Telling Tales about People

One of the most common types of nonfiction, and one that many people enjoy reading, is stories about people's lives. These stories fall into three general categories: autobiography, memoir, and biography.

An autobiography is the story of a person's life written by himself or herself. Often it begins with the person's earliest recollections and ends in the present. Autobiography writers may not be entirely objective in the way they present themselves. However, they offer the reader a good look at the way they are and what makes them that way. People as diverse as Benjarmin Franklin and Helen Keller have written autobiographies. 1Other writers, such as James Joyce，have written thinly fictionalized accounts of their lives. These are not autobiographies，but they are very close to it.

Memoirs, strictly speaking, are autobiographical accounts that focus as much on the events of the times as on the life of the author. 2Memoir writers typically use these events as backdrops for their lives. They describe them in detail and discuss their importance. Recently，though，the term memoir seems to be becoming interchangeab1e with autobiography. A memoir nowadays may or may not deal with the outside world.

Biographies are factual accounts of someone else's life. In many senses，these may be the hardest of the three types to write. Autobiography writers know the events they write about because they lived them. But biography writers have to gather information from as many different sources as possible. Then they have to decide which facts to include. Their goal is to present a balanced picture of a person，not one that is overly positive or too critical. A fair well-presented biography may take years to research and write.

詞匯：

backdrop /'b k,dr?p/ n. 背景 interchangeable /int? 't?end??bl/ adj. 可轉(zhuǎn)換的

注釋：

1. People as diverse as Benjamin Franklin and Helen Keller have written autobiographies. 就像本杰明 富蘭克林和海倫 凱勒一樣，各種各樣的人們已經(jīng)寫了自傳。

2. Memoirs，strictly speaking，are autobiographical accounts that focus as much on the events of the times as on the life of the author. 嚴(yán)格意義上來講，回憶錄是既注重作者本身的生活經(jīng)歷，也注重其所處的時代所發(fā)生的事件的自傳性的描述。

練習(xí)：

1. This passage is mostly about _______.

A. the characteristics of autobiographies，memoirs，and biographies

B. famous autobiographies

C. why biography can be difficult to write

D. differences between autobiographies and memoirs

2. Helen Keller wrote________.

A. a memoir

B. an autobiography

C. a work of fiction

D. a biography

3. Autobiography writers are not always objective because they________.

A. feel they have to make up details to make their books sell

B. constantly compete with biography writers

C. want to present themselves in a good light

D. have trouble remembering the good times

4. The writer introduces each category in the passage by________.

A. defining it

B. giving an example

C. explaining why it is hard to write

D. telling when people first began writing it

5. Diverse means________.

A. able to swim in deep water

B. similar or alike

C. varied or different

D. enjoying poetry

答案與題解：

1. A 本題問的是：這篇文章主要是關(guān)于?文章第一句說到最普遍的非小說類文學(xué)作品類型之一就是一些來描述人們生活的故事，這些故事大致分為三類：自傳

回憶錄和傳記。然后通篇對這三種類型進(jìn)行了介紹，因此A是正確答案。

2. B 本題問的是：海倫 凱勒謝了什么?第二段第5句話寫到：就像本明杰 富蘭克林和 海倫 凱勒一樣，各種各樣的人們已經(jīng)寫了自傳。因此B是正確答案。

3. C本題問的是：自傳作者通常不太客觀，因為他們?第二段提到：他們給讀者提供了一個途徑來了解自己比較好的行事風(fēng)格……，因此答案是C，他們想展示自己好的一面。

4. A本題問的是：本文的作者通過何種方式介紹每種類型的非小說文學(xué)作品?答案是A，通過給每個類型進(jìn)行定義。

5. C本題問的是：diverse 的意思是?其漢語意思為“多種多樣的”，因此C正確。

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（責(zé)任編輯：vstara）

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