東大卒プロ講師限定の家庭教師派遣
エクスクルーシブ・アカデミアexclusive-academia
E-mail:info@exclusive-academia.com


東京大学過去問2007年(5)


 次の短編小説を読み、以下の問いに答えよ。

BACK HOME

 Rebecca's mother was standing outside the bus station when the bus arrived. It was seven thirty-five on Sunday morning. She looked tired. "How was the ride?" she asked.
 "I didn't fall asleep until we go to Ohio," Rebecca replied. She had come by overnight bus from New York City. The familiar smells of the early Michigan summer filled the air as they walked to her mother's car. "But I'm okay."
 Rebecca looked out the window as her mother drove the dozen blocks back to the house. The town was nearly deserted. Along Main Street, a discount shoe store stood where the department store used to be, and the drugstore had become a laundry. But on Lincoln Ave., the fast-food places ー Bonus Burger, Pizza Delight, Taco Time ー were ( (1) ), as were the houses on Willow, the street where Rebecca had grown up. Only the house two doors down from her mother's looked different.
 "What happened to the Wilsons' house?" Rebecca asked. "Did they paint it or something?"
 "They moved to Kentucky," her mother replied.
 There was a long pause. Rebecca realized that her mother had still not ( (2)  ) her former cheerfulness.
 "Somebody else moved in." Her mother parked the car in the driveway, and they got out.
 The house was empty when they entered. Henry, Rebecca's stepfather, was working the early shift at the chemical plant; he wouldn't be home until midafternoon. As Rebecca carried her suitcase through the dining room, she tried not to look at the pictures of Tracy ー her twin brother ー on the wall.
 "I have to go to church," her mother said. "I'll be back by noon, if you want to use the car later."
 The bedroom where she had slept as a child was transformed. The bed was new, the carpet was gray instead of green, and hanging from the ceiling was Henry's collection of model airplanes. (3)Down the hall, the door of Tracy's old room was still shut, as it had been for years.
 Rebecca left her suitcase next to the bed and went into the kitchen. She made herself a cup of coffee, switched on the television, and sat down to watch a quiz show.

******


 That afternoon, Rebecca drove her mother's car to the shopping mall outside town.The mall had opened before Rebecca was born. When she was in high school, it had been the most exciting place in town, and she and her friends would hang out there in the evenings until it closed. Years of living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan, though, had given Rebecca a new ( (4) ), and the mall looked plain and uninteresting. Even on a Sunday afternoon, the stores had few customers.
 She bought some shampoo and conditioner ー her mother didn't have the kind Rebecca used ー and sat at a table in the food court and sipped on a soda. Some children were running around the tables as their mothers chatted nearby. She thought about the coffee shop in New York where she went almost every evening after work. It was on 35th Street, just east of Broadway, between a Swedish bakery and a shop that sold circus equipment. One of the servers, a boy of eighteen or nineteen, always remembered her order and gave her a big smile when she came in. She would sit at a corner table and watch the customers ー every age, every nationality, every kind of clothing and hairstyle ー come and go. (5)It gave her a thrill to feel she was one thread in such a rich cultural fabric.
 Rebecca was getting up to leave when one of the mothers came over to her.
 "Rebecca?" she said.
 Rebecca hesitated for a moment. Then she cried, "Julia!" She stood, and they embraced each other. "I didn't ( (6) )you at first!"
 "It's been a long time."
 Since Tracy's memorial service, Rebecca thought.
 Julia sat down. "Are you still living in New York?"
 "Yeah," Rebecca replied. "I'm just here for a couple of days. But I'm thinking of moving back to Michigan."
 "( (7a) ) I thought you liked New York."
 "Well, my roommate is getting married and moving out, so I have to either find a new roommate or move. Rent is really expensive there."
 "( (7b) )"
 "My stepfather says he can get me an office job at the chemical plant. I have an interview there tomorrow."
 "( (7c) )" Julia paused. "Have you been dating anybody?"
 "Not really." Then Rebecca asked, "How'sJerry?"
 "( (7d) ) Still working for his father. He's gone fishing today, so I brought the kids to the mall to let them run around."
 Rebecca and Julia had been friends in high school. Julia had dated Tracy pretty seriously, but they broke up after high school. Julia was already married to Jerry when Tracy was killed in Afghanistan.

