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  3. Madeleine had met Leonard in an upper-level semiotics seminar taught by a renegade from the English department. Michael Zipperst

Madeleine had met Leonard in an upper-level semiotics seminar taught by a renegade from the English department. Michael Zipperst

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问题     Madeleine had met Leonard in an upper-level semiotics seminar taught by a renegade from the English department. Michael Zipperstein had arrived at Brown thirty-two years earlier filled with zeal for the New Criticism. He’d inculcated the habits of close reading and biography-free interpretation into three generations of students before taking a Road to Damascus sabbatical, in Paris, in 1975, where he’d met Roland Barthes at a dinner party and been converted, over duck cassoulet, to the new faith. Now Zipperstein taught two courses in the newly created Program in Semiotic Studies. Introduction to Semiotic Theory, in the fall, and, in the spring, Semiotics 211. Hygienically bald, with a seaman’s mustache less white beard, Zipper stein favored French fisherman’s sweaters and wide-wale corduroys. He buried people with his reading lists: in addition to ali the semiotic big hitters—Derrida, Eco, Barthes—the students in Semiotics 211 had to contend with a magpie nest of reserve reading that included everything from Balzac’s "Sarrasine" to issues of Semi text(e) to Xeroxed selections from E. M. Cioran, Robert Watser, Claude Levi-Strauss, Peter Handke, and Carl Van Vechten. To get into the seminar, you had to submit to a one-on-one interview with Zipperstein during which he asked bland personal questions, such as what your favorite food or dog breed was, and made enigmatic remarks in response. This esoteric probing, along with Zipperstein’s guru’s dome and beard, gave his students a sense that they’d been spiritually vetted and were now—for two hours Wednesday afternoons, at least—part of a campus lit-crit-elite.
    Almost overnight it became laughable to read writers like Cheerer or Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France. Madeleine had become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons. , because she loved to read. The university’s "British and American Literature Course Catalogue" was, for Madeleine, what its Bergdorf equivalent was for her roommates. A course listing like "English 274: Lyly’s Euphues" excited Madeleine the way a pair of Fiorucci cowboy boots did Abby. "English 450A. Hawthorne and James" filled Madeleine with an expectation of sinful hours in bed that was not unlike the sensation Olivia got from wearing a Lycra skirt and leather blazer to Danceteria Right up through her third year of college,  Madeleine had kept wholesomely taking courses like "Victorian Fantasy: From ’Phonates’ to ’The Water-Babies,’" but by senior year she could no longer ignore the contrast between the blankly people in her Beowulf seminar and the hipsters down the hall reading Maurice Blanchot. Going to college in the moneymaking eighties lacked a certain radicalism. Semiotics was the first thing that smacked of revolution. It drew a line; it created an elect; it was sophisticated and Continental; it dealt with provocative subjects, with torture, sadism, hermaphroditism—with sex and power.
    Semiotics 211 was limited to ten students. Of those ten, eight had taken Introduction to Semiotic Theory. This was visually apparent at the first class meeting. Lounging around the seminar table, when Madeleine came into the room from the wintry weather outside, were eight people in black T-shirts and ripped black jeans. A few had razored off the necks or sleeves of their T-shirts. There was something creepy about one guy’s face—it was like a baby’s face that had hideously aged I and it took Madeleine a full minute to realize that he’d shaved off his eyebrows. Everyone in the room was so spectral-looking that Madeleine’s natural healthiness seemed suspect, like a vote for Reagan. She was relieved, therefore, when a big guy in a down jacket and snowmobile boots showed up and took the empty seat next to her. He had a cup of takeout coffee.
How did Madeleine feel when she entered the room?
选项 A、Terrified.
B、Amused.
C、Nervous.
D、Comfortable.
答案A
解析 推断题。由题干定位至最后一段。第六句指出“There Was something creepy about one guy’S face—it was like a baby’s face that had hideously aged一一and it took Madeleine a full minute to realize that he’d shaved off his eyebrows．”，其中creepy意为“毛骨悚然的”；第七句“Everyone in the room was SO spectral-looking that Madeleine’S natural healthiness seemed suspect，like a vote for Reagan．”中的spectral-looking意为“像幽灵一样的”，可见她进去的时候感到害怕，故[A]为答案。第八句“She was relieved，therefore，when a big guy in a down jacket and snowmobile boots showed up and took the empty seat next to her．”容易造成误选nervous，但由前文描述可知，[C]语体色彩比较轻，不符合原文；从这句的relieved可以看出她刚开始不会感到舒服．排除[D]；[B]与末段整体基调相反，直接排除。
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