Passage 2Taylor Swift, the seven-time Grammy winner, is known for her articulate lyrics, so there wasnothing surprising about her writing a long column for The Wall Street Journal about the future ofthe music industry. Yet there′ s reason to doubt the optimism of what she had to say "This moment in music is so exciting because the creative avenues an artist can explore arelimitless," Swift wrote."In this moment in music, stepping out of your comfort zone is rewarded,and sonic evolution is not only accepted ... it is celebrated. The only real risk is being too afraid totake a risk at all."That′s hard to reconcile with Nielsen′s mid-year U.S. music report, which showed a 15percent year-on-year drop in album sales and a 13 percent decline in digital track sales. This couldbe the 2013 story all over again, in which streaming services cannibalize their growth from digitaldownloads, whose numbers dropped for the first time ever last year, except that even includingstreams, album sales are down 3.3 percent so far in 2014. Streaming has grown even more than it didlast year,42 percent compared to 32 percent, but has failed to make up for a general loss of interestin music.Consider this: in 2014 to date, Americans purchased 593.6 million digital tracks and heard 70.3million video and audio streams for a sum total of 663.9 million. In the comparable period of 2013,the total came to 731.7 million.Swift, one of the few artists able to pull off stadium tours, believes it′s all about quality."People are still buying albums, but now they′ re buying just a few of them," she wrote. "They arebuying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart."In 2000, album sales peaked at 785 million. Last year, they were down to 415.3 million. Swiftis right, but for many of the artists whose albums pierce hearts like arrows, it′s too late. Sales ofvinyl albums have increased 40.4 percent so far this year, according to Nielsen, and the top-sellingone was guitar hero Jack White′ s Lazaretto. The top 10 also includes records by the aging or dead,such as the Beatles and Bob Marley & the Wailers. More modern entries are not exactly teensensations, either: the Black Keys, Beck and the Arctic Monkeys. None of these artists is present onthe digital sales charts, including or excluding streams. The top-selling album so far this year, by ahuge margin, is the saccharine soundtrack to the Disney animated hit, "Frozen".When, like me, you′re over 40 and you believe the music industry has been in decline since in1993 (the year Nirvana released in Utero), it′ s easy to criticize the music taste of "the kids thesedays," a term even the 23-year old Swift uses. My fellow dinosaurs will understand if they compare1993′s top albums to Nielsen′s 2014 list. But these kids don′t just like to listen to different musicthan we do, they no longer find much worth hearing.The way the music industry works now may have something to do with that. In the old days,musicians showed their work to industry executives, the way most book authors still do to publishers(although that tradition, too, is eroding). The executives made mistakes and were credited with brilliantfinds. Sometimes they followed the public taste, and sometimes they strove to shape it, taking bigfinancial and career risks in the process. These days, according to Swift, it′s all about the socialnetworks. "A friend of mine, who is an actress, told me that when the casting for her recent movie camedown to two actresses, the casting director chose the actress with more Twitter followers," Swift wrote."In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans--not the other way around."The social networks are fickle and self-consciously sarcastic(see the recent potato saladphenomenon). They are not about arrow-through-the-heart sincerity. That′ s why YouTube made Psya star, but it couldn′t have been the medium for Beatle mania. Justin Timberlake has 32.9 millionTwitter followers, but he′ s no Jack White.In the music industry′ s heyday, it produced a lot of schlock. But it got great music out to themasses, too. These days, it expects artists to do their own promotion and for those who less good atthat than at making music, it may mean not getting heard. For fans it means less good music tostream and download. Well, there′s always the warm and fuzzy world of vinyl nostalgia, I guess.What does the underlined word "that" in PARAGRAPH EIGHT refer toA.Kid' s music taste.B.1993' s top album.C.Nielsen' s 2014 list.D.The music industry.

