单选题 Sequoyah was born about 1770 in the village of Taskigi. He was a Cherokee Indian, and, along with his entire tribe, he was illiterate. As a result of a hunting accident that left him partially crippled, he enjoyed more leisure time than other tribesmen. And he began to ponder the idea that the Indian people might also come to possess the secret of the "talking leaf". Alone in the woods, he spent hours playing with pieces of wood or making odd little marks on one stone with another. Neither his wife nor his friends offered him any encouragement, and many ridiculed him. But Sequoyah was obsessed with his dream of developing an alphabet for the Cherokee language.
At first, Sequoyah tried to give every word a separate character, but eventually he realized the futility of such approach and settled on assigning one character to each sound. What he achieved twelve years later was a syllabary of eighty-six characters representing all of the sounds of Cherokee. In combination, they produced a written language of remarkable simplicity and effectiveness. It was so simple, in fact, that it could be learned in a few days. Within a matter of months, a population that had been entirely illiterate became almost entirely literate.
As a tribute to this great Indian educator, the tallest trees in North America, the Sierra Redwoods, were given the name Sequoyahs.

单选题 From this passage, we know that Sequoyah was ______.

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】文中第一段倒数第二句说：“无论是他的妻子还是他的朋友，都没有对他进行鼓励，许多人还嘲笑他。”由此我们可以推断出他是一个已婚的男人。因此选项C正确。
本题亦可通过排除法找到答案。选项A说他是一个非常高大的人，文中并未提及，故可排除。选项B说他是一个Taskigi印第安人，从文中第一段第一句、第二句我们得知，他是一个切罗基印第安人，Taskigi仅是他出生的地方，是一个村名，所以选项B可排除。选项D说他是一个很容易泄气的人，文中第一段最后一句说：“但塞阔亚仍执著于他的梦想，他要为切罗基语言发明一种字母表。”文中第二段说他经过12年的努力，最后为自己的部落创制出86音符的字母表。由以上我们看出，塞阔亚是一个执著的人，而不是一个容易泄气的人。选项D应排除。

单选题 Sequoyah had more free time than the other tribesmen because he was ______.

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】文中第一段第三句说：“他在一次狩猎中发生了意外，落下部分残疾，所以他比部落的其他人有更多的空余时间。”因此选项D正确。
本题通过排除法也能找到答案。选项A“创制一种字母表”，从文中我们得知，创制一种字母表是塞阔亚在空余时间做的事，而不是他有空余时间的原因，故可排除。选项B“一个猎人”，他跛足之前是一个猎人，并不是他比部落其他人有更多时间的原因，选项B可排除。选项C“一个非常老的人”，文中未提及，故可排除。

单选题 Why did Sequoyah spent so much time in the woods?

【正确答案】 C

【答案解析】本题是一道推断题。文中第一段倒数第三句说：“他独自呆在林中，花许多小时拿木片做游戏或用一块石头在另一块石头上做奇怪的小标记。”第一段最后一句说他执著于为切罗基语言发明字母表的理想。由此我们可以推断出塞阔亚长时间呆在林中的原因是在试验一种字母表。故选项C正确。

单选题 The Cherokee alphabet ______.

【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】本题可通过排除法找到答案。文中第二段第一句中说：“起初，塞阔亚试图让每个词都对应单独的一个音符，但最后他认识到这种做法是无效的，于是他确定了一个音符代表一种声音。”由此可见，选项A是塞阔亚起初的想法，不是他最终创制的字母表，故可排除。文中第二段倒数第二句说：“事实上，它是如此简单，人们几天之内就可以学会。”因此选项C说它复杂是不正确的，应排除。文中第二段最后一句说：“数月之内，整个部落的人都能识字了。”因此选项D说它没有被部落接受是不正确的，故可排除。
当然，通过对第二段第一句的准确理解，我们同样可判断出B为正确答案。