TEXT D Steven Spielberg has taken Hollywoods depiction of war to a new level. He does it right at the start of Saving Private Ryan, in a 25 minute sequence depicting the landing of American forces on Omaha Beach in 1944. This is not the triumphant version of D-Day were used to seeing, but an inferno of severed arms, spilling intestines, flying corpses and blood-red tides. To those of us who have never fought in a war, this reenactment —— newsreel-like in its verisimilitude, hallucinatory in its impact —— leaves you convinced that Spielberg has taken you closer to the chaotic, terrifying sights and sounds of combat than any filmmaker before him. This prelude is so strong, so unnerving, that I feared it would overwhelm the rest of the film. When the narrative proper begins, theres an initial feeling of diminishment: its just a movie, after all, with the usual banal music cues and actors going through their paces. Fortunately, the feeling passes. "Saving Private Ryan" reasserts its grip on you and, for most of its 2 hour and 40 minute running time, holds you in thrall. Our heroes are a squad of eight soldiers lucky enough to survived Omaha Beach. Now they are sent, under the command of Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), to find and safely return from combat a Private Ryan (Matt Damon), whose three brothers have already died in action. Why should they risk their lives to save one man? The question haunts them, and the movie. The squad is a familiar melting-pot assortment of World War Two grunts —— the cynical New Yorker (Edward Burns) who doesnt want to risk his neck; the Jew (Adam Goldberg); the Italian (Vin Diesel); the Bible-quoting sniper from Tennessee (Barry Pepper); the medic (Giovanni Ribisi). The most terrified is an inexperienced corporal (Jeremy Davies) brought along as a translator. Davies seems to express every possible variety of fear on his eloquently scrawny face. Tom Sizemore is also impressive as Millers loyal second in command. As written by Robert Rodat, they could be any squad in any war movie. But Spielberg and his actors make us care deeply about their fate. Part of the movies power comes form Hanks quietly mysterious performance as their decent, reticent leader (the men have a pool going speculating about what he did in civilian life). Theres an unhistrionic fatalism in Captain Miller; he just wants to get the job done and get home alive, but his eyes tell you he doesnt like the odds. The level of work in "Private Ryan" —— from the acting to Janusz Kaminskis brilliantly bleached-out color cinematography to the extraordinary sound design by Gary Rydstorm —— is state of the art. For most of "Saving Private Ryan", Spielberg is working at the top of his form, with the movie culminating in a spectacularly staged climactic battle in a French village. The good stuff is so shattering that it overwhelms the lapses, but you cant help noticing a few Hollywood moments. Sometimes Spielberg doesnt seem to trust how powerful the material is, and crosses the line into sentimentality. Theres a prelude and a coda, set in a military cemetery, that is written and directed with a too-heavy hand. But the truth is, this movie so wiped me out I have little taste for quibbling. When you emerges from Spielbergs cauldron, the world doesnt look quite the same.

　　47. The movie "Saving Private Ryan" is up to a new level because _______.

　　A) it depicts the landing of American forces on Omaha Beach in 1944

　　B) the landing is not successful

　　C) it reproduces the terrible pictures of severed arms, spilling intestines etc.

　　D) it is a 25-minute sequence

　　48. Which of the following is correct?

　　A) The prelude is more unnerving than the rest of the film.

　　B) The prelude is as unnerving as the rest of film.

　　C) The prelude is less unnerving than the rest of the film.

　　D) The prelude is as unnerving as most of the remaining part of the film.

　　49. The squad is a familiar melting-pot assortment of World War Two grunts because the squad consist of _______.

　　A) 8 common soldiers from different ethnic groups in the US

　　B) 8 soldiers who often complain the war

　　C) 8 soldiers who don't want to risk their necks

　　D) 8 soldiers who are lucky to have survived the war

　　50. According to the last 2 sentences of the passage, the movie made the author of the passage _______.

　　A) disappointed

　　B) carried away

　　C) find faults with the movie

　　D) quibbling the movie

　　SECTION B SKIMMING AND SCANNING

　　In this section there are seven passage followed by ten multiple-choice questions. Skim or scan them as required and then mark your answers on your Answer Sheet.

　　TEXT E First read the question. 51.According to the passage, the author seems to ______. A. favor the fear of strangers B. disagree to the fear of strangers C. remain neutral to the fear of strangers D. show no feeling to the fear of strangers Now go though Text E quickly to answer question 51. At the beginning of this century, as steamers poured into American ports, their steerages filled with European immigrants, a Jew from England named Israel Zangwill penned a play whose story line has long been forgotten, but whose central theme has not. His production was entitled "The Melting Pot" and its message still holds a tremendous power on the national imagination —— the promise that all immigrants can be transformed into Americans, a new alloy of forged in a crucible of democracy, freedom and civic responsibility. In 1908, when the play opened in Washington, the United States was in the middle of absorbing the largest influx of immigrants in its history —— Irish and Germans, followed by by Italians and East Europeans, Catholics and Jews —— some 18 million new citizens between 1890 and 1920. Today, the United States is expecting its second great wave of immigration, a movement of people that has profound implications for a society that by tradition pays homage to its immigrant roots at the same time it confronts complex and deeply ingrained ethnic and racial divisions. The shift, according to social historians, demographers and others studying the trends, will severely test the premise of the fabled melting pot, the idea, so central to national identity, that this country can transformed people of every color and background into "one American". Just as possible, they say, is that the nation will continue to fracture into many separate, disconnected communities with no shared sense of commonality or purpose. Or perhaps it will evolve into something in between, a pluralistic society that will hold on to some core ideas about citizenship and capitalism, but with little meaningful interaction among groups. The demographic changes raise other questions about political and economic power. Will that power, now held disproportionately by whites, be shared in the new America? What will happen when Hispanics overtake blacks as the nations single largest minority? Fear of strangers, of course, is nothing new in American history. The last great immigration wave produced a bitter backlash, epitomized by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and return, in the 1920s, of the Ku Klux Klan, which not only targeted blacks, but Catholics, Jews and immigrants as well. But despite this strife, many historians argue that there was a greater consensus in the past on what it meant to be an American, a yearning for a common language and culture, and a desire —— encouraged, if not coerced by members of the dominant white Protestant culture —— to assimilate. Today, they say, there is more emphasis on preserving ones ethnic identity, of finding ways to highlight and defend ones culture roots.

　　51. According to the passage, the author seems to ______.

　　A) favor the fear of strangers

　　B) disagree to the fear of strangers

　　C) remain neutral to the fear of strangers

　　D) show no feeling to the fear of strangers

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