I've heard from and talked to many people who described how Mother Nature simplified their lives for them.They'd lost their home and many or all of their possessions through tires, floods, earthquakes, or some other disaster. Losing everything you own under such circumstances can be distressing, but the people I've heard from all saw their loss. ultimately, as a blessing.

"The fire saved us the agony of deciding what to keep and what to get rid of," one woman wrote. And once all those things were no longer there, she and her husband saw how they had weighed them down and complicated their lives.

"There was to much stuff we never used and that was just taking up space- We vowed when we started over we'd replace only what we needed,and this time we'd do it right. We've kept our promise: we don't have much now, but what we have is exactly what we want."

Though we've never had a catastrophic loss such as that, Gibbs and I did have a close call shortly before we decided to simplify. AI that time we lived in a fire zone. One night a firestorm raged through and destroyed over six hundred homes in our community. That tragedy gave us the opportunity to look objectively atthe goods we'd accumulated.

We saw that there was so much we could get rid of and not only never miss, but be better off without. Having almost lost it all. we found it much casier to let go of the things we knew we'd never use again.

Obviously, there's a tremendous difference between getting rid of possessions and losing them through a natural disaster without having a say in the matter. And this is not to minimize the tragedy and pain such aloss can generate.

But you might think about how you would approach the acquisition process if you had to do all over again. Look around your home and make a list or what you would replace.

Make another fist of things you wouldn't acquire again no matter what, and in fact would be happy to be rid of.

When you're ready to start unloading some of your stuff, that list will be a good place to start.

l.Many people whose possessions were destroyed in natural disasters eventually considered their loss________________.

2.After all their possessions were last in the fire, the woman and her husband felt that their lives were____________________.

3.What do we know about the author's house from the sentence "Gibbs and I did have a close call..." (Lines 1-2, Para. 4.)?

4.According to the author, getting rid of possessions and losing them through a natural disaster are vastly____________________.

5.What does the author suggest people do with unnecessary things?

六級閱讀理解答案：

1.[a blessing]

[定位]根據their loss查找到首段末句。

解析：根據題干eventually和considered分別是原文該句中的ultimately和saw... as的同義轉換，原文中的the people指的是上句中說的在自然災害中失去財產的人，和題干的主語相同，所以原文中as后的a blessing即為本題答案。

2.[simplified]

[定位]根據her husband和their lives查找到第2段末句。

解析：原文該句中講到一旦那些東西都不復存在，她和她的丈夫都意識到他們曾經的生活被那些東西復雜化了。反過來也就是說，那些東西被火燒毀之后，他們的生活變得簡單了，因此本題答案為complicated的反義詞simplified。

3.[It narrowly escaped the firestorm.]

[定位]根據Gibbs and I did have a close call...查找到第4段首句。

解析：第4段首句后的內容講到作者所在社區經歷了一場火災，由a close call可知作者僥幸地脫險了，而根據Though we've never...可知作者的財產也完好，故推知作者自己的家僥幸地逃脫火災的洗劫。因此本題答案為It narrowly escaped the firestorm。

4.[different]

[定位]根據getting rid of possessions查找到第6段首句。

解析：題干中的vastly是對原文該句中tremendous的同義轉換，題干與第6段首句內容相同，原文講到拋棄財產和因為在自然災害面前無能為力而失去財產之間有很大的不同，空白處需填入形容詞，所以要把difference轉換成其形容詞形式different。

5.[Be/Get rid of them.]

[定位]根據do with unnecessary things查找到倒數第2段。

解析：全文通篇都在講處置不必要的、多余的東西，倒數第2段中用了be rid of,而在文章的第2、5、6段的首句都提到了get rid of，所以對于不必要的東西作者的建議是清除它們，故本題答案為Be/Get rid of them