It was my first day back home since starting college. A lot had changed in the last year. Not with my hometown but with me. I had left as a 17-year-old boy and had now returned as an 18-year-old man. In the city, I was living on my own, had a part-time job and was studying. Even the government recognized I was an adult: I had a driver’s license. So here I was, on my summer vacation, walking down the main street with my father, desperate for him to acknowledge how mature I was. When his recognition failed to appear, I took matters into my own hands. “Dad,” I said casually, “I’m thirsty. Let’s go for a beer.” It was the first time I’d ever mentioned beer in front of my father, let alone ask him to drink one with me.
He turned to me with a curious expression on his face. “A beer? Well, I guess you’re old enough now. Let’s go to Sailors’ Bar. It’s where my cousin Tom, your uncle, used to drink. You remember him, right?”
I had only some vague recollection of my uncle. He was the black sheep of the family. We didn’t talk about him much. “What ever happened to Uncle Tom, Dad? I haven’t seen him in years,” I said as we continued towards the bar.
“Neither have I, unfortunately. He was a good kid once. But things changed,” my father said mournfully. As a boy, he explained, there had been no better-behaved boy than Tom. But after leaving school, he moved to the city and fell in with bad companies. He started going out every night, drinking in nightclubs and playing cards. Soon he lost everything and had to beg his mum to pay his debts. She agreed on condition that he returned home.
My dad took a deep breath and continued his tale. “Things settled down for a while. He married a lovely woman and gave up his bad habits. But it didn’t last. He was soon back to his old ways. He couldn’t resist. He was at Sailors’ Bar almost every night. His poor mother died of grief and shame. His wife followed her soon after.”
“What ruined him was alcohol. He told me once, when a man begins drinking, he never knows where it’ll end. ‘So’, Tom warned me. ‘be cautious about your first drink!’”
“He went from bad to worse. Last year Tom sent me a letter saying he had been found guilty of stealing, and sent to prison for ten years.”
Dad finished talking just as we reached the front door of Sailors’ Bar. “Anyway, here we are. Let’s go in,” he said. But understood. I put my arm around my father and said, “I’m not thirsty anymore, Dad. Let’s go home.”
【小题1】Why did the young man invite his father to drink a beer?| A．Because he was thirsty while walking with his father. |
| B．Because he wanted to impress his father casually. |
| C．Because he wanted to show he was an adult. |
| D．Because he wanted to discuss his Uncle Tom. |
| A．The family was concerned about Tom because he was always in trouble. |
| B．The family felt ashamed of Tom because he was a failure. |
| C．The family showed sympathy to Tom because he was unfortunate. |
| D．The family felt disgusted about him because he was different. |
| A．His overly-strict family. |
| B．His addiction to card games. |
| C．The deaths of his mother and wife. |
| D．His inability to control his drinking. |
| A．warn the son to keep away from Tom |
| B．entertain the son while they walked to the bar |
| C．recall an interesting period in the father’s life |
| D．convince the son of the harm caused by drinking |
a. His mother died.
b. He married a lovely girl.
c. He started going to nightclubs.
d. He was caught stealing.
e. He went back home to live with his mother.
f. He left school.
| A．d, f, e, b, a, c | B．e, a, f, b, c, d |
| C．f, c, e, b, a, d | D．f, c, e, a, b, d |
