【精品】GRE练习题.docx

【精品】GRE练习题.docxGRE 阅读(No. 2—No. 9)
No. 2-1
SECTION A
Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American slaves has unfortunately taken precedence over analysis of the tales5 meaning and function. Cultural continuities with Africa were not dependent on importation and perpetuation of specific folktales in their pristine form. It is in the place that tales occupied in the lives of the slaves and in the meaning slaves derived from them that the clearest resemblances to African tradition can be found. Afro-American slaves did not borrow tales indiscriminately from the Whites among whom they lived. Black people were most influenced by those Euro-American tales whose functional meaning and aesthetic appeal had the greatest similarity to the tales with deep roots in their ancestral homeland. Regardless of where slave tales came from, the essential point is that, with respect to language, delivery, details of characterization, and plot, slaves quickly made them their own.
The author claims that most studies of folktales told by Afro-American slaves are inadequate because the studies
fail to recognize any possible Euro-American influence on the folktales
do not pay enough attention to the features of a folktale that best reveal an African
influence
overestimate the number of folktales brought from Africa by the slaves
do not consider the fact that a folktale can be changed as it is retold many times
oversimplify the diverse and complex traditions of the slaves ancestral homeland
The author's main purpose is to
create a new field of study
discredit an existing field of study
change the focus of a field of study
transplant scholarly techniques from one field of study to another
restrict the scope of a burgeoning new field of study
The passage suggests that the author would regard which of the following areas of inquiry as most likely to reveal the slaves' cultural continuities with Africa?
The means by which Blacks disseminate