2017年職稱英語試題《理工B》閱讀理解專項練習(1)

　　A Tale of Scottish Rural Life

　　Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song (1932) was voted "the best Scottish novel of all time" by Scotland's reading public in 2005. Once considered shocking for its frank description of aspects of the lives of Scotland's poor rural farmers, it has been adapted for stage, film, TV and radio in recent decades.

　　The novel is set on the fictional estate of Kinraddie, in the farming country of the Scottish northwest in the years up to and beyond World War I. At its heart is the story of Chris, who is both part of the community and a little outside it.

　　Grassic Gibbon gives us the most detailed and intimate account of the life of his heroine ( 女主人公 ) . We watch her grow through a childhood dominated by her cruel but hard-working father;experience tragedy (her mother's suicide and murder of her twin children); and learn about her feelings as she grows into a woman. We see her marry, lose her husband, then marry again. Chris has seemed so convincing a figure to some female readers that they cannot believe that she is the creation of a man.

　　But it would be misleading to suggest that this book is just about Chris. It is truly a novel of a place and its people. Its opening section tells of Kinraddie's long history, in a language that imitates the place's changing patterns of speech and writing.

　　The story itself is amazingly full of characters and incidents. It is told from Chris' point of view but also from that of the gossiping community, a community where everybody knows everybody else's business and nothing is ever forgotten.

　　Sunset Song has a social theme too. It is concerned with what Grassic Gibbon perceives as the destruction of traditional Scottish rural life first by modernization and then by World War I. Gibbon tried hard to show how certain characters resist the war. Despite this, the war takes the young men away, a number of them to their deaths. In particular, it takes away Chris' husband, Evan Tavendale. The war finally kills Euan, but not in the way his widow is told. In fact, the Germans aren't responsible for his death, but his own side. He is shot because he is said to have run away from a battle.

　　If the novel is about the end of one way of life it also looks ahead. It is a "Sunset Song" but is concerned too with the new Kinraddie, indeed of the new European world. Grassic Gibbon went on to publish two other novels about the place that continue its story.

　　1.What is Sunset Song mainly about?

　　A. The First World War.　　B. The beauty of the sunset.

　　C. The new European world.　　D. The lives of rural Scottish farmers.

　　2.Which statement is NOT true of Chris?

　　A. She is the heroine, of Sunset Song.　　B. She had a miserable childhood.

　　C. She is the creation of a man.　　D. She married only once.

　　3.What is the opening section of the novel mainly concerned with?

　　A. The climate of Kinraddie.　　B. The history of Kinraddie.

　　C. The geography of Kinraddie.　　D. The language spoken in Kinraddie.

　　4.Who killed Chris' husband, Evan?

　　A. His own troops.　　B. The French army.

　　C. The Germans.　　D. The Russian soldiers.

　　5.The word "'Sunset" in the title of this novel most probably means _________.

　　A. the end of the heroine's life　　B. the end of the story

　　C. the end of the traditional way of life　　D. the end of the day

　　答案及解析

　　1.D。細節(jié)題。題干：《落日之歌》這部小說主要講了什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到第一段的第二句話，即《落日之歌》這部小說因其對蘇格蘭鄉(xiāng)村貧苦農(nóng)民生活的真實描寫而令人震撼，近幾十年來多次被改編成多種其他藝術形式。由此可以推斷，這部小說主要內(nèi)容與蘇格蘭貧苦農(nóng)民的生活有關，故選D。

　　2.D。細節(jié)題。題干：下列有關Chris的表述，哪一項是不對的?利用題干關鍵詞和選項關鍵詞可以定位到第三段，該段描述了小說中女主人公Chris的具體生活。第三句話提到“We see her marry,lose her husband，then marry again”，可見Chris結了兩次婚，故選D。

　　3.B。細節(jié)題。題干：小說的開頭部分主要描述了什么?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到第四

　　段的第三句話，即Kinraddie的悠久歷史也是小說描述的內(nèi)容之一，故選B。

　　4.A。細節(jié)題。題干：誰殺了Chris的丈夫Evan?利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到文章倒數(shù)第二段，后面部分談到了Chris的丈夫Evan的死。戰(zhàn)爭最終奪去了Evan的生命，但事實上Evan并非死于德國人之手，而是死在自己人手上。據(jù)說他是因臨陣脫逃而被打死的。故選A。

　　5.C。推理題。題干：小說的題目中Sunset的含義是__________。利用題干關鍵詞可以定位到最后一段，這部小說表達的主要意義在于一種生活方式的結束，但它同時也關注著新的歐洲世界的各種變化，故選C。