Passage 2
Taylor Swift, the seven-time Grammy winner, is known for her articulate lyrics, so there wasnothing surprising about her writing a long column for The Wall Street Journal about the future ofthe music industry. Yet there′ s reason to doubt the optimism of what she had to say "This moment in music is so exciting because the creative avenues an artist can explore arelimitless," Swift wrote."In this moment in music, stepping out of your comfort zone is rewarded,and sonic evolution is not only accepted ... it is celebrated. The only real risk is being too afraid totake a risk at all."
That′s hard to reconcile with Nielsen′s mid-year U.S. music report, which showed a 15percent year-on-year drop in album sales and a 13 percent decline in digital track sales. This couldbe the 2013 story all over again, in which streaming services cannibalize their growth from digitaldownloads, whose numbers dropped for the first time ever last year, except that even includingstreams, album sales are down 3.3 percent so far in 2014. Streaming has grown even more than it didlast year,42 percent compared to 32 percent, but has failed to make up for a general loss of interestin music.
Consider this: in 2014 to date, Americans purchased 593.6 million digital tracks and heard 70.3million video and audio streams for a sum total of 663.9 million. In the comparable period of 2013,the total came to 731.7 million.
Swift, one of the few artists able to pull off stadium tours, believes it′s all about quality.
"People are still buying albums, but now they′ re buying just a few of them," she wrote. "They arebuying only the ones that hit them like an arrow through the heart."
In 2000, album sales peaked at 785 million. Last year, they were down to 415.3 million. Swiftis right, but for many of the artists whose albums pierce hearts like arrows, it′s too late. Sales ofvinyl albums have increased 40.4 percent so far this year, according to Nielsen, and the top-sellingone was guitar hero Jack White′ s Lazaretto. The top 10 also includes records by the aging or dead,such as the Beatles and Bob Marley & the Wailers. More modern entries are not exactly teensensations, either: the Black Keys, Beck and the Arctic Monkeys. None of these artists is present onthe digital sales charts, including or excluding streams. The top-selling album so far this year, by ahuge margin, is the saccharine soundtrack to the Disney animated hit, "Frozen".
When, like me, you′re over 40 and you believe the music industry has been in decline since in1993 (the year Nirvana released in Utero), it′ s easy to criticize the music taste of "the kids thesedays," a term even the 23-year old Swift uses. My fellow dinosaurs will understand if they compare1993′s top albums to Nielsen′s 2014 list. But these kids don′t just like to listen to different musicthan we do, they no longer find much worth hearing.
The way the music industry works now may have something to do with that. In the old days,musicians showed their work to industry executives, the way most book authors still do to publishers(although that tradition, too, is eroding). The executives made mistakes and were credited with brilliantfinds. Sometimes they followed the public taste, and sometimes they strove to shape it, taking bigfinancial and career risks in the process. These days, according to Swift, it′s all about the socialnetworks. "A friend of mine, who is an actress, told me that when the casting for her recent movie camedown to two actresses, the casting director chose the actress with more Twitter followers," Swift wrote.
"In the future, artists will get record deals because they have fans--not the other way around."
The social networks are fickle and self-consciously sarcastic(see the recent potato saladphenomenon). They are not about arrow-through-the-heart sincerity. That′ s why YouTube made Psya star, but it couldn′t have been the medium for Beatle mania. Justin Timberlake has 32.9 millionTwitter followers, but he′ s no Jack White.
In the music industry′ s heyday, it produced a lot of schlock. But it got great music out to themasses, too. These days, it expects artists to do their own promotion and for those who less good atthat than at making music, it may mean not getting heard. For fans it means less good music tostream and download. Well, there′s always the warm and fuzzy world of vinyl nostalgia, I guess.
What does the underlined word "that" in PARAGRAPH EIGHT refer to


A.Kid' s music taste.

B.1993' s top album.

C.Nielsen' s 2014 list.

D.The music industry.

参考解析

解析:指代题。根据第七段第一句“When,like me,you’re over 40 and you believe the music industry has been in decline since in 1993(the year Nirvana released in Utero),it’s easy to criticize the music taste of‘the kidsthese days.’a term eventhe 23-year old Swift uses."可知现在的音乐市场不景气.很容易被人认为是由于现在的孩子对音乐的喜好与作者那时代的人不一样。所以第八段中“The way the music industry works now may have some thing to do with that.”中的that指代的就是孩子的音乐喜好(kid’s music taste)。

相关考题:

The word“shoot”underlined in the 2nd passage probably means“”.A.send forB.move quicklyC.come outD.grow quickly

According to the passage, the screen or cutters are fitted to __ (1)kill bacteria (2)break up the solid waste (3)remove solid matter with large sizeA.(1)B.(2)C.(2)(3)D.None of (1)(2)(3) is true

On a ship,a door that is required to be marked KEEP CLOSED is designed to ______.A.prevent the passage of flammable gasesB.prevent the passage of poisonous vaporsC.delay the spread of heat and flamesD.maintain watertight integrity

To grasp the gist of a passage in a quick way, what may a reader focus on?A.The transitional paragraphs.B.The whole passage.C.The topic sentences.D.Every sentence in the passage.

