Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I saw, certain indications of method,
removed the peg which marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the
westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the
peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was
indicated, removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former instance, was now described, and
we again set to work with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding what had
occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had
become most unaccountably interested--nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the
extravagant demeanor of Legrand-some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug
eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with something that very much resembled
expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a
period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps
an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the
first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter
and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and,
leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a
mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and
what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a
large Spanish knife, and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to
light.
At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an
air of extreme disappointment he urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and the words were hardly
uttered when I stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay
half buried in the loose earth.
We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of more intense excitement. During his
interval we had fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect preservation and
wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing process--perhaps that of the
Bi-chloride of Mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet
deep. It was firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open trelliswork over
the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron--six in all--by means of which a
firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer
very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole
fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back trembling and panting with anxiety.
In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within
the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and of jewels, that
absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant.
Legrand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for
some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume.
He seemed stupefied thunder stricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked
arms up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath.
It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master and valet to the expediency of removing the
treasure. It was growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might get every thing housed
before daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation--so
confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing two thirds of its contents, when
we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited
among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any
pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return.
What can be inferred by "removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging" 1st
paragraph?
A. The point for digging had been changed by several yards.
B. The digging mark was moved from the initial point.
C. The exact spot to dig was not easy to measure.
D. The previous diggings were failures.
E. The measurement of the tape had been incorrect initially.
正解:D
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 2:
(1) On my nineteenth birthday, I began my trip to Mali, West Africa.
(2) Some 24 hours later I arrived in Bamako, the capital of Mali.
(3) The sun had set and the night was starless.
(4) One of the officials from the literacy program I was working was there to meet me.
(5) After the melee in the baggage claim, we proceeded to his car.
(6) Actually, it was a truck.
(7) I was soon to learn that most people in Mali that had automobiles actually had trucks or SUVs.
(8) Apparently, there not just a convenience but a necessity when you live on the edge of the Sahara.
(9) I threw my bags into the bed of the truck, and hopped in to the back of the cab.
(10) Riding to my welcome dinner, I stared out the windows of the truck and took in the city.
(11) It was truly a foreign land to me, and I knew that I was an alien there.
(12) "What am I doing here?" I thought.
(13) It is hard to believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw had completely
changed.
(14) The landscape that had once seemed so desolate and lifeless now was the homeland of people that I
had come to love.
(15) When I looked back at the capital, Bamako, fast receding on the horizon, I did not see a city
foreboding and wild in its foreignness.
(16) I saw the city which held so many dear friends.
(17) I saw tea drinking sessions going late into the night.
(18) I saw the hospitality and open- heartedness of the people of Mali.
(19) The second time, everything looked completely different, and I knew that it was I who had changed
and not it.
Sentence 13 (reproduced below) would best be revised to which of the following choices? It is hard to
believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I had traveled on
that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw had completely changed.
A. It is hard to believe but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
Had traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective completely changed on the things I saw.
B. As it is now.
C. It is hard to believe, but seven months later, when I returned to the same airport along the same road
that I had traveled on that first night in Bamako, my perspective on the things I saw had completely
changed.
D. It is hard to believe, but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako, and my perspective on the things that I saw having completely
changed.
E. It is hard to believe, but seven months later I returned to the same airport along the same road that I
had traveled on that first night in Bamako: my perspective on the things I saw had completely changed.
正解:C
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 3:
Her character was completely ______; she was totally devoid of ______.
A. saintly .. virtue
B. prudent .. affection
C. passive .. inertia
D. prosaic .. dullness
E. impassive .. emotion
正解:E
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 4:
Your knowledge of English Literature--to which I am indebted for the first faithful and intelligent translation
of my novels into the Italian language--has long since informed you, that there are certain important social
topics which are held to be forbidden to the English novelist (no matter how seriously and how delicately
he may treat them), by a narrow-minded minority of readers, and by the critics who flatter their prejudices.
