ACCORDING TO THE PASSAGE, WHY WAS THE FROZEN ICE ON THE SEA SURFACE...

Câu 42: According to the passage, why was the frozen ice on the sea surface a danger to whales?

A. Because the water was too cold for them as they were warm-blooded.

B. Because they couldn’t eat when the weather was too cold.

C. Because whales couldn’t breathe without sufficient oxygen.

D. Because they couldn’t swim in icy cold water.

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the

correct answer to each of the questions.

With Robert Laurent and William Zorach, direct carving enters into the story of modern sculpture in

the United States. Direct carving ― in which the sculptors themselves carve stone or wood with mallet

and chisel ― must be recognized as something more than just a technique. Implicit in it is an aesthetic

principle as well: that the medium has certain qualities of beauty and expressiveness with which sculptors

must bring their own aesthetic sensibilities into harmony. For example, sometimes the shape or veining in

a piece of stone or wood suggests, perhaps even dictates, not only the ultimate form, but even the subject

matter.

The technique of direct carving was a break with the nineteenth-century tradition in which the

making of a clay model was considered the creative act and the work was then turned over to studio

assistants to be cast in plaster or bronze or carved in marble. Neoclassical sculptors seldom held a mallet

or chisel in their own hands, readily conceding that the assistants they employed were far better than they

were at carving

With the turn-of-the-century Crafts movement and the discovery of nontraditional sources of

inspiration, such as wooden African figures and masks, there arose a new urge for hands-on, personal

execution of art and an interaction with the medium. Even as early as the 1880's and 1890's,

nonconformist European artists were attempting direct carving. By the second decade of the twentieth

century, Americans ― Laurent and Zorach most notably ― had adopted it as their primary means of

working.

Born in France, Robert Laurent(1890-1970)was a prodigy who received his education in the United

States. In 1905 he was sent to Paris as an apprentice to an art dealer, and in the years that followed he

witnessed the birth of Cubism, discovered primitive art, and learned the techniques of woodcarving from

a frame maker.

Back in New York City by 1910, Laurent began carving pieces such as The Priestess, which reveals

his fascination with African, pre-Columbian, and South Pacific art. Taking a walnut plank, the sculptor

carved the expressive, stylized design.

It is one of the earliest examples of direct carving in American sculpture. The plank's form dictated the

rigidly frontal view and the low relief. Even its irregular shape must have appealed to Laurent as a break

with a long-standing tradition that required a sculptor to work within a perfect rectangle or square.