Passage one
There are not many places that I find it more agreeable to
revisit when I am in an idle mood, than some places to which
I have never been. For, my acquaintance with those spots is
of such long standing, and has ripened into an intimacy of
5 so affectionate a nature, that I take a particular interest
in assuring myself that they are unchanged. I never was in
Robinson Crusoe’s Island, yet I frequently return there. I
was never in the robbers’ cave, where Gil Blas lived, but
I often go back there and find the trap-door just as heavy
10 to raise as it used to be. I was never in Don Quixote’s
study, where he read his books of chivalry until he rose
and hacked at imaginary giants, yet you couldn’t move a
book in it without my knowledge. So with Damascus, and
Lilliput, and the Nile, and Abyssinia, and the North Pole,
15 and many hundreds of places — I was never at them, yet it
is an affair of my life to keep them intact, and I am
always going back to them.
Passage two
The books one reads in childhood create in one’s mind a
sort of false map of the world, a series of fabulous
20 countries into which one can retreat at odd moments
throughout the rest of life, and which in some cases can
even survive a visit to the real countries which they are
supposed to represent. The pampas, the Amazon, the coral
islands of the Pacific, Russia, land of birch-tree and
25 samovar, Transylvania with its boyars and vampires, the
China of Guy Boothby, the Paris of du Maurier—one could
continue the list for a long time. But one other
imaginary country that I acquired early in life was
called America. If I pause on the word “America”, and
30 deliberately put aside the existing reality, I can call
up my childhood vision of it.
5. The first sentence of passage one contains an element of
A. paradox
B. legend
C. melancholy
D. humor
E. self-deprecation
6. By calling America an “imaginary country” the author of passage two implies that
A. America has been the subject of numerous works for children
B. he has never seen America
C. his current vision of that country is not related to reality
D. America has stimulated his imagination
E. his childhood vision of that country owed nothing to actual conditions
7. Both passages make the point that
A. imaginary travel is better than real journeys
B. children’s books are largely fiction
C. the effects of childhood impressions are inescapable
D. books read early in life can be revisited in the imagination many years later
E. the sight of imaginary places evokes memories
8. Both passages list a series of places, but differ in that the author of passage one
A. has been more influenced by his list of locations
B. never expects to visit any of them in real life, whereas the writer of passage two thinks it at least possible that he might
C. is less specific in compiling his list
D. wishes to preserve his locations in his mind forever, whereas the author of passage two wishes to modify all his visions in the light of reality.
E. revisits them more often
SAT阅读习题:Reading Comprehension Test 14参考答案见下一页