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Have you ever been to a music festival? Well, if you live in the UK, the answer is probably yes. The number of festivals has grown greatly over the last few years and now there are around 200 every summer. So let's look at the history of four famous festivals.
The Glastonbury Festival is a fiveday festival of contemporary performing arts held most years in Somerset, in the southwest of England. There are a rock and pop stage, a jazz stage, the Avalon stage, a theatre/cabaret/comedy stage, a cinema tent, a dance tent and a circus. The festival started in 1970 and about 120,000 people go to it every summer.
The Reading Festival is truly worldclass with rock and pop bands appearing from all over the world, particularly (尤其) the USA. About 80,000 music fans go to Reading every August Bank Holiday. The festival first came to its present site on the banks of the River Thames in Reading in l971, when it moved from Plumpton in Sussex. It is still on the same site over 47 years later!
WOMAD stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance and was the idea of rock musician Peter Gabriel to promote (宣传) world music. The WOMAD Festival started in 1982 and takes place in July at Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire, and you can see different bands and musicians from all over the world. The festival welcomes over 26,000 visitors each year.
The oneday Monsters of Rock Festival at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes was first held in 1980 and gave visitors the chance to hear the very best of hard rock and heavy metal. There were no festivals between 1996 and 2003 as a result of changing musical fashions, but now it has returned and grown into a twoday festival with a campsite for the 30,000 people who go there in summer days.
【语篇解读】 本文是应用文。文章介绍了四个英国著名的音乐节。
21．Which festival draws the largest number of fans every year?
A．The Reading Festival.
B．The WOMAD Festival.
C．The Glastonbury Festival.
D．The Monsters of Rock Festival.
答案与解析：C 细节理解题。由文中对四个音乐节参加人数的介绍可知，参加the Glastonbury Festival的人数最多，每年有约十二万人来参加该音乐节。
22．What can we learn about the Reading Festival?
A．It mainly attracts rock music fans.
B．It is especially popular with local bands.
C．It is named after the place where it is held.
D．It has been held in the same site since it started.
答案与解析：C 细节理解题。由第三段对the Reading Festival的介绍“The festival first came to its present site on the banks of the River Thames in Reading in 1971”可知，该音乐节因其举办地而得名。
23．What do the four festivals have in common?
A．All last five days.
B．All are held in the summer.
C．All take place every year.
D．All are held near the River Thames.
答案与解析：B 细节理解题。由第一段中的“every summer”和对四个音乐节介绍中的“every summer, every August Bank Holiday”和“in July”以及“in summer days”可知，这四个英国著名的音乐节都是在夏天举办。
