2022年自考《综合英语（一）》练习试题7.5

II．阅读理解。认真阅读下列两篇短文，每篇短文后有5个问题，根据短文的内容从A、B、C、D四个选项中选出一个最佳答案。错选、多选或未选均无分。

Passage One

Charles Dickens’s last novel and his only mystery,The Mystery of Edwin Drood,was left uncompleted when the novelist died,and its possible ending remains a mystery to this day.

Is there really a body hidden in the crypt of Cloisterham Cathedral near London?If so,is it the corpse of young engineering student Edwin Drood?Did John Jasper,Drood’s opium-smoking uncle,murder his nephew?Of what significance is the late appearance in the story of Dick Datchery,a mysterious figure who is evidently in disguise?

Various suggestions have been made as to how Dickens intended to conclude his mystery,and in 1914 there was even a mock trial with John Jasper as the accused.Writer G.K.Chesterton was the judge,and playwright George Bernard Shaw was the foreman of a jury composed of famous authors and lawyers.The jurors brought in a verdict of guilty and Chesterton promptly fined them all for contempt of court!

The most frustrating aspect of forecasting the tale’s conclusion is that it is impossible to prove that any given solution is the one Dickens intended.Even a consultation with the novelist himself might not solve the riddle.A medium once claimed to have contacted Dickens’s spirit and,upon asking him how he was occupying himself in the spirit world,received the disconcerting reply that he was still trying to solve the mystery of Edwin Drood!