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  3. I came across an old country guide the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the country, and it

I came across an old country guide the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the country, and it

admin2011-02-25  22
问题     I came across an old country guide the other day. It listed all the tradesmen in each village in my part of the country, and it was impressive to see the great variety of services which were available on one’s own doorstep in the late Victorian countryside.
    Nowadays a superficial traveler in rural England might conclude that the only village tradesmen still flourishing were either selling frozen food to the inhabitants or selling antiques to visitors. Nevertheless, this would really be a false impression. Admittedly there has been a contraction of village commerce, but its vigor is still remarkable.
    Our local grocer’s shop, for example, is actually expanding in spite of the competition from supermarkets in the nearest town. Women sensibly prefer to go there and exchange the local news while doing their shopping, instead of queueing up anonymously at a supermarket. And the proprietor knows well that personal service has a substantial cash value.
    His prices may be a bit higher than those in the town, but he will deliver anything at any time. His assistants think nothing of bicycling down the village street in their lunch, hour to take a piece of cheese to an old-age pensioner who sent her order by word of mouth with a friend who happened to be passing. The more affluent customers telephone their shopping lists and the goods are on their doorsteps within an hour. They have only to hint at a fancy for some commodity outside the usual stock and the grocer a red-faced figure, instantly obtains it for them.
    The village gains from this sort of enterprise, of course. But I also find it satisfactory because a village shop offers one of the few ways in which a modest individualist can still get along in the world without attaching himself to the big battalions of industry or commerce.
    Most of the village shopkeepers I know, at any rate, are decidedly individualist in their ways. For exampie, our shoemaker is a formidable figure: a thick-set, irritable man whom children treat with marked respect, knowing that an ill-judged word can provoke an angry eruption at any time. He stares with contempt at the pairs of cheap, mass-produced shoes taken to him for repair: has it come to this, he seems to be saying, that he, a craftsman, should have to waste his skills upon such trash? But we all know he will in fact do excellent work upon them. And he makes beautiful shoes for those who can afford such luxury.
In what way is the village shoemaker a “formidable figure”?
选项 A、He seems to pay little attention to public opinion.
B、He refuses to mend cheap, mass-produced shoes.
C、He is bad-tempered as well as an excellent craftsman.
D、He has very high standards of workmanship.
答案C
解析 [解析] 事实细节题。根据题干中的信息词formidable figure将答案定位到最后一段。formidable意为“令人生畏的；令人敬畏的”。作者在举例描述shoemaker的时候，在冒号后面对 formidable figure做了解释，即“矮胖的、易怒的人”。而后面又提到，他虽然表面上看不起那些廉价的鞋子，却会对鞋子做excellent work。也就是说，他是一个excellent craftsman，所以[C]正确。 [A]不是原文内容。而[B]是对原文的错误转述，他虽然表面上不屑于修理那些廉价鞋子，但实际上还是认真地修理了。[D]表述片面，他确实手艺高超，但也是一个irritable man。
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