Question

    I was 9 years old when I found out my father was ill. It was 1994, but I can remember my mother's words as if it were yesterday: “Kerrel, I don't want you to take food from your father, because he has AIDS. Be very careful when you are around him.”

    AIDS wasn't something we talked about in my country when I was growing up. From then on, I knew that this would be a family secret. My parents were not together anymore, and my dad lived alone. For a while, he could take care of himself. But when I was 12, his condition worsened. My father's other children lived far away, so it fell to me to look after him.

    We couldn't afford all the necessary medication for him, and because Dad was unable to work, I had no money for school supplies and often couldn't even buy food for dinner. I would sit in class feeling completely lost, the teacher's words muffled as I tried to figure out how I was going to manage.

    I did not share my burden (負擔) with anyone. I had seen how people reacted to AIDS. Kids laughed at classmates who had parents with the disease. And even adults could be cruel. When my father was moved to the hospital, the nurses would leave his food on the bedside table even though he was too weak to feed himself.

    I had known that he was going to die, but after so many years of keeping his condition a secret, I was completely unprepared when he reached his final days. Sad and hopeless, I called a woman at the nonprofit National AIDS Support. That day, she kept me on the phone for hours. I was so lucky to find someone who cared. she saved my life.

I was 15 when my father died. He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone, even me. He didn't want to call attention to AIDS. I do.

60. What does Kerrel tell us about her father?

    A. He had stayed in the hospital since he fell ill.

    B. He depended on the nurses in his final days.

    C. He worked hard to pay for his medication.

    D. He told no one about his disease.

61. What can we learn from the underlined sentence?

A. Kerrel couldn't understand her teacher.          

B. Kerrel had special difficulty in hearing.

    C. Kerrel was too troubled to focus on the lesson.

    D. Kerrel was too tired to hear her teacher's words.

62. Why did Kerrel keep her father's disease a secret?

    A. She was afraid of being looked down upon.             B. She thought it was shameful to have AIDS.

    C. She found no one willing to listen to her.          D. She wanted to obey her mother.

63. Why did Kerrel write the passage?

    A. To tell people about the sufferings of her father.

    B. To show how little people knew about AIDS.

C. To draw people's attention to AIDS.              

D. To remember her father.

Answer 1

D  61.C  62.A  63.C

解析:

60．解析：這是一道判斷題。最后一段“He took his secret away with him, having never spoken about AIDS to anyone”可知D正確。

61．解析：這是一道判斷題。文中第三段前面講到家庭狀況很差，不能負擔父親的醫療費、我上學需要的錢甚至是吃飯的錢，因此很受困擾。這種困擾帶到課堂上，影響了上課，因此選C。

62．解析：本題是細節推斷題，可以從第四段尋找答案。第四段講到“我看到過人們對待艾滋病的態度”，并且舉例說明。因此作者不告訴別人的原因是怕別人看不起。

63．解析：這是一道判斷題。從最后一句可以判斷，“He didn’t want to call attention to AIDS. I do.”可知寫這篇文章的目的是為了引起人們對艾滋病的重視，選C。