书评《不再畏惧》——2022年高考英语全国乙卷阅读理解B

1916年，两个来自纽约州奥本的富裕家庭的女孩——多萝西·伍德洛夫和罗莎蒙德·安德伍德——来到落基山脉的一个定居地，在一个只有一间教室的校舍里教书。女孩们是史密斯学院的学生。他们穿着昂贵的衣服.因此，对他们来说，去科罗拉多州的埃尔克海德(Elkhead)教那些鞋子是用绳子绑起来的孩子们是一件令人惊喜的事情。《无所畏惧:两个摩登女孩在西部受到的意料外教育》一书描写的就是他们在埃尔克黑德的经历.作者多萝西·威肯登 (Dorothy Wickenden) 是杂志编辑，也是多萝西·伍德拉夫 (Dorothy Woodruff) 的孙女。

那她们为什么要去呢?她们想做些有意义的事。然而，他们很快就意识到她们正在干什么。
他们搬进了当地的一个家庭，哈里森一家，和他们一样，没有任何隐私，很少洗澡，早上醒来时被子上都蒙着一层雪。有些早晨，罗莎蒙德和多萝西来到学校，发现孩子们因受冻而哭泣。在春天，雪代替了泥,泥在冰上搅和。

在威肯登的书中，她讲述了西部历史,还有影响了女孩们去埃尔克黑德的决定的女权主义。一个令人毛骨悚然的章节是关于铁路建设的,这包括钻井通过落基山脉,让人目盲的暴风雪。书是以罗莎蒙德和多萝西回到奥本结尾的。

威肯登是个很会讲故事的人。她创作出一系列美丽的作品描写了辽阔的土地和坚毅的人们。这里是一段描述多萝西·伍德拉夫(Dorothy Woodruff)骑在马上从山顶往下看的文字:“当太阳躲到山的背后，给万物映上了玫瑰色的光芒。接着一轮满月升起。雪地上点缀着一些小动物:狐狸、郊狼、老鼠和各种野兔，它们在冬天会变成白色。”

原文：

B

In 1916, two girls of wealthy families, best friends from Auburn, N.Y. — Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood — traveled to a settlement in the Rocky Mountains to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. The girls had gone to Smith College. They wore expensive clothes. So for them to move to Elkhead, Colo. to instruct the children whose shoes were held together with string was a surprise. Their stay in Elkhead is the subject of Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West by Dorothy Wickenden, who is a magazine editor and Dorothy Woodruff’s granddaughter.

Why did they go then? Well, they wanted to do something useful. Soon, however, they realized what they had undertaken.

They moved in with a local family, the Harrisons, and, like them, had little privacy, rare baths, and a blanket of snow on their quilt when they woke up in the morning. Some mornings, Rosamond and Dorothy would arrive at the schoolhouse to find the children weeping from the cold. In spring, the snow was replaced by mud over ice.

In Wickenden’s book, she expanded on the history of the West and also on feminism, which of course influenced the girls’ decision to go to Elkhead. A hair-raising section concerns the building of the railroads, which entailed (牵涉) drilling through the Rockies, often in blinding snowstorms. The book ends with Rosamond and Dorothy’s return to Auburn.

Wickenden is a very good storyteller. The sweep of the land and the stoicism (坚忍) of the people move her to some beautiful writing. Here is a picture of Dorothy Woodruff, on her horse, looking down from a hill top: “When the sun slipped behind the mountains, it shed a rosy glow all around them. Then a full moon rose. The snow was marked only by small animals: foxes, coyotes, mice, and varying hares, which turned white in the winter.”

24. Why did Dorothy and Rosamond go to the Rocky Mountains?

A. To teach in a school.

B. To study American history.

C. To write a book.

D. To do sightseeing.

25. What can we learn about the girls from paragraph 3?

A. They enjoyed much respect.

B. They had a room with a bathtub.

C. They lived with the local kids.

D. They suffered severe hardships.

26. Which part of Wickenden’s writing is hair-raising?

A. The extreme climate of Auburn.

B. The living conditions in Elkhead.

C. The railroad building in the Rockies.

D. The natural beauty of the West.

27. What is the text?

A. A news report.

B. A book review.

C. A children’s story.

D. A diary entry.