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  3. Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky a

Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky a

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问题     Every April I am troubled by the same concern—that spring might not occur this year. The landscape looks dull, with hills, sky and forest forming a single gray color, like the light color an artist paints on a canvas before the masterwork. My spirit ebbs, as it did during an April snowfall when I first came to Maine 15 years ago. "Just wait," a neighbor counseled. "You’ll wake up one morning and spring will just be here." And look, on May 3 that year, I awoke to a green so startling as to be almost electric, as if spring were simply a matter of moving a switch. Hills, sky and forest revealed their purples, blues and greens. Leaves had unfurled, birds had arrived at the feeder and daffodils were fighting their way towards heaven.
    Then there was the old apple tree. It sits on an undeveloped land in my neighborhood. It belongs to no one and therefore to everyone. The tree’s dark, twisted branches stretch in unpruned abandon. Each spring it blossoms so freely that the air fills with the fragrance of apple. When I drive by with my windows rolled down, it gives me the feeling of moving in another world, like a kid on a water slide.
    Until last year, I thought I was the only one aware of this tree. And then one day, in a fit of spring madness, I set out with a pruner and cut off a few unordered branches. No sooner had I arrived under the tree than neighbors opened their windows and stepped onto their porches. These were people I barely knew and seldom spoke to, but it was as if I had come unbidden into their personal gardens.
    My mobile-home neighbor was the first to speak. "You’re not going to cut it down, are you?" she asked anxiously. Another neighbor frowned as I cut off a branch. "Don’t kill it, now," he cautioned.
    Soon half the neighborhood had joined me under the apple tree. It struck me that I had lived there for five years and only now was learning these people’s names, what they did for a living and how they passed the winter. It was as if the old apple tree was gathering us under its branches for the dual purpose of acquaintanceship and shared wonder. I couldn’t help recalling Robert Frost’s words:
    The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
    To darken nature and be summer woods.
    One thaw led to another. Just the other day I saw one of my neighbors at the local store. He said how this recent winter had been especially long and complained not having seen or spoken to anyone in our neighborhood. And then, he looked at me and said, "We need to prune that apple tree again."
Not until last year did the author
选项 A、cease to worry about the tree.
B、become aware of the apple tree.
C、begin to appreciate the neighborhood.
D、make acquaintance with the neighbors.
答案D
解析 根据题干中的until last year定位到第3段第1句。第3至5段可以视为文章的中心部分，这一部分讲作者直到去年因为修剪苹果树才开始与邻居有了交流。第3段中的These were people I barely knewand seldom spoke to以及第5段中的for the dual purpose of acquaintanceship直接说明本题应选D。
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