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【完形填空】Cloze: The Ferry That Refused to Die
Mara first noticed the fire extinguisher on the ferry's brass rail. It looked old and (1) , though the boat had not carried a passenger for nine years.
"Do you keep it there for luck?" she asked. The captain, a studious man of 61 named Ivo, didn't (2) . "For the engine," he said. "In 2016, smoke suddenly appeared and could (3) the whole crossing. Since then, I've kept it nearby."
Mara, 34, was a demographic researcher (4) by the provincial government. Her task was to measure whether the ferry service between the megacity and the estuary should be (5) . The ferry ran twice a week, carried 140 people on average, and lost 2.3 million yuan a year. On paper, the answer was clear. But paper, she had learned, could be both cruel and (6) . Her grandfather had been a ferryman; his fingerprint was still on an old ticket she kept. So she (7) the logical conclusion and took the 6 a.m. boat. The crossing lasted 90 minutes. The water was soft under the hull, and the sky, turned into a thin band of orange, seemed to (8) an old painting.
Ivo had been captain for 27 years. He was a workaholic with an undisguised (9) to the route; he could imitate every sound of the engine and tell a change in salt levels from the colour of the wake. "The ferry is not a business," he said. "It is infrastructure. You cannot measure loyalty in money." Mara watched the passengers: a group of secondary-school students who commuted to the city for chemistry lessons; a vegetarian chef carrying linen bags of pesticide-free vegetables; a retired couple who needed the boat to reach a heart clinic. Their stories were not the same, yet they shared one (10) : the ferry was their only hope. "Without it," the chef said, "we are scattered, irrelevant."
By the third trimester of her study, Mara had gathered 212 interviews. At the same time, she ran a comparative survey of two other coastal towns where the service had been cut in 2019. In both, the local economy had suffered a measurable decline: shops closed, young people left, and the remaining population grew older and more (11) . One town's birth rate fell 18 percent in four years; another lost its only clinic. Mara began to (12) a different design for her report. She would not recommend a refundable subsidy, nor a romantic defence of the past. She would argue that the ferry's value was not merely economic but social, and that the government's objective methods had a blind spot the size of the estuary.
Then came the storm of October 2023. A tropical depression, upgraded to a top-level alert, struck during the evening crossing. Waves crushed the deck; the engine, resistant for decades, finally failed. Ivo used the extinguisher on a fire in the engine room and (13) second-degree burns on his hands. The 19 passengers were rescued, but the boat was beyond repair. The insurance compensation came to 470,000 yuan, far short of a new vessel. The province announced the route would close.
Mara's report was published in March 2024. It ran to 96 pages and included 31 charts, 14 tables and a petition signed by 3,800 residents. The ministry gave a concession: a smaller ferry, running three times a week, funded for two years. Not a victory, she thought; a (14) . Ivo did not return. At 61, with bandaged hands, he began a small boat-repair workshop, where he taught six apprentices to read an engine the way he did. On the day the new ferry made its first crossing, Mara stood on the pier. The whistle sounded twice. She looked at the water, then at her grandfather's ticket, and wondered whether two years was long enough for a place to prove it deserved to (15) .
Mara's report was published in March 2024. It ran to 96 pages and included 31 charts, 14 tables and a petition signed by 3,800 residents. The ministry gave a concession: a smaller ferry, running three times a week, funded for two years. Not a victory, she thought; a (16) . Ivo did not return. At 61, with bandaged hands, he began a small boat-repair workshop, where he taught six apprentices to read an engine the way he did. On the day the new ferry made its first crossing, Mara stood on the pier. The whistle sounded twice. She looked at the water, then at her grandfather's ticket, and wondered whether two years was long enough for a place to prove it deserved to (17) .
Choices
(1) A. dull B. bright C. shiny D. fresh
(2) A. look after B. look up C. look down D. look into
(3) A. improve B. imperil C. ignore D. impress
(4) A. commented B. commissioned C. commanded D. communicated
(5) A. continued B. discontinued C. discussed D. discovered
(6) A. clear B. obvious C. vague D. precise
(7) A. accepted B. ignored C. rejected D. followed
(8) A. provoke B. evoke C. revoke D. invoke
(9) A. royalty B. loyalty C. penalty D. disloyalty
(10) A. friction B. fiction C. function D. fraction
(11) A. generous B. homogeneous C. heterogeneous D. dangerous
(12) A. perceive B. receive C. deceive D. conceive
(13) A. maintained B. sustained C. contained D. obtained
(14) A. reprieve B. relief C. receive D. retrieve
(15) A. exit B. resist C. exist D. insist
(16) A. receive B. reprieve C. retrieve D. relief
(17) A. exist B. exit C. insist D. resist