2. 外语
  3. (1)Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sk

(1)Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sk

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问题     (1)Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest forming a single gray color, like the light color an artist paints on a canvas before the masterwork. My spirit ebbs, as it did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neighbor counseled. "You’ll wake up one morning and spring will just be here." And look, on May 3 that year, I awoke to a green so startling as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of moving a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and greens. Leaves had unfurled, birds had arrived at the feeder and daffodils were fighting their way towards heaven.
    (2)It was almost too much to bear, this assault of color, this world of spring in suddenly rapid motion. I watched as those aforementioned hills, sky, and forest revealed their appealing purples, blues, and greens. And after my eyes had feasted, the lilacs and honeysuckles competed for attention, exuding a dizzying fragrance.
    (3)In my neighborhood, there is an old apple tree on an undeveloped lot. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. Rising unkempt between railroad tracks and asphalt, its dark, twisted branches sprawl heavenward and earthward in a mire of unpruned abandon. In winter, this tree looks dead as a doornail. And yet each spring, it blossoms so profusely that the air becomes saturated with the aroma of apple. When I drive through it, I make sure my windows are rolled down. It gives me the feeling of moving in another element, like a kid on a water slide.
    (4)UntiI last year, I thought I was the only one who was even aware of this tree. And then, one day, in a fit of spring madness, I set out with pruner and lopper in hand and headed straight for it. I felt that by removing some dead wood and a few errant branches, I would perhaps prevent its being injured by the weight of its own growth. No sooner had I arrived under its boughs than windows began to go up and neighbors leaned out on sills and stepped onto their porches. Like a person who changes seats on a bus in transit, I had elicited some sort of suspicion. These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had stepped unbidden into their personal gardens.
    (5)My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak. "You’re not going to cut it down, are you?" she asked anxiously. Another neighbor, whose name I knew but little else, called to me. He, too, wanted to question my intentions and winced as I lopped off a wrong-headed branch. "Don’t kill it, now," he cautioned.
    (6)In time, half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple arbor. It struck me that I had lived in this neighborhood for five years and only now was learning these people’s names, what they did for a living, and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree were gathering us under its boughs for the sole purpose of acquaintanceship. I recalled Frost’s words about the power of trees:
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods...
    (7)And, he might have added, "to draw those together who might otherwise never have spoken."
    (8)So one thaw had lead to another. Just the other day, I met one of my neighbors at the local store. He remarked how this recent winter had been especially long and hard. He lamented not having seen or spoken to anyone in our neighborhood at length. And then, recouping his thoughts, he looked at me and said, "We need to prune that apple tree again."
Not until last year did the author _______.
选项 A、cease to worry about the tree
B、become aware of the apple tree
C、begin to appreciate the neighborhood
D、make acquaintance with the neighbors
答案D
解析 根据题干中的until last year定位到第4段第1句。第4至6段可以视为文章的中心部分，这一部分讲作者直到去年因为修剪苹果树才开始与邻居有了交流。第4段中的These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to以及第6段中的for the sole purpose of acquaintanceship直接说明本题应选D。
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