It is an unfortunate fact that most North Americans know little about American Indian culture and history. Scholars have studied such matters, but they have not succeeded in broadcasting their conclusions widely. Thus, it is still not widely known that American Indians have epics, that they performed plays long before Europeans arrived, and that they practiced politics and carried on trade. One way to gain a fuller appreciation of this rich culture is to examine American Indian poetry, for poetry is in all cultures the most central and articulate of the arts. It is especially important that we study American Indian poetry as this poetry can create a context that gives cohesive expression to the crafts, the artifacts, and the isolated facts that many Americans have managed to notice willy-nilly. Even a survey of American Indian poetry reveals a range of poetic thought and technique that defies easy generalization. Jarold Ramsey hazards a summary, however, which serves at least to give the uninitiated reader some sense of what American Indian poetry is like. Overall, he writes, it represents “ an oral, formulaic, traditional, and anonymous art form,“ whose approach is to emphasize the “mythic and sacred“ components of reality. It “flourished through public performances... by skilled recitalists whose audiences already knew the individual stories“ and valued the performers for their “ability to exploit their material dramatically and to combine them[their stories]in longer cycles“ rather than for their “plot invention. “ Because this poetry belongs to highly ethnocentric tribal peoples, whose cultures “ we still do not know much about,“ it “ is likely to seem all the more terse, even cryptic. American Indian poetry has another feature that Ramsey ignores: it is always functional. Whether sung, chanted, or recited; whether performed ceremonially, as entertainment, or as part of a task such as curing a patient or grinding corn; or whether recited individually or by a group, it is always fully woven into the fabric of ordinary life. For complicated reasons, American Indian poetry has basically been ignored by non-Indian cultures. Kenneth Lincoln writes that failure to hear American Indian voices results “ partly... from the tragedies of tribal dislocation, partly from mistranslation, partly from misconceptions about literature, partly from cultural indifference. “ Brian Swann suggests an additional explanation; tribal poetry is oral, whereas Europeans arrived in the New World with a deeply ingrained belief in the primacy of the written word. As a result, European settlers found it hard to imagine that poetry could exist without written texts and thus that the American Indians had achieved something parallel to what Europeans called literature long before Europeans arrived. As a consequence, Europeans did not fully respond to the rich vitality of American Indian poetry.

According to Jarold Ramsey, American Indian poetry is an art form characterized by its______.

A．unusual depictions of landscapes

B．adaptability to public performance

C．universal accessibility

D．highly original plots

According to the passage, it would be unusual for American Indian poetry to be______.

A．attributed to specific authors

B．sung by a group of performers

C．chanted while working

D．sung during a sacred ceremony

It can be inferred from the passage that Brian Swann believes which of the following about the European settlers of America?

A．They probably were more literate, on the average, than the general European population they left behind.

B．They probably thought it necessary to understand American Indian politics before studying American Indian literature.

C．They probably did not recognize evidence of an oral poetic tradition in the American Indian cultures they encountered.

D．They probably could not appreciate American Indian poetry because it was composed in long narrative cycles.

Which of the following best describes the organization of the last paragraph of the passage?

A．An observation is made and qualifications of it are provided.

B．A phenomenon is noted and explanations for it are presented.

C．A hypothesis is presented and arguments against it are cited.

D．A prognosis is made and evidence supporting it is discussed.

There is nothing in physical structure, the brain or the internal organs to______a difference. display indicate demonstrate appear

This kind of material can______heat and moisture. delete compel constrain repel

Government loan have been the______of several shaky business companies. tornado salvation delinquency momentum

While she had the fever, she______for hours. raved sniggered tittered perforated

______seen by anyone, the thief escaped. Being not Not being To be Be not

We are making good progress, but we must not______until we have achieved our objective. let up give up put up draw up

Our civilization cannot be thought of as______in a short period of time. to have been created to be created having been created being created

Their coach must______the team’s poor performance. answer for answer to answer back answer about

