I am not one who golfs. The only time I tried it I was confident that a dozen balls would be an adequate supply. This is the sport of retired people: how hard could it be? The confidence was misplaced, also, one by one, the balls, and I had to quit somewhere around the seventh hole. On the sixth, actually, I hit a car—there was absolutely no reason for a highway to be that close to a golf course—but that’s another story. The point is that the game did not yield up its mystery to me; I remain, in the golfing universe, a child of darkness. I do find that I am able to watch golf on television, however, where it is possible to experience a calmness that the game itself sadly lacks. Spread out on a couch and indifferent to the outcome (very important), you watch tiny white balls sail improbable distances over the biggest lawns in the world, interrupted occasionally by advertisements for expensive cars. One of the players is named Tiger. Another is named Love. If you have access to a bottle of Martinis (optional), the joy potential can be quite huge.

There is usually a price for pleasure so mindless. In the case of TV golf, it is listening to the commentators analyze the players’ swings. What looks to you like a single, continuous, and not difficult act is revealed, via slow motion and a sort of virtual-chalkboard graphics, to be a sequence of intricately measured adjustments of shoulder to hip, head to arm, elbow to wrist, and so on. Where you see fluidity, the experts see geometry; what to you is nature is machinery to them—parallel lines, extended planes, points of impact. They murder to examine. Yet, apparently, these minutes and individualized measurements make all the difference between being able reliably to land a golf ball in an area, three hundred yards away, the size of a bathmat and, say, randomly hitting a car, which, let’s face it, only a fool would drive right next to a golf course. There is a major disproportion, in other words, between the straightforwardness of the game and the fantastic precision required to play it, a disproportion mastered by a difficult but, to the ordinary observer, almost invisible technique.

Short stories are the same. A short story is not as restrictive as a sonnet, but, of all the literary forms, it is possibly the most single-minded. Its aim, as it was identified by the modern genre’s first theorist, Edgar Allan Poe, is to create “an effect”—by which Poe meant something almost physical, like a sensation or an extreme excitement.

1. The author quotes his own experience with golf to show that _____.

[A] things are often not so simple and easy as they seem

[B] his experience with golf has been a frustrating failure

[C] that experience of his offered much for his later life

[D] apparent truths are more often than not unreliable

2. The author enjoys watching golf games on TV because _____.

[A] access to drinks makes the game more joyful

[B] a more enjoyable view of the game is provided

[C] he is thus unaffected by the result of the game

[D] that is more likely real appreciation of the game

3.What does the author imply when he says “There is usually…so mindless”(Line 1, Paragraph 2)?

[A] Commentators often interrupt your attention.

[B] TV golf is frequently unaffordable for many.

[C] One needs to pay handsomely for the setting.

[D] Some essential parts of the game are missing.

4. In the part succeeding the third paragraph, the author will most probably _____.

[A] draw an analogy between golf and short story

[B] elaborate the “effect” of short story

[C] show other examples similar to golf games

[D] show impact of golf games on short story

5. What is the relationship between Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2?

[A] Paragraph 1 is an introduction to Paragraph 2.

[B] Paragraph 1 provides an example for Paragraph 2.

[C] Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2 are both supporting details.

[D] Paragraph 2 serves as an analogy to Paragraph 1.

答案

1. A 2.C 3.D 4.B 5.A

總體分析

文章通過比較打高爾夫球和在電視上看高爾夫球的不同引出了短篇小說的創(chuàng)作，指出它所要達到的效果和看高爾夫球賽一樣，都是要獲得自然的感覺。本文主要寫作方法是類比。

第一、二段：作者通過自己打高爾夫的經(jīng)歷說明看起來簡單容易的事情做起來全然不同。普通人在電視上看高爾夫比賽的輕松和實際打高爾夫所要求的精湛技巧之間存在很大的反差。

第三段：將短篇小說的創(chuàng)作與打高爾夫球做類比，指出短篇小說的創(chuàng)作要達到的效果是讓閱讀者獲得強烈的身體上的感受。

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（責(zé)任編輯：rhj）

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