Our visit to the excavation of a Roman fort on a hill near Coventry was of more than archaeological interest. The year’s dig had

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问题     Our visit to the excavation of a Roman fort on a hill near Coventry was of more than archaeological interest. The year’s dig had been a fruitful one and had assembled evidence of a permanent military camp much larger than had at first been conjectured. We were greeted on the site by a group of excavators, some of them filling in a trench that had yielded an almost complete pot the day before, others enjoying the last-day luxury of a cigarette in the sun, but all happy to explain and talk about their work. If we had not already known it, nothing would have suggested that this was a party of prisoners from the nearby prison. This is not the first time that prison labor has been used in work of this kind, but here the experiment, now two years old, has proved outstandingly satisfactory.
    From the archaeologists’ point of view, prisoners provide a steady force of disciplined labor throughout the entire season, men to whom it is a serious day’s work, and not the rather carefree holiday job that it tends to be for the amateur archaeologist. Newcomers are comparatively few, and can soon be initiated by those already trained in the work. Prisoners may also be more accustomed to heavy work like shoveling and carting soil than the majority of students. When Coventry’s Keeper of Archaeology went to the prison to appeal for help, he was received cautiously by the men, but when the importance of the work was fully understood, far more volunteers were forthcoming than could actually be employed. When they got to work on the site, and their efforts produced pottery and building foundations in what until last year had been an ordinary field, their enthusiasm grew till they would sometimes work through their lunch hour and tea break, and even carry on in the rain rather than sit it out in the hut. This was undoubtedly because the work was not only strenuous but absorbing, and called for considerable intelligence. The men worked always under professional supervision, but as the season went on they needed less guidance and knew when an expert should be summoned. Disciplinary problems were negligible: the men were carefully selected for their good conduct and working on a party like this was too valuable a privilege to be thrown away.
    The Keeper of Archaeology said that this was by far the most satisfactory form of labor that he had ever had, and that it had produced results, in quantity and quality, that could not have been achieved by any other means.
It can be assumed that archaeologists

选项 A、did not like the prisoners’ carefree attitude to work.
B、were willing to take only a few prisoners to work on the site.
C、were often forced to discipline the prisoners.
D、found that the prisoners worked far better than amateur archaeologist.

答案D

解析 推理判断题。由archaeologists将信息定位于第二段。该段首句指出,在考古学家看来,与把考古工作看作是悠闲度假的业余考古学家相比,犯人提供的是纪律严明且稳定的劳动力,他们对工作的态度非常认真,故[D]正确。该段carefree attitude指的是业余考古学家的态度,故[A]错误;[B]是对该段第四句末的错误理解;由该段最后Disciplinary problems were negligible可知,犯人们不存在纪律方面的问题,所以[C]不正确。
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