I wasn’t sure what this work involved, but it must have been exciting because the Lab itself was exciting. Anywhere we didn’t go often was exciting.
We would get there in a heavy wooden rowboat, built in the five-house village half a mile away --- our mother would row, she was quite good at it --- or by following a twisty, winding footpath, over fallen trees and around rocks. It was too far for us to walk and our legs were too short, so mostly we went in the rowboat.
The Lab was made of wood; it seemed huge, though in the two photographs of it that survive it looks like a small house. Inside it there were things we weren’t allowed to touch – bottles containing a dangerous liquid in which young white insects floated, their six tiny front legs held together like praying fingers, and plugs that smelled like poison and plates with dried insects. All of this was so forbidden which made us confused.
At the Lab we could hide in the ice house, a dark and secret place that was always bigger on the inside than it was on the outside, where there was a silence, and a lot of sawdust(木屑) to keep the blocks of ice cool.
What did we do in there There was nothing to actually do. We’d pretended we had disappeared suddenly – that nobody knew where we were. This in itself was strangely energetic. Then we’d come out, away from the silence, back into the pine-needle fragrance and the sound of waves beating against the shore, and our mother’s voice calling us, because it was time to get back into the rowboat and row home.
18, In Line 1, “this wok” clearly refers to _______.
A. Writing B. insect research C. photography D. food science
19, The details of the passage suggest that the author is _______.
A. an adult remembering a recent incident
B. an adult looking back on a place from childhood
C. an elderly person thinking of her middle age
D. a child describing a frightening place
20, The description of the Lab and ice house are similar in that both ______.
A. emphasize cheerful and light-hearted surroundings
B. contain pictures of hidings and secrecy
C. stress the author’s misunderstanding of the size
D. make comparisons with the author’s home.
21. Repeatedly using the pronouns “we” and “us”, the author most likely speaks of herself and _____.
A. her father B. her mother C a brother or sister D. the reader
BBCC