Paragraph 1：In the 1840s a new type of publication arose in Britain and the United States: the pictorial weekly. Early pictorial weeklies were large-size news magazines that included plentiful illustrations, often based on news events. These magazines owed their rise in part to the development of new and better printing technologies, such as electrotype, an electrical process that used a wax mold of a page, covered in graphite, to create a metal plate for printing. Other methods had previously been used to create plates for printing, but the electrotype process was easier, faster, and more precise. It enabled the pictorial weeklies to have a distinctive large format.
1. According to paragraph 1, the rise of pictorial weeklies in the 1840s was made possible in part by
O the discovery that electricity could be used to power printing presses
O the discovery that plates could be used to print magazines faster than before
O the development of new printing technologies
O the development of new methods for carving woodblock designs
2. Paragraph 1 supports all of the following statements about the new pictorial weeklies of the 1840s EXCEPT:
O They were larger than earlier magazines.
O They were the most popular type of mass publication.
O They included a large number of illustrations.
O They carried articles about news events.
Paragraph 2：A second development of the early 1840s also influenced the nature of the illustrations in pictorial weeklies worldwide. If the arrival of the electrotype had made the high-volume printing of large, finely engraved illustrations possible, the emergence of photography gave many of these images a distinctive character. Soon after the daguerreotype (the earliest photographic process) had swept the world in the early 1840s, artists for pictorial weeklies began to use these early photographs as sources for their illustrations. The growing presence of woodblock-engraved portraits in the weeklies in the 1840s and 1850s arose directly from the popularity of portrait photographs, any of which could easily be mailed or shipped anywhere in the world. In 1857 the artist Winslow Homer in Boston copied onto a woodblock a daguerreotype portrait of a sea captain who lived in California, thereby allowing the captain's likeness to reach publication in the Companion without the subject's having been within a few thousand miles of the artist who had drawn him. Nothing quite like this had been possible so routinely or with such ease before the introduction of the daguerreotype in France in 1839 and its rapid spread elsewhere.
3. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
O By copying a daguerreotype portrait onto a woodblock, Winslow Homer was able to create a portrait for publication even though he had never been near the person depicted in the portrait.
O In 1857 the artist Winslow Homer used a daguerreotype portrait to produce a woodblock likeness of a sea captain from California for publication in a Boston weekly.
O In 1857 the Boston-based Companion published a likeness of a sea captain even though the sea captain lived far away in California.
O The portraits that were published in the Companion and other weeklies were produced by artists such as Winslow Homer who copied daguerreotype portraits onto woodblocks.
4. According to paragraph 2, how did the emergence of photography affect pictorial weeklies？
O Photographs began to replace other types of illustration.
O The use of photographs helped increase the worldwide popularity of weeklies.
O Photographs made it possible to produce weeklies faster and more easily.
O Artists began using photographs as sources for the illustrations they made for weeklies.
Paragraph 3：Beyond supplying them with subjects, photography also influenced what some illustrators drew and how they drew it. As daguerreotypes and, later, other photographic processes became increasingly common in the 1850s, illustrators began to imitate (as best they could in their linear medium) the distinctive tonality, the blend of light and dark areas, of early photographs. This was not easy to do in woodblock engraving, but an interest in tonal effects is nevertheless evident in the work of many wood engravers. Their efforts lent an aura of documentary realism to a magazine's pages, at least for that part of the public that believed that a photograph captured more truth than an artist could. In a tour through the pages of European and American weeklies of the 1840s and 1850s, one encounters in many illustrations the various pictorial qualities that were common in early products of the camera. The stillness of many illustrations for weeklies, such as views of the dawn, echoed the static character of subjects photographed before lenses were fast enough to stop motion. It was surely to provide a welcome contrast to this stillness that some magazine illustrators drew scenes full of depicted movement, such as scenes of people ice-skating.
