6.To take the apple as a forbidden fruit is the most unlikely strory the Christians(基督教徒)have ever cooked up.For them,the forbidden fruit from Eden is evil(邪惡的).So when Columbus brought the tomato back from South America,a land mistakenly considered to be Eden,everyone jumped to the obvious conclusion.Wrongly taken as the apple of Eden,the tomato was shut out of the door of Europeans.
What made it particularly terrifying was its similarity to the mandrake,a plant that was thought to have come from Hell(地獄).What earned the plant its awful reputation was its roots which looked like a dried-up human body occupied by evil spirits.Tough the tomato and the mandrake were quite different except that both had bright red or yellow fruit,the general population considered them one and the same,too terrible to touch.
Cautious Europeans long ignored the tomato,and until the early 1700s most of the Westernpeople continued to drag their feet.In the 1880s,the daughter of a well-known plant expert wrote that the most interesting part of an afternoon tea at her father's house had been the"introduction of this wonderful new fruit--or is it a vegetable?"As late as the twentieth century some writers still classed tomatoes with mandrakes as an"evil fruit".
But in the end tomatoes carried the day.The hero of the tomato was an American named Robert Johnson,and when he was publicly going to eat the tomato in 1820,people journeyed for hundreds of miles to watch him drop dead."What are you afraid of?"he shouted."I'll show you fools that these things are good to eat!"Then he bit into the tomato.Some people fainted.But he survived and,according to a local story,set up a tomato-canning factory.
68.The tomato was shut out of the door of early Europeans mainly becauseD.
A.it made Christians evil
B.it was the apple of Eden
C.it came from a forbidden land
D.it was religiously unacceptable
69.What can we infer the underlined part in Paragraph 3?C
A.The process of ignoring the tomato slowed down
B.There was little progress in the study of the tomato
C.The tomato was still refused in most western countries
D.Most western people continued to get rid of the tomato
70.What is the main reason for Robert Johnson to eat the tomato publicly?B
A.To make himself a hero
B.To remove people's fear of the tomato
C.To speed up the popularity of the tomato
D.To persuade people to buy products from his factory
71.What is the main purpose of the passage?C
A.To challenge people's fixed concept of the tomato
B.To give an explanation to people's dislike of the tomato
C.To present the change of people's attitudes to the tomato
D.To show the process of freeing the tomato from religious influence.
分析 本文主要講述了番茄在歐洲從剛開始的不被接受,到后來開放了番茄罐頭廠的"發(fā)展經(jīng)歷".番茄最開始被當(dāng)做禁果,后來由于Robert Johnson嘗試吃番茄,人們才改變了對它的看法.
解答 68.D.細(xì)節(jié)理解題.根據(jù)文章"So when Columbus brought the tomato back from South America,a land mistakenly considered to be Eden,everyone jumped to the obvious conclusion.Wrongly taken as the apple of Eden"可知,歐洲人錯(cuò)誤的把西紅柿當(dāng)做禁果,這是宗教不允許的.故選D.
69.C.推理預(yù)測題.根據(jù)文章"Cautious Europeans long ignored the tomato"可知,歐洲仍然忽視番茄."and"一詞表示前后文表達(dá)的意思應(yīng)為一致.A項(xiàng)錯(cuò)誤.從前文來看.番茄的不被重視是整個(gè)西方國家的排斥,而不只是一些西方人.故選C.
70.B.細(xì)節(jié)理解題.根據(jù)文章"What are you afraid of?"he shouted."I'll show you fools that these things are good to eat!""可知,Robert Johnson吃番茄是為了讓人們不在害怕.故選B.
71.C.主旨大意題.本文主要講述了番茄在歐洲的"發(fā)展",從剛開始的不被接受,到后來開放了番茄罐頭廠,可見人們對它的態(tài)度產(chǎn)生了巨大的改變.故選C.
點(diǎn)評 本文是考察學(xué)生歷史文化類閱讀理解文章.這類文章常涉及歷史、文化、法制、宗教等方面的文學(xué)藝術(shù)、發(fā)明創(chuàng)造、文化遺產(chǎn)保護(hù)、宗教與文化、風(fēng)俗與習(xí)慣、道德與法制、中外文學(xué)名著節(jié)選、等等.這類材料的命題點(diǎn)往往落在主旨大意題、事實(shí)細(xì)節(jié)題上.