江苏专版高考英语二轮复习-增分技巧突破-阅读理解检测阅读理解词义猜测类之短语猜测题或句意理解题

专题限时检测专题限时检测( (二十二二十二) )阅读理解词义猜测类之短语猜测题或句意理阅读理解词义猜测类之短语猜测题或句意理 解题解题 (加★的为短语猜测题或句意理解题，本卷限时23 分钟) A (2017·南京市、盐城市高三模拟考试 )You ve probably heard such reports. The number of college students majoring in the humanities (人文学科) is decreasing quickly. The news has caused a flood of highmindedessays criticizing the development as a symbol of American decline. The bright side is this: The destruction of the humanities by the humanities is, finally, coming to an end. No more will literature, as part of an academic curriculum, put out the light of literature. No longer will the reading of, say, “King Lear” orD．H. Lawrence s “Women in Love” result in the annoying stuff of multiplechoicequizzes, exam essays and homework assignments. The discouraging fact is that for every college professor who made Shakespeare or Lawrence come alive for the lucky few, there were countless others who made the reading of literary masterpieces seem like two_hours_in_the_dentist s_chair. The remarkably insignificant fact that, a halfcenturyago, 14% of the undergraduate population majored in the humanities (mostly in literature, but also in art, philosophy, history, classics and religion) as opposed to 7% today has given rise to serious reflections on the nature and purpose of an education in the liberal arts. Such reflections alwayscome to the same conclusion: Weare told that the lack of a al education, mostly in literature, leads to numerous harmful personal conditions, such as the inability to think critically, to write clearly, to be curious about other people and places, to engage with great literature after graduation, to recognize truth, beauty and goodness. These serious anxieties are grand, admirably virtuous and virtuously admirable. They are also a mere fantasy. The college teaching of literature is a relatively recent phenomenon. Literature did not even become part of the university curriculum until the end of the 19th century. Before that, what came to be called the humanities consisted of learning Greek and Latin, whilethe Bible was studied in church as the necessary other half of a full education. No one ever thought of teaching novels, stories, poems or plays in a al course of study. They were part of the leisure of everyday life. It was only after World War Ⅱ that the study of literature as a type of wisdom, relevant to actual, contemporary life, put down widespread institutional roots. Soldiers returning home in 1945 longed to make sense of their lives after what they had witnessed and survived. The abundant economy afforded them the opportunity and the time to do so. Majoring in English hit its peak, yet it was this very popularity of literature in the university that spelled its doom, as the academicization of literary art was accelerated. Literature changed my life long before I began to study it in college. Books took me far from myself into experiences that had nothing to do with my life, yet spoke to my life.But once in the collegeclassroom, this prec