英語四級閱讀練習(xí)附答案-08 餐桌上的蝸牛

　　People become quite illogical when they try to decide what can be eaten and what cannot be eaten. If you lived in the Mediterranean, for instance, you would consider octopus a great delicacy. You would not be able to understand why some people find it repulsive. On the other hand, your stomach would turn at the idea of frying potatoes in animal fat -- the normally accepted practice in many northern countries. The sad truth is that most of us have been brought up to eat certain foods and we stick to them all our lives.

 

　　No creature has received more praise and abuse than the common garden snail. Cooked in wine, snails are a great luxury in various parts of the world. There are countless people who, ever since their early years, have learned to associate snails with food. My friend, Robert, lives in a country where snails are despised. As his flat is in a large town, he has no garden of his own. For years he has been asking me to collectsnails from my garden and take them to him. The idea never appealed to me very much, but one day, after heavy shower, I happened to be walking in my garden when I noticed a huge number of snails taking a stroll on some of my prize plants. Acting on a sudden impulse, I collected several dozen, put them in a paper bag,and took them to Robert. Robert was delighted to see me and equally pleased with my little gift. I left the bag in the hall and Robert and I went into the living room where we talked for a couple of hours. I had forgotten all about the snails when Robert suddenly said that I must stay to dinner. Snails would, of course, be the main dish. I did not fancy the idea and I reluctantly followed Robert out of the room. To our dismay, we saw that there were snails everywhere: they had escaped from the paper bag and had taken complete possession of the hall! I have never been able to look at a snail since then.

　　練習(xí)題：

　　Choose correct answers to the question:

　　1.The underlined word “repulsive” in Paragraph 1 most probably means“_____”.

　　A.disgusting B. pleasant C. acceptable D. delicious

　　2.We can infer from Paragraph 3 that when collecting the snails, the author____ .

　　A.was glad that he could share them with his friend

　　B.was angry because they might damage his beloved plants

　　C.was excited about being able to give his friend a surprise

　　D.was depressed because it was hard to catch them all

　　3.The author finds that snails _______ .

　　A. are as delicious as octopus

　　B. are disliked in his hometown

　　C.are the most controversial food

　　D. are as popular as fried potatoes

　　4.The best title for the passage might be “______”?

　　A.One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison

　　B.Foods and Cultures

　　C.Snail and Octopus

　　D.People Are Illogical in Front of Delicacies

　　5.As indicated in the passage,people love different foods mainly because____

　　A.they live in different places.

　　B.they learn to eat certain foods in their families

　　C.they have different understanding of delicacy

　　D.they are too illogical to explain

　　1.[A] 詞義推斷題。解答本題的關(guān)鍵首先要理解repulsive前面的it是指上一句的octopus，由On the other hand可知第2句和第3句描述的是人們對章魚作為食物的兩種相反的反應(yīng)，而與a great delicacy相反的是A，故A為正確答案。

　　2.[B] 推理判斷題。在第2段中查找到作者有一天在陣雨后散步發(fā)現(xiàn)蝸牛爬在他那些prize plants上面，所以才突然有了去抓蝸牛的沖動。理解prize在此意為“一流的，珍視的”，便可知作者當時很生氣，由此可確定答案為B。

　　3.[C] 事實細節(jié)題。本題考査復(fù)合句的理解。第2段第1句“No creature...more...than snails”表達的是最高級概念，即：Snails have received most praise and abuse由此可知，蝸牛是最具爭議性的食物，因此C就是該句的近義替換。作者沒有把蝸牛與章魚或炸土豆作比較，因此A和D不對;文中提到在朋友的居住地，蝸牛是沒人瞧得上的，但沒有提到在作者的家鄉(xiāng)是否受歡迎，因此B也不對。

　　4.[A] 主旨大意題。文章第1句話其實是全文的主題句，說明人們對于選擇吃什么、不吃什么是沒有什么章法的，暗示了人們在飲食方面有大相徑庭的喜好，接著用了數(shù)個具體例子說明，并著重以蝸牛為例，闡明這種差異。英語習(xí)語“One man’s meat is another man’s poison”形象地表達了這一觀點。本題最具干擾性的是B，文章在第1段談到飲食有差異，這涉及到了culture,但作者并沒花太多筆墨描述各國不同的文化，因此，culture并非本文的中心。另外，D的表達與文章第1句很相似，但是D說的是人們在美食面前會喪失理智，與第1句的意思其實相差甚遠，且并非文章要闡明的主題。

　　5.[B] 推理判斷題。本題考查表語從句的理解。從第1段的最后一句中“most of us have been brought up to eat certain foods”可推斷B為不同的人喜好不同食物的最主要原因。A最具干擾性,它也是原因之一，但住在同一個地方的人也會有不同的飲食差異，所以還是因為家庭的原因所造成的。