2021年考博英語閱讀理解模擬題（八）

New York is in themiddle of a culture fest celebrating Berlin,a 17-day marathon of music, film, architecture, literature and photography thatbegan on November 2nd. “Berlin In Lights” is largely the brainchild of SirClive Gillinson, a former managing director of the London Symphony Orchestrawho became executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall in July 2005.Determined to make the New Yorkconcert hall more international, he is initiating a series of culturalfestivals celebrating cities, nations or artistic movements. Berlin is the first of these.

A visit by the BerlinPhilharmonic Orchestra, under its principal conductor Sir Simon Rattle had beenplanned for some time. Much taken by the extraordinarytransformation of Berlinsince reunification—the city thrives through culture and politics; there ishardly any business or finance—Sir Clive decided to expand that visit into afull-blown festival. He got an enthusiastic response from other New York institutions.

Berlin and New York have sizeable mutual admiration societies but,until recently, post-war Berlin could onlydream of being in the same league of creative effervescence as New York. Now, inpartnership with the American Academy in Berlin, Carnegie Hall has put togethera crowd of seminars—on literature, the visual arts, film-making—inviting starssuch as Volker Schl?ndorff and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, bothOscar-winning German directors. The Goethe-Institut and the Germanconsulate-general are showing photographs, the Museumof Modern Art is screening films aboutBerlin and the P.S.1 ContemporaryArt Centre is screening the 13 episodes and epilogue of Rainer WernerFassbinder's television epic “BerlinAlexanderplatz” in 14 separate rooms.

The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, extending its visit to eight days,will be performing Gustav Mahler's last three major works as well as music byThomas Adès, Magnus Lindberg and Gy?rgy Kurtag, three contemporary composers.In addition, various chamber ensembles made up of Philharmonic musicians areplaying both at Carnegie and at “neighbourhood concerts” in the city's fiveboroughs. The most innovative of the Philharmonic's offerings will be theperformances on November 17th and 18th at the United Palace Theatre in Washington Heights of Igor Stravinsky's “The Riteof Spring”, danced by kids from state schools who have been trained for justeight weeks. To those who think that the result will be shambolic, theorganisers retort that the experiment worked well with children—includingrefugees—from state schools in Berlin.

“Berlin In Lights” is not comprehensive: there is no theatre and littledance. A festival that gets too big loses its charm, says Sir Clive: “We wouldlike to capture people's imagination and incite them to explore new horizons.”

The audience at some of the shows—a performance by Max Raabe and thePalast Orchestra of songs from the 1920s and 1930s, Ute Lemper, a German chanteusespecialising in Kurt Weill, in cabaret—were made up largely from whatone participant described as the geriatric intelligentsia from the UpperWest Side. As many of them have German- or Austrian-Jewish origins, they have aloving, knowledgeable relationship with German culture. One critic hissed thatMs Lemper was a poor copy of Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife, whom she had seenperform in the 1940s. Sir Clive hopes that concerts by the Nomad SoundSystem, aBerlin band performing western dance music andNorth African melodies, and concerts by Berlin'sTurkish and Kurdish communities may bring in a younger crowd.

1. What does the word “marathon” (Line 1, Paragraph 1) mean in the text?

[A] A festival

[B] A sport competition

[C] A culture fest

[D] A large event

2. The Goethe-Institut is probably situated in_____

[A] New York.

[B] Berlin.

[C] Carnegie University.

[D] Germany.

3. The first sentence of the third paragraph implies that_____

[A] Berlin is lagging behind New York in artistic invention.

[B] Berlin and New York have a long history of artistic exchange in the societal level.

[C] Berlin is the German equivalence of New York in terms of creative vigour.

[D] Both Berlin and New York boast of people with high admiration of art.

4. The festival is carried out in order to_____

[A] enhance cultural exchange between the two cities.

[B] propagate new Berlin of culture and politics in the form of art.

[C] goes along with the 8 day visit of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

[D] internationalize New York music world.

5. From Sir Clive’s statements, it can be infered that he holds the view that a festival ______

[A] should be comprehensive.

[B] should be innovative.

[C] should be full-blown.

[D] should be limited in scale.

[答案]

1. D

2. A

3. A

4. D

5. D

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