2. A mouse looked through a crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife opening a package: What food might it contain? He was astonished to discover that it was a mouse trap!
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse declared the warning, “There is a mouse trap in the house, there is a mouse trap in the house.”
The chicken clucked ( 咯咯叫 ), raised her head and said, “Mr Mouse, I can tell you this is a great concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me, I cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mouse trap in the house.” “I am so sorry, Mr Mouse,” sympathized the pig, “but there is nothing I can do about it but pray; be assured that you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow, who replied, “A mouse trap, am I in great danger, huh?”
So the mouse returned to the house, head down and depressed to face the farmer’s mouse trap alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house, like the sound of a mouse trap catching its prey( 猎物 ). The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see that it was an evil snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer’s wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital. She returned home with a fever. Now everyone knew to treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his knife to the farmyard for the soup’s main
ingredient. His wife’s sickness continued so that friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer killed the pig. The farmer’s wife did not get well, in fact, she died, and so many people came for her funeral. The farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide meat for all of them to eat.
So the next time you hear that someone is facing a problem and think that it does not concern you, remember that when the least of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
【小题1】We may infer that the passage is most probably a ______.
| A．an advertisement | B．fable |
| C．science fiction | D．news report |
【小题2】We could see from the passage that the mouse was ______.
| A．kind and warm-hearted |
| B．well-informed |
| C．good at cheating others |
| D．foolish and rude |
【小题3】Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
| A．The pig was comparatively less friendly than the others in the farmyard. |
| B．The mouse trap that the mouse discovered was not a practical one. |
| C．The farmer and his wife trapped an evil snake that night. |
| D．The farmer’s family was in fact poor and they had no friends. |
【小题4】How many animals are mentioned in this passage?
【小题5】What can we learn from the story?
| A．Better safe than sorry. |
| B．Traps are usually well disguised. |
| C．To help others is just to save you. |
| D．To keep the balance of nature is the duty of us all. |