2016年5月亚太
Reading Test
Questiongs 1-10 are based on the following passage
This passage is adapted from Daniyal Mueenuddin,
“Nawabdin Electrician.” ©2009 by Daniyal Mueenuddin.
Another man might have thrown up his
hands—but not Nawabdin. His twelve daughters
acted as a spur to his genius, and he looked with
satisfaction in the mirror each morning at the face of
5 a warrior going out to do battle. Nawab of course
knew that he must proliferate his sources of
revenue—the salary he received from K. K. Harouni
for tending the tube wells would not even begin to
suffice. He set up a little one-room flour mill, run off
10 a condemned electric motor—condemned by him.
He tried his hand at fish-farming in a little pond at
the edge of his master’s fields. He bought broken
radios, fixed them, and resold them. He did not
demur even when asked to fix watches, though that
15 enterprise did spectacularly badly, and in fact earned
him more kicks than kudos, for no watch he took
apart ever kept time again.
K. K. Harouni rarely went to his farms, but lived
mostly in Lahore. Whenever the old man visited,
20 Nawab would place himself night and day at the door
leading from the servants’ sitting area into the walled
grove of ancient banyan trees where the old
farmhouse stood. Grizzled, his peculiar aviator
glasses bent and smudged, Nawab tended the
25 household machinery, the air conditioners, water
heaters, refrigerators, and water pumps, like an
engineer tending the boilers on a foundering steamer
in an Atlantic gale. By his superhuman efforts he
almost managed to maintain K. K. Harouni in the
30 same mechanical cocoon, cooled and bathed and
lighted and fed, that the landowner enjoyed in
Lahore.
Harouni of course became familiar with this
ubiquitous man, who not only accompanied him on
35 his tours of inspection, but morning and night could
be found standing on the master bed rewiring the
light fixture or in the bathroom poking at the water
heater. Finally, one evening at teatime, gauging the
psychological moment, Nawab asked if he might say
...
1 The main purpose of the first paragraph is to
A) characterize Nawab as a loving father.
B) outline the schedule of a typical day in Nawab’s life.
C) describe Nawab’s various moneymaking ventures.
D) contrast Nawab’s and Harouni’s lifestyles.
2 As used in line 16, “kicks” most nearly means
A) thrills.
B) complaints.
C) jolts.
D) interests.
3 The author uses the image of an engineer at sea(lines 23-28) most likely to
A) suggest that Nawab often dreams of having a more exciting profession.
B) highlight the fact that Nawab’s primary job is to tend to Harouni’s tube wells.
C) reinforce the idea that Nawab has had many different occupations in his life.
D) emphasize how demanding Nawab’s work for Harouni is.
...