小学英语?阅读一、考题回顾二、考题解析【教学设计】Teaching aims:Knowledge aim:Students will master the meaning and usage of the structure “be doing” through reading the passage.Ability aim:Students will apply the “be doing” to communicate with each other in real situation.Emotional aim:Students will be more interest in learning English.Key and difficult point:Key Point: Students will master how to improve reading abilities through finding main idea and details.Difficult Point: Students will apply the “be doing” to communicate with each other in real situation.Teaching procedure:Step 1: Warming-up1. Greetings.2. Play a riddle and students guess the animals, such as “long nose, big ears and strong body——elephant”, then lead to the topic of “let’s go to the zoo to see what animals are doing”.Step 2: Pre-reading1. According to the title, students have a prediction about what kinds of animals are mentioned in the passage.Step 3: While-reading1. Fast reading: students read the passage fast and figure out what kinds of animals are mentioned in the passage then make a list.2. Careful reading: students read the passage carefully and answer the question: what are the animals doing? Then fill in the blanks.1. How do you improve students’ interest in learning English?2. What principle should you use in the post-reading step?

高中英语?阅读一、考题回顾二、考题解析【教案】Teaching aims:Knowledge aim:Students can know the basic meaning of passage and are able to master the different greeting for the strangers.Ability aims:Students can practice guessing content of next paragraph according to the clues which is given in the passage.Emotional aim:Students are able to love learning English and like to read different English passage after this lesson.Key and difficult point:Key Point: guess the content of next paragraph according to the clues and know the “learned” body language, especially different greetingsDifficult Point: improve students’ reading interest.Teaching procedures:Step 1: Warming-up1. Greetings.2. Play a video about Chaplin’s mime and ask students several questions:What kind of body language can you see from this video?Do you know the meaning of these body language?Step 2: Pre-readingPresent the passage on the screen and read it for all the students. Before reading, ask students one question: What’s the main ideas of these two paragraphs? And guess the main to topic of this lesson?Then invite several students to share their ideas.Step 3: While-reading1.Lead the students to think one question: Is this a whole passage? And ask students to scan the whole passage and give the teacher answer.2.Ask students to discuss in group and after 10 minutes to invite several students to share their ideas with all the students.3.And different students may be just guess the content of several paragraphs. So give students a chart, ask them to finish discussing in 5 minutes. Then invite two representatives to state the whole passage.Step4: Post-readingGuessing game: Present another passage on the screen. And give students 10 minutes to read and discuss.Then make a chart and tell your own stories according to chart in your own group .Then invite the representatives to make a report for the whole class.Step5: Summary and HomeworkSummary: ask a student to conclude the content of the lesson and summarize with the whole class.Homework: Present a passage and ask students to read and write a short passsage,which will be put behind of last paragraph.Blackboard design:1.Do you have the experience in teaching?2. What will you do if you pass this exam?

单选题Which of the following most accurately states the role of the first paragraph in relation to the passage as a whole?AIt summarizes two theories. the relative merits of which are debated in the passage.BIt puts forth an argument that the rest of the passage is devoted to refuting.CIt introduces a new concept that the rest of the passage expands upon.DIt frames the background and relevance of the material to follow.EIt outlines the majorthemes of each of the four paragraphs to follow.

单选题The primary purpose of Passage 2 is to ______.Adeny the claim that the Taj Mahal is beautifulBhighlight the influence of religion on the structureCexplain the historical importance of the buildingDjustify the structure's use as a tombEdiscuss the technical points of the Taj Mahal's architecture

单选题The primary purpose of Passage 1 is ______.Ato persuade the author of Passage 2 of the validity of evolutionary theoryBto describe the process by which protein is created by hemoglobinCto counter a common misconception about the composition of the human bodyDto deny the practical application of macroevolutionary theoryEto deride those who underestimate the complexity of the human body

单选题Unlike the author of Passage 1, the author of Passage 2 answers which of the following questions?AWhere did Shah Jahan have the Taj Mahal constructed?BHow did Moslem influences manifest themselves in the Taj Mahal's design?CWhat role did Moslem women play in the design of the Taj Mahal?DDo all people appreciate the Taj Mahal's architecture?EHow does the Taj Mahal compare with other examples of Islamic architecture?

单选题Which best characterizes how the impact of science on chimpanzees is treated in these two passages?AThe author of Passage 1 lauds the benefits science has produced, while the author of Passage 2 speaks hopefully of possible future benefits.BBoth of the passages react with distrust to the idea of using science to assess chimpanzees.CThe first passage lists the studies that showed positive chimp interactions, while the author of Passage 2 refutes their claims,DThe first passage suggests that science can have a positive impact on perceptions about chimps, whereas the second passage views science as almost universally negative.EThe author of the first passage is more apt to justify using chimps in science than the author of Passage 2.

