2019年4月ACT小说部分选自女性作家达芙妮·默金(Daphne Merkin)缅怀父亲赫尔曼·默金(Hermann Merkin)的悼词，该篇考题文章没有收录原文章的开端“My father died last March, at the age of 91, in his own bed, surrounded by his family; it was a sober, patriarchal, even old-world death, befitting his life. He had been ailing for close to two years, from heart failure and then lymphoma, but it still came as a surprise to see him yielding at last instead of rallying, as he had so many times before. My mother took the most extraordinary care of him, which included packing him off to the office for a few hours every day, right up until the week of his death. ”开头部分，非常清晰地交待文章的写作背景：“去年3月，91岁的父亲在床上溘然长逝，死时家人围绕在其身边;这是一种庄重的、父权式的、甚至是老派的死亡，与他的一生及其相称。他因心力衰竭和淋巴瘤病了近两年，没有像曾经无数次那样重振旗鼓而最终屈服于病魔的事让我一度十分惊讶。我的母亲对他的照顾无微不至，包括每天都送他到办公室呆几个小时，直至他去世的那一周。”紧接着作者在第一段中介绍了父亲的正统派犹太教出身以及慈善家的身份。
选篇中第三段是比较重要的段落，主要介绍了作者与父亲之间的关系：父亲对作者及其兄弟姐妹的关心很少且关心的方式也不是作者渴望的，父亲的形象也不是作者理想的，从电视电影上拼凑出的对孩子关怀备至、与孩子嬉戏打闹又能给予睿智忠告的父亲。易错题第9题和第10题皆出题自本段，第9题题干问题“The narrator makes clear that compared to her interest in exploring feelings when she was a girl, her interest in exploring feelings at the time the passage was written was:”这道题的难点是定位问题，抓住古今对比以及情感这一细节，将答案定位至第三段中的33至35行“He hadn't much use for feelings, which were what interested me the most, then as now.” (他生前不太表达情感，但情感是让我最感兴趣的东西，即使现在也是如此。)在这句信息周边，作者非常详细地交待了父亲与她这个女儿情感交流的方式，以及大家长式的父亲形象。第九题的答案应该选C.about the same.(作者从过去到现在对情感的洞悉一直很感兴趣。)
第10题题干“The narrator characterizes the talks she and her father had in his study about he life problems as:”这道题的题干根据考题考察父亲与女儿的关系以及书房这一细节，可以将答案定位至第三段的38至42行：“On those infrequent times when I would officially meet with him in his study -- a room that bordered on the sacrosanct -- to discuss some girlhood difficulty, I would invariably find myself cut off at the pass by his decisiveness. ”(他的书房是一个近乎神圣的地方，我少有地会在那里与他正式会面，讨论一些少女时代的困难，但每次我都因为他的决断而无法畅所欲言。)对应J选项中的occasional,prearranged meetings that had a serious tone.(偶尔且预先安排的，严肃语气交谈的会面) 其中infrequent=occasional，officially meet=prearranged.而F选项中的“impromptu即兴的”，“G选项中的weekly每周一次的”以及“H选项中的once-a-year一年一次的”都不够准确。 |
