5. A。推断题。根据第4段最后一句
but no help came 及最后一段的第一句 Mr. Johnson got to Beckett
Farm nearby 可推知地点是在寂静的农村，此题答案为A。
(2)
The
most frightening words in the English language are, “Our computer is down.” You
hear it more and more when you are on business. The other day I was at the
airport waiting for a ticket to Washington and the girl in the ticket office
said, “I’m sorry, I can’t sell you a ticket. Our computer is down.”
“If
your computer is down, just write me out a ticket.”
“I
can’t write you out a ticket. The computer is the only one allowed to do so.”
I
looked down on the computer and every passenger was just standing there
drinking coffee and staring at the black screen. Then I asked her, “What do all
you people do?”
“We
give the computer the information about your trip, and then it tells us whether
you can fly with us or not.”
“So
when it goes down, you go down with it.”
“That’s
good, sir.”
“How
long will the computer be down?” I wanted to know.
“I
have no idea. Sometimes it’s down for 10 minutes, sometimes for two hours.
There’s no way we can find out without asking the computer, and since it’s down
it won’t answer us.”
After
the girl told me they had no backup(备用)
computer, I said. “Let’s forget the computer. What about your planes? They’re
still flying, aren’t they?”
“I
couldn’t tell without asking the computer.”
“Maybe
I could just go to the gate and ask the pilot if he’s flying to Washington, ” I
suggested.
“I
wouldn’t know what gate to send you to. Even if the pilot was going to
Washington, he couldn’t take you if you didn’t have a ticket.”
“Is
there any other airline flying to Washington within the next few hours?”
“I
wouldn’t know, ” she said, pointing at the dark screen. “Only ‘IT’ knows. ‘It’
can’t tell me.”
By
this time there were quite a few people standing in lines. The word soon spread
to other travelers that the computer was down. Some people went white, some
people started to cry and still others kicked their luggage.
