A
On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table.
“Hey, aren’t you from Mississippi? ” the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by the stranger. “I’m from Mississippi too. ”
Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty party. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair.
“They began telling me all the news of Mississippi, ” Welty said. “I didn’t know what my New York friends were thinking. ”
Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty’s new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi.
“My friends said, ‘Now we believe your stories, ‘” Welty added. “And I said, ‘Now you know. These are the people that make me write them. ‘”
Sitting on a sofa in her room, Welty, a slim figure in a simple gray dress, looked pleased with this explanation.
“I don’t make them up, ” she said of the characters in her fiction these last 50 or so years. “I don’t have to. ”
Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty’s people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets of her native Jackson, Miss. , from conversations overheard on a bus. It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment(片段) of a particularly interesting story.
【语篇概述】文章介绍了一位女作家请纽约的朋友吃饭时发生的故事。Welty是一位年纪比较大的作家, 她来自密西西比。Welty的作品都是来自于现实的生活。
1. What happened when Welty was with her friends at the cafe?
A. Two strangers joined her.
B. Her childhood friends came in.
C. A heavy rain ruined the dinner.
D. Some people held a party there.
【解析】选A。细节理解题。根据第一段的“another customer was approaching their table. ”和第三段的“the woman joined the Welty party. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair. ”可知, 先后有两个陌生人(一位女士及其同伴)加入了Welty 的聚会, 故选A。
2. The underlined word “them” in Paragraph 6 refers to Welty’s ______.
A. readers B. parties C. friends D. stories
【解析】选D。词义猜测题。画线的them指代前面提到的人或物, 根据“Now we believe your stories. ”可知, them指代的是Welty写的小说里面的故事, 听了Welty和两个陌生人的有关密西西比的谈话之后, Welty的朋友相信了Welty小说里的故事都是来源于现实生活, 故选D。
3. What can we learn about the characters in Welty’s fiction?
A. They live in big cities.
B. They are mostly women.
C. They come from real life.
D. They are pleasure seekers.
【解析】选C。推理判断题。根据倒数第二段中的“I don’t make them up”和倒数第一段中的“Welty’s people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets of her native Jackson, Miss. , from conversations overheard on a bus. ”可知, Welty小说里的人物并不是虚构的, 他们都来源于现实生活, 故选C。
