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  3. I knew a man who collected English words. He lived in an upturned water tank

I knew a man who collected English words. He lived in an upturned water tank

游客2024-06-09  35
问题     I knew a man who collected English words. He lived in an upturned water tank in the middle of the Australia desert. Unbelievably hot. He was the official town librarian of one of these ghost towns in the outback of Australia. It was founded in the 1890s. People turned up and hammered wooden pegs into the sand and laid out boulevards and avenues. They built a jail and a huge hotel. That% about all except that someone down south had it on his books that this was an official town, and he sent a library to it, 3,000 volumes and a sum of money as a salary for the librarian. This friend of mine, whose name was Roger, had been a no hoper, as they say, wandering about the outback of Australia. He somehow discovered that there was money to be there and, what is more, boxes of unopened books sitting in his deserted hotel. He turned up there, got the job, and settled down in the hotel, to begin with. The hotel did,  actually, just function; that is, it had half a dozen guests a year who .would ride up on horseback, sleep on the floor for an evening, and there push off the next day. This was too much for Roger. It got in the way of his reading. So he took the immense water storage tank, rolled it a mile into the desert, canted his books out there and lived inside it — so, as he said, "I could get a habit of peace and quiet."
     Words were a fascination for Roger, and he used to sit in his tank, just thinking about words. If there were a pause in the conversation he would look at you and ask some such question ass "Do you happen to know what ’transubtantiation’ is? "If you said you knew, he was very cast down, because he wanted to tell you.
    One of his regular visitors was the government officer who went by every six months. Roger would ask him if he knew what a word meant, and then he would have to admit that he didn’t and Roger would be every pleased with himself. Taz, as his name was, got very fed up with this.
    So, on one occasion, before he went, he spent an evening with the Oxford English Dictionary. He rode in, tied up his horse and went in to see Roger, and Roger said, "Do you happen to know what an ’embolism’ is?’ and Taz said; "No, I bloody don’t." Then Taz asked him" Do you happen to know what a ’letoard’ is?" Roger, was upset to be asked a question. He said: SA leotard? I think I saw the skin of one once. "And Taz said: "You bloody didn’t. "SO Roger said: "Well, what is a leotard?’ Taz said: "Urn not going to bloody tell you. ’ He got on his horse and rode off and went to sleep in the desert five miles away.
    Some time later he was suddenly woken up by a steely grasp on his coat. Hands picked him up bodily from the ground and held him in the air and shook him.  He opened his eyes and it was Roger with his eyes glinting in the moonlight, staring at him and saying: "What’s a bloody leotard?" [br] When Taz asked his question, Roger ______.
选项 A、thought he knew the right answer
B、pretended not to know the right answer
C、admitted at once that he did not know the right answer
D、deliberately gave a stupid answer
答案 A
解析 文意理解题。A：他认为自己知道正确答案，B：假装不知道正确答案；C：立刻承认自己不知道正确答案；D：有意给出一个愚蠢的答案。当Taz问罗杰leotard是什么时，罗杰很不安，他嘴里嗫嚅着说：A leotard? I think I saw the skin of one once. 意思是：a leotard?我想我看到过一只(那种动物)的皮毛，他提到皮毛，动物有皮毛，所以，罗杰事实上是想到了豹子，他以为人家问他的是豹子那个单词，因为 leopard与leotard只相差一个字母，由此可见，罗杰开始以为自己知道答案，所以，A是正确的。
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