******


 At dinner that evening, Henry talked about an accident that had happened at the plant: "...and then the cracker overheated, and we had to deal with that, too, while we were flushing out the reflux lines...." Even ( (8) ) a teenager, Rebecca was embarrassed not to understand what Henry said. Neither she nor her mother said much. Later, Rebecca helped Henry wash and put away the dishes. He had married Rebecca's mother and moved in when Rebecca and Tracy were eleven. Their real father had left three years earlier. Rebecca hadn't seen him for twenty years.
 "I told my boss that you'd come in to the office tomorrow at eleven," Henry sad."I'll take your mother to work, so you can drive her car."
 "Thanks."
 "He just wants to meet you before he hires you. I didn't ask about the pay, but it should be okay. The girl who had the job before you didn't ( (9) )."
 Fatigue from the bus trip hit Rebecca early in the evening, so she said goodnight to her mother and Henry and went to bed. She fell asleep quickly and slept soundly. Around four in the morning, while it was still dim and silent outside, she woke up. She stayed in bed and gazed at the model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. She thought about Julia spending Sunday afternoon with her kids at the mall and about how she couldn't imagine doing that herself. She thought about the chemical plant where Henry worked, and the call center outside of town where her mother spent her days talking to faraway voices about their credit card problems. She thought about New York City ー the noisy streets, the crowded sidewalks, the tiny Korean restaurant near her apartment, the boy in the coffee shop on 35th Street.
 Then she thought about Tracy, who would never grow older than twenty-three. She remembered how they had quarreled when they were small, when their mother had been a good-natured referee, and how they had stopped quarreling when their father left. Why had they stopped? And why had her mother become so silent towards her after Tracy's death? Rebecca felt a surge of helplessness wash over her.
 It was not yet five o'clock, the house still silent, when she got out of bed and quietly packed her bag. What had made her decide? She wasn't sure. But she wrote a note to her mother and Henry: "I've decided to (10)go back home. I'm sorry."
 She put the note on the kitchen table and slipped out the front door. She walked the twelve blocks downtown to catch the first bus to Detroit, from where she would take another bus back to New York.


(1) 空所(1)を埋めるのに最も適切な表現を次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア as she left
   イ as her childhood
   ウ as she was a child
   エ as she remembered

(2) 空所(2)を埋めるのに最も適切な単語を次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア recovered
   イ reformed
   ウ replaced
   エ revised

(3) 下線部(3)を和訳せよ。

(4) 空所(4)を埋めるのに最も適切な単語を次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア perspective
   イ sight
   ウ transformation
   エ way

(5) 下線部(5)は、主人公のどのような心情を表現しているか。最も適切なものを次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア 大都会の多彩な文化に参加している喜び
   イ 都市文化の中で地に足がつかない不安感
   ウ 最新の都市文化を目の当たりにした興奮
   エ 巨大な都市の文化に入り込めない無力感

(6) 空所(6)を埋めるのに最も適切な単語を次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア appreciate
   イ confirm
   ウ foresee
   エ recognize
(7) 空所(7a)~(7d)を埋めるのに最も適切な文をそれぞれ次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。同じ記号は一度しか使えない。
   ア Why not?
   イ He's okay.
   ウ Here he is.
   エ How come?
   オ That's great.
   カ That's what I hear.

(8) 下に与えられた語を適切な順に並び替えて空所(8)を埋め、その2番目と5番目にくる単語を記せ。ただし、下の語群には、不要な語が一つ含まれている。
   as, been, had, more, she, than, would

(9) 文脈から考えて空所(9)を埋めるのに最も適切な単語を次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア claim
   イ complain
   ウ demand
   エ insist

(10) 下線部(10)のgo back homeという表現から、実家滞在中のRebeccaに大きな心境の変化があったことが読み取れる。その心境の変化とはどのようなものか。40-50字の日本語で説明せよ。

(11) 物語中の記述から、主人公Rebeccaは現在何歳くらいだと考えられるか。最も適切なものを次のうちから一つ選び、その記号を記せ。
   ア 22歳
   イ 24歳
   ウ 26歳
   エ 28歳  
*解答をE-mailで送って頂ければ採点して返信します。E-mail:info@exclusive-academia.com

解答表示

総合問題一覧へ戻る

exclusive-academia topへ戻る





プライバシーポリシー © 2008.エクスクルーシブ・アカデミア〜exclusive-academia〜 All rights reserved.