[单项选择]Mark Twain began his career as a writer_____


A. when he was on the Mississippi River
B. when he was in his hometown
C. when he met his wife
D. when he was working as a newspaperman

[单项选择]Mark Twain's full literary career began to blossom in 1869 with a travel book ______, an account of American tourists in Europe.
A. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
B. The Gilded Age
C. Innocents Abroad
D. An American Tragedy

[单项选择]His career （） in his appointment as director.
A. contaminated
B. culminated
C. contracted
D. contacted

[单项选择]Mark Twain is well known for his ______.


A. refined language
B. rich imagery
C. local color
D. sincerity

[单项选择]If Mark Twain couldn't find his ticket, ______.

[单项选择]Mark Twain is well known______us______his humorous novels.


A. to, for
B. by, for
C. by, in
D. to, in

[单项选择]

Passage Four
In 1807 Noah Webster began his greatest work, An American Dictionary of the English Language. In preparing the work, he devoted ten years to the study of English and its relationship to other languages, and seven more years to the writing itself. Published in two volumes in 1828, An American Dictionary of the English Language has become the recognized authority (权威) for usage in the United States. Webster’s purpose in writing it was to show that the American language was developing distinct meanings, pronunciations, and spellings from those of British English. He is responsible for advancing simplified spelling forms: "develop" instead of the British form "develope"; "theater" and "center" instead of "theatre" and "centre"; "color" and "honor" instead of "colour" and "honour".

When was An American Dictionary of the English Language published（）
A. 1817.
B. 1807.
C. 1828.
D. 1824.

[单项选择]He began his talk by giving a concise definition of post-modernism.


A. long and detailed
B. short and clear
C. comprehensive
D. professional

[单项选择]While Mark Twain and William Dean Howells satirized European manners at times, ______ was an admirer of ancient European civilization.
A. Washington Irving
B. Henry James
C. Walt Whitman
D. Jack London

[单项选择]The first writing which made Mark Twain nationally famous was


A. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
B. [ B] Life on the Mississippi.
C. The Gilded Age and Innocents Abroad.
D. The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.

[单项选择]Mark Twain's works are characterized by the following except ______.
A. sense of humor
B. egotism
C. jokes
D. tall tales

[单项选择]

Text 1
Mark Twain once observed that giving up smoking is easy. He knew, because he’d done it hundreds of times himself, Giving up for ever is a trifle more difficult, apparently, and it is well known that it is much more difficult for some people than for others. Why is this so
Few doctors believe any longer that it is simply a question of will power. And for those people that continue to view addicts as merely "weak", recent genetic research may force a rethink. A study conducted by Jacqueline Vink, of the Free University of Amsterdam, used a database called the Netherlands Twin Register to analyse the smoking habits of twins. Her results suggest that an individual’s degree of nicotine dependence, and even the number of cigarettes he smokes per day, are strongly genetically influenced.
The Netherlands Twin Register is a voluntary database that is prized by geneticists because they allow the comparison of identical twins (who
A. The fraternal twins are much more valued by researchers.
B. Two kinds of twins are often been compared in research.
C. Identical twins are more likely to be addicted to smoking.
D. Fraternal twins are more genetically similar than identical twins.