单选题A flame screen().Apermits the passage of vapor but not of flameBprevents the passage of flammable vaporsCprevents inert gas from leaving a tankDpermits vapors to exit but not enter a tank

单选题Which of the following best describes the relationship between Passage 1 and Passage 2?APassage 2 offers a criticism of the political theory outlined in Passage 1.BPassage 1 expands upon an argument made in Passage 2.CPassage 1 refutes the conclusion drawn in Passage 2.DPassage 2 offers a balanced counterpoint to the biased opinions expressed in Passage 1EPassage I offers evidence to support the main idea of Passage 2.

单选题From the passage we can infer that the passage is probably selected from______.Aa speech to business leadersBa speech of a manager to his staffCan article in a popular magazineDa movie

单选题Which of the following activities can be used to get the main idea of a passage? _____.Areading the passage in detailBreading to sequence the eventsCreading to fill in the chartsDreading the first and last sentences of the passage and the paragraphs

单选题In Passage 2, the author's tone can be characterized as ______.Aextremist and accusatoryBjudgmental yet optimisticCpassionate and naiveDdepressing but determinedEevaluative and pessimistic

单选题In Passage 2, the word check (line 60) most nearly means ______.AvalidateBconstrainCdirectDencourageEcompete

单选题The two passages differ in their perspectives on the debate between industrialists and environmentalists mainly in that Passage 1 emphasizes ______.Amathematics, while Passage 2 emphasizes psychologyBdeficiencies in the debate, while Passage 2 emphasizes progress in the debateCthe irrelevance of externalities, while Passage 2 emphasizes their importanceDthe impact on taxpayers, while Passage 2 emphasizes the views of politiciansEpollution, while Passage 2 emphasizes recycling

单选题The author of Passage 2 would most likely regard the spate of recent popular books (line 1) mentioned in Passage 1 with ______.Arighteous indignationBinformed skepticismCeager anticipationDsentimental regretEbewilderment

单选题What does the wordconstant (Line 2, Para. 3) mean in the passage?AThe same.BAmount.CGoing up and down.DChanging.

问答题Practice 2  Listen to the following passage. Write in English a short summary of around l50-200 words of what you have heard. You will hear the passage only once and then you will have 25 minutes to finish your summary. This part of the test carries 20 points. You may need to scribble a few notes to write your summary. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

单选题Which of the following sentences should be omitted to improve the unity of the passage?ASentence 1BSentence 2CSentence 4DSentence 7ESentence 11

单选题The author most likely begins and concludes the passage with questions for what reason?ATo suggest possible areas for current and future researchBTo pose a question that is answered in the body of the passage, and then to formulate a question that arises naturally out of the discussionCTo gain the readers’ attention and encourage their agreement with the arguments in the passageDTo suggest through rhetorical questions that the problems described in the passage do not actually have answersETo test the readers’ knowledge of the material discussed in the passage

单选题Which of the following best describes the relationship between the two passages?APassage 2 describes a significant. and discovery that contradicts the argument of Passage 1.BPassage 2 offers a theory that supports the main point in Passage 1.CPassage I provides a possible reason for the scientific inquiry presented in Passage 2.DPassage 1 relates an anecdote that explains the popular misconception in Passage 2.EPassage 2 provides a historical context for the discovery described in Passage 1.

单选题Unlike Passage 1, Passage 2 discusses ______.Athe procedures of a specific experimentBa mistaken assumptionCthe work of professional researchersDsocial behaviorEhuman emotions

单选题Which statement most accurately describes the difference between the two passages?APassage 1 deals less directly with the exportation of chimpanzees than does Passage 2.BPassage 1 is less concerned with the interaction between man and the land than is Passage 2.CPassage I pertains to a species in its indigenous habitat while Passage 2 addresses the same animal in nonnative settings.DPassage I ends with an expression of optimism and Passage 2 does not.EPassage I introduces a species and describes its status worldwide, while Passage 2 limits its discussion of that species to its activities in the Northern Hemisphere.

问答题What does the ‘unwanted’ deep sea life mean in Paragraph 2 according to the passage?

单选题On a ship,a door that is required to be marked KEEP CLOSED is designed to().Aprevent the passage of flammable gasesBprevent the passage of poisonous vaporsCdelay the spread of heat and flamesDmaintain watertight integrity