试题出自试卷《西安交通大学2008年考博英语真题》

Since the first settlers from England had arrived in Virginia in the seventeenth century, independence for the United States was a long time coming. But even if England had not given the colonies cause for rebellion, there would probably have been a separation from the mother country, for the roots of American independence lay in the character of the American colonists. Any people who would willingly forsake the comforts and safety of the Old World to wrest a home from the wilderness in the raw New World would never take kindly to a rein on their liberties. And England assuredly did stir the colonists to rebellion by its Writs of Assistance, Stamp Act, and tax on tea. Further, many of the colonists had never seen England, either being descendants of English settlers or coming from families rooted in other nations; thus, the ties to England were tenuous at best.
As with any explosive situation, however, it took a single act to ignite the powder keg. The light for the fuse was supplied “when England’s taxed tea was thrown overboard from ships in Boston Harbor in December of 1773 in what is called the Boston Tea Party. England demanded payment, and its Boston Port Act proposed to close the harbor until the tea was paid for. “With this, all thirteen colonies flared. They saw, clearly, that Boston’s fate could be their own, and that Boston’s fight was their fight. Alone, no colony could prevail against England. Together, they had a fight chance. The movement to unite began at an unofficial session of the Virginia House of Burgesses on May 27, 1774. By September of this same year the First Continental Congress met and forced the nucleus of a union. The delegates agreed to boycott British goods. Before the Second Continental Congress could hold its first meeting on May 10, 1775, the American Revolution had begun. With the shots exchanged between the colonists and the British at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the nation exploded into war. By June the Americans had an army with George Washington as its commander in chief. By spring of 1776 all thirteen colonies delegates to Congress felt keenly the mandate of the people. The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia in June and formed a committee to draw up a Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was appointed by the committee to draft the Declaration. The Declaration as we know it today was unanimously adopted on July 4, and was signed on August 2, 1776.
The Declaration of Independence contained five of the most earthshaking words ever written, “…all men are created equal.” Not since the signing of…England’s Magna Carta in 1215 had such an astonishing idea found its way into the public consciousness. The document has often been confused with a declaration of war, which it definitely was not, since was had existed before July 4, 1776. It was primarily a statement of the reasons to the world of the colonists for wishing independence from England: As the world took heed, the phrase “…all men are created equal” stuck in men’s minds and could not be dislodged. The fervor for freedom flamed in France where that nation’s first great revolution began in 1789, fought under the banner of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.” Later, President Abraham Lincoln was to say, “I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the Colonies from the motherland; but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty, not alone to the people of this country, but, I hope, to the world, for all future time.”
1. According to the first paragraph, the separation from England was ______.
2. Which of the following is NOT TRUE?
3. The word “boycott” in the second paragraph most probably means ______.
4. What can you learn from the last paragraph?
5. We can infer that ______.
6. The word “document” in line 3 of the last paragraph refers to ______.
7. The word “motherland” refers to ______.