Question

On the eve of our daughters’ weddings, I gave both of them what I considered to be excellent marital advice: never leave your husband unsupervised (无人监督的) with pruning shears (修枝剪).

If only I had taken my own advice. I recently let my guard down. Thirty-some years of marriage can do that to a woman. Give a man pruning shears and electric trimmers (电动修剪器) and he will give new meaning to “armed and dangerous.”

One day earlier this year, my husband said that the crab apple tree was dead.

“Why do you think it is dead?” I asked.

“Look at it. There’s not a leaf on it.”

“There’s not a leaf on anything. It’s March,” I said.

“It looked sick last fall and with this bitter winter we had, I’m convinced it’s dead.”

The truth is he’s never liked the crabapple. Sure, it has beautiful blooms in the spring, but then it gets a disease, the leaves curl, and it drops those little apples that sit on the driveway.

Each passing week he pronounced the tree dead. Eventually I began to believe him. Though he agreed it would be a regrettable loss, there was a twinkle in his eye. He armed himself a couple of weeks ago and began trimming. A branch here, a branch there, a small limb, then a large limb. I watched and then decided to check the wood on some of the branches closer to the trunk. I broke one off and saw green.

The crabapple was not dead. It just hadn’t had time to leaf out. The tree was now falling to one side, but it was not dead. I would have told him so, but he had moved on to a maple. Once the man starts, he can’t stop. One trim leads to another.

“Please, stop!” I called.

He smiled and nodded, but he couldn’t hear because he had started the hedge (树篱) trimmers and was getting ready to fix a line of hedges.

Zip (飕飕声), zip, zip.

“What do you think?” he shouted.

“It’s supposed to be a privacy hedge; now all that will be private are our ankles.”

He started the trimmers again.

“Stop!” I called, “Come back!”

“Why?” he shouted.

“You’re in the neighbor’s yard.”

1.By saying “if only I had taken my own advice.” the author means that ___________.

A. she didn’t follow her own advice about pruning shears

B. she feels regretful about her marriage after many years

C. she should have kept a closer watch on her husband

D. she shouldn’t have given that marital advice to her daughters

2.We can learn from the article that the author’s husband ____________.

A. has a great talent for gardening

B. nearly ruined their neighbor’s garden

C. mistook their crab apple tree for a maple tree

D. had never used pruning shears before

3.What does the article mainly talk about?

A. Why the author’s husband insisted on trimming their crab apple tree.

B. Why husbands shouldn’t be left to trim trees alone.

C. How the author has survived her “thirty-some” years of marriage.

D. How the author’s husband killed their crab apple tree.

4.What is the tone of the article?

A. Anxious. B. Critical.

C. Serious. D. Humorous.

Answer 1