II．閱讀理解。認(rèn)真閱讀下列兩篇短文，每篇短文后有5個問題，根據(jù)短文的內(nèi)容從A、B、 C、D四個選項(xiàng)中選出一個最佳答案。錯選、多選或未選均無分。(本大題共10小題，每小題2分，共20分)
Charles Dickens’s last novel and his only mystery, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was left uncompleted when the novelist died, and its possible ending remains a mystery to this day.
Is there really a body hidden in the crypt of Cloisterham Cathedral near London? If so, is it the corpse of young engineering student Edwin Drood? Did John Jasper, Drood’s opium-smoking uncle, murder his nephew? Of what significance is the late appearance in the story of Dick Datchery, a mysterious figure who is evidently in disguise?
Various suggestions have been made as to how Dickens intended to conclude his mystery,and in 1914 there was even a mock trial with John Jasper as the accused. Writer G. K. Chesterton was the judge, and playwright George Bernard Shaw was the foreman of a jury composed of famous authors and lawyers. The jurors brought in a verdict of guilty and Chesterton promptly fined them all for contempt of court!
The most frustrating aspect of forecasting the tale’s conclusion is that it is impossible to prove that any given solution is the one Dickens intended. Even a consultation with the novelist himself might not solve the riddle. A medium once claimed to have contacted Dickens’s spirit and, upon asking him how he was occupying himself in the spirit world, received the disconcerting reply that he was still trying to solve the mystery of Edwin Drood!
21. The story of Edwin Drood was ______.
A. written after Dickens’s other novels
B. written sometime before 1914
C. set near London
D. All of the above
22. The mystery remains a mystery because ______.
A. Cloisterham Cathedral doesn’t exist
B. the suspect died before being tried
C. the trial was inconclusive
D. Dickens never finished the story
23. The second paragraph of this article serves to ______.
A. raise some unanswered questions about the novel
B. introduce some of the novel’s central characters
C. suggest some supposed motives for the crime
D. Both A and B
24. The article implies that we don’t even know for sure that ______ .
A. Dickens wrote the novel
B. Jasperwas Drood’s uncle
C. Drood was murdered
D. Chesterton was a writer
25. None of the proposed solutions to the mystery is really satisfactory because ______.
A. none of them explains Datchery’s identity
B. the story is unlike Dickens’s other mysteries
C. no one knows what Dickens intended
D. Both B and C
