Question

I had an experience once which taught me something about the ways people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I officiated (主持) at two funerals for two elderly women. Both died a natural death. At the first home, the son of the deceased (已故的) woman said, “If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It’s my fault that she died.” At the second home, the son said, “If only I hadn’t insisted on her going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride was more than she could take. It’s my fault.”

When things don’t turn out as we would like them to, we tend to think that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out bad, they believed that the opposite course, for example, keeping mother at home, would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

There seems to be two elements involved in our readiness to feel guilty. The first lies in our belief that the world makes sense and that there is a reason for everything that happens.

The second is the thought that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happens. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and calls the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely give up that childish thought that our wishes cause things to happen.

67. What is true about the two deceased elderly women?

A. They both died of old age.　　　

B. They died from hard work.

　　　 C. They weren’t used to the change in life.

　　　 D. They died due to lack of care by family members.

68. People feel guilty for the deaths of their loved ones because___________.

　　　 A. they cannot find a better way to express their sorrow

　　　 B. they believe that they are responsible for what has happened

　　　 C. they don’t know the natural course of events

　　　 D. they don’t know things often turn out in the opposite direction

69.The underlined part “the world makes sense”（ in Para3）probably means that___________.

　　　 A. everything in the world is planned in advance

　　　 B. the world can be understood in different ways

　　　 C. there’s an explanation for everything in the world

　　　 D. we have to be wise in order to understand the world

70. People have believed since early childhood that__________.　

A. everybody must obey their demand

B. life and death is an unsolved mystery

　　　 C. every story should have a happy ending

D. their wishes are the cause of everything that happens

Answer 1

ABCD