短句问答03：生活方式
Ive heard from and talked to many people who described how Mother Nature simplified their lives for them. Theyd lost their home and many or all of their possessions through tires, floods, earthquakes, or some other disaster. Losing everything you own under such circumstances can be distressing, but the people Ive heard from all saw their loss. ultimately, as a blessing.
The fire saved us the agony of deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, one woman wrote. And once all those things were no longer there, she and her husband saw how they had weighed them down and complicated their lives.
There was to much stuff we never used and that was just taking up space- We vowed when we started over wed replace only what we needed,and this time wed do it right. Weve kept our promise: we dont have much now, but what we have is exactly what we want.
Though weve never had a catastrophic loss such as that, Gibbs and I did have a close call shortly before we decided to simplify. AI that time we lived in a fire zone. One night a firestorm raged through and destroyed over six hundred homes in our community. That tragedy gave us the opportunity to look objectively at the goods wed accumulated.
We saw that there was so much we could get rid of and not only never miss, but be better off without. Having almost lost it all. we found it much casier to let go of the things we knew wed never use again.
Obviously, theres a tremendous difference between getting rid of possessions and losing them through a natural disaster without having a say in the matter. And this is not to minimize the tragedy and pain such a loss can generate.
But you might think about how you would approach the acquisition process if you had to do all over again. Look around your home and make a list or what you would replace.
Make another fist of things you wouldnt acquire again no matter what, and in fact would be happy to be rid of.
When youre ready to start unloading some of your stuff, that list will be a good place to start.
参考译文
很多人在来信和交谈中跟我描述过大自然是如何简化他们的生活的。他们都在火灾、水灾、地震或其他某种灾难中失去了家，失去了许多或是所有的财产。在那样的情况下失去你所拥有的一切确实会令人痛苦，不过给我来信的这些人最终都把他们的损失看成了恩赐。
火灾省去了我们决定保留什么和丢弃什么的烦恼， 一位女士写道。一旦所有那些东西都不复存在，她和她的丈夫都意识到它们曾给他们带来了多大的压力，并使他们的生活复杂化了。
有太多我们从来都没用过而只是占地方的东西了。我们发誓在重新开始时将只购置我们所需要的，而这次我们会做对。我们履行了诺言：我们现在东西不多，不过现在拥有的正是我们想要的东西。
尽管我们从未有过这样的悲惨损失，可就在Gibbs和我决定过简单的生活之前不久，却有过一波死里逃生的经历。那个时候我们住在一个容易失火的地区。一天晚上大火肆虐，烧毁了我们社区六百多户人家。这场把火灾给了我们一个能够客观看待我们所积累的财产的机会。
我们发现有很多东西都可以抛弃，我们不但绝不会想念它们，没有它们还反倒过得更好。因为差一点就变得一无所有，所以我们发现放弃这些我们知道永远都用不上的物品是相当容易的事。
显然，抛弃财产和因为在自然灾害面前无能为力而失去财产之间有很大的不同。这不是为了使这样的损失所产生的不幸和痛苦降至最低。
不过，要是在重新开始的时候有这么一种简化生活的心态，你也许会考虑一下该如何密施你的购置过程。在你家四处看看，列出一个你想要购置的所有物品的清单。
再列出一个无论发生什么你都不再想购置、并且事实上很高兴摆脱的东西的单子。
如果你准备开始清减一些物品，那个单子会是个很好的开始。
测试题
l.Many people whose possessions were destroyed in natural disasters eventually considered their loss________________.
2.After all their possessions were last in the fire, the woman and her husband felt that their lives were____________________.
3.What do we know about the authors house from the sentence Gibbs and I did have a close call... ?
4.According to the author, getting rid of possessions and losing them through a natural disaster are vastly____________________.
5.What does the author suggest people do with unnecessary things?
答案详解
1.
根据their loss查找到首段末句。
解析：根据题干eventually和considered分别是原文该句中的ultimately和saw... as的同义转换，原文中的the people指的是上句中说的在自然灾害中失去财产的人，和题干的主语相同，所以原文中as后的a blessing即为本题答案。
2.
根据her husband和their lives查找到第2段末句。
解析：原文该句中讲到一旦那些东西都不复存在，她和她的丈夫都意识到他们曾经的生活被那些东西复杂化了。反过来也就是说，那些东西被火烧毁之后，他们的生活变得简单了，因此本题答案为complicated的反义词simplified。
3.
根据Gibbs and I did have a close call...查找到第4段首句。
解析：第4段首句后的内容讲到作者所在社区经历了一场火灾，由a close call可知作者侥幸地脱险了，而根据Though weve never...可知作者的财产也完好，故推知作者自己的家侥幸地逃脱火灾的洗劫。因此本题答案为It narrowly escaped the firestorm。
4.
根据getting rid of possessions查找到第6段首句。
解析：题干中的vastly是对原文该句中tremendous的同义转换，题干与第6段首句内容相同，原文讲到抛弃财产和因为在自然灾害面前无能为力而失去财产之间有很大的不同，空白处需填入形容词，所以要把difference转换成其形容词形式different。
5.
根据do with unnecessary things查找到倒数第2段。
解析：全文通篇都在讲处置不必要的、多余的东西，倒数第2段中用了be rid of,而在文章的第2、5、6段的首句都提到了get rid of，所以对于不必要的东西作者的建议是清除它们，故本题答案为Be/Get rid of them.