单选题 She once said: "When people ask me if writing has been a hard or easy road I always answer with the famous saying, 'the end is nothing; the road is all.' That is what I mean when I say writing has been a pleasure. I have never faced the typewriter(打字机) with the thought that one more task had to be done."
Like most writers, Willa Cather did not write books for the money that they brought her, but rather for the pleasure that came in their writing. Her works were, like her, simple and full of the vigor(活力) of her days in Nebraska, where she grew from childhood to young womanhood and where she developed a deep love for the treeless land of the Great Plains with its wild flowers, wheat fields and rivers.
"It's a rather strange thing about the flat country," she wrote later. "It takes hold of you, or it leaves you perfectly cold. A great many people find it very dull; they like a church tower, an old factory, a waterfall, country all made to look like a German Christmas card ... But when I come to the open plains, something happens. I'm home I breathe differently./

单选题 Willa Cather wrote because she found writing ______.

单选题 What did Cather mean by "the end is nothing; the road is alt"?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】句意推测题。该句的前面指出这是对于别人问她写作是一条艰难还是容易之路时的回答，而后文描述的都是她对这一工作本身的感受，结合这句话的字面意义(结果并不重要，过程就是一切)可以推知这句话指：重要的是写作本身而不是写作的结果(成功与否)，选[D]。

单选题 What was the place like where Cather grew up?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】推理判断题。第二段最后指出她成长的地方是一个treeless(无树的)大平原，有野花(wild flowers)、麦田和河流；第三段又用直接引语描述了那里的平坦(flat)、开阔(open)，综合起来可知应选[D]。

单选题 When she said "It takes hold of you, or it leaves you perfectly cold", Willa Gather meant ______.

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】句意推测题。在说完这一句后，Cather说明了人们对待大平原的两种不同的感受：许多人认为那里沉闷，而她自己到了那里却有到了家的感觉。结合这一句的字面意思(take hold of指“抓住，吸引”， leave sb. cold指“引不起某人的兴趣”)可知它指的就是要么喜欢那里，要么不喜欢那里，选[A]注意其中的hate并不指“恨”，而指“不喜欢”。