「我們下午就出發去旅行目的地,在路上有4小時,
我想到之前接觸過的一份比較考驗學生觀察力的閱讀理解題目,
Read the following passage and answer the following question:
Explain how Daniel’s project helped to change Alma’s feeling about her new home。
Use information from the text to support your thinking。(原文連結 )
When the tide is out, this whole dumb town smells like dead fish. When I say that to my mom, she agrees. Well, not about the dumb town part—about the dead fish. She inhales deeply and says, “Don’t you just love it, Alma?
No, I don’t love it.
I don’t love it at all.
We moved here to have more space. Back home, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment. When the pandemic started, my mom’s friend offered us her seaside cottage. It’s one of those houses that sits up on 10-foot stilts so ocean water can flow underneath. The original plan was to stay for a few months, maybe through the summer. But school is still online and Mom’s still working remotely, so now—almost winter—we’re still here.
Meanwhile, I’ve been off Instagram since Daniel’s birthday. My friends back home put signs on their cars and had their parents drive them by his house in a caravan, honking and cheering. I mailed him chocolate chip cookies, his favorite; he didn’t even post a photo of them. After that, when I looked at everyone’s feeds, I felt as though I’d drifted out to sea and no one noticed.
I’m sitting on the porch watching the feeble sun disappear and the tide come in. It’s cold and dark nearly all the time now. The ocean has turned gray, like overcooked steak.
“I hate it here,” I text Daniel.
He texts me back a sad Baby Yoda.
I don’t respond.
A few minutes later, my phone lights up. Daniel is FaceTiming me.
“Alma, you didn’t say anything at school.”
I shrug. For days, I’ve been getting by on shrugs and nods and the occasional thumbs-up.
“Let me see it,” he says.
Daniel loves it when I turn the camera and let him look at the waves.
“It’s like you live in a painting,” he says.
Daniel sees the world like that. To me, though, the ocean is a monster and the waves are its giant claws, raking the sand, dragging itself up the rocky beach.
“Did you finish your project?” Daniel asks.
“Not yet.”
Our assignment is to create a work of art that expresses gratitude for something or someone.
“Do you mind if I send you what I did?” Daniel asks. “I think you might like it.”
That night, Daniel sends me his gratitude project, and when I open it, I lose my breath.
He’s made a collage. A night sky splashes across the top. Beneath it, on one side of the page is Daniel in his room, positioned as though he’s about to fly out his window. He’s made himself a centaur, with electric blue wings and the body of a horse. When I look more closely, I see that his wings are made up of tiny photos of us—at a football game, making pizza, dressed as Minions for Halloween way back in kindergarten. On the other side of the page is me, floating on the surface of the sea. He’s made me a mermaid with fiery orange eyes and a mop of tangled seaweed for hair. The fish body he’s given me is made of photos too. There’s a picture of Daniel gleefully eating his birthday cookies and one of us playing Mario Kart the summer his parents got divorced.
And between us?
A spatter of stars, connecting us like a rainbow.
Something gurgles up inside me, spills out of my eyes, and plops down on the screen. I flick away the teardrops and look up.
The tide is in now, and the house rocks gently from side to side. The stars are coming out too, like tiny houses in the sky flicking on their lights. I sit there for a long time, watching the glittering waves.
And smiling.
Question:
Explain how Daniel’s project helped to change Alma’s feeling about her new home。
Use information from the text to support your thinking。
Suggested answer:
Daniel’s project, done in response to a school assignment asking students to express gratitude through a work of art, goes a long way in relieving Alma of the isolation she feels after her family relocated to a more spacious place near the sea during the pandemic.
His collage is composed of two halves. One one side, there’s a picture of him being a centaur with wings made of tiny photos of himself and Alma; on the other side is a picture of Alma as a mermaid with a body also made of tiny pictures of the two. The star-filled rainbow bridging the two sides is Daniel’s way of showing Alma that he still feels connected with her despite the physical distance between them.
Before receiving such an affirmation of their friendship, Alma got the impression she no longer had a place in Daniel’s heart. When his birthday arrived during the pandemic, not only could she no celebrate with him (other classmates did so by putting celebratory signs on their cars and driving by); he didn’t even acknowledge the chocolate chip cookies she sent him. She then maintained minimal contact with him, communicating only by emoticons (“for days I’ve been getting by on shrugs and nods and the occasional thumps-up”). Her low spirits were reflected in the way she perceived her new home, which she dismissed as a “dumb town” that “smells like dead fish.” Though Daniel thought her home’s view of the sea “looked like a painting,” she compared the ocean to “a monster,” the waves to “giant claws,” and her sense of loneliness to being “drifted out to sea and no one noticed.”
After being shown Daniel’s project, Alma is so touched that she tears up, and suddenly she realizes how beautiful her new home is, with its “glittering waves” and stars that look “like tiny houses in the sky flicking on their lights.”
We are told that Daniel’s parents are divorced. Alma’s parents probably are divorced too, since she only mentions her mum. Their respective family situations make their bond with each other all the more touching and precious, since children from divorced families often feel lonely.
Michelle Ng
英國牛津大學畢業,前《蘋果日報》和《眾新聞》專欄作家,現在身在楓葉國,心繫中國大陸和香港。
聯絡方式: michelleng.coach@proton.me
個人網站: https://michellengwritings.com
🌟加入YouTube頻道會員支持《追新聞》運作🌟
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5l18oylJ8o7ihugk4F-3nw/join
《追新聞》無金主,只有您!為訂戶提供驚喜優惠,好讓大家支持本平台,再撐埋黃店。香港訂戶可分享給英國親友使用。