单选题
Karen Rusa was a 30-year-old woman and the mother of four
children. For the past several months Karen had been experiencing repetitive
thoughts that centered around her children's safety. She frequently found
herself imagining that a serious accident had occurred; she was unable to put
these thoughts out of her mind. On one such occasion she imagined that her son,
Alan, had broken his leg playing football at school. There was no reason to
believe that an accident had occurred, but she kept thinking about the
possibility until she finally called the school to see if Alan was all right.
Even after receiving their assurance that he had not been hurt, she described
herself as being somewhat surprised when he later arrived home unharmed. Karen
also noted that her daily routine was seriously hampered by an extensive series
of counting work that she performed throughout each day. Specific numbers had
come to have a special meaning to her; she found that her {{U}}preoccupation{{/U}}
with these numbers was hampering her ability to perform everyday activities. One
example was grocery shopping. Karen believed that if she selected the first item
on the shelf, something terrible would happen to her oldest child. If she
selected the second item, some unknown disaster would fall on her second child,
and so on for the four children. Karen's preoccupation with numbers extended to
other activities, most notable the pattern in which she smoked cigarettes and
drank coffee, If she had one cigarette; she believed that she had to smoke at
least four in a row, or one of her children would be harmed in some way. If she
drank one cup of coffee, she felt compelled to drink four. Karen acknowledged
the unreasonableness of these rules, but, nevertheless, maintained that she felt
more comfortable. When she observed them earnestly, when she was occasionally in
too great a hurry to observe these rules, she experienced considerable anxiety,
in the form of a subjective feeling of dread and fear. She described herself as
tense, uneasy, and unable to relax during these periods. The occurrence of
rarely minor accidents does not reduce her belief that she had been directly
responsible because of her inability to observe the rules about number.
单选题
The main idea of this passage is to
A.describe a woman who suffered from a psychological disease.
B.warn the readers against any imagination.
C.explain the reason why Karen had such fanciful thoughts.
单选题
What does the underlined word preoccupation mean?
A.The first right to occupy something.
B.The first impression.
C.The extreme focus of attention.
D.The question.
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】[解析] 本题考查结合上下文猜测词义。
preoccupation意为“关注”。the first impression意为“第一印象”。即使不知道词义，通过上下文也应推测出这里作者想说，“她对数字的过分关注损坏了日常生活能力”，能达到影响日常生活能力的一定是产生负面影响的活动，只有C项表示出“过分”的含义，所以猜测是该选项。
单选题
Which of the following inferences is most probably NOT true according
to the passage?
A.When Karen was in a great hurry to smoke, she would feel much
anxiety.
B.If she selected the fourth item on the shelf in a group, the fourth child
must experience some unknown disaster.
C.Drinking four cups of coffee would make Karen more comfortable than
drinking two cups.