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1. 1. "She had backed just halfway out of the garage when the engine died. She touched the starter and listened without concern because, despite her difficulties with the Lincoln, she had grown to feel secure in it. The Lincoln was a number of years old and occasionallyrecalcitrant, but she could not bear the thought of parting with it . . .."
   (Evan S. Connell, Mrs. Bridge)
   (a) hopeless, ineffectual, useless
   (b) uncooperative, stubborn, defiant
   (c) adequate, competent, satisfactory
   (d) helpful, useful, cooperative
2. 1. 2. "[T]he once splendid Windsor Hotel, with its still splendid high-ceilinged saloon and its atmosphere of spittoons and potted palms, endures amid the variety stores and supermarkets as a Main Street landmark--one comparatively unpatronized, for the Windsor's dark, huge chambers and echoing hallways, evocative as they are, cannot compete with the air-conditioned amenities offered at the trim little Hotel Warren, or with the Wheat Lands Motel's individual television sets and 'Heated Swimming Pool.'"
      (Truman Capote, In Cold Blood)
      (a) rooms or suites
      (b) useless or unappealing features of a place
      (c) extremely costly or luxurious features of a place
      (d) appealing or useful features of a place
   2. 3. "I had brought with me a yellow backpack so enormous than when I went through customs I half expected to be asked, 'Anything to declare? Cigarettes? Alcohol? Dead horse?' and spent the day teetering beneath it through the ancient streets of Luxembourg city in a kind of vivid haze--an unfamiliar mixture of excitement and exhaustion and intense optical stimulation."
      (Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There)
      (a) swaying, moving unsteadily
      (b) slumping, slouching
      (c) hidden, concealed, out of sight
      (d) giggling, laughing nervously
   1. 4. "[A]t home, one was nearest to the gods in the sky and to the dead of the underworld. This nearness promised access to both. And at the same time, one was at the starting point and, hopefully, the returning point of all terrestrial journeys."
      (John Berger, "The Meaning of Home")
      (a) relating to the sky
      (b) relating to the earth
      (c) hard, demanding, punishing
      (d) stimulating, exhilarating, thrilling
   2. 1. 5. "[The pantomime] includes two elements with powerful appeal to the British: cross-dressing (the principal boy is always played by a girl, and the Pantomime Dame by a middle-aged man) and comic animals (who aren't played by themselves, either). It retains, if in an attenuated form, a worldview by which Britannia rules the waves and foreigners are a humorous supporting act."
         (Julian Barnes, "MPTV")
         (a) comical, lighthearted
         (b) increased in size, force, or value
         (c) reduced in size, force, or value
         (d) serious, depressed, downhearted
      2. 6. "The fish was small, about four pounds, and male; so much milt leaked from him that a white puddle formed on the sand. I dispatched him quickly, suffused with guilt, but the guilt changed to atavistic pride once I had threaded a willow branch through his mouth and out of his gills and begun the uphill trek to my house."
         (Bill Barich, "Steelhead on the Russian")
         (a) relating to more primitive behavior
         (b) well-deserved, appropriate
         (c) undeserved, inappropriate
         (d) exaggerated, out-sized
      3. 7. "When I was around nine or ten I wrote a play which was directed by a young, white schoolteacher, a woman, who then took an interest in me, and gave me books to read, and, in order to corroborate my theatrical bent, decided to take me to see what she somewhat tactlessly referred to as 'real' plays."
         (James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son")
         (a) discourage, punish
         (b) test or evaluate
         (c) ridicule, make fun of
         (d) strengthen, give support to
      4. 8. "Up the aisle, the moans and screams merged with the sickening smell of woolen black clothes worn in summer weather and green leaves wilting over yellow flowers. I couldn't distinguish whether I was smelling the clutching sound of misery or hearing the cloyingodor of death."
         (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
         (a) inspiring, exalting, enlivening
         (b) familiar, common
         (c) sickening or causing disgust through an excess of something
         (d) offering comfort or relief
      5. 9. "Anyway--why go into the desert? Really, why do it? That sun, roaring at you all day long. . . . The rain that comes down like lead shot and wrecks the trail, those sudden rockfalls of obscure origin that crash like thunder ten feet behind you in the heart of a dead-still afternoon. The ubiquitous buzzard, so patient--but only so patient."
         (Edward Abbey, The Journey Home)
         (a) difficult to find or catch
         (b) unpleasant or repulsive
         (c) menacing, threatening, frightening
         (d) seeming to be everywhere
      6. 10 "Television. Why do I watch it? The parade of politicians every evening: I have only to see the heavy, blank faces so familiar since childhood to feel gloom and nausea. The bullies in the last row of school desks, raw-boned, lumpish boys, grown up now and promoted to rule the land."
         (J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron)
         (a) exceptionally large, massive
         (b) dull, sluggish, stupid
         (c) unusually advanced or mature
         (d) overbearing, domineering
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      8. 1. ไฮไลท์พื้นที่ข้างล่างนี้ เพื่อดูคำคอบ
      9. 1. 1. 1. (b) uncooperative, stubborn, defiant
            2. 2.  (d) appealing or useful features of a place
            3. 3. (a) swaying, moving unsteadily
            4. 4. (b) relating to the earth
            5. 5. (c) reduced in size, force, or value
            6. 6. (a) relating to more primitive behavior
            7. 7. (d) strengthen, give support to
            8. 8. (c) sickening or causing disgust through an excess of something
            9. 9. (d) seeming to be everywhere
            1. 10. (b) dull, sluggish, stupid
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