1 . When the semester ended, I returned home. In a few weeks BYU would post grades; then I’d know if I could return in the fall.
I filled my journals with promises that I would stay out of the junkyard. I needed money so I went to get my old job back, at Stokes. I turned up at the busiest hour in the afternoon when I knew they’d be understaffed, and sure enough, the manager was bagging groceries when I found him. I asked if he’d like me to do that, and he looked at me for all of three seconds, and then lifted his apron over his head and handed it to me.
Dad was waiting for me when I came through the back door. He saw the apron and said, “You’re working for me this summer.”
“I’m working at Stokes,” I said.
His voice was raised. “This is your family. You belong here.”
There was no one on his crew since my brothers had gone. He had to do everything all by himself. Dad’s face was haggard, his eyes bloodshot. But that determination was etched (流露出) into his face. It was in his voice, in the harshness of it. He had to win this standoff (对峙).
But I couldn’t do the job, because to do it would be to slide backward. I had moved home, to my old room, to my old life. If I went back to working for Dad, to waking up every morning and pulling on steel toed boots and trudging (跋涉) out to the junkyard, it would be as if the last four months had never happened, as if I had never left.
When I’d told Dad that I planned to go back to college, he’d said a woman’s place was in the home that I should be learning about herbs — “God’s pharmacy (药房)” he’d call it — so I could take over for Mother.
My memories of the university faded quickly. The scratch of pencils on paper, the clack of a projector moving to the next slide, the peal of the bells signaling the end of the class — all were drowned out by the clatter of iron and the role of diesel engines after a month in the junkyard. BYU seemed like a dream, something I had created by magic. Now I was awake.
1. Why did the author turn up at the busiest hour at Stokes?
| A．Because she was expelled from college and planned to work at Stokes. |
| B．Because she could save money by buying stuff at a discount in the afternoon. |
| C．Because she would have a better chance to get the job. |
| D．Because her dad asked her to get an apron for him from Stokes in the afternoon. |
2. The underlined word “haggard” is closest in meaning to
| A．tired | B．excited | C．indifferent | D．concerned |
3. What was Dad’s attitude towards the author’s plan to go back to college
| A．Supportive. | B．Opposed. | C．Hesitant. | D．Doubtful. |
4. What can be learned from the passage?
| A．The author didn’t want to work for her dad mainly because it was too tiring at the junkyard. |
| B．The author’s dad was poorly educated but he acknowledged the importance of education for girls. |
| C．The author missed her university and wanted to embrace her new life. |
| D．The author’s dad was disappointed because she didn’t choose medicine as her major. |
