hce_isu
111年
英文
第 38 題
📖 題組：
Hagan Walker contemplated the geography of the planet and felt pangs of agitation. The vastness of the Pacific Ocean seemed to be stretching wider. His start-up company, Glo, makes novelty items — plastic cubes that light up when dropped in water. He started the business six years ago in the compact town of Starkville, Miss., while relying on factories 8,000 miles away in China to make his products. That distance suddenly felt unbridgeable. It was December 2020, nearly a year into the pandemic, and China’s industrial might was sputtering. The factory making Glo’s next order in the Chinese city of Ningbo warned him that the costs of key materials like plastic were soaring. The shipping industry was straining under an overwhelming flow of goods from Chinese plants to American consumers. Booking a shipping container seemed akin to trying to catch a unicorn. Calm and reserved, Mr. Walker, then 28, was generally comfortable with risk. In 2016, fresh from Mississippi State University with an engineering degree, he turned down a job at Tesla that would have paid him $130,000 a year. Instead, he opted to remain in Starkville, his college town, to start his own business. Yet he was increasingly worried that his next order would not make it to his warehouse in Mississippi in time for Christmas — still a year away. “I was scared,” Mr. Walker said matter-of-factly. “I was willing to pay pretty much whatever.” By now, the disruptions to the supply chain are widely known. The still unfolding turmoil has been amplified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along with fresh COVID lockdowns imposed in China. Yet the story of how a single container made it from coastal China to central Mississippi shows the complexity of the troubles — a condition unlikely to give way to normalcy anytime soon. The order that Mr. Walker placed for the Christmas season just past was the most important in Glo’s brief history. His light-up cubes had begun as a playful way to garnish a cocktail. They had since evolved into the glowing midsection for a variety of children’s bath toys. The company had recently forged ties with a giant in children’s education and entertainment — Sesame Street. This order represented the debut offerings of this partnership. Glo was to produce thousands of light-up dolls in the incarnation of Elmo, the Sesame Street icon, plus thousands more for a new character named Julia.
Hagan Walker contemplated the geography of the planet and felt pangs of agitation. The vastness of the Pacific Ocean seemed to be stretching wider. His start-up company, Glo, makes novelty items — plastic cubes that light up when dropped in water. He started the business six years ago in the compact town of Starkville, Miss., while relying on factories 8,000 miles away in China to make his products. That distance suddenly felt unbridgeable. It was December 2020, nearly a year into the pandemic, and China’s industrial might was sputtering. The factory making Glo’s next order in the Chinese city of Ningbo warned him that the costs of key materials like plastic were soaring. The shipping industry was straining under an overwhelming flow of goods from Chinese plants to American consumers. Booking a shipping container seemed akin to trying to catch a unicorn. Calm and reserved, Mr. Walker, then 28, was generally comfortable with risk. In 2016, fresh from Mississippi State University with an engineering degree, he turned down a job at Tesla that would have paid him $130,000 a year. Instead, he opted to remain in Starkville, his college town, to start his own business. Yet he was increasingly worried that his next order would not make it to his warehouse in Mississippi in time for Christmas — still a year away. “I was scared,” Mr. Walker said matter-of-factly. “I was willing to pay pretty much whatever.” By now, the disruptions to the supply chain are widely known. The still unfolding turmoil has been amplified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine along with fresh COVID lockdowns imposed in China. Yet the story of how a single container made it from coastal China to central Mississippi shows the complexity of the troubles — a condition unlikely to give way to normalcy anytime soon. The order that Mr. Walker placed for the Christmas season just past was the most important in Glo’s brief history. His light-up cubes had begun as a playful way to garnish a cocktail. They had since evolved into the glowing midsection for a variety of children’s bath toys. The company had recently forged ties with a giant in children’s education and entertainment — Sesame Street. This order represented the debut offerings of this partnership. Glo was to produce thousands of light-up dolls in the incarnation of Elmo, the Sesame Street icon, plus thousands more for a new character named Julia.
What is the purpose of describing Mr. Walker as “calm and reserved”?
- A To give a general description of his personality.
- B To bring out the severity of the shipping problems by contrast.
- C To pay him homage.
- D To offer a vivid depiction of the protagonist.
思路引導 VIP
如果一位作家先特別強調某個角色平時是個「天不怕地不怕、極度冷靜」的人，但在接下來的段落中，卻寫到這個人因為眼前的某個難題而感到「非常焦慮且害怕」，你覺得作家為什麼要刻意強調他「平時很冷靜」的這個特質？這對描述他現在遇到的「難題」有什麼幫助？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
寫作修辭與映襯法的運用
太棒了！你能精準捕捉到作者文字背後的情緒層次，選出正確答案 (B)，這代表你具備了極佳的語境感知能力。在閱讀英文長篇文章時，作者對於人物性格的描繪往往不只是為了「介紹」，更多時候是為了服務整段敘述的氣氛營造。 本題的關鍵點在於**映襯（Contrast）的技巧。文中先將 Mr. Walker 形塑為一個「冷靜且內斂（calm and reserved）」、且對風險具備高承受度的人，甚至敢於拒絕 Tesla 的高薪職缺。然而，緊接著卻描述他對物流延遲感到「恐懼（scared）」、願意「不計代價」付費。這種人格特質與現狀反應的巨大反差，正是為了向讀者強調當時全球供應鏈危機（supply chain disruptions）**的嚴重程度——連如此沉著的人都被逼得心慌意亂，可見情況有多麼嚴峻。
▼ 還有更多解析內容