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SAT阅读理解模拟练习题第8篇

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  1 The Ring at Casterbridge was merely the local name of

  one of the finest Roman amphitheatres, if not the very finest

  remaining in Britain.

  Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street, alley,

  5 and precinct. It looked Roman, bespoke the art of Rome,

  concealed dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than

  a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without

  coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had

  laid there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen

  10 hundred years. He was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval

  scoop in the chalk, like a chicken in its shell; his knees drawn up

  to his chest; sometimes with the remains of his spear against his

  arm; a brooch of bronze on his breast or forehead; an urn at his

  knees, a jar at his throat, a bottle at his mouth; and mystified

  15 conjecture pouring down upon him from the eyes of Casterbridge

  street boys, who had turned a moment to gaze at the familiar

  spectacle as they passed by.

  Imaginative inhabitants, who would have felt an

  unpleasantness at the discovery of a comparatively modern

  20 skeleton in their gardens, were quite unmoved by these hoary

  shapes. They had lived so long ago, their time was so unlike the

  present, their hopes and motives were so widely removed from

  ours, that between them and the living there seemed to stretch a

  gulf too wide for even a spirit to pass.

  25 The Amphitheatre was a huge circular enclosure, with a

  notch at opposite extremities of its diameter north and south. It

  was to Casterbridge what the ruined Coliseum is to modern

  Rome, and was nearly of the same magnitude. The dusk of

  evening was the proper hour at which a true impression of this

  30 suggestive place could he received. Standing in the middle of the

  arena at that time there by degrees became apparent its real

  vastness, which a cursory view from the summit at noon-day was

  apt to obscure. Melancholy, impressive, lonely, yet accessible

  from every part of the town, the historic circle was the frequent

  35 spot for appointments of a furtive kind. Intrigues were arranged

  there; tentative meetings were there experimented after divisions

  and feuds. But one kind of appointment - in itself the most

  common of any - seldom had place in the Amphitheatre: that of

  happy lovers.

  40 Why, seeing that it was pre-eminently an airy, accessible,

  and sequestered spot for interviews, the cheerfullest form of

  those occurrences never took kindly to the soil of the ruin, would

  he a curious inquiry. Perhaps it was because its associations had

  about them something sinister. Its history proved that. Apart

  45 from the sanguinary nature of the games originally played

  therein, such incidents attached to its past as these: that for scores

  of years the town-gallows had stood at one corner; that in 1705 a

  woman who had murdered her husband was half-strangled and

  then burnt there in the presence of ten thousand spectators.

  50 Tradition reports that at a certain stage of the burning her heart

  burst and leapt out of her body, to the terror of them all, and that

  not one of those ten thousand people ever cared particularly for

  hot roast after that. In addition to these old tragedies, pugilistic

  encounters almost to the death had come off down to recent dates

  55 in that secluded arena, entirely invisible to the outside world save

  by climbing to the top of the enclosure, which few townspeople

  in the daily round of their lives ever took the trouble to do. So

  that, though close to the turnpike-road, crimes might be

  perpetrated there unseen at mid-day.

  60 Some boys had latterly tried to impart gaiety to the ruin

  by using the central arena as a cricket-ground. But the game

  usually languished for the aforesaid .reason - the dismal privacy

  which the earthen circle enforced, shutting out every appreciative

  passer's vision, every commendatory remark from outsiders -

  65 everything, except the sky; and to play at games in such

  circumstances was like acting to an empty house. Possibly, too,

  the boys were timid, for some old people said that at certain

  moments in the summer time, in broad daylight, persons sitting

  with a book or dozing in the arena had, on lifting their eyes,

  70 beheld the slopes lined with a gazing legion of Hadrian's soldiery

  as if watching the gladiatorial combat; and had heard the roar of

  their excited voices; that the scene would remain but a moment,

  like a lightning flash, and then disappear.

  Henchard had chosen this spot as being the safest from

  75 observation which he could think of for meeting his long-lost

  wife, and at the same time as one easily to be found by a stranger

  after nightfall. As Mayor of the town, with a reputation to keep

  up, he could not invite her to come to his house till some definite

  course had been decided on.

重点单词   查看全部解释    
dismal ['dizməl]

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adj. 阴沉的,凄凉的,暗的

联想记忆
occurrence [ə'kʌrəns]

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n. 发生,事件,发现

联想记忆
concealed [kən'si:ld]

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adj. 隐蔽的,隐匿的

 
confusion [kən'fju:ʒən]

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n. 混乱,混淆,不确定状态

联想记忆
circle ['sə:kl]

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n. 圈子,圆周,循环
v. 环绕,盘旋,包围

 
impressive [im'presiv]

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adj. 给人深刻印象的

联想记忆
extract ['ekstrækt,iks'trækt]

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n. 榨出物,精华,摘录
vt. 拔出,榨出,

联想记忆
visible ['vizəbl]

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adj. 可见的,看得见的
n. 可见物

 
imaginary [i'mædʒinəri]

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adj. 想象的,虚构的

联想记忆
summit ['sʌmit]

想一想再看

n. 顶点;最高阶层
vi. 参加最高级会议,

联想记忆


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