2017届高考英语一轮复习单元检测练：必修5 Unit4《Making the news》（原卷版）_高考复习指南

2017届高考英语一轮复习单元检测练：必修5 Unit4《Making the news》（原卷版）

　　第一节阅读理解 (共1小题；每小题2分，满分20分)

　　阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C和D项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题卡上将该项涂黑。His young readership is limited to those who choose to study literature at university.

　　Shakespeare’s work, together with most other classics, is seen as remote, and written in a 400-year-old version of English that is about as inviting as toothache.

　　Still, in Britain schools, it is compulsory to study the bard (诗人), and when something is made compulsory, usually the result is boredom, resentment (憎恨)or both.

　　This was my experience of the classics at school. But when I reached my late teenage years, I had a change of heart. Like every other young person since the dawn of time, the world confused me. I wanted answers, so I turned to books to find them.

　　I went on to take a PhD in literature and have taught it in Britain and China. I have never regretted it. There is something in literature that people want, even if they don’t read books. You see this in the popularity of TV and movie adaptations of great works, the recent film version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice being a case in point. These popular adaptations may help increase people’s interest in the classics.

　　Reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet may perhaps lead to a reading of Shakespeare’s actual play. If that is the case, then I welcome the trend. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it is the same thing. Shakespeare is a poet. His greatness is in his language. Reading someone else’s rewriting of his work is like peeling a banana, throwing away the fruit, and eating the skin. Take on the original. It really is worth the effort.