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【阅读理解】Reading: The Orchard School
Mira was the daughter of an orchard keeper in a village of two hundred inhabitants.
Her father, a man of few words, said the land was hospitable only to those who listened.
That principle, he claimed, was the primary element of any good life.
Every morning before school she would congregate with other children by the well.
The chorus of their voices carried across the fields.
She had a natural attraction to detail: the density of leaves, the sheer height of the old pear tree, its spectacular and picturesque limbs.
Her perception was acute.
She could capture the particular way light fell on a fossil stone near the fence.
Neighbours said she would undoubtedly become an artist, albeit a poor one.
At seventeen she left for the city, drawn by its opulence and its promise of leisure.
The contrast was brutal.
She encountered noise, haste, and a widespread indifference.
The city seemed to trivialize everything she had once held sacred.
Its industrialised outlook, she wrote home, would prove detrimental to any conception of harmony.
Her letters grew shorter.
She felt like an optional extra in a machine she could not coordinate.
Then her father fell ill.
She returned, and the reversal was total.
Standing again among the trees, she felt a vigorous arousal of memory.
The old impressions came bouncing back.
She began to recapture what maturity had almost erased.
She started a small school for local children, using the orchard as a stage.
She would depict each season, and the children would inform her of what they saw.
Their participation was voluntary, their questions urgent and generative.
Her project was not symbolic.
It was, she said, a means of curbing exploitation of the land and of the young.
She wanted to strengthen the link between the village and its surroundings, to decouple profit from destruction.
Visitors came, drawn by coverage in a regional paper.
She boasted of nothing.
She simply said the work was a contribution to a fragile, precarious balance.
Her father, sitting under the pear tree, said only that she had learned to listen.
The orchard, once a place of labour, had become a place of learning.
That, for her, was the overall point.
Questions
1. What did Mira's father believe was the primary element of a good life?
A. The ability to listen to the land B. The chance to live in a city C. The possession of wealth and leisure D. The skill to become an artist
2. What happened when Mira returned to the village after her father fell ill?
A. She felt a vigorous arousal of memory and began a small school B. She sold the orchard to a regional paper C. She decided to move back to the city permanently D. She stopped writing letters home
3. What does the word 'curbing' in the passage most nearly mean?
A. Restraining B. Encouraging C. Measuring D. Ignoring
4. What can be inferred about Mira's attitude towards the city from her letters?
A. She felt it was a machine she could easily coordinate B. She found it detrimental to harmony and grew indifferent C. She believed it was a place of learning and balance D. She enjoyed its opulence and leisure immensely
5. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. A regional paper reports on the destruction of a village B. A father teaches his daughter how to run an orchard for profit C. A woman returns to her village and turns an orchard into a place of learning D. A village girl becomes a famous artist in the city