Answer of Section 4, Question 6

One reason for the (i)______ of the Victorian novel is our recognition that Victorian society, despite its differences from the contemporary world, confronted its novelists with problems that (ii)______ our own: how to reconcile democracy with traditional humanistic culture and how to create a humane existence in the welter of urban life. In short, foreshadowings of our present-day (iii)______ abound in the Victorian novel.

官方解說：

This question might best be approached by first addressing Blank (ii). We can quickly eliminate "originate in" for Blank (ii) since problems from a past era can't "originate in" problems from the current era. The phrase "despite its differences from the contemporary society" suggests that there's some important similarity between the problems of Victorian society and present-day ones. Of the two remaining answer choices, "prefigure" points to a similarity between the two eras at the same time that it connects logically with the "foreshadowings" in the last sentence.

Having answered Blank (ii), we can go back and complete Blank (i). That Victorian novelists were confronted with problems that prefigure present-day ones would be a reason for their novels, which would presumably deal with these problems, to be appealing (rather than difficult or superficial). Therefore, "appeal" is the correct answer for Blank (i).

The final blank simply needs a synonym for the "problems" that the sentence has just spelled out, making "dilemma" the best choice. Victorian novels are appealing because they are filled with foreshadowings of our present-day problems or "dilemmas."

Thus the correct answer is appeal, prefigure, and dilemmas.

難易度：3