The term “Ice Age“ may give a wrong impression. The epoch that geologists know as the Pleistocene and that spanned the 1.5 to 2. 0 million years prior to the current geologic epoch was not one long continuous glaciation, but a period of oscillating climate with ice advances punctuated by times of interglacial climate not very different from the climate experienced now. Ice sheets that derived from an ice cap centered on northern Scandinavia reached southward to Central Europe. And beyond the margins of the ice sheets, climatic oscillations affected most of the rest of the world; for example, in the deserts, periods of wetter conditions(pluvials)contrasted with drier, interpluvial periods. Although the time involved is so short, about 0. 04 percent of the total age of the Earth, the amount of attention devoted to the Pleistocene has been incredibly large, probably because of its immediacy, and because the epoch largely coincides with the appearance on Earth of humans and their immediate ancestors. There is no reliable way of dating much of the Ice Age. Geological dates are usually obtained by using the rates of decay of various radioactive elements found in minerals. Some of these rates are suitable for very old rocks but involve increasing errors when used for young rocks; others are suitable for very young rocks and errors increase rapidly in older rocks. Most of the Ice Age spans a period of time for which no element has an appropriate decay rate. Nevertheless, researchers of the Pleistocene epoch have developed all sorts of more or less fanciful model schemes of how they would have arranged the Ice Age had they been in charge of events. For example, an early classification of Alpine glaciation suggested the existence there of four glaciations, named the Gunz, Mindel, Piss, and Wurm. This succession was based primarily on a series of deposits and events not directly related to glacial and interglacial periods, rather than on the more usual modern method of studying biological remains found in interglacial beds themselves interstratified within glacial deposits. Yet this succession was forced willy-nilly onto the glaciated parts of Northern Europe, where there are partial successions of true glacial ground moraines and interglacial deposits, with hopes of ultimately piecing them together to provide a complete Pleistocene succession. Eradication of the Alpine nomenclature is still proving a Herculean task. There is no conclusive evidence about the relative length, complexity, and temperatures of the various glacial and interglacial periods. We do not know whether we live in a postglacial period or an interglacial period. The chill truth seems to be that we are already past the optimum climate of postglacial time. Studies of certain fossil distributions and of the pollen of certain temperate plants suggest decreases of a degree or two in both summer and winter temperatures and, therefore, that we may be in the declining climatic phase leading to glaciation and extinction.

Beene’s new novel proves he isn’t just a______in the pan. flare glitter spark flash

The newly-built Science Building seems______enough to last a hundred years. spacious sophisticated substantial steady

The political future of the president is now hanging by a______. thread cord string rope

The speaker______us with tales of exotic lands and buried treasure. detoured offset tantalized ushered

On August 18th the president announced a general______for political exiles. ado yoga quartet amnesty

If it doesn’t rain within the next few weeks, the crops will have to be watered if they are______. to survive to be survived being survived surviving

She refused to______the car key to her husband until he had promised to wear his safety belt. hand in hand out hand down hand over

The fossilized remains of a type of camel______a dog have been found in the Badlands of South Dakota. no more larger than not larger than no larger than which no larger than

Perhaps the most significant postwar trend was the decentralization of cities throughout the United States, ______ when massive highway-building programs permitted greater suburban growth. and accelerated a phenomenon a phenomenon that accelerated accelerating a phenomenon which the acceleration of which phenomenon

______by the United States government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Consumer Price Index compares current costs of goods and services with past costs. To prepare As it prepared When preparation Prepared

As the train will not leave until one hour later, we______grab a bite at the snack bar. may well just as well might as well as well

According to the passage, American Indian cultures have produced all of the following forms of artistic expression EXCEPT______.

According to Jarold Ramsey, American Indian poetry is an art form characterized by its______.

According to the passage, it would be unusual for American Indian poetry to be______.

It can be inferred from the passage that Brian Swann believes which of the following about the European settlers of America?

Which of the following best describes the organization of the last paragraph of the passage?