托福基础班阅读讲义.doc

2011托福基础班阅读练习材料 细节题 APPLIED ARTS AND FINE ARTS Sculptures must, for example, be stable, which requires an understanding of the properties of mass, weight distribution, and stress. Paintings must have rigid stretchers so that the canvas will be taut, and the paint must not deteriorate, crack, or discolor. These are problems that must be overcome by the artist because they tend to intrude upon his or her conception of the work. For example, in the early Italian Renaissance, bronze statues of horses with a raised foreleg usually had a cannonball under that hoof. This was done because the cannonball was needed to support the weight of the leg. In other words, the demands of the laws of physics, not the sculptors aesthetic intentions, placed the ball there. That this device was a necessary structural compromise is clear from the fact that the cannonball quickly disappeared when sculptors learned how to strengthen the internal structure of a statue with iron braces (iron being much stronger than bronze). Q1: According to paragraph 2, sculptors in the Italian Renaissance stopped using cannonballs in bronze statues of horses because They began using a material that made the statues weigh less They found a way to strengthen the statues internally The aesthetic tastes of the public had changed over time (D) The cannonballs added too much weight to the statues LAKE BAIKAL Crescent-shaped Lake Baikal, in Siberia, is only the ninth largest lake in area at 385 miles (650 km) in length and 46 miles (74 km) in width, yet it is easily the largest body of fresh water in the world. It holds one-fifth of the worlds total fresh water, which is more than the total of all the water in the five Great Lakes; it holds so much fresh water in spite of its less-than-impressive area because it is by far the worlds deepest lake. The average depth of the lake is 1,312 feet (400 meters) below sea level, and the Olkhon Crevice, the lowest known point, is more than 5,250 feet (1,600 meters) de