无论是面对OLevel考试的哪个科目,词汇和语法都是我们必备的基础能力,OLevel英文考试也不了例外。今天小编节选了OLevel英文考试阅读原题与真题,一起来练习一下吧!
This extract is selected as one of the common test passages for O Level English. Casting aside the demonic spectre of time constraint, we could read this piece in a more relaxed state of mind, and hopefully be able analyse and appreciate it better.
The key words in bold form are the ones that the examiner has once set to test students’ understanding of the thematic issues, the words’ literal meanings as well as the author’s intent and style. My analysis focuses on these key elements and I hope you read it while thinking deeply.
原文节选与分析点评
Analysis & Comments
01
Dark spruce forestfrownedon either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to leantowards each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land.
The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness.
There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness--a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility.
It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom ofeternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen- heartedNorthland Wild.
分析点评:
The passage opens with a spectacular description and paints a picture of a vast northern land, with a grandeur in sheer scale, yet desolate, barren, and hollow with extreme coldness. The ominous atmosphere often associated with the Great Wilderness seeps into the very existence of the spruces—there seems to be an air of unfriendliness, and even hostility, about these trees, since they silently “frowned” upon whoever passing the land.
The fury and brutality of the northern winds are captured in the postures of the trees, as they “lean towards each other” for supportive defence against the assaults of raw elemental forces, or, perhaps, they are powerless to be bent into a skewed position at the onslaught of sheer natural power. The word “strip” also underscores the unforgiving savagery with which the winds exert their dominance over the spruces, which are left pitifully bare.

Moving onto a wider angle, we are presented with a more comprehensive sketch of the landscape: there is little sound, and the entire land is deadly quiet. Silence “reigned”, like a living presence, an omnipresent being, a monarch; it is no longer a passive state or a mere description. The primacy of natural forces creates, enacts and maintains the silence, and the absence of sounds is intimidating— it demands subjugation and submission— hence we readers likewise feel the overwhelming power of this “vast silence” in the wilderness.
The land, so devoid of lively sounds, seems entirely sterile —and our assumption is confirmed by the next line: “The land itself was a desolation, lifeless”. And the passage proceeds to detail the sense of formidable rule exercised by Nature itself, Nature at its “frozen-heart” cruelty, Nature at its worst. Indeed, Nature is mocking the “effort of life” against its supremacy, its merciless domination, since any attempt to stay alive is “futile”, useless, and helpless, in its determination to crush all living beings.
Life, as a state of being, is feeble compared to the devastating forces of elements; furthermore, as a concept, life, is but a short phase of existence, defined by its transience, confined by the corruptibility of physicality, and the mutability of flesh, hence powerless in comparison to “eternity”—the profoundness of time, and the immensity of space—two winning cards of Nature, that gives it an indestructible, and infinite quality.
The shortness of life also limits its capacity to gain experience, and mature: whatever knowledge obtained over one being’s lifespan is but a fraction of the storage of knowledge accumulated over generations of living beings; and all that is known to the living, is subsumed, ultimately, under the domain of all the knowledge that ever exists controlled by Nature.
So Nature’s “wisdom” is unparalleled, as its is the sum of ours all, and many it knows have not yet been revealed to us—things in the past, present, and future; things mysterious and obscure. Hence, to us, Nature is a “sphinx”, the mythical creature symbolising the unknown and the wise, its enigma forever captivating, drawing us, irresistibly, into its orbit of mystery, potentially deadly, but nonetheless enthralling.
以上就是小编为大家分享的OLevel英文考试阅读原题与真题,希望考生们中重视起来,除此之外,大家也要在平时多多积累词汇,打好基础。如果想要获取更多olevel高频词汇、olevel评分标准等更多信息,大家可以线上咨询我们或继续关注网站更新的文章!