Intermediate passages 1 The best recruiting agents

63 I-Ho Chuan

In the summer of 1900, members of a secret society roamed northeastern China in bands, killing Europeans and Americans and destroying buildings owned by foreigners. They called themselves i-ho ch'uan, or "Righteous and Harmonious Fists." They practised boxing skills that they believed made them impervious to bullets. To Westerners they became known as the Boxers, and their uprising was called the Boxer Rebellion. Most Boxers were peasants or urban thugs from northern China who resented the growing influence of Westerners in their land. They organized themselves in 1898, and in the same year the Chinese government - then ruled by the Ch'ing Dynasty - secretly allied with the Boxers to oppose such outsiders as Christian missionaries and European businessmen. The Boxers failed to drive foreigners out of China, but they set the stage for the successful Chinese revolutionary movement of the early 20th century.

1. 
   The Boxers had little fear of guns because A) they vastly outnumbered their opponents
   

B) according to their beliefs, guns couldn't harm them C) they believed that moral law was on their side

D) they had the open support of the army and government

2. 
   In general, the people who joined the movement were A) highly-placed political figures
   

B) ordinary middle-class city dwellers

C) members of the famous Ch'ing Dynasty D) poor agricultural workers and criminals

3. 
   In 1898, the Chinese government
   

1. 
   took a firm stand against the Ch'ing Dynasty
   
2. 
   sent out spies in order to overthrow the Boxers
   
3. 
   were in favour of foreign influences in their country
   
4. 
   worked in alliance with the Boxers against foreigners
   

64 Is it Art?

Paintings and power shovels, sonatas and submarines, dramas and dynamos they all have one thing in common. They are fashioned by people. They are artificial, in contrast to everything that is natural - plants, animals, and minerals. The average 20th-century person would distinguish paintings, sonatas, and dramas as forms of art, while viewing power shovels, submarines, and dynamos as products of technology. This distinction, however, is a modern one that dates from an 18^th century point of view. In earlier times, the word "art" referred to any useful skill. Shoemaking, metalworking, medicine, agriculture, and even warfare, were all once classified as arts. They were equated with what are today called the fine arts painting, sculpture, music, architecture, literature, dance, and related fields. In that broader sense, art was defined as a skill in making or doing, based on true and adequate reasoning.

1. 
   Dramas and power shovels are similar in that A) they are both considered to be fine art
   

B) they are each based on natural things C) both of them are quite fashionable D) they are both produced by people

2. 
   The author tells us that, before the 1700s, people A) were not able to travel in submarines
   

B) were completely unfamiliar with technology

C) produced such beautiful tools that they were called art D) had a much wider definition for the term "art"

3. 
   It can be inferred from the passage that warfare
   

1. 
   has become less artistic because of modern military technology
   
2. 
   isn't really so different from skills like shoemaking or literature
   
3. 
   is no longer considered to be an art, though it once was
   
4. 
   has inspired people, through its images, to make great art
   

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