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Fast
Reading
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| OK, everybody.
Now we are doing fast reading. In doing fast reading, you are
not required to get to know every detail in the passage, but
you must read fast and finish reading in the required time.
You should scan and skim for the information needed to answer
the given questions. Well, please read the passage below and
do the comprehension exercise within five minutes. |
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11. A Visit to a Prison
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See
translation |
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I found myself a little while ago in one of the largest American
prisons. It was like a
探访监狱我刚刚才意识到我已置身于美国最大的监狱之一。它就象一座石城堡，塔楼由持枪的看守监视着。
以前我去过那儿几次，那是在我早些访问美国的时候。但这次来是为了看一个特别的囚犯。他十九岁，因谋杀罪 被独自关在单间牢房里两年了，正等着处死刑。他刚听到重审的结果，改判服无期徒刑。他面色苍白，健谈，曾
是个上中学时成绩很差的学生，所以实在太容易被卷入一场一夜的冒险活动，结果烧毁了房屋，造成两人死亡， 以及自己等死两年。这座监狱丝毫不比许多其它的监狱差，确实要比有些监狱好。在你穿过大大小小重重复杂的
门，电子仪器查实你没带任何金属物品，即实际上没带枪之后，你才能走进这高墙之中。你立即会对墙外的严格 控制与墙内令人奇怪的悠闲式生活方式的差异感到惊讶。在这里，有些囚犯们在四处散步，还经常抽着雪茄烟；
一支足球队正在场上受训；另一些囚犯们长时间地站着等着某事发生。当然，确实会有些事发生；突然地有人喊 叫一声，猛地冲向水塔，疯狂地爬到塔顶，傻乎乎地一连几天不服从命令。但是不管怎样这预示着有另一次更大
的愚蠢行为。此时此刻，我想知道二十年的时间（那将是最短的时间）对一个被迫得过有组织的无所事事的生活 的男孩会意味着什么。(关闭窗口)
stone castle,
its high towers watched by guards with guns. I had been there
several times before, on earlier visits to the USA. But this
time I had come to see one particular prisoner.1)
He was nineteen and after two years by himself in one room was
awaiting execution for murder.
He had just heard the result of a fresh
trial. He was to serve life
imprisonment instead. 2) He was white-faced
and talkative, a boy who
had failed in high school and had all too easily got
caught up in a night's adventure that had ended with
burning down buildings, two deaths and those two years awaiting
death.
This prison is no worse than
many others and it is certainly better than some. After you
have passed through the complicated
series of gates and doors and the electronic instruments
have checked that you have no metal on your person-that you
have no gun in fact-you enter within the walls. At once you
are astonished at the difference
between the strict controls outside and curiously easy-going
way of life inside. Here are men walking about, often smoking
cigars; the football team is being trained on the field; there
is a good deal of standing around waiting for something to happen.
And of course things do happen: a sudden shout, a rush to the
water tower, a mad climb to its top, senseless disobedience
for days. But this is somehow a symbol for a bigger senselessness
than that.
This time I was wondering what twenty years (and that would
be the minimum) might mean for one boy pushed into this organized
idleness.
287 words
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Comprehension
Exercise 
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Key
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| 1. c 2. c 3. d 4. a 5. d 6. d 7.
d 8. d |
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1. Which of the following
is true?
a. They were taking the prisoner out to be executed.
b. The punishment had been changed from life imprisonment to
death.
c. The punishment had been changed from death to life imprisonment.
d. They were taking him out for a fresh trial.
2. The boy____________ .
a. had worked hard at school
b. had been too poor to go to school
c had got caught up in a night's adventure
d. had wasted too much of his time
3. The prison is______________ .
a. the worst in America
b. the best in America
c. the second best in America
d. somewhere between the best and the worst
4. How did the writer feel when he went inside?
a. Greatly surprised.
b. Pleased
c. Disappointed.
d. Frightened
5. The writer was astonished at_______________ .
a. the strict controls outside
b. the complicated series of gates and doors
c. the instruments used to check security
d. the difference between the outside and the inside of the
prison
6. When one shows disobedience, he is___________ .
a. doing whatever he likes
b. making a lot of noise
c. not doing what is necessary
d. not doing what he is told to
7. The writer thinks that the prison system is_______________
.
a. a very good one
b. good but could be even better
c. fairly bad but might be even worse
d. foolish
8. Here "a bigger senselessness" refers to ___________________.
a. a sudden rush to the water tower
b. a mad climb to the tower's top
c. disobedience for days
d. anything more serious than all the above |
Sentences:
1. He was nineteen and after two years by
himself in one room was awaiting execution for murder. This
is a compound sentence connected by "and". "after
two years by himself in one room" is an adverbial modifying
"awaiting" (这是个由and连接的并列句, after two years by himself
in one room是状语，修饰awaiting。)
2. He was white-faced and talkative, a boy
who had failed in high school and had all too easily got caught
up in a night's adventure that had ended with burning down buildings,
two deaths and those two years awaiting death. This is a complex
sentence in which there is one appositive and two attributive
clauses. "a boy who… awaiting death" is the appositive
of "he"; "a boy" is modified by an attributive
clause introduced by "who"; "adventure"
is followed by another attributive clause introduced by "that".
(这是个复合句，其中有一个同位语和两个定语从句。a boy who…awaiting death是he的同位语，a boy由who引导的定语从句修饰，
adventure后跟一个that引导的定语从句。) |
Main
Idea
A young prisoner will have to spend all the rest of his life
in the prison, doing nothing special but repeating the idle
life according to the prison's regulations (规章制度) every day.
The author feels really sorry about that. |
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