四、练习答案

Text I

Text comprehension

I. Decide which of the following best states the author’s purpose.

II. Judge, according to the text, whether the following statements are true or false.

1．T Refer to Paragraph 1.

2．T Refer to Paragraph 3.

3．F Refer to the passage. Only one prisoner was to be hanged.

4．F Refer to Paragraph 10. The prisoner began crying out to his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of “Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!” not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, and rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.

5．T Refer to Paragraph 11.

6．T Refer to Paragraph 13.

7．F Refer to Paragraph 16. The executed prisoner must have been a man of variable courage since he pissed on the floor when he heard his appeal had been rejected.

III. Answer the following questions.

1．Refer to Paragraphs 2 and 7. The warders appeared quite tense gripping him by arm and shoulder to make sure he was right there, whereas he stood quite unresisting with his arms limply in the ropes, and later walked quite steadily towards the gallows.

2．Refer to Paragraph 4. He was the leader of the jailers, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold glasses, conducting the hanging.

3．It insinuates that the prisoner to be hanged seemed composed, unruffled, and imperturbable.

4．Refer to Paragraphs 7 and 8. It is implied that the prisoner was alive like anyone else, with his brain reasoning quite effectively.

5．Refer to Paragraphs 10 and 11. He did so, perhaps in order to embolden himself facing death.

6．Refer to Paragraph 14. He blew out deep breath, and the moody look had gone suddenly out of his face, and he felt completely relieved from the tension.

7．Refer to Paragraph 15. Everything seemed to have returned to normal. The warders unfixed their bayonets, and two of them got ready to ladle out rice, and the convicts were getting their breakfast in a homely, jolly atmosphere, in which singing, or sniggering, or chattering was waiting at any moment to start.

8．Refer to Paragraph 18. He was extremely satisfied with the job done that day because the hanged prisoner had died instantaneously without any disagreeable trouble left.

IV. Explain in your own words the following sentences taken from the text.

1．We were waiting outside the cells, where prisoners under the death sentence were jailed.

2．We, government officials and inspectors, walked behind the warders and the prisoner.

3．I realized the inexplicable injustice that was being done in putting to an end a life which was still in its prime.

4．The prisoner, who belonged to us now, would be promptly put to death.

5．People had a strong desire to sing, to run and to snigger （after the hanging was over）.

6．You can hardly believe that it took as many as six warders to remove him from the cage bars.

Writing strategies

1．Yes, I do. The story is so full of dynamic verbs that more than 90% of the sentences contain one or two, or even more action verbs. Obvious example are found in Paragraphs 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15.

2．Flashbacks are found in Paragraphs 16, 18, and 20.

3．The employment of the first person narration renders the events described or the plots narrated more vivid, objective and believable, and makes it possible and convenient for the narrator to express or demonstrate his own thoughts or psychological state in the process of narration.

4．Both the beginning and the conclusion of the narrative story touch on or briefly describe the hard life and tragic fate of the condemned prisoners.

Language work

I. Explain the underlined part in each sentence in your own words.

1．who were scheduled to be hanged

2．who was a small, thin, and weak man

3．holding him firmly and continuously in a careful manner

4．carrying rifles that tilted over their shoulders

5．his muscles appeared to be functioning normally

6．we will lose a man who can also think and reason like us, and who is also a unique individual like each of us

II. Fill in each blank with one of the two words from each pair in their appropriate forms and note the difference of meaning between them.

vibrate oscillate

Note: Both words refer to a back-and-forth motion. Vibrate suggests a rapid continuing pulsation, while oscillate, a more formal word, often used in scientific contexts, applies to any regular shifting back and forth, as of a pendulum, or to any uncertain change of position.

1．oscillate

2．vibrate

3．oscillated

4．vibrating

motion movement

Note: Both words can refer to the activity or process of continually changing position or from one place to another and can in many cases be used interchangeably. Motion can be used to emphasize the transition from inactivity to activity, and can specially refer to mechanical activity or processes. Movement, used as both countable and uncountable, usually refers to the definite, regular forward or to-and-fro moving activities or processes; it can also be used to refer to a group of people who have the same beliefs, ideas or aims.

