Question

"Well, just take a look at that wheel（航輪）!” Earl Cooper said to Candy, his wife. "It must be older than anything we have back home."

Earl was looking at the wall outside the pub（酒館）. The pub's name, The Old Swan, was on the wall. Next to the name was a wooden ship's wheel and in the middle of the wheel was the name of a ship, HMS Swan. The wheel was old, Earl could tell.

The next morning, Earl asked to see Tony Thatcher. The Old Swan was Tony's pub. He took Earl to his office while Candy had a coffee outside by the river. Earl said he could give Tony a lot of money for the ship's wheel. He told Tony that Benjamin Cooper, his grandfather, went to America on the ship HMS Swan. But Tony said no at first. After all, the wheel was very old and it was part of the pub's past.

"You can think of the past, Mr. Thatcher - can I call you Tony? - or you can think of today. And with the money, Tony, you can buy a good car. Maybe a new Jaguar? And, as I've told you, the wheel is part of my family's past too. So you could say it's going back home, in a way. So, what do you say?"

A month later, Earl and Candy were smiling as they looked at the wall of their house in Houston, Texas. Earl thought to himself that, at last, he had a piece of his family's past. He was happy.

In Portsmouth, Tony Thatcher was happy, too. He was putting his new Jaguar into his large garage（車庫(kù)）. He was careful not to drive into any of the six ship's wheels in the garage. A friend of his made the wheels for him. They were just like the one that Earl bought. And there was another wheel on the outside wall of The Old Swan now. Old or new - Tony thought there was no way that a tourist could ever know which was which. Never in a hundred years.

1.Why did Tony refuse to sell the wheel at first?

Because he thought it was old and part of the pub's past.

Because he wanted to show it was important to his pub.

Because he tried to sell it to someone else at a higher price.

Because he did not really believe what Earl had told him.

2.What can we infer(椎斷) from the story?

Earl had looked for such a wheel for a long time before that.

Earl would soon find out the truth and become rather angry.

Tony had sold quite a few wheels like that ancl got wealthy,

Tony would play the same trick again to make more money.[來(lái)

3.Which ofthe following can be the best title ofthe story?

A. The Wheel on the Wall B. An Excellent Buy

C. Old or New - Who Knows D. the Family's Past

Answer 1