2. 外语
  3. Our visit to the excavation of a Roman fort on a hill near Coventry was of more than archaeological interest. The year’s dig had

Our visit to the excavation of a Roman fort on a hill near Coventry was of more than archaeological interest. The year’s dig had

admin2010-05-25  25
问题      Our visit to the excavation of a Roman fort on a hill near Coventry was of more than archaeological interest. The year’s dig had been a fruitful one and had assembled evidence of a permanent military camp much larger than had at first been conjectured. We were greeted on the site by a group of excavators, some of them filling in a trench that had yielded an almost complete pot the day before, others enjoying the last-day luxury of a cigarette in the sun, but all happy to explain and talk about their work. If we had not already known it, nothing would have suggested that this was a party of prisoners from the nearby prison. This is not the first time that prison labor has been used in work of this kind, but here the experiment, now two years old, has proved outstandingly satisfactory.
      From the archaeologists’ point of view, prisoners provide a steady force of disciplined labor throughout the entire season, men to whom it is a serious day’s work, and not the rather carefree holiday job that it tends to be for the amateur archaeologist. Newcomers are comparatively few, and can soon be initiated by those already trained in the work. Prisoners may also be more accustomed to heavy work like shoveling and carting soil than the majority of students, and they also form a fair cross-section of the population and can furnish men whose special skills make them valuable as surveyors, draughtsmen of pottery restorers. When Coventry’s Keeper of Archaeology went to the prison to appeal for help, he was received cautiously by the men, but when the importance of the work was fully understood, far more volunteers were forthcoming than could actually be employed. When they got to work on the site, and their efforts produced pottery and building foundations in what until last year had been an ordinary filed, their enthusiasm grew till they would sometimes work through their lunch hour and tea break, and even carry on in the rain rather than sit it out in the hut. This was undoubtedly because the work was not only strenuous but absorbing, and called for considerable intelligence. The men worked always under professional supervision, but as the season went on they needed less guidance and knew when an expert should be summoned. Disciplinary problems were negligible: the men were carefully selected for their good conduct and working on a party like this was too valuable a privilege to be thrown away.
    The Keeper of Archaeology said that it was by far the most satisfactory form of labor that he had ever had, and that it had produced results, in quantity and quality, that could not have been achieved by any other means. A turf and timber fort built near the Roman highway through the middle of England in the first century AD had been excavated over an area of 14,000 square feet, and a section of turf rampart and palisade fully reconstructed by methods identical to those employed by the Roman army.
     The restoration of the Roman fort is being financed by Coventry Corporation as part of a plan to create a leisure amenity area. To this project prisoners have contributed work which otherwise would not have been performed and which benefits the whole community.  
According to the Keeper of Archaeology, which of the following is true?
选项 A、He had expected more of the fort to be revealed.
B、The palisade was very primitive.
C、Only prison labor could produce such good results.
D、The methods to construct the Roman fort were proved identical.
答案C
解析 推断题。根据倒数第二段第一句中the Keeper of Archaeology所说的话，利用犯人进行挖掘是迄今为止最令人满意的劳动形式，他们(犯人)所取得的成果，无论从数量还是从质量方面来说，都是其他劳动形式难以达到的。可以推断出，只有他们才能做得这么好，因此选项C 是符合原文的。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/mj8MFFFM
0

专业英语四级

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)