1．motion

2．motion

3．movement

4．movement

inspect examine

Note: Both words mean to look something over or inquire into it, usually for a definite purpose. Examine refers generally to a cursory look or a thorough study of all details, while inspect usually implies that the object of one’s attention is being critically compared to a standard of excellence, quality, or the like, with a view towards noting discrepancies or deficiencies in the former.

1．inspect

2．examine

3．inspect; inspected

4．examine; examine

dangle suspend

Note: Suspend emphasizes the state of being hanging from a high place, while dangle means hanging or swinging loosely and not necessarily from a high place.

1．suspended

2．dangled

3．suspend

4．dangled

III. Fill in the blank in each sentence with a word or phrase from the box, using its appropriate form.

1．She thought she was too homely to get a date.

2．I could hear the note of appeal in her voice as she asked me to talk things over again.

3．In this decade of politics, many more women have become magistrates.

4．I hope that we can settle this issue amicably.

5．This is a far from solemn book—it is a rich mix of pleasures and information, and is full of surprises.

6．We rushed out of the shop in hot pursuit, but the thief had vanished into thin air.

7．He twisted and turned, trying to free himself from the rope.

8．I tried to excuse myself for missing her party but made the attempt very clumsily.

IV. Make a sentence of your own for each of the given words with meanings other than those used in the text. You may change the part of speech of these words.

1．Those cells divide and form many other different types of cells.

2．Last year 400,000 acres of land yielded a crop worth $1.75 billion in that country.

3．The police beat them up and locked them in a cell.

4．I think we have to stand by what we believe.

5．A wind-up clock ticked busily from the kitchen counter.

6．He calls me twenty times a day and needs me by his side.

V. Put the words in the parentheses into their appropriate tenses and aspects.

VI. Put a word in each blank that is appropriate for the context.

Translation

I. Translate each of the following sentences into English, using the words or expressions given in the brackets.

1．My daughter started jumping up and down with rage when she heard that children under the age of 12 were denied admission into the movie.

2．The party was in full tide when the police burst in.

3．The kid fell all by accident; she was just reaching out for a doll on the shelf.

4．Parents are more tolerant of children in public places than at home.

5．The discussion threw up a lot of interesting ideas.

6．It isn’t polite to poke fun at your colleagues in public.

7．This room could do with a good cleaning for distinguished guests.

8．The fashion festival passed off peacefully, despite all sorts of fears the local government had.

II. Translate the following into Chinese.

每天下午都有一批年迈的妇女在我家门前的马路上鱼贯走过，每个人都背着一捆柴火。因为上了年纪加上常年日晒，她们都骨瘦如柴，而且全都很矮小。有一天，一个可怜的老太婆从我身旁蹒跚走过，她身高不满四英尺，背着一大捆柴火。我叫住她，在她手里塞了一枚五苏的硬币。对此，她发出一声尖叫算作回应，部分是出于感激，但主要是因为惊讶。我以为，在她的眼光里，我对她的关注几乎差不多是在触犯一条自然法则。她心甘情愿的接受一个老妈子的地位，也就是说当一个负重的牲口。经常可以看到一家人出门旅行，父亲和长大成人的儿子骑着毛驴在前面，而一个老妇人却步行跟在后面，肩上扛着行李。

Text II

I. Answer the following multiple-choice questions:

1．D

2．B

3．C

4．D

5．A

II. Questions for discussion:

1．No, he did not.

2．The elephant was calm and was peacefully eating, and looked no more dangerous than a cow.

3．It was a white man’s concern to preserve face that changed his mind. He thought he must not look indecisive in front of the “natives”.

4．In the second paragraph, the writer tells the reader his reasons for shooting the elephant: “For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the ‘natives’ and so in every crisis he has got to do what the ‘natives’ expect of him ... A sahib has got to act like a sahib: he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things.”

5．He saw the futility of white men’s attempt to control other races, for, far from being the masters, the white men were not free to do as they wished. The incident itself thus gave him a better glimpse than he had had before of the real nature of imperialism.