（天津市南开中学2010届高三下学期五月模拟考试A篇）

Grandma Moses is among the most famous twentieth-century painters of the United States yet she did not start painting until she was in her late seventies. As she once said to herself: " I would never sit back in a rocking chair waiting for someone to help me." No one could have had a more productive old age.

  She was born Anna Mary Robertson on a farm in New York State one of five boys and five girls. At twelve she left home and was in domestic service until at twenty—seven she married Thomas Moses the hired hand of one of her employers. They farmed most of their lives first in Virginia and then in New York State at Eagle Bridge. She had ten children of whom five survived; her husband died in 1927.

  Grandma Moses painted a little as a child and made embroidery (刺绣) pictures as a hobby but only changed to oils in old age because her hands had become too stiff to sew and she wanted to keep busy and pass the time. Her pictures were first sold at the local drugstore and at a market and were soon noticed by a businessman who bought everything she painted. Three of the pictures exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art and in 1940 she had her first exhibition in New York. Between the 1930's and her death she produced some 2 000 pictures: detailed and lively portrayals of the country life she had known for so long with a wonderful sense of color and form. "I think really hard till I think of something really pretty and then I paint it" she said.

36. According to the passage Grandma Moses began to paint because she wanted to_______.

 A. make herself beautiful              

 B. keep active

 C. earn more money                  

 D. become famous

37. Grandma Moses spent most of her life ________.

 A. nursing      B. painting              C. embroidering         D. farming

38. The underlined word “portrayals ” means ________.

 A. descriptions    B. expressions      C.explanations     D.impressions

39. From Grandma Moses' description of herself in the first paragraph it can be inferred that she

  was ________.

 A. independent    B. pretty              C. rich                D. nervous

40. Which of the following would be the best title for the passage?

 A. Grandma Moses: Her Life and Pictures.    

 B. The Children of Grandma Moses.

 C. Grandma Moses: Her Best Exhibition.     

 D.Grandma Moses and Other Older Artists.