管理员英文-maleficent
2010
Text1
The
longest bull run in a century of art-market
history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56
works by Damien Hirst,
“Beautiful
Inside My Head
Forever”
，
at
Sotheby’s
in London on
September 15th 2008. All but two pieces sold,
fetching more
than
￡
70m, a record for a sale by
a single artist. It was a last victory. As the
auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the
oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman
Brothers, filed for bankruptcy.
The
world art market had already been losing momentum
for a while after rising bewilderingly since 2003.
At its peak in
2007 it was worth some
$$65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of
Arts Economics, a research
firm
—
double the figure
five
years
earlier.
Since
then
it
may
have
come
down
to
$$50
billion.
But
the
market
generates
interest
far
beyond
its
size
because
it
brings
together
great
wealth,
enormous
egos,
greed,
passion
and
controversy
in
a
way
matched
by
few
other
industries.
In the weeks and months that followed
Mr
Hirst’s
sale, spending of
any sort became deeply unfashionable, especially
in
New
York,
where
the
bail-
out
of
the
banks
coincided
with
the
loss
of
thousands
of
jobs
and
the
financial
demise
of
many
art-buying investors. In the art world
that meant collectors stayed away from galleries
and salerooms. Sales of contemporary art
fell by two-thirds, and in the most
overheated sector
—
for
Chinese contemporary
art
—
they were down by nearly
90% in the
year to November 2008.
Within weeks the
world’s
two
biggest auction houses,
Sotheby’s
and
Christie’s,
had to pay out
nearly
$$200m in guarantees to clients
who had placed works for sale with them.
The current downturn in the art market
is the worst since the Japanese stopped buying
Impressionists at the end of 1989, a
move that started the most serious
contraction in the market since the Second World
War. This time experts reckon that prices
are about 40% down on their peak on
average, though some have been far more fluctuant.
But Edward Dolman,
Christie’s
chief
executive, says:
“I’m
pretty confident
we’re
at the
bottom.”
What
makes this slump different from the last, he says,
is that there are still buyers in the market,
whereas in the early
1990s, when
interest rates were high, there was no demand even
though many collectors wanted to sell.
Christie’s
revenues in
the first half of 2009 were still
higher than in the first half of 2006. Almost
everyone who was interviewed for this special
report
said that the biggest problem at
the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of
good work to sell. The three
Ds
—
death, debt
and
divorce
—
still
deliver
works
of
art
to
the
market.
But
anyone
who
does
not
have
to
sell
is
keeping
away,
waiting
for
confidence to return.
the
first paragraph, Damien Hirst's sale was referred
to as
“a
last
victory”
because ____.
A. the art market had witnessed a
succession of victories
B. the
auctioneer finally got the two pieces at the
highest bids
C. Beautiful Inside My
Head Forever won over all masterpieces
D. it was successfully made just before
the world financial crisis
saying
“spending
of any sort became
deeply
unfashionable”(Line
1-2,Para.3)
，
the author
suggests that_____.
A. collectors were
no longer actively involved in art-market auctions
B .people stopped every kind of
spending and stayed away from galleries
C. art collection as a fashion had lost
its appeal to a great extent
D .works
of art in general had gone out of fashion so they
were not worth buying
2
3. Which of the following
statements is NOT true?
A .Sales of
contemporary art fell dramatically from 2007 to
2008.
B. The art market surpassed many
other industries in momentum.
C. The
market generally went downward in various ways. D.
Some art dealers were awaiting better
chances to come. 24. The
three Ds
mentioned in the last paragraph are ____
A. auction houses ' favorites
1
B. contemporary trends
C. factors promoting artwork
circulation
D. styles representing
impressionists
25. The most appropriate
title for this text could be ___
A.
Fluctuation of Art Prices
B. Up-to-date
Art Auctions
C. Art Market in Decline
D. Shifted Interest in Arts
Text2
I was addressing a
small gathering in a suburban Virginia living
room
—
a women's group that
had invited men to join them.
Throughout the evening one man
had been particularly talkative,
frequently offering ideas and
anecdotes, while his wife sat
silently
beside
him
on
the
couch.
Toward
the
end
of
the
evening
I
commented
that
women
frequently
complain
that
their
husbands don't talk to
them. This man quickly nodded in agreement. He
gestured toward his wife and said,
our
family.
work, I have nothing to say. If
she didn't keep the conversation going, we'd spend
the whole evening in silence.
This
episode crystallizes the irony that although
American men tend to talk more than women in
public situations, they
often talk less
at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with
marriage.
The pattern was observed by
political scientist Andrew Hacker in the late
1970s. Sociologist Catherine Kohler Riessman
reports in her new book
—
but only a few of the
men
—
gave lack of
communication as the reason for their
divorces. Given the current divorce rate of nearly
50 percent
，
that amounts to
millions of
cases in the United States
every year
—
a virtual
epidemic of failed conversation.
In my
own research complaints from women about their
husbands most often focused not on tangible
inequities such as
having given up the
chance for a career to accompany a husband to his
or doing far more than their share of daily life-
support
work like cleaning, cooking,
social arrangements and errands. Instead they
focused on communication:
me.
doesn't
talk
to
me.
as Hacker
observed
years
before
that most
wives
want their
husbands to be
first and
foremost conversational partners but
few husbands share this expectation of their
wives.
In short the image that best
represents the current crisis is the stereotypical
cartoon scene of a man sitting at the breakfast
table with a newspaper held up in front
of his face, while a woman glares at the back of
it, wanting to talk.
26. What is most
wives' main expectation of their husbands?
A. Talking to them.
B.
Trusting them.
C. Supporting their
careers.
D. Sharing housework.
27. Judging from the context, the
phrase
“wreaking
havoc”(Line
3,Para.2)most
probably means ___ .
A. generating
motivation.
B. exerting influence
C. causing damage
D.
creating pressure
28. All of the
following are true EXCEPT_______
A. men
tend to talk more in public than women
B. nearly 50 percent of recent divorces
are caused by failed conversation
C.
women attach much importance to communication
between couples
D. a female tends to be
more talkative at home than her spouse
2