单选题 On November 5th 1605, a band of English Catholic hotheads planned to detonate 36 barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords. The scheme would have destroyed the nation by wiping out MPs, lords, bishops and the king. For sheer terrorist ambition, the plot remains unmatched. So why has this plan, and the capture, torture and public execution of the leading conspirators, been celebrated in Britain for the past four centuries?
"God"s Secret Agents" suggests one reason why: anti-Catholic paranoia. The plot was the "popish" outrage that Protestants had expected and warned about for half a century. Such fears had resulted in fines, strict laws and show trials of Jesuit missionaries. It is as though Anglicanism—a vague and ambiguous creed, even in its early days—required an enemy against which to test itself.
Before 1605, the threat from Catholicism was mostly imaginary. Attempts to re-establish the old religion in England were doomed to failure. Missionaries concentrated on the nobility, reckoning they would in turn convert the rest of the population, but this was to misunderstand English society. Worst, the missionaries received little support from Rome or Spain. The Gunpowder Plot was a desperate last heave by men who had already failed.
It was also a gift to the authorities. The plot had been so wide-ranging that every pillar of the state—monarchy, church, nobility and Parliament—could interpret its survival as an act of divine providence. All had an interest in keeping the memory of Catholic perfidy alive. As one preacher put it in 1636, the day was "never to be cancelled out of the calendar, but to be written in every man"s heart for ever."
But then, something rather odd happened. What began as a celebration of the status quo became the opposite. By the 18th century, Bonfire Night had become an excuse for violence and barely disguised extortion. Respectable citizens who tried to suppress it were burned in effigy for their pains, alongside the pope—a tradition that survives in the Sussex town of Lewes.
This peculiar transformation is the subject of Gunpowder Plots, a book of essays. It is a mixed bag, but two stand out: an elegant account of the evolution of Bonfire Night by David Cressy, a historian, and a nerdy and fascinating treatise on gunpowder and fireworks by Brenda Buchanan. The latter contains an intriguing detail. A receipt dated November 1605 from the Board of Ordnance mentions that the gunpowder recovered from Parliament was "decaied"—i. e. moist. Perhaps the plot that Britons have celebrated all this time would have been rather a damp firework.

单选题 In 1605, a group of English religious fanatics

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“1605年，一批英国宗教狂热分子______。”由第一段的“On November 5th 1605, a band of English Catholic hotheads planned to detonate 36 barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords. The scheme would have destroyed the nation by wiping out MPs, lords, bishops and the king. For sheer terrorist ambition, the plot remains unmatched.”可知，1605年11月5日，一批英国天主教狂热分子计划在上议院下面引爆36桶火药。该计划将通过消灭国会议员、贵族、主教和国王来摧毁这个国家。对于纯粹的恐怖野心，这种阴谋也依然是无可比拟的。故选C。

单选题 According to the text, Protestants

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“根据这篇文章，新教徒______。”根据第三段的“Before 1605, the threat from Catholicism was mostly imaginary. Attempts to re-establish the old religion in England were doomed to failure. Missionaries concentrated on the nobility, reckoning they would in turn convert the rest of the population, but this was to misunderstand English society.”可知，在1605年，天主教的威胁主要是虚构的。尝试在英格兰重新建立旧宗教的行为是注定要失败的。传教士主要关注着贵族，他们认为贵族可以反过来改变其余所有人的信仰，但是这是对英国社会的误解。故选D。

单选题 Failure to re-establish Catholicism was due to the following EXCEPT

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】[解析] 细节题。题目问的是“未能重新建立天主教是由于以下各项，除了______。”根据第三段的“Attempts to re-establish the old religion in England were doomed to failure. Missionaries concentrated on the nobility, reckoning they would in turn convert the rest of the population, but this was to misunderstand English society. Worst, the missionaries received little support from Rome or Spain.”可知，传教士主要关注着贵族，他们认为贵族可以反过来改变其余所有人的信仰，但是这是对英国社会的误解。最糟糕的是，传教士几乎没有得到罗马或者西班牙的支持。故选A。

单选题 The celebration of the Gunpowder Plot actually

单选题 It can be inferred from the text that the real cause for the failure of the plot was

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[解析] 推断题。题目问的是“可以推断出，这个阴谋失败的真正原因是______。”根据最后一段的“A receipt dated November 1605 from the Board of Ordnance mentions that the gunpowder recovered from Parliament was "decaied"—i. e. moist. Perhaps the plot that Britons have celebrated all this time would have been rather a damp firework.”可知，军械局1605年11月的收据中提到，从国会收回的火药是decaied，也就是潮湿的。也许英国人一直在庆祝的阴谋是一个“哑炮”。故选B。