高级英语Mark Twain 课后练习

EXERCISES 9________________________________________I. Give brief answers to the following questions, using your own words as much as possible:1) Why is Mark Twain one of America's best-loved authors?2) Give a brief account of Mark Twain's experience before he became a writer.3) Why did the author adopt 'Mark Twain' as his pen name?4) When did Mark Twain become a pilot on a steamboat? How long did he stay there? What did he learn there? What effect did this experience have on his writing?5) Why did Twain leave the river country? What did he do then?6) What story did he write that made him known as "the wild humorist of the Pacific slope”?7) Why did the book, the Innocents Abroad, become an instant best-seller?8) Why is Tom Sawyer as sure to be studied in American schools today as is the Declaration of Independence?9) Why did Twain become bitter late in life?Ⅱ. Paraphrase:1) A man who became obsessed with the frailties of the human race2) Mark Twain digested the new American experience before sharing it with the world as writer and lecturer.3) The cast of characters set before him in his new profession was rich and varied-- a cosmos.4) Broke and discouraged, he accepted a job as reporter with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise5) Mark Twain began digging his way to regional fame as a newspaper reporter and humorist.6)"and when she projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and says 'Well, that is California all over’'"7) Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh.Ⅲ. Translate the following into Chinese:1) From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception of the human race, of the difference between what people claim to be and what they really are.2) Tom's mischievous daring, ingenuity, and the sweet innocence of his affection for Becky Thatcher are almost as sure to be studied in American schools today as is the Declaration of Independence.3) Mark Twain suggested that an ingredient was missing in the American ambition when he said: "What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges."4) In The Mysterious Stranger, he insisted that man drop his religious illusions and depend upon himself, not Providence, to make a better world.5) "... they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence; where they achieved nothing; where they were a mistake and a failure and foolishness; where they have left no sign that they had existed -- a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever. "Ⅳ. Pick out the compound nouns and compound adjectives fry the text and explain their formation.Ⅴ. Give the antonyms of the words listed below:1) optimist2) savage3) keen 4) to rebuff5) diligently6) sluggish7) to acknowledge8) colossal9) tedious10) drearyⅥ. Pick out all the words and phrases connected with boats and rivers.VII. In this text, a lot of nouns are used as attributes. Pick them out.Models: 1) tramp printer2) steamboat daysVIII. Explain how the meaning of the following sentences is affected when the italicized words are replaced with the words in brackets. Pay attention to the shades of meaning of the words.1) Indeed, this nation's best-loved author was every bit as adventurous, patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever imagined. (sentimental) (witty)2 ) Tramp printer, river pilot, Confederate guerrilla, prospector, starry-eyed optimist, acid-tongued cynic(critic)3) Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, and furs moved dove stream to the delta country (timber4) From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception of the human race, of the difference between what people claim to be and what they really are. (proclaim oneself)5) When railroads began drying up the demand for steamboat pilos and the Civil War halted commerce (need) (stop)6) Attacks on the city government, concerning such issues as mistreatment of Chinese, so angered officials that he fled to the gold-fields (ill-treatment)7) It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises... anda recklessness of cost or consequences. (results)8) In the dreary winter of 1864-65 in Angels Camp, he kept a notebook. ( tedious)9) In New York City the steamship Quaker City prepared to sail on a pleasure cruise to Europe and the Holy Land. (pleasant)10) Twain was assigned to accompany them, as correspondent for a California newspaper. (reporter)11) What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be (healthy)12) He commented with a crushing sense of despair on man's final release from earthly struggles (desperation)IX. The italicized words are used metaphorically. Explain their meanings in your own words and comment on the suitability of the metaphors in each case.1) Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn's idyllic cruise througheternal boyhood and Tom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure.2) The geographic core, in Twain's early years was the great valley of the Mississippi River, main artery of transportation in the young nation's heart.3) The cast of characters set before him in his new profession was rich and varied -- a cosmos4) Steamboat decks teemed not only with the main current of pioneering humanity, but its flotsam of hustlers, gamblers,and thugs as well.5) He went west by stagecoach and succumbed to the epidemic of glod and silver fever in Nevada's Washoe region.6) For eight months he flirted with the colossal wealth available to the lucky and the persistent, and was rebuffed.7) From the discouragement of his mining failures, Mark Twain began digging his way to regional fame as a newspaper reporter and humorist.8) Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles.X. Besides metaphors and hyperboles, the writer used many other figures of speech to make his writing more vivid and powerful. Point out the figures used in the following sentences:1) From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception of the human race, of the difference between what people claim to be and what they really are.2) He tried soldiering for two weeks with a motley band of Confederate guerrillas who diligently avoided contact with the enemy.3) But for making money, his pen would prove mightier than his pickax.( )4) “It was a splendid population –for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home”( )5) "It was that population... and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences”( )6) Bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh.( )7) He commented with a crushing sense of despair on man's final release from earthly struggles ( )8) a world which will lament them a day and forget them for-ever ( )XI. Make sentences using the following words in a figurative sense:1) heart2) artery3) current4) Hotbed5) to dry up6) to honeXII. In some places the author uses hyperboles (exaggerations for effect) to emphasize his meaning. Try to pick them out.Models: 1) eternal boyhood2) America laughed with him.XIII. Replace the italicized words and phrases with more formal words or expressions:1) Indeed, this nation's best-loved author was every bit as adventurous... as anyone had ever imagined. ( )2) Broke and discouraged, he accepted a job as reporter ( )3) That gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises ( )4) and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring ( )5) "Well, that is California all over." ( )6) "Coleman with his jumping frog -- bet stranger $50."( )7) Casually he debunked revered artists and art treasures. ( )8) He insisted that man drop his religious illusions ( )ⅩⅣ. Translate the following into English (using the following words or expressions: to find expression in, to shape ... into, to have no choice but, to succumb, not until, to acquaint ... with, that's ... all over, to be obsessed with, to teem with, every bit as ... as, acquaintance, to sb.’s horror, to sb. 's satisfaction):1）对贫困的担心使他忧虑重重。