单选题 Writing about music is like dancing about architecture, or so the saying goes. Sometimes attributed to Frank Zappa, other times to Elvis Costello, this quote is usually intended to convey the futility of such an endeavor, if not the complete silliness of even attempting it. But Glenn Kurtz"s graceful memoir, Practicing- A Musician"s Return to Music, turns the expression on its head, giving it a different meaning by creating a lovely, unique book.
Kurtz picked up the guitar as a kid in a music-loving family, attended the Long Island music school, and went on to play on Merv Griffin"s TV show before graduating from Tufts University. Motivating the young Kurtz was the dream of reinventing classical guitar, as if by his great ambition alone he could push it from the margins of popular interest to center stage--something not even accomplished by the late Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia, perhaps the only artist of the form ever to reach anything resembling widespread celebrity.
This book reads like a love story of sorts: Boy meets guitar. Boy loves guitar. Guitar breaks boy"s heart or, more precisely, the ordinariness of a working musician"s life does so. "I"d just imagined the artist"s life naively, childishly, with too much longing, too much poetry and innocence and purity," Kurtz writes. "The guitar had been the instrument of my dreams. Now the dream was over."
Boy leaves guitar. Were the story to end here, this book would be a tragedy, but after nearly a decade the boy returns to guitar, and although he has lost the enthusiasm he had in his youth, he finds his love of the guitar again in a way he never could have appreciated before.
Although Kurtz is writing about a unique musical path, his journey speaks eloquently to the heart of anyone who has ever desperately yearned to achieve something and felt the sting of disappointment. "Everyone who gives up a serious childhood dream--of becoming an artist, a doctor, an engineer, an athlete--lives the rest of their life with a sense of loss, with nagging what ifs, "he writes. "Is that time and effort, that talent and ambition, truly wasted?"
单选题 The quotation mentioned in Paragraph I implies that writing about music is______
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 句意理解题。根据文中内容得知这句话是用来形容徒劳的努力,愚蠢至极的尝 试,可以看出这句话暗指用写作是无法表现音乐的。故选C。
单选题 As a young man Glenn Kurtz wanted to______
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。从“Motivating the young Kurtz was the drearn of reinventing classical guitar”这句可以看出库兹想改革古典吉他。
单选题 What does the passage say about classical guitar?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 推断题。从文中原句“push it from the margins of popular intetest to center stage” 可以看出,此句中it即是上文中的classical guitar,可见古典吉他还在大众兴趣的边缘。故 选A。
单选题 According to the passage, Andres Segovia______
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 句意理解题。从第二段最后一句可以看出,安德烈斯·塞戈维亚没有完成古典吉 他的普及,他是古典吉他界最有名的吉他演奏家。文中并未提到他是库兹的偶像,而且其与 库兹并无交集。四个选项中只有C为正确内容。
单选题 Paragraph 3 suggests that what "the ordinariness of a working musician"s life" does to the boy is______
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 句意理解题。第三段中写道“吉他伤了男孩的心,或者更确切地说,是一个 音乐家平淡无波的工作生活伤了男孩的心。”故选B。平淡的生活让他失望,进而告别了 吉他。
单选题 The book Practicing: A Musician"s Return to Music mainly tells that______
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 句意理解题。从最后一段中引用库兹书中的内容可知放弃童年曾认真对待的梦 想的人们会用整个后半生的时间失落。意为没有梦想的人生是不完整的。