You also know, having done me the honor to read my books; that I respect my art far too sincerely to
permit limits to be wantonly assigned to it, which are imposed in no other civilized country on the face of
the earth. When my work is undertaken with a pure purpose, I claim the same liberty which is accorded to
a writer in a newspaper, or to a clergyman in a pulpit; knowing, by pre- vious experience, that the increase
of readers and the lapse of time will assuredly do me justice, if I have only written well enough to deserve
it.
Which selections best indicates how the author believes he will be vindicated?
A. when the limiting country lessens its hold on literary writers
B. when well recognized enough to command acceptance
C. when sufficient people cry out for more liberal values
D. when enough readers read over a prolonged period of time
E. when moral values deteriorate over time
正解:D
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 5:
This passage discusses the work of Abe Kobo, a Japanese novelist of the twentieth century. Abe Kobo is
one of the great writers of postwar Japan. His literature is richer, less predictable, and wider-ranging than
that of his famed contemporaries, Mishima Yukio and Nobel laureate Oe Kenzaburo. It is infused with the
passion and strangeness of his experiences in Manchuria, which was a Japanese colony on mainland
China before World War II.
Abe spent his childhood and much of his youth in Manchuria, and, as a result, the orbit of his work would
be far less controlled by the oppressive gravitational pull of the themes of furusato (hometown) and the
emperor than his contemporaries'.
Abe, like most of the sons of Japanese families living in Manchuria, did return to Japan for schooling. He
entered medical school in Tokyo in 1944--just in time to forge himself a medical certificate claiming ill
health; this allowed him to avoid fighting in the war that Japan was already losing and return to Manchuria.
When Japan lost the war, however, it also lost its Manchurian colony. The Japanese living there were
attacked by the Soviet Army and various guerrilla bands. They suddenly found themselves refugees,
desperate for food. Many unfit men were abandoned in the Manchurian desert. At this apocalyptic time,
Abe lost his father to cholera.
He returned to mainland Japan once more, where the young were turning to Marxism as a rejection of the
militarism of the war. After a brief, unsuccessful stint at medical school, he became part of a Marxist group
of avant-garde artists. His work at this time was passionate and outspoken on political matters, adopting
black humor as its mode of critique.
During this time, Abe worked in the genres of theater, music, and photography. Eventually, he
mimeographed fifty copies of his first "published" literary work, entitled Anonymous Poems, in 1947. It
was a politically charged set of poems dedicated to the memory of his father and friends who had died in
Manchuria. Shortly thereafter, he published his first novel, For a Signpost at the End of a Road, which
imagined another life for his best friend who had died in the Manchurian desert. Abe was also active in the
Communist Party, organizing literary groups for workingmen.
Unfortunately, most of this radical early work is unknown outside Japan and underappreciated even in
Japan. In early 1962, Abe was dismissed from the Japanese Liberalist Party. Four months later, he
published the work that would blind us to his earlier oeuvre, Woman in the Dunes. It was director
Teshigahara Hiroshi's film adaptation of Woman in the Dunes that brought Abe's work to the international
stage. The movie's fame has wrongly led readers to view the novel as Abe's masterpiece. It would be
more accurate to say that the novel simply marked a turning point in his career, when Abe turned away
from the experimental and heavily political work of his earlier career. Fortunately, he did not then turn to
furusato and the emperor after all, but rather began a somewhat more realistic exploration of his
continuing obsession with homelessness and alienation. Not completely a stranger to his earlier
commitment to Marxism, Abe turned his attention, beginning in the sixties, to the effects on the individual
of Japan's rapidly urbanizing, growth driven, increasingly corporate society.
Which of the following does the passage present as a fact?
A. Abe was a better playwright than novelist.
B. The group of avant-garde artists of which Abe was a part were influenced by Marxism.
C. Abe's early work was of greater quality than his later work.
D. Abe's work is richer than his contemporaries' because he included auto bio graphical elements.
E. The themes of furusa to and the emperor have precluded Japanese literature from playing a major role
in world literature.
正解:B
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 6:
Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I saw, certain indications of method,
removed the peg which marked the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the
westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the
peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a spot was
indicated, removed, by several yards, from the point at which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former instance, was now described, and
we again set to work with the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding what had
occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had
become most unaccountably interested--nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all the
extravagant demeanor of Legrand-some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug
eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with something that very much resembled
expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a
period when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps
an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the
first instance, had been, evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a bitter
and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and,
leaping into the hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a
mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal, and
what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a
large Spanish knife, and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to
light.
