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 labour 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 labour 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 shovelling 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 field, 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 this was by far the most satisfactory form. of labour 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 se ction 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.
The visit to the excavation site was______
A. of purely archaeological interest
B. fruitful because a complete pot was discovered
C. interesting in more than one way
D. made by a group of prisoners
True, my heat pump runs on electricity -- an expensive commodity where I live. But most of its energy comes from the earth, a propylene-glycol solution circulates through 1,200 feet of two-inch-diameter plastic pipe buried three feet deep in a field next to my house. As it travels, the solution absorbs heat from the surrounding soil, even when soil temperature drops below freezing.
My ground-source heat pump also offers important benefits that have nothing to do with economics.
-- Minimal fire hazard -- no chimney, firebox, or heating elements -- only pumps, fans, and a compressor.
-- Cleanliness -- no combustion products, thus no chance of my heating system polluting the indoor air, leaving scummy deposits on walls and furniture.
-- Reliability -- solid-state electronic controls and sealed bearings almost eliminate breakdowns.
-- No maintenance -- no wood to cut, ashes to haul, or chimney to clean.
-- Convenience -- The system runs automatically, even switching from heating to air conditioning as needed. I can simply lock the door and go away for a day, week or month.
Not only did I expect to start saving on energy costs immediately, but I also expected those savings to grow over the years as oil prices continued to soar. Since I was wrong about oil prices, the big dollar savings I'd hoped for haven't materialized. Nevertheless, I am satisfied, all things considered.
The passage suggests that the author's heat-pump system absorbs heat from ______
A. soil in a nearby field
B. sun panels at ground level
C. a pipe buried next to the walls
D. a tank of propylene-glycol
Naturally the young are more inclined to novelty than their elders and it is in their speech, as it always was, that most of the verbal changes originate. But listening critically to their talk I hear hardly any new words. It is all a matter of using old words in a new way and then copying each other, for much as they wish to speak differently from their parents, they want even more to speak like people of their own age. A new usage once took time to spread, but now a pop star can falsify it across the world in hours.
Of course it is not only the young who like to use the latest in-words. While they are describing their idols as smashing, great or cosmic, their parents and the more discriminating of the younger set are also groping for words of praise that are at once apt and fashionable. However, their choice of splendid, brilliant, fantastic and so on will in turn be slightly dimmed by over-use and need replacement.
Magic is a theme that has regularly supplied words of praise (and the choice must betray something in our nature). Charming, entrancing and enchanting are all based on it. So is marvelous, which has been used so much that some of its magic has faded while among teenagers wizard had a great run. Another of this group, though you might not think it, is glamorous, which was all the rage in the great days of Hollywood. Glamour was a Scottish dialect form. of "grammar" or "grammarye", which itself was an old word for enchantment. (Gram*mar means the study of words, and words have always been at the heart of magic. ) The change from "r" to "1" may have come about through the association with words like gleaming and glittering.
On the whole, when a new word takes over, the old ones remain,-weakened but still in use, so that the total stock increases all the time. But some that start only as slang and never rise above the class can disappear completely. "Did you really say ripping when you were young?" my granddaughter asked me, rather like asking if I ever wore a suit of armor. Of course I did and it was no sillier than smashing, which some of her contemporaries are still saying.
Which of the following is NOT true about young people in their speech?
A. They use words invented by pop stars.
B. They copy the speech of their contemporaries.
C. They give words new meanings.
D. They invent words that older people cannot understand.
【C7】
A. involve
B. be involved
C. involved
D. involving