I had always known that the Chinese New Year was different from our own but otherwise assumed that the way we Europeans divided

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问题     I had always known that the Chinese New Year was different from our own but otherwise assumed that the way we Europeans divided up the year was something in common. Quite recently, though, I found out that there used to be some pretty dramatic differences. During the Middle Ages, the official start of the year varied enormously within Europe. In Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany it began on Christmas Day, whereas it started on the 1st March in Venice and the 21st in England. In Rome, it was at one time the 25th January but then changed to the 25th March. In Russia the new year coincided with the spring equinox (春分).
    If this isn’t complicated enough the French used to start their official year from Easter day. Easter, as I am sure you all know, is a moveable feast whose complicated calculation is quite a mystery to me. However, this French style of working out the beginning of the year led to some years being as short as three hundred days while others could stretch to four hundred with two spring times with one at each end!
    With all these different dating systems in operation you can imagine the enormous potential for confusion. This can create headaches for students engaged in studying the period from original documents as they can actually find somebody’s death being recorded months before they are married and battles still being fought weeks after a peace agreement had been signed! It would all depend on where the events had been recorded. As an actual example the student could easily get muddled (糊涂的) over the date of the famous trial of the Knights Templar in Paris. According to records this long and complex trial ended in 1313 as the New Year didn’t officially start until the 7th April. Fortunately for all of us these differences were eventually solved. In December 1564 the French decided to start the New Year from the 1st January. The Russians adopted this new style of dating in 1725 and the English a further twenty-seven years later.
Why do students sometimes get confused?

选项 A、Documents are inaccurate.
B、Trials used to be long and complicated.
C、Events appear illogical.
D、Because the New Year started on April 7th.

答案C

解析 推断题。定位到最后一段,由“This can create headaches for students engaged in studying the period from original documents as they can actually find somebody’s death being recorded months before they are married and battles still being fought weeks after a peace agreement had been signed!”可知事件发生的逻辑混乱让学生困惑,C项说法符合文意。不是文件记录不准确,而是因为各国划分每年伊始的时间不同,文件记录就不同,A项说法有误。B项和D项说法片面。故选C。
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