In 1880, the traveller and journalist Lafcadio Hearn was living in New Orleans and writing for a couple of local papers, Daily City Item and TimesDemocrat. Hearn sensed that New Orleans exists in a state of insidious disintegration(蜕变)—“crumbling into ashes”—thanks to its dangerous geography and its “frauds and maladministrations.” And yet, Hearn wrote to a friend, “It is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio.” New Orleanians have always resembled New Yorkers; they tend to share the sense that to live anywhere else would lead inevitably to a stupid and pitiable existence beyond the bounds of understanding.
In part, the spirit of New Orleans is rooted in the city's belowsealevel unsteadiness, the condition of looking out—and even up—at the water all around you, the knowledge that water saturates(浸透) the ground you stand on. Katrina, the fierce hurricane that destroyed the Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005, tested the selfpossession of every citizen who survived it. More than eighteen hundred people did not survive it, and hundreds of thousands lost their homes. The storm and the terrible flooding that followed—a natural disaster worsened by a range of manmade disasters—revealed much that had been fragile, or rotten, in Hearn's time and grew worse with every decade: shabby civil engineering; corrupt and inefficient government institutions; and it turned out that an Administration in Washington witnessed for days a city drowning—a largely black city drowning—and reacted with annoying indifference. And yet, in the face of abandonment—in hospitals, on rooftops, on highway overpasses—the residents of New Orleans behaved with resilience(不折不挠). Rebecca Solnit, an acute observer of Katrina and its aftermath, has written, “The belief that a Hobbesian war of allagainstall had broken loose justified treating the place as a crime zone or even an unfriendly country rather than a place in which grandmothers and children were trapped in frightful conditions, desperately in need of food, water, shelter and medical attention.”
Alec Soth, a photographer who lives in Minneapolis and travels the Midwest and the South with the energy of a latterday Walker Evans, did not join the artists who came to New Orleans a decade ago to capture what he calls the “eye candy of rot and ruin.” Instead, he waited, preferring to capture the city of water ten years later, a city in a state of both persistent suffering and persistent renewal. Soth shows us the upsetting image of a freestanding column—all that is left of a house in the hardhit Lower Ninth Ward—but he moves toward a vision of promise, a lonely figure at his leisure, staring into the waters of today's New Orleans.
31. New Orleanians are similar to New Yorkers in that________.
A. they refuse to leave their homeland B. they exist in insidious disintegration
C. they possess dangerous geography D. they have a sense of boring existence
32. What can we know from the hurricane Katrina and its damaging consequences?
A. A range of manmade disasters led to the fierce hurricane.
B. The hurricane happened following a terrible flooding.
C. The American government failed to provide help and support.
D. The residents of New Orleans have a deep hatred for governors.
33. Why did Alec Soth refuse to join other artists to take photos of New Orleans a decade ago?
A. He also treated New Orleans as a crime zone.
B. He had high expectations of the future of New Orleans.
C. He couldn't put up with the suffering the hurricane caused.
D. He was traveling the Midwest and the South with Walker Evans.
ACB
什么是历史文化类阅读：
本类题型常用的方式是夹叙夹议。叙述的目的是为了议，所以要把握其议才是主要方面。阅读这类文章，先弄清其引入的话题，再弄清里面人物对其不同的看法，然后理解作者本身对话题的观点看法或思考。
历史文化类阅读技巧：
【题型说明】历史文化类阅读理解文章属高考常选材料之一。这类文章常涉及历史、文化、法制、宗教等方面的文学艺术、发明创造、文化遗产保护、宗教与文化、风俗与习惯、道德与法制、中外文学名著节选、等等。这类材料的命题点往往落在主旨大意题、事实细节题上。
【答题方法】在做这类阅读理解题时，我们应注意以下几个方面：
1、采用先题后文：先读题目，再带着问题读文章。这类阅读理解文章相对来说事实细节题稍多一点，如果带着问题读文章，有利于我们抓细节。
2、先做细节题。因为做完了局部性的事实细节题后，自然会加深我们对文章的理解，这样更有利于做主旨大意题。
3、重点敲定主旨题。主旨大意题提问的形式主要有两大类：一类是Main idea型；一类是Topic或Title型。
在解答这类试题时应注意以下几点：
a．读首句抓大意。
文化教育类阅读理解文章多采用说明文、议论文体裁，而这类文章大都采用文章段落的中心，即主题句在文章开头。因此，要寻找这类文章的主旨大意就需要研究文章的首句。
b．读尾句抓大意。
有时这类文章的主题句安排在文章的结尾，作为对全篇的总结。
c．读首段抓大意。
有些文章或段落的开头和结尾部分都有主题句。这种结构是为了突出主题思想而使用两次点题的写作方法。这两个主题句在句子结构和用词上有所不同，而且在内容上前句和后句也不重复。
d．从段落中抓大意。
有些文章或段落的主题句在文章中，这种文章或段落往往以一句话或几句话引出要表达的主题，在主题句出现后，再举例子陈述细节或继续论证。
e．归纳要点抓大意。
有些文章或段落无明显的主题句，只是暗示性地体现主题。这就要求同学们在阅读过程中根据文中所叙述的事实或线索来概括总结主旨大意。
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