in paragraph 1? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

单选题 In paragraph 2, in stating that there was an explosion of newspapers, the author means that

单选题 The word blight in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to

单选题 According to the passage, why did Jacob Riis become a photographer?

单选题 In Riis"s book How the Other Half Lives, the term "other half" describes

单选题 Jacob Riis photographed all of the following subjects EXCEPT

单选题 Riis and many other journalists of his generation were primarily interested in

单选题 What can be inferred from paragraph 5 about the journalistic etiquette of the late nineteenth century?

单选题 According to the passage, how did Jacob Riis influence the reform of living conditions in New York?

单选题 The phrase stand out in paragraph 6 is closest in meaning to

填空题 Look at the four squares, A, B, C, and D, which indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit?
Once he set fire to his own clothes, and on another occasion he almost blinded himself.
Riis was a member of the new generation of "muckraking" journalists that investigated corruption, injustice, exploitation, and poverty. Like the other muckrakers, Riis made it his mission to seek out and expose the darker side of society. A By today"s standards of journalistic etiquette, he was very intrusive, feeling no need to get permission from his subjects before photographing them. B Riis and his assistants would burst into tenements and saloons, startling people with their cameras and flashlights. Many of the photographs were taken at night, requiring artificial lighting, which at the time consisted of flash cartridges fired from a revolver into a frying pan. C The explosive noise caused terror and confusion. On two occasions, Riis accidentally set fire to rooms he was photographing when the flash cartridge exploded in flames. D

填空题 An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.

The work of Jacob Riis was very influential in the social history of New York.

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A. Riis was born in Denmark and moved to New York when he was twenty-one.
B. Riis"s stories and photographs exposed the poverty of people living in the Lower East Side.
C. In the late nineteenth century, news photographs were rare because photography was still a new science.
D. How the Other Half Lives revealed the shocking conditions in slums and sweatshops.
E. New developments in photography made it possible to take photographs indoors and at night.
F. Riis used photography and investigative journalism to inspire social reform.