英会話でもちろん会話ということに重点におきますが、英語のレベルを上がりたければ、記事や小説、そして好きな雑誌を読んだ方がいいと思います。でも、読みにくいので、中級だったら、普通な新聞を読むのはとても難しいでしょう。僕は、日本語を一生懸命勉強していても、簡単な日本語で書いた記事が少ししか読めません。でも、毎日読んでみようという気持ちを持っていて、少しずつ漢字を覚えて、内容を確認できる。あなたは、上手になりたければ、英語を読みましょう！

カート

次の英文を読んで、後の設問に答えよ。

I have many photographs tacked to the corkboard in my *dorm room: one of my family, one of my cats, a few of favorite musicians, and one giant picture of twelve boys and girls sitting on and standing around a sofa.

I can still remember when that photo was taken. It was on my last night in my hometown with my high school friends, only a few short hours before the night ended and I retreated to my room in tears. After a summer spent anticipating college freedom, I suddenly looked at my packed belongings and reality hit me like a huge truck — I was leaving.

I was one of those (1)sheltered kids, the first-born and only girl, who never went to sleep-away camp, had never traveled alone, and had never spent more than two or three nights away from her parents at a time. Born and raised in suburban Ohio, I had convinced myself that what I desperately wanted was an escape from the Midwest cornfields. So why, on the brink of leaving for our nation’s capital, was I terrified out of my wits?

In all my excitement over college and everything it stood for (freedom, novelty, adulthood, independence), I had forgotten the sacrifice I made when I chose Georgetown over universities close to home — I had chosen to leave my friends and family behind. (2)Too shortsighted to remember that I’d be home soon enough for Thanksgiving break, I said farewell to my friends that night as if I were on my deathbed, and began to sob uncontrollably when I shut the front door behind the last of them. Withdrawing to my room, I cried until there was nothing wet inside me, and then wandered aimless and zombie-like under the pretense of packing my last few possessions.

Soon enough, I heard my mom’s soft knock at my door. I still sat and waited for her to leave, reasoning that hugging my mother and seeing her sympathy would only make it harder to say goodbye to her later. Predictably, she didn’t go away, and I turned away in an attempt to hide my tear-streaked face as she let herself into my room and sat down on my bed.

“What’s wrong?” she asked gently.

Rather than attempt an intelligible and thought-out response, I simply began to sob again and buried my head in her shoulder. Somewhere in between my sobbing, I managed to choke out, “I’m … not … r-ready …”

My mom stroked my hair until I calmed down enough to listen, and then held me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes, “I know you’re not ready, Michelle … none of us is until it actually happens. I’m not ready to say goodbye to you either. But, you know what? I’ve seen how capable you are. I know how smart you are. And I’m absolutely positive that you’ll be fine. You know why?”

I shook my head slowly, trying as ( 3 ) fresh tears from burning their way down my cheeks.

“Because I’ve seen how far you’ve already come. I know you can do this. It’s hard, I won’t deny that, but you know that I’m here for you, and that I’ll be right there with you every step of the way.” She brushed the tears from my face, then suddenly dashed into the hallway and calling, “Stay right there … I’ll be right back …”

I waited on my bed, looking at the boxes and bags surrounding me in an empty room I barely recognized as mine. Finally she returned with a bag, then handed it to me, explaining, “I was waiting to give this to you after we got to your dorm, but you look like you could use this right now instead.”

I opened the bag, and inside I found an old and worn-out stuffed rabbit that I had clung to throughout my childhood. He was always my favorite and for the last several years I though I had lost him. Alongside it was a DVD of a My Little Pony movie which ( 4 ). We had rented that movie so many times in my younger years that it surprises me we didn’t simply buy it — we must have paid at least ten times what the movie is actually worth in rental fees.

I stared at these gifts, two simple yet central parts of my childhood, and couldn’t find words to express myself. Instead, I let new tears escape as my mother wrapped her arms around me once again, rocking me like she would when I was younger.

“I just wanted to give you these to let you know that, no matter how old you get, it’s always okay to still be a little girl.”

In that moment I knew that she understood and I realized that the world was not going to end when I moved into my new dorm. With a new mix of sadness and excitement, I prepared myself to enter this new world, knowing that I was finally ready to leave.

(注) dorm :  寮

(A) 下線部(1)の語とほぼ同じ意味の語を次のうちから１つ選び、記号で答えよ。

ア  weak     イ  innocent     ウ  abused     エ  protected

(B) 下線部(2)の意味をもっともよく表しているものを次のうちから１つ選び、記号でこたえよ。

ア　感謝祭の休暇をにゆっくり帰郷できるということが頭から離れなかったので

イ　感謝祭の休暇には必ず帰郷しようとお互いに確認しあう暇もなく

ウ　目先のことで頭が一杯で、すぐに感謝祭の休暇に帰郷することを忘れて

エ　急な送別会だったので、感謝祭の休暇のいつごろになったら帰郷するか確認もせず

(C) 空所（　3　）を埋めるのに適切な表現となるように、次に与えられた語を適切な順に並べ替えよ。

keep / as / to / could / hard / I

(D) 次に与えられた語を適切な順に並べ替えて空所（　4　）を埋め、その４番目にくる単語を記せ。

existed / had / forgotten / I / almost

(E) 次の英文は本文の内容をもとめたものである。空所（　a　）〜（　d　）を埋めるのに最も適切な語を下の語郡から選び、必要に応じて適切な語形にして記せ。同じ語は一度しか使えない。なお不要な選択肢が２つある。

The writer, born in Ohio, was an only daughter who was raised with her parents’ loving （　a　）. She decided to go to college in Washington D.C., seeking freedom and the （　b　）of living far away from home. On her last night at home, she was suddenly （　c　）at the thought of leaving everyone behind, and cried like a baby. Thanks to her mother’s  （　d　）words and encouragement, however, she became confident that she could start her new life.

console        prepare        excite        ask        care        frighten