At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an
air of extreme disappointment he urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and the words were hardly
uttered when I stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay
half buried in the loose earth.
We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of more intense excitement. During his
interval we had fairly unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect preservation and
wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing process--perhaps that of the
Bi-chloride of Mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet
deep. It was firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open trelliswork over
the whole. On each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron--six in all--by means of which a
firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer
very slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily, the sole
fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew back trembling and panting with anxiety.
In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within
the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and of jewels, that
absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant.
Legrand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for
some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume.
He seemed stupefied thunder stricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked
arms up to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath.
It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master and valet to the expediency of removing the
treasure. It was growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might get every thing housed
before daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation--so
confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing two thirds of its contents, when
we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited
among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any
pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return.
In context, the word "mould" 2nd paragraph is best described as
A. cast.
B. wooden container.
C. broken soil.
D. carved woodwork. D. box.
正解:C
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 7:
Scott Fitzgerald was a prominent American writer of the twentieth century. This passage comes from one
of his short stories and tells the story of a young John Unger leaving home for boarding school.
John T. Unger came from a family that had been well known in Hades a small town on the Mississippi
River for several generations. John's father had held the amateur golf championship through many a
heated contest; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," as the local phrase went, for her
political addresses; and young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had danced all the latest
dances from New York before he put on long trousers.
And now, for a certain time, he was to be away from home That respect for a New England education
which is the bane of all provincial places, which drains them yearly of their most promising young men,
had seized upon his parents.
Nothing would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas's School near Boston--Hades was too small to
hold their darling and gifted son. Now in Hades--as you know if you ever have been there the names of
the more fashionable preparatory schools and colleges mean very little. The inhabitants have been so
long out of the world that, though they make a show of keeping up-to-date in dress and manners and
literature, they depend to a great extent on hearsay, and a function that in Hades would be considered
elaborate would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef-princess as "perhaps a little tacky." John T. Unger
was on the eve of departure. Mrs. Unger, with maternal fatuity, packed his trunks full of linen suits and
electric fans, and Mr. Unger presented his son with an asbestos pocket-book stuffed with money.
"Remember, you are always welcome here," he said. "You can be sure, boy, that we'll keep the home
fires burning." "I know," answered John huskily.
"Don't forget who you are and where you come from," continued his father proudly, "and you can do
nothing to harm you. You are an Unger--from Hades."
So the old man and the young shook hands, and John walked away with tears streaming from his eyes.
Ten minutes later he had passed outside the city limits and he stopped to glance back for the last time.
Over the gates the old-fashioned Victorian motto seemed strangely attractive to him. His father had tried
time and time again to have it changed to something with a little more push and verve about it, such as
"Hades--Your Opportunity," or else a plain "Welcome" sign set over a hearty handshake pricked out in
electric lights. The old motto was a little depressing, Mr. Unger had thought--but now.
So John took his look and then set his face resolutely toward his destination. And, as he turned away, the
lights of Hades against the sky seemed full of a warm and passionate beauty.
From the conversation between John and his father in paragraphs 36, it can be inferred that John feels
A. impassive and indifferent.
B. melancholic but composed.
C. relieved but apprehensive.
D. rejected and angry.
E. resigned but filled with dread.
正解:B
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 8:
Had Einstein not been such a ______ mathematician, many of our engineering Accomplishments may
have taken many years before even reaching the drawing board.
A. qualified
B. prodigious
C. prosaic
D. prophetic
E. superb
正解:B
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
質問 9:
In some of the poorest neighborhoods of New York City, community gardens are springing up as ______
the filth and desolation of their urban surroundings.
A. an affirmation of
B. a validation of
C. an amplification of
D. a reaction to
E. a celebration of
正解:D
解説: (Pass4Test メンバーにのみ表示されます)
佐*渚 -
これSAT-Critical-Reading一冊あれば十分に事足りると私は思いました。わかりやすい!ありがとうございました。