Time travel belongs not to the realm of realistic possibility but rather to fiction, and within that world it is part of a genre

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问题    Time travel belongs not to the realm of realistic possibility but rather to fiction, and within that world it is part of a genre involving dreams about the realization of desires, like a magic spirit in a bottle, or a pact with the devil, or, in the present case, a proposal by the editor of a magazine. In literature, if these desires come to pass, they almost always lead to regret, or to hell. I think I know how to avoid such unfortunate ends.
   I would start by asking this powerful figure if she were willing to transport me far, far back in time. Once I received an affirmative response, I would strike a deal. 【F1】I would propose exchanging this trip spanning a thousand years for the same amount of time, only divided into small trips to the immediate past. Bound by her word, which is unbreakable, she’d have no choice but to grant me my request.
   【F2】With this simple trick, I would change a worthless opportunity to see a historical spectacle that would be of no use to me at all for a practical power that can make my life easier. These small jumps will be more useful than any other thing I could possibly have. 【F3】They will allow me to go back each time I’ve made an error, and fix it; or when I’ve said something I regret, and not say it; or when I haven’t found an adequate answer to a question, and show off with one that I hatched after some further thought. I will be in a position to overcome what Rousseau called l’esprit de l’escalier, the ingenious phrase that occurs to us when we’re leaving the house where we should have uttered it
   Rousseau had good reasons to assign a name to that all too common circumstance. The original anecdote that gave rise to the expression can be found in his "Confessions." At dinner with important guests, a woman asked him, either out of spite or ignorance, if he had children. Everyone knew that he had five, and that he had put them up for adoption. In the anxious silence that followed, Rousseau managed only to stumble in the negative, and he spent the rest of the night being upset about it. 【F4】But when he left, repairing down those fateful stairs, the perfect response struck him: "Ma’am, that is not a question to ask a bachelor." (I suspect that Rousseau wrote the eight hundred pages of his "Confessions" just to deliver that phrase, and thus to find peace.) 【F5】If only he could have availed himself of the time-travel device that I’ll be getting, he’d have gone back and had some relief.
【F3】

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答案每当我犯错时,它们能让我回到过去修正错误;说了后悔的话时,它们能让我回到过去将其撤销;没能找到合适的回答时,经过思考有了答案后能回到过去炫耀一下。

解析 ①本句带有多个并列的时间状语从句,主干为:they will allow me to go back。②主语They指代上文提到的jumps“穿越时空”。fix it中,it指代error;not say it中的it指代something I regret;show off with one中的one指的是an adequate answer to a question“对问题合适的回答”。③句末的定语从句that I hatched…thought修饰one,补充说明这个答案是事后经过考虑得出的。
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