B. He’s sympathetic. C. He’s grateful.
20. What does the speaker mainly talk about? A. How education shaped his life. B. How his language skills improved. C. How he managed his business well. 【答案】17. C 18. B 19. C 20. A 【解析】此为听力题，解析略 17. 此为听力题，解析略 18. 此为听力题，解析略 19. 此为听力题，解析略 20. 此为听力题，解析略 第二部分 阅读理解 第一节
阅读下列短文，从每题所给的A、B、C和D四个选项中，选出最佳选项，并在答题纸上将该项涂黑。
A
In 1812, the year Charles Dickens was born, there were 66 novels published in Britain. People had been writing novels for a century—most experts date the first novel to Robinson Crusoe in 1719— but nobody wanted to do it professionally. The steam-powered printing press was still in its early stages; the literacy（识字） rate in England was under 50%. Many works of fiction appeared without the names of the authors, often with something like “By a lady.”Novels, for the most part, were looked upon as silly, immoral, or just plain bad.
In 1870, when Dickens died, the world mourned him as its first professional writer and publisher, famous and beloved, who had led an explosion in both the publication of novels and their readership and whose characters — from Oliver Twist to Tiny Tim— were held up as moral touchstones. Today Dickens’ greatness is unchallenged. Removing him from the pantheon of English literature （名人堂）would make about as much sense as the Louvre selling off the Mona Lisa.
How did Dickens get to the top? For all the feelings readers attach to stories, literature is a numbers game, and the test of time is extremely difficult to pass. Some 60,000 novels were published
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during the