Directions: In this section, there is a short passage with 5 questions or incomplete statements. Read the passage carefully. Then answer the questions or complete statements in the fewest possible words. Please write your answers on Answer Sheet 2.
Questions 47 to 51 are based on the following passage.
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 fires, 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 complicate their lives.
There was so 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. At that time we lived in a fire zone. One night a firestorm rages 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 only never miss, but be better off without. Having almost lost it all, we found it much easier 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 it to do all over again. Look around your home and make a list of what you would replace.
Make another list 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.
47. Many people whose possessions were destroyed in natural disasters eventually considered their loss ________.
48. Now that all their possessions were lost in the fire, the woman and her husband felt that their lives had been ________.
49. What do we know about the authors house from the sentence Gibbs and did have a close call ... ?
50. According to the author, getting rid of possessions and losing them through a natural disaster are vastly ________.
51. What does the author suggest people do with unnecessary things?
Unit 6
47. as a blessing
48. simplified
49.their house need to be simplified.
50.differen
51.make a list of the unnecessary things before unloading them
新概念英语第三册英音版 13-It’s Only Me
新概念英语第三册英音版 08-A Famous Monastery
新概念英语第二册英音版 79-By Air
新概念英语第三册英音版 12-Life on a Desert Island
新概念英语第三册英音版 10-The Loss of the Titanic
新概念英语第二册英音版 89-A Slip of the Tongue
新概念英语第二册英音版 93-A Noble Gift
新概念英语第二册英音版 84-On Strike
新概念英语第三册英音版 20-Pioneer Pilots
新概念英语第二册英音版 78-The Last One
新概念英语第二册英音版 67-Volcanoes
新概念英语第二册英音版 88-Trapped in a Mine
新概念英语第二册英音版 94-Future Champions
新概念英语第二册英音版 83-After the Elections
新概念英语第二册英音版 91-Three Men in a Basket
新概念英语第二册英音版 77-A Successful Operation
新概念英语第三册英音版 01-A Puma at Large
新概念英语第二册英音版 76-April Fools’ Day
新概念英语第三册英音版 18-Electric Currents in Modern Art
新概念英语第三册英音版 15-Fifty Pence Worth of Trouble