单选题 I still remember—my hands and my fingertips still remember—what used to lie in store for us on our return to school from the holidays. The trees in the school yard would be in full leaf again and the old leaves would be lying around in scattered heaps like a muddy sea of leaves.
"Get that all swept up!" the headmaster would tell us. "I want the whole place cleaned up, at once!" There was enough work there, to last for over a week. Especially since the only tools with which we were provided were our hands, our fingers, our nails. "Now see that it"s done properly, and be quick about it," the headmaster would say to the older pupils, "or you"ll have to answer for it!"
So at an order from the older boys we would all line up like peasants about to cut and gather in crops. If the work was not going as quickly as the headmaster expected, the big boys, instead of giving us a helping hand, used to find it simpler to whip us with branches pulled from the trees. In order to avoid these blows, we used to bribe our tyrants with the juicy cakes we used to bring for our midday meal. And if we happened to have any money on us the coins changed hands at once. If we did not do this, if we were afraid of going home with an empty stomach or an empty purse, the blows were redoubled. They hit us so violently and with such devilish enjoyment that even a deaf and dumb person would have realized that we were being whipped not so much to make us work harder, but rather to beat us into a state of obedience in which we would be only too glad to give up our food and money.
Occasionally one of us, worn out by such calculated cruelty, would have the courage to complain to the headmaster. He would of course be very angry, but the punishment he gave the older boys was always very small—nothing compared to what they had done to us. And the fact is that however much we complained our situation did not improve in the slightest. Perhaps we should have let our parents know what was going on, but somehow we never dreamed of doing so; I don"t know whether it was loyalty or pride that kept us silent, but I can see now that we were foolish to keep quiet about it, for such beatings were completely foreign to our nature.
单选题 The statement "my hands and my fingertips still remember" (Para. 1) means that ______.
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 作者一开始用了两个remember表明他对暑假返校要清除落叶一事记忆深刻。第2段提到自己在为学校清除落叶时,没有别的工具,唯一的工具就是手,由此可推断“手和指尖都记得”是因为在大扫除中,作者的手作为唯一的清清工具受了不少罪。在四个选项中,与“手”有关的只有A和D,D直接来源于原文,而A中的were severely injured无原文依据,故本题答案为D。
单选题 The headmaster would tell the students to clean up the school at the beginning of the term because ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 第1段最后一句提到假期之后学校会堆满落叶,第2段开头校长发布学生大扫除的命令,两者之间的因果关系显而易见,据此,本题应选B。C中的mud可以与第1段末的a muddy sea扯上一点关系,但原文的a muddy sea只是一种比喻,学校并不是真的满地泥泞,故C不正确;A和D都属无中生有。
单选题 The headmaster asked the older boys to ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 第2段最后一句,特别是其中的see,表明校长让大孩子们做大扫除的“监工”,负责带领其他孩子们把学校打扫干净。这也可以从该段最后一句的“否则你们就要为此负责”看出来,answer for...意思是“为……负责”,因此本题应选C。至于后来那些大孩子欺负其他学生,这是大孩子们背着校长做的,因此干扰项A不正确。
单选题 According to Para. 3, if the author had any money on him, he most probably ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 第3段第4句中的the coins changed hands at once可理解为“钱马上就会易主”,即到了大孩子的口袋里。该句开头的And表明把钱给了大孩子和把蛋糕送给大孩子都是为了讨好他们,以免受他们欺负。由此可见,A是对钱的去向的最好表述。
单选题 When receiving complaints, the headmaster would deal with the big boys by means of ______.
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 根据题干中的complaints可定位到最后一段开头两句。该段第2句表明校长对大孩子的惩罚很轻微(the punishment he gave the older boys was always very small),因此本题应选A。