Question

Matt Haimovitz is 42 and a renowned cellist (大提琴手) in the world. He rushed into the classical music scene at the age of 12 after Itzhak Perlman, the famed violinist, heard him play.

But nothing in his family history explains where Haimovitz got his extraordinary talent. And that’s typical, Ellen Winner, a professor says.

“People are fascinated by these children because they don’t understand where their talent came from. You will see parents who say, ‘I wasn’t like this, and my husband wasn’t like this.’ It seems to sometimes just come out of the blue,” Winner says.

It’s not clear whether a prodigy’s （天才）brain is any different from the brains of other children, in part because there have been no study comparing the brains of prodigies to those of average people.

“But I believe that anything that shows up so early, without training, has got to be either a genetic or some other biological basis,” Winner says. “If a child suddenly at the age of 3 goes to the piano and picks out a tune and does it beautifully, that has to be because that child has a different brain.”

Children who are extremely gifted tend to be socially different, too, Winner says. “They feel like they can’t find other kids like themselves, so they feel strange, maybe even like a freak, and feel like they don’t have anybody to connect with. On the other hand, they also long to connect with other kids, and they can’t find other kids like themselves.”

As Haimovitz got older, he became frustrated. He wanted to play other kinds of music but felt constricted by the image and the expectations of the boy prodigy who played classical music and filled concert halls.

“When you start that early, you suddenly start to grow up in public, and I wanted to experiment,” Haimovitz says.

So he took his cello into punk rock clubs and coffee houses. He played Bach, Haydn and Hendrix. “My teacher was Leonard Rose, and we never played any 20th-century music. He didn’t like it. But once I was exposed to James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, Miles Dewey Davis El and others, I couldn’t really turn back. I wanted to know more,” he says.

1.According to some parents, prodigies’ extraordinary talent .

A. comes unexpectedly B. is inherited from parents

C. results from hard workD. is trained in early times

2.Winner seems to agree to the fact that ____.

A. average people have their particular brains

B. biology is the base of a different brain

C. a prodigy’s brain is superior to those of others

D. genes play an important role in a prodigy

3.According to the text, gifted children are .

A. lonely B. easy-going C. innocentD. social

4.The last paragraph is mainly about how Haimovitz was trying to .

A. build up his friendshipB. play different kinds of music

C. set up the image of a prodigy D. perform classical music creatively

 

Answer 1

1.A

2.D

3.A

4.B

【解析】

試題分析：文章大意：馬特·海默維茨是著名的大提琴手。人們都認(rèn)為他是天才，但他的這種“天才”卻不是遺傳。然而，天才的童年也有自己的煩惱，他們無法找到自己的玩伴所以有時(shí)候會(huì)很孤獨(dú)。

1.A細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)第三段…because they don’t understand where their talent came from….just come out of the blue(出乎意料), 可知答案選A。

2.五段..I believe that …without training, has got to be either a genetic or some other biological basis可知，Winner相信天才要是沒有訓(xùn)練要么是遺傳要么是其它生物基礎(chǔ)，所以正確答案為D、基因在天才身上起著重要作用。

3.A 細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)倒數(shù)第四段…so they feel strange, maybe even like a freak, and feel like they don’t have anybody to connect with…可知，天才兒童沒人跟他們玩，感覺自己很奇怪，像個(gè)畸形人，所以會(huì)很孤獨(dú)。因此答案選A。

4.B 細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)最后一段…I couldn’t really turn back. I wanted to know more 可知，Haimovitz 接觸了別的音樂時(shí)就不想再回到原先的音樂上，而是想對(duì)新的音樂知道更多。所以答案選B。

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