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.A

2.D

3.A

4.B

【解析】

试题分析：文章大意：马特·海默维茨是著名的大提琴手。人们都认为他是天才，但他的这种“天才”却不是遗传。然而，天才的童年也有自己的烦恼，他们无法找到自己的玩伴所以有时候会很孤独。

1.A细节理解题。根据第三段…because they don’t understand where their talent came from….just come out of the blue(出乎意料), 可知答案选A。

2.五段..I believe that …without training, has got to be either a genetic or some other biological basis可知，Winner相信天才要是没有训练要么是遗传要么是其它生物基础，所以正确答案为D、基因在天才身上起着重要作用。

3.A 细节理解题。根据倒数第四段…so they feel strange, maybe even like a freak, and feel like they don’t have anybody to connect with…可知，天才儿童没人跟他们玩，感觉自己很奇怪，像个畸形人，所以会很孤独。因此答案选A。

4.B 细节理解题。根据最后一段…I couldn’t really turn back. I wanted to know more 可知，Haimovitz 接触了别的音乐时就不想再回到原先的音乐上，而是想对新的音乐知道更多。所以答案选B。

考点：考查故事类阅读