5. Why does the author mention that the efforts of some woodblock engravers lent an aura of documentary realism to a magazine's pages？
O To explain why woodblock engravers believed they could succeed in imitating pictorial elements of photography beyond tonal effects
O To suggest a consequence caused by the fact that such artists were interested in creating tonal effects even though their medium was not well suited for creating tonal effects
O To suggest a reason why European and American pictorial weeklies became so popular in the 1840s and 1850s
O To show that illustrators could portray more realistic images than early photographers could
6. According to paragraph 3, why was so little motion depicted in many illustrations for weeklies？
O It was more difficult to illustrate scenes depicting movement.
O Representations of still scenes were thought to be more truthful.
O Static representations like the dawn were the most popular.
O The illustrations imitated the stillness of early photographs.
Paragraph 4：The influence of photography can also be felt in a shift in the general character of popular illustration that occurred during the early years of the pictorial weeklies. The move was one from humor to greater formality and dignity. Many of the leading book and magazine illustrators of the 1820s and 1830s had invested their work with an essentially comic outlook. Even when they illustrated serious subjects, the artists of this generation trusted imagination at least as much as observation. Their work reflected the high-spirited mood of the times in England and America. This spirit never entirely disappeared from the work of many of the most respected illustrators in the succeeding decades. But with the growth of a culture of greater propriety beginning in the 1840s, humor became dislodged from a central to a marginal position in the mainstream of the popular book and magazine illustration. Humorous writing survived nicely in comic journals, but those publications never had the prestige of serious publications.
7. According to paragraph 4, what was part of the explanation for the shift away from humor toward greater formality in popular illustration？
O Many of the comic journals of the earlier period had either failed or cut back on the number of illustrations they published.
O Mainstream popular magazines had begun including articles on serious subjects.
O The mood of the times had become less lighthearted and more concerned with respectability.
O The most respected illustrators had become unwilling to use imagination as a basis for their work.
8. Paragraph 4 supports which of the following statements about humorous illustration beginning in the 1840s？
O It began to appear less frequently in mainstream publications.
O It began to reflect the attitudes of magazine owners rather than of artists.
O It generally became more imaginative.
O It was more influenced by photography than were other types of illustration.
Paragraph 2：A second development of the early 1840s also influenced the nature of the illustrations in pictorial weeklies worldwide. ■If the arrival of the electrotype had made the high-volume printing of large, finely engraved illustrations possible, the emergence of photography gave many of these images a distinctive character. ■Soon after the daguerreotype (the earliest photographic process) had swept the world in the early 1840s, artists for pictorial weeklies began to use these early photographs as sources for their illustrations. ■The growing presence of woodblock-engraved portraits in the weeklies in the 1840s and 1850s arose directly from the popularity of portrait photographs, any of which could easily be mailed or shipped anywhere in the world. ■In 1857 the artist Winslow Homer in Boston copied onto a woodblock a daguerreotype portrait of a sea captain who lived in California, thereby allowing the captain's likeness to reach publication in the Companion without the subject's having been within a few thousand miles of the artist who had drawn him. Nothing quite like this had been possible so routinely or with such ease before the introduction of the daguerreotype in France in 1839 and its rapid spread elsewhere.
9. Look at the four squares that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.
This was photography.
Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square to add the sentence to the passage.
10. Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selected THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points. Drag your choices to the spaces where they belong. To review the passage, click on View Text.
Answer Choices
O Mass production of the large, finely engraved illustrations that characterized pictorial weeklies was made possible by improvements in printing that made it easier and faster to create metal plates.
O Soon after the introduction of the daguerreotype in 1839, early photographs were used to aid in the creation of illustrations for the weeklies.
O As photography gained in popularity throughout the world in the 1840s, photographic portraits largely replaced portraits by woodblock engravers.
O The new magazines attempted to achieve a look of documentary realism by ensuring that their illustrations, especially those depicting scenes full of movement, closely resembled photographs.
O An increasing cultural concern for propriety and formality resulted in a shift away from the comic and imaginative illustrations of earlier decades.
O Many of the leading illustrators of books and magazines in the 1820s and 1830s later switched to comic journals because their high-spirited style did not suit the tone of the weeklies in later